Preliminary exit poll results will be released after 5 p.m. ET on Tuesday. News outlets can begin reporting after 5 p.m. on trends they see in exit poll statistics. However, they are not permitted to broadcast or publish any information suggesting which way a state is leaning until the polls close and actual vote numbers start coming in, according to The Huffington Post.

Poll closing times in the country begin as early as 6 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday and go as late as 1 a.m. Wednesday in some parts of Alaska. Polling stations in parts of Indiana and Kentucky close at 6 p.m., the first to do so in the country. The first voting results for those states are expected at 6 p.m. EST.

Poll stations close at 7 p.m. in the following states: Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and parts of Kentucky and Indiana.

Majority of the states on the West Coast, such as those extending from Colorado to California, close their polling stations between 9 and 11 p.m. New York is the only state in the East Coast where poll stations remain open until 9 p.m. Most of Alaska has until midnight to vote but some areas are able to cast their ballots until 1 a.m.

For a complete list of all the poll closing times, click here.

A presidential candidate needs a total of 270 Electoral College votes to win the presidential.

The candidates have been closely tied in most polls recently, however, Politico predicted that Obama will collect a total of 303 Electoral votes from all the states, and that Romney will gather only 235. With the swing-states votes highly sought after by both candidates, they are the key states that might just determine the fate of the election. Politico added in their findings, which is supplied by RealClearPolitics data, that Obama will receive 66 swing-state votes and Romney will receive 44.