Voting is continuing in the mid-term elections in the United States.



Polling stations in eastern US states opened at 6am (11am Irish time) and are due to close at 6pm local time, but it could be hours before results in the tightest contests are known.

Voting will end in the last stations to close, those in Alaska, at 5am Irish time tomorrow.



There have already been problems with electronic voting machines in a number of states, including Ohio, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania and Florida.

In one polling station in East Cleveland, Ohio, all 12 machines went down when voting opened.

The machines were not started up until two hours later and officials refused to hand out paper ballots until a lawyer for the watchdog group Election Protection showed up.

Problems were also reported at other polling places in the state, which was involved in controversy over the results of the 2004 elections.