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(Bloomberg): The presidential race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden now hinges on the results of a handful of states, each with different rules on counting votes and contesting results, delaying the declaration of a winner.
Five states are extremely close and continue to count the votes: Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. They have not been called by major media organizations, with the exception of Arizona, which was called by Biden by two outlets. Elsewhere, Wisconsin and Georgia are preparing for the counts, and Michigan is among several states subject to legal battles.
Excluding those, Biden has 227 electoral votes out of the 270 needed for victory, with Trump at 217, including Alaska.
Below is the state of play and potential prospects for these seven states, three days after voters went to the polls across the country with record turnout.
Pennsylvania (20 votes)
The state has not yet been called by the networks and the Associated Press.
Where is:
Biden led Trump by about 20,000 votes at 7:20 p.m. Friday (Nov. 6), after trailing the president since Election Day. Some 102,000 mail ballots had yet to be counted. Biden has received about 77% of the votes by mail so far, State Department data shows.
Disputes:
A Pennsylvania state judge on Friday ordered county boards of elections in the state to set aside provisional ballots cast on Election Day for voters who also sent absentee ballots or by mail that arrived on time.
Republicans are also asking the United States Supreme Court to order Pennsylvania counties to segregate mailed ballots that arrived after Election Day, after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that votes would count if they arrived before November 6 and had Election Day postmarks.
The Trump campaign claimed a small victory Thursday morning when a court ordered Philadelphia election officials to watch mail and absentee ballots count from up to six feet away. The city filed a petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court asking it to allow an appeal to overturn that order.
Whats Next:
The highly democratic Allegheny County is counting the roughly 35,000 remaining ballots and the results will continue to be released over the weekend, according to county officials. About 40,000 ballots remain in Philadelphia through Friday, according to city officials.
Bottom line:
Unsurprisingly, Pennsylvania has become a central focus of the political, and now legal, war on the outcome of the election.
Georgia (16 votes)
The state has not yet been called.
Where is:
Biden surpassed Trump’s lead early Friday and was ahead by nearly 4,000 votes as of 7:20 p.m. Friday, as the count continued. The state had had about 4,000 uncounted mail ballots as of Friday afternoon, according to state voting system implementation manager Gabriel Sterling. About 13,000 provisional ballots were issued in the state and are currently under review. The state is also beginning to examine foreign and military ballots that expire at 5 p.m. Friday.
Disputes:
The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging Chatham County is incorrectly counting absentee ballots received after the state’s deadline. A poll watcher claims that a poll worker was incorrectly storing and counting the ballots.
Whats Next:
“With such a small margin, there will be a tally in Georgia,” Raffensperger said Friday morning.
Bottom line:
The margin in Georgia is the narrowest of all the states. If it shrinks as additional votes come in, a recount in this state could yield a different winner than the initial count.
Nevada (6 votes)
The state has not yet been called.
Where is:
Biden extended his lead to nearly 23,000 votes, and hundreds of thousands of ballots remain to be counted until Friday night, according to the AP.
Disputes:
A federal judge in Nevada agreed to expedite a Republican request for a temporary restriction against the state process for counting mail ballots, after a group including Republican officials sued in a lawsuit for “more than 3,000 cases of ineligible individuals who cast your votes “.
Whats Next:
Clark County Voter Registrar Joe Gloria said Friday afternoon that about 63,000 ballots remain to be released. The results will continue to be published throughout the weekend.
Bottom line:
With Biden at the helm and mail ballots expected to skew Democrats, the outlook looks promising for him. However, with many ballots yet to be counted, the timing of the final count remains uncertain.
Arizona (11 votes)
The Associated Press has called the race for Biden, but not all networks have followed him.
Where is:
Biden led Trump by roughly 38,000 votes through Friday night after the latest results from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, trimmed his lead over Trump.
Disputes:
Trump’s campaign adviser, Jason Miller, called on the AP and Fox News to drop their calls to Biden. “This was wrong. It was a mistake,” Miller said Wednesday.
Whats Next:
Next results for Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, are expected at 7 pm local time. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said much of the state’s pending ballots should be reported by Friday night.
Bottom line:
Both the Trump and Biden campaigns express confidence that they will win battlefield status.
North Carolina (15 votes)
The state has not yet been called.
Where is:
Trump led Biden by nearly 77,000 votes Friday night, according to the State Board of Elections, with many missing ballots and provisional ballots pending. Absentee ballots can be received through November 12, provided they are postmarked on Election Day.
Disputes:
No major lawsuits have been filed in North Carolina yet.
Whats Next:
About 99,000 absentee ballots were pending as of Friday afternoon, according to the State Board of Elections. Ultimately, the number cast will be less, as some voters may have chosen to vote in person and others did not vote at all. County boards of elections have received an additional 31,900 eligible ballots and are waiting to be counted.
There are also 40,766 provisional ballots that were voted statewide and are waiting to be counted. In 2016, approximately 44% of the provisional votes cast were finally counted.
Bottom line:
It might take a week to get the final results, but it seems Trump has a better chance of winning the state.
Wisconsin (10 votes)
The AP has called the race for Biden.
Where is:
Election commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said Wednesday the vote count was complete. The state does not provide an official tally until one is certified on December 1. Unofficial counts showed Biden with about 20,500 more votes than Trump.
Disputes:
The Trump campaign plans to exercise its right to demand a recount, as the unofficial margin of 0.7 percentage points was within the 1% that allows such a move. Campaign Director Bill Stepien said in a statement Wednesday that “there have been reports of irregularities in several counties in Wisconsin that raise serious questions about the validity of the results.” He also suggested that public polls showing Trump lagging behind had been used as a “voter suppression” tactic.
Whats Next:
The clerks of elections are working through the steps of Wisconsin’s certification process, including an audit of the voting team. If the Trump campaign formally asks for a recount, it can take several days to process. In a tally of the 2016 presidential election, counties completed the process in 10 days.
Bottom line:
Revoking an advantage of more than 20,000 votes is a “huge hurdle,” said Scott Walker, a former Republican governor of Wisconsin.
Michigan (16 votes)
AP called the race for Biden.
Where is:
Biden won Michigan by a 146,000-vote margin, according to the Associated Press, which showed 5.5 million votes had been counted. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wednesday night that “all valid ballots, and only valid ballots, have been safely and accurately counted.”
Disputes:
A state judge ruled Thursday against an effort by the Trump campaign to halt the counting of absentee votes until an election inspector from each party was present to observe the process and said the process has indeed ended.
Whats Next:
There is still the possibility of a recount in Michigan, where the legal standard is easy for challengers to meet.
Bottom line:
If Biden’s lead is certified, it would switch a status that Trump won in 2016 to Biden’s column and bring him to the brink of victory. – Bloomberg
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