Joe Biden’s lead in Nevada has grown to more than 22,000 as the ballot count there drags on with at least another 124,000 votes left to count.
With more than 1.2million ballots counted, Biden held a 22,657 vote lead Friday evening – a roughly 1.79 percentage point edge over Trump.
But even after about 93% of the estimated vote had been tallied, an estimated 124,500 votes remain, which could eat into Biden’s advantage.
Of those outstanding, 58,000 are mail ballots and 66,500 voter registration ballots, according to the secretary of state’s office.
Election officials in the state said they would release more results Saturday at noon EST.
Biden currently holds 49.8% of the vote in the state over Trump’s 48%.
Any ballot that was posted by November 3 will be counted if it arrives by November 10 – Tuesday – at 5pm. The majority of the ballots are coming from Clark County, where Las Vegas is.
On Thursday, they said they have still have another 63,000 votes to be counted. They only processed 31,000 this morning. Why it is taking them so long to get through the remainder remains largely unanswered.
Joe Biden is leading in Nevada by more than 22,000 votes as President Donald Trump’s campaign filed a federal lawsuit late Thursday in the state, alleging that ineligible votes were cast in the Las Vegas area
One of the only reasons they’ve given is that they don’t know how many mail-in ballots they will receive through the weekend, but they won’t say when they are going to stop accepting them and the state has become a laughing stock in the election.
If Biden wins Nevada and its 6 electoral college points, and keeps his hold in Arizona, he has won but he doesn’t necessarily need it to claim victory. He is also leading in Pennsylvania, which carries 20 electoral college votes and would land him the White House. A result is expected there at any time. They are racing through votes.
A recount has been called in Georgia – where Biden leads but only by just over 4,300 votes – and in Arizona, where he leads by just over 29,000. His lead there is shrinking.
The federal filing cites experiences of a woman who said Thursday she was turned away from voting in person because a mailed ballot had been cast with her signature and a political strategist TV commentator who said he was denied an opportunity to observe ballot counting late on election night.
Trump Nevada campaign co-chairman Adam Laxalt said the new filing ‘highlights ongoing voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement in Clark County’.
State Attorney General Aaron Ford called it ‘a Hail Mary’ and ‘another opportunity to undermine the confidence in this election’ while ballots are still being counted.
Ford noted a federal judge dismissed in September an effort to block the state law that let mailed ballots go out to each of Nevada’s more than 1.7 million active registered voters.
‘When they can’t stop you from voting, they try to stop your vote from counting,’ he said.
Earlier Thursday, the Trump campaign and state Republican party quit a state court bid to stop the count of mail ballots in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas.
Trump’s team continues to cry fraud, claiming that they have ‘evidence’ that ‘tens of thousands of votes’ had been cast there fraudulently. Trump supporters are seen demonstrating in Las Vegas on Thursday
A state Supreme Court filing said a settlement also involving Democrats, the county and Nevada secretary of state required election officials to allow ‘additional observation access’ at a ballot processing facility in Las Vegas.
That ended a case in which a state judge who held a daylong hearing last week said he found no evidence that in-person votes and mailed votes were treated differently.
Nevada Democrats accuse Republicans and the Trump campaign of trying to disrupt and suppress voting in the state’s most populous and diverse area.
Observers are accommodated in Las Vegas-area ballot-counting offices, but Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said coronavirus distancing rules and privacy requirements prevented over-the-shoulder monitoring of signature validation.
If Biden claims Nevada, he will win another 6 electoral college points, giving him 270 when factoring in the 11 that come from Arizona.
STATES STILL IN PLAY
PENNSYLVANIA – 20 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 76,000 votes to count
49.5% BIDEN – 3,315,745
49.3% TRUMP – 3,301,204
Biden leads by 14,541
ARIZONA – 11 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 250,000 votes to count
49.9% BIDEN – 1,565,200
48.6% TRUMP – 1,525,800
Biden leads by 39,400
Fox and the AP called Arizona for Biden on Election Day, but others held back as mail-in votes are counted. Mail-in ballots are trending towards Trump in Arizona.
GEORGIA – 16 electoral colleges votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 5,500 votes + 8,000 mail-ins to count
49.4% BIDEN – 2,455,778
49.3% TRUMP – 2,451,594
Biden leads by 4,184
NEVADA – 6 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 130,000 votes to count
49.7% BIDEN – 627,104
48.1% TRUMP – 606,967
Biden leads by 20,000
Arizona was called for him on Wednesday morning by Fox and the AP.
It’s unclear when North Carolina will announce, but it is expected to go to Trump as it did in 2016.
Trump’s team continues to cry fraud, claiming that they have ‘evidence’ that ‘tens of thousands of votes’ had been cast there fraudulently.
‘We are confident that when all legal votes are tallied — and only legal votes are tallied — President Trump will win the state of Nevada,’ Former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell told Fox News on Thursday morning.
‘The reality is transparency is not political. Ballots are not automatically legal votes until they’re checked. We are not being able to check.
‘There’s a 30 day residency requirement in the state of Nevada. If you haven’t been in the state for 30 days it is illegal to vote.
‘We are filing this federal lawsuit to protect legal voters.
‘It is unacceptable in this country to have illegal votes counted. That is what’s happening in the state of Nevada,’ Grenell claimed at a press conference.
Nevada law states that to be eligible to vote, a person has to have been a resident of the state for at least 30 days before the election.
That does not necessarily mean that they have to have been physically in the state for the 30 days preceding the election.
Trump’s people also claim that many of the votes in Nevada came from people who no longer live there, or were cast under the names of deceased people.
Trump is also suing in Pennsylvania – where voting in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh was temporarily halted on Thursday because of his ongoing court battles – Michigan – which was called for Biden on Wednesday – and Georgia.
He is demanding a recount in Wisconsin, which was called for Biden on Wednesday.
On Twitter, he fumed on Thursday morning: ‘Stop the count!’ and said that no ballots cast ‘after election day’ would be counted.
He was talking about the number of mail-in ballots that will be allowed to be counted, specifically in Pennsylvania, until Friday, so long as they were mailed-in by November 3, the election day.
Trump performs better among in-person voters and Biden performs better in mail-ins.
The Trump campaign had a minor legal victory in Pennsylvania on Thursday when a judge ruled ballot observers can watch officials count ballots within six feet. Representatives of both campaigns were in the room to watch the counts but at a further distance because of the coronavirus.
They can now sit closer as long as they take the proper COVID precautions.
Democrats, however, are appealing the case, and vote counting has stopped in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, two heavily Democratic areas, while lawyers battle it out. Biden has been closing the gap with Trump in Pennsylvania as mail-in ballots are counted.
Additionally a judge in Chatham County, Georgia, where Savannah is located, ruled against the Trump campaign’s legal challenge to some absentee ballots. The judge declared officials took the proper precautions to ensure it was legal ballots that were counted.
The Biden campaign accused the Trump team of using the court system to delay the inevitable.
‘What we’re seeing on these legal suits are that they are meritless and nothing more than an attempt to distract and delay what is now inevitable – Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States,’ campaign manager Jennifer O’Malley Dillon told reporters Thursday morning.
Trump has also accused Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar of unilaterally extending the deadline by which mail-in voters whose voter ID was missing to provide proof.
In a press conference held in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon Giuliani and Eric claimed the president won the state, despite roughly one million mail-in ballots still needing to be counted.
Like Trump himself, neither man offered a legal argument for a win or proof of any voter fraud, but nonetheless made claims of cheating.
‘They’re trying to cheat, they’re trying to cheat,’ Eric Trump said repeatedly of the Democrats.
Giuliani ranted for several minutes about mail-in ballots which he claimed – without proof – could be falsified.
‘This is beyond anything I have ever seen before,’ he said. ‘Do you think we’re stupid? Do you think we’re fools?
‘You know something, Democrats do think you’re stupid,’ Giuliani added.
‘And they do think you’re fools. That’s why you get called ‘deplorable’ and ‘chumps’.
Biden takes the lead over Trump in Pennsylvania by 27,130 votes with about 89,000 still to count
Joe Biden has taken the lead in the key state of Pennsylvania with 19,584 votes.
Biden is now ahead with 49.6% of the votes compared to Trump’s 49.2%.
There are about 89,000 ballots still to count.
If Biden holds on to his lead here then he will be the 46th President of the United States – even if he loses every other state that is still in contention.
He currently has 253 electoral votes, compared to Trump’s 213, meaning he can win the presidency in one of two ways.
If he wins Pennsylvania, he gains 20 votes and no longer needs either Arizona or Nevada. But if he wins Arizona – which has 11 electoral college votes – and Nevada – which has 6 – he no longer needs Pennsylvania.
Trump, who held a 675,000-vote lead early Wednesday, prematurely declared victory in the state on election night, only to see his lead evaporate in the coming days. By early Friday, Trump’s lead had slipped to about 18,229 votes before the state flipped blue later in the morning.
One reason for the tightening race is that under state law, elections officials are not allowed to process mail-in ballots until Election Day.
It’s a form of voting that has skewed heavily in Biden’s favor after Trump spent months claiming — without proof — that voting by mail would lead to widespread voter fraud.
If Biden holds on to his lead here then he will be the 46th President of the United States, even if he loses every other state that is still in contention.
Trump cannot win on Pennsylvania alone; with 214 electoral college votes, he’d still need to pick up either Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona or Nevada – the four other states where a result is yet to be officially confirmed.
Results are expected to be in for Pennsylvania by Friday.
If there is less than a half percentage point difference between Biden and Trump’s vote total, state law dictates that a recount must be held.
Meanwhile, Trump sued Pennsylvania to undermine whatever election result is returned.
Voting was temporarily halted in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Thursday as a result of the legal row. A judge intervened and dismissed the federal motion.
The Trump campaign had a brief legal victory in Pennsylvania on Thursday when a judge ruled ballot observers can watch officials count ballots within six feet. Representatives of both campaigns were in the room to watch the counts but at a further distance because of the coronavirus. A county judge agreed with the Trump campaign but the state Supreme Court rejected it.
The situation in Pittsburgh is complicated by about 30,000 outstanding ballots, where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races.
Poll workers now have to examine these ballots to make sure that people don’t vote twice, or, if they sent in the wrong ballot, they didn’t vote in races they aren’t eligible for.
They cannot legally be counted until Friday when Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh sits, swears in a special board to examine these ballots, as required by law.
Biden’s lead in Arizona shrinks again, falling below 30,000 as Trump claws back some of the vote with 173,000 ballots left to count
Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona has fallen below 30,000 votes after Trump slightly narrowed the gap during a dump of mail-in ballots on Friday night.
Biden now remains ahead with 49.6% over Trump’s 48.7%, with 173,000 ballots left to count statewide.
Out of those outstanding, 92,000 are in Maricopa County, the state’s largest county which includes Phoenix.
They include 47,000 provisional ballots which will not be counted until Wednesday, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told CNN.
On Friday afternoon Katie Hobbs said that they would only be working through only 61,000 per day – an excruciatingly slow pace when the entire country and world are waiting for the results.
It means they may not finish until 12am on Sunday. Of the 61,000 votes in Maricopa County that were counted overnight and reported on Friday morning, Biden won 28,285 and Trump won 31,716. The next update will not come until midnight (EST) tonight.
Biden is leading in every other state. He snatched the lead from Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday and is now ahead by 27,130 votes.
He is likely to be called the winner there on Friday, with the remaining votes coming from Allegheny County, which includes Democratic strongholds of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania today, he no longer needs any of the other states to claim the 270 electoral college votes he needs to claim the White House. If Trump wins Arizona, he still needs every other state in play which seems increasingly unlikely.
In Georgia, the pair are neck-and-neck and a recount has been called because the margin is so thin. In Nevada, Biden is ahead by about 22,000 votes.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It’s the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents – some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California – have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
Arizona has a long political history of voting Republican. It’s the home state of Barry Goldwater, a five-term, conservative senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1964.
John McCain, the party’s 2008 presidential nominee, represented the state in Congress from 1983 until his 2018 death.
But changing demographics, including a fast-growing Latino population and a boom of new residents – some fleeing the skyrocketing cost of living in neighboring California – have made the state friendlier to Democrats.
About 100 Trump supporters gathered again in front of the Maricopa County election center in Phoenix, Thursday night, with some carrying military-style rifles and handguns. Arizona law allows people to openly carry guns.
Authorities at the center used fences to create a ‘freedom of speech zone’ and keep the entrance to the building open. The crowd took turns chanting – ‘Count the votes!’ and ‘Four more years!’ – and complaining through a megaphone about the voting process.
They paused to listen as Trump spoke from the White House, where he repeated many of his groundless assertions of a rigged vote.
They whooped and clapped when the president said, ‘We’re on track to win Arizona.’
It comes after the AP and and Fox News had both called Arizona early on Wednesday morning, claiming there was no possible way for Trump to claw it back from him – a move which was later called into question.
Arizona holds 11 crucial electoral college votes which, when giving them to Biden now, poises him for the White House with 264 of the 270 that he needs.
Biden’s lead in Georgia expands from 1,500 to 4,263 – so will there still have to be a recount?
Joe Biden’s lead in Georgia suddenly expanded on Friday from 1,500 to 4,263 after officials said the race was so close that a recount there would be inevitable.
Biden now leads in Georgia 49.4% to Trump’s 49.3%. On Friday afternoon, election officials said they still had 5,500 mail-in ballots to count, plus as many as 8,000 that could come from overseas military personnel.
In the most recent jump, Biden won more than 2,700 votes and Trump won 2,121.
Georgia’s Secretary of State on Friday said there will be a recount there no matter what the outcome is because the margin is so tight.
If there is a recount, it will not delay the election result if Biden wins Pennsylvania, which he is poised for after taking the lead from Trump. That result is expected by the end of the day. He can also still win before a Georgia recount if he wins Nevada and Arizona, where he also holds leads.
The state’s Voting System Implementation Manager, Gabriel Sterling, explained on Friday afternoon why it was taking so long.
‘The outstanding ballots are about the same as they are this morning. We will start with the margin. We’re looking at a margin of 1,585. That’s where we stand right now,’ he said.
‘We do know that today is the today for the military and overseas deadline. In the overall side, we have 18,008 that have already been accepted and 8,410 that are still available to be received.
‘That doesn’t mean there’s a bucket ready to be counted; that means there are that many that can be received today. It’s going to be more than zero and less than 8,410 – somewhere in that range. We don’t know exactly how many.’
Georgia carries 16 electoral college votes. If Biden claims it today along with any other state, he will win the Presidency.
Trump would have to win every state left on the field to get a second term and Biden is leading everywhere.
Biden took a crucial lead in Pennsylvania on Friday morning. If he wins the state today, he will have won the White House.
Trump, however, is refusing to accept the result and is claiming election fraud all-round.
In one Georgia county, there was a corrupt memory card on one scanner which meant 400 had to be recounted.
Officials in some counties are also using paper ballots for the first time in 20 years because they voted earlier this year that machine voting was not secretive enough. They are then scanning all of the paper votes which is an ‘arduous’ process.
Speaking earlier on Thursday, Georgia’s Voting System Implementation Manager, Gabriel Sterling, said there was nothing suspicious or strange about the process, but that elections were never normally so close so it doesn’t always have to come down to an official count.
‘We can’t know how long the process will take. We hope to have clarity but “done” is a very relative term at this point.
‘As we’ve been stating for weeks and months, it’s going to take time. The effort here is to make sure everybody’s legal vote is counted properly.
‘The issue we have in Georgia is it’s a close vote. There’s other states that have more votes to count than we do but it’s a wide margin so nobody cares,’ Sterling said.
