Biden’s lead doubled to 22,000 in Nevada overnight as the count there dragged on with at least another 130,000 votes left to count.
Biden holds 50% of the vote in Nevada over Trump’s 48%. Ninety-one percent of the vote there has been counted already – some 1.2million votes – and another 9 percent is outstanding but the number could expand as more mail-in ballots arrive.
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.
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 but 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 1,500 votes – and in Arizona, where he leads by 43,000. His lead there is shrinking.
Joe Biden is leading in Nevada by more than 11,000 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
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.
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.
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
STATES STILL IN PLAY
PENNSYLVANIA – 20 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 112,000 votes to count
49.5% BIDEN – 3,311,673
49.3% TRUMP – 3,298,011
Biden leads by 13,662
ARIZONA – 11 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 200,000 votes to count
49.9% BIDEN – 1,561,841
48.6% TRUMP – 1,520,539
Biden leads by 41,000
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 to count
49.4% BIDEN – 2,450,200
49.4% TRUMP – 2,448,647
Biden leads by 1,500
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. Trump’s lead in Georgia fell to fewer than 20,000 votes as more vote totals were released.
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 13,000 votes with more than 100,000 still to count
Joe Biden has taken the lead in the key state of Pennsylvania with more than 13,000 votes.
Biden is now ahead with 49.5% of the votes compared to Trump’s 49.3%.
There are about 112,000 ballots left 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.
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 to 41,000 as Trump claws back some of the vote
Joe Biden’s lead in Arizona has dropped to 41,000 votes after Donald Trump narrowed the gap overnight.
Biden’s lead is now at 49.9% to Trump’s 48.6%. There are still some 200,000 votes left to count there and it is taking an excruciating length of time.
Biden is leading in every other state. He snatched the lead from Trump in Pennsylvania on Friday and is now ahead by 13,000 votes. 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.
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.
If Trump wins Arizona, he still needs every other state in play which seems increasingly unlikely.
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.
There WILL be a recount in Georgia because the margin is still so small: Trump and Biden are still neck-and-neck with just 5,000 votes left to count
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.
There are still 5,500 votes outstanding in Georgia and 8,000 mail-ins.
Of the 5 million that have already been counted, Trump and Biden are neck-and-neck with 49.4% of the vote each.
Biden has a tiny lead of just 1,500 votes.
Whatever happens now, it will be too close a race for there not to be an automatic recount, Brad Raffensperger said at a press conference.
It does not delay the election result if Biden wins Pennsylvania, which he is poised to do 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.
‘As of 10am, there were a little under 5,500 votes to be counted. There are 8.890 military ballots outstanding that will be counted if they are returned by the close of business today. Right now Georgia remains too close to call. We’ll have a margin of a few thousand,’ Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said.
‘The focus of our office for now remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted accurately. We can begin to look towards our next steps. With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia.’
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.
