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Friday, November 06, 2020
Pennsylvania authorities expect an outcome for the state on Friday. Then the majority of the votes will be counted, Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said at a news conference in Harrisburg. At the moment, there are still more than 300,000 votes absent. Trump currently leads Biden with around 75,000 votes. Among postal voters, Democratic Party supporters have the majority, so the incumbent’s advantage is likely to be further reduced. According to the Secretary of State, the majority of the outstanding votes come from urban areas, especially the greater Philadelphia area and the city of Pittsburgh. Regarding mail-in ballots received after the polls closed, Boockvar said he did not expect them to have a significant impact on the result. He also emphasized that there was no evidence of attempted electoral fraud, save for one case several weeks ago. Every effort is made to ensure an absolutely reliable count. “Our voting systems and databases ensure that no voter can cast more than one vote.”
+++ 00:35 Trump’s son wants a “total war” for the elections +++
The president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., emulates his father, at least rhetorically. He asked him via Twitter to start a “total war” around the elections. Donald Trump has to “expose all the fraud and cheating,” writes Trump Jr. This includes the votes of voters who are dead or no longer living in the respective state, says Trump’s son. “It’s time to clean up this mess and stop looking like a banana republic.” Twitter provided the post with a note that the content could be misleading. So far, no significant cases of voter fraud have been reported in the US.
+++ 00:09 Trump announces another speech +++
Donald Trump will speak publicly again. The president’s seat in the White House was announced for Thursday night at 6:30 pm local time (00:30 am CET). In a first post-election appearance, Trump claimed electoral victory Wednesday night, although no winner had yet been declared in several states. He had also announced legal action against the ballot count up to the Supreme Court. The president currently has only 214 of the 270 voters needed for a victory. As it stands, Joe Biden has at least 253 voters.
+++ 23:54 Arizona’s result will probably not be known until the weekend +++
The counting of votes in Arizona could last until the weekend. Responsible Secretary of State Katie Hobbs told CNN that about 450,000 votes remained to be counted. About 300,000 of them are still pending in the Maricopa district, which includes the capital Phoenix. About 140,000 votes were counted there on Wednesday. “Most counties” should have finished the weekend, Hobbs said. Fox News and the Associated Press (AP) announced Joe Biden as the winner in Arizona in the hours after the election. Other media, such as CNN and the “New York Times”, consider that the race is too close to be able to make a binding statement. By the current tally, Biden is about two percentage points ahead of President Trump.
+++ 23:19 Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania melts to less than 100,000 votes +++
Joe Biden is catching up in the key state of Pennsylvania. In the afternoon (local time), Biden was not even 100,000 votes behind Donald Trump. On Wednesday morning he still had a comfortable lead of more than 600,000 votes. About 92 percent have been counted.
Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro confirmed in the state Supreme Court that he opposed Trump’s campaign team attempting to challenge a decision that would allow ballots to be counted for up to three days after the election. That affects a good 10,000 ballots. In any case, it will only depend on them if the race is extremely close.
+++ 22:25 Biden urgently asks citizens to remain calm +++
Joe Biden gave a short speech to the audience. He said he found out about the Covid situation that morning. In the elections he said: “I ask you to remain calm.” The electoral process works, although it is chaotic at times, it requires patience. He and his runner-up Kamala Harris: “We still feel great.” – He continued hoping to be victorious in the end. Trump did not mention Biden by name. “He seems very confident that he will win,” Republican politician Rick Santorum said of the performance.
+++ 21:58 “New York Times” explains why they think Arizona is a draw +++
The Associated Press and Fox News announced Joe Biden’s victory in Arizona on Wednesday, much to the horror of Donald Trump. Other prominent media did not follow this assessment. The “New York Times” now spells out his motives. “The main reason we have not yet adopted the Arizona proclamation? We do not believe that there is not enough robust data on the votes left to be counted after Election Day.” It is also said that in Arizona there are traditionally large numbers of voters by mail to whom their vote-by-mail documents are automatically mailed. While Democrats were in a rush to vote by mail this year, there was no way of knowing what the large number of registered Republicans in the state were doing. Many of their voices could still be in the boxes with lyrics that have not been counted. The Times estimates that around 400,000 mail-in votes have yet to be evaluated. Trump would have to get 17 percent more than Biden between these votes to pass it. That is not unreal.
+++ 21:24 The fight for Georgia becomes a pending game +++
Democrats are surprisingly successful in the state of Georgia, even if Donald Trump is still in the lead there. Joe Biden is just 12,835 votes behind the incumbent and the majority of the remaining votes should go to Biden. But an official final result should take time to arrive. As Election Supervisor Gabriel Sterling said in the afternoon (local time), around 47,000 votes are still not counted. For the first time in 20 years, the state uses paper instead of voting computers. Ironically, in the districts near Biden, the tally has stalled, including 17,000 votes in Chatham County. Sterling recalled that Georgia would continue to accept absentee votes 12 days after elections, for example, from US soldiers deployed abroad. However, a broadcaster or news agency could announce a winner beforehand, if not all the votes have been counted, but a candidate can no longer be obtained mathematically. But that is all the more difficult to estimate the closer the race is.
+++ 21:04 Nevada does not release new count data until Friday +++
In the state of Nevada, where Joe Biden leads with 11,000 votes or 0.9 percentage points, nothing will be decided on Thursday. According to various media reports, Nevada, where 89 percent of the votes are counted, will not release new counting data until Friday. In Clark County alone, an additional 51,000 votes will be counted by then, Fox News reports. The majority of these mail-in votes are expected to go to Biden.
+++ 20:34 Everything points to a win for Joe Biden – right now +++
It’s still noon in the US, but before we move on to the series or after-work reading, here’s a quick summary:
- In nearly every major open state, the pendulum swung in Joe Biden’s favor on Thursday.
- In the states of Georgia and Pennsylvania, Biden catches up en masse as more absentee votes are counted. In both states, it could just happen to Trump. If he succeeds in Pennsylvania, he will become the 46th president of the United States.
- The state of Nevada appears to be no longer available to Biden. With a lead of more than 11,000 votes and almost only mail-order votes to be counted, Nevada is likely going to the Democrats because its voters in particular used the instrument of the vote-by-mail.
- With Nevada and Arizona together, Biden would also be assured of the presidency. The AP news agency and Fox News have already attributed Biden to Arizona. But because it’s gotten surprisingly tight there, no other American medium has joined so far and it’s waiting.
- Donald Trump’s plan to halt or at least torpedo the counting process through lawsuits has largely failed so far. His team was able to gain additional access to Pennsylvania counting centers and postpone the counting of 29,000 votes in the state, but nothing more.
- Several White House correspondents reported in the US media that the mood on the Trump camp was bad. That would also explain why Trump lashes out with increasingly savage tweets and talks about voter fraud. Leading Republicans have so far been reluctant to make public statements.
+++ You can read what happened before here. +++
