Thursday, November 5 election update: Still undecided
It is Thursday, November 5, and we still don’t know who won the presidential election. It will come down to ballots that are still being counted in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.
AP and Fox News say Joe Biden has 264 electoral college votes to President Trump’s 214. To win, you must reach 270.
CNN and ABC News said Biden has 253 to Trump’s 214.
The difference in numbers is because AP and Fox News are projecting that Biden has won Arizona and its 11 electoral votes, while CNN and ABC said the race in Arizona is still too close to call.
There are about half a million ballots in Arizona that have not been counted yet. Biden is leading by 68,000 votes.
The Trump campaign has criticized Fox News, but Fox News is standing by their projection and said the chances of Trump catching up to Biden in Arizona is like a frog having wings. AP said they called Arizona for Biden because their analysis of ballots concluded that there aren't enough ballots for Trump to catch up.
There were protesters outside of an Arizona vote counting site last night. Trump won Arizona in 2016, but Fox News and AP said Biden has flipped it.
Now, let’s look at Nevada. It is worth 6 electoral votes. As of this afternoon, Biden has a very slim lead over Trump with 11,438 votes. The WSJ said there are still tens of thousands of votes that have not been counted and that there are still ballots that will arrive by mail continuing into next week. Nevada laws say as long as a mail-in ballot is postmarked by Election Day, they will be counted up to November 10. The next update from Nevada on vote totals will come Friday morning with 63,000 ballots from Clark County (where Las Vegas is).
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The Trump campaign said they would file a lawsuit in Nevada because they are concerned that dead people or non-residents are voting, and said a woman showed up to vote but was turned away because she already had a ballot submitted.
So, we may not know who wins Nevada until next Tuesday. In 2016, Hillary Clinton won the state by 27,000 votes.
Now, let’s look at Pennsylvania. It is worth 20 electoral votes. Right now, Trump has a comfortable lead of about 100,000 votes, but there is still a lot of ballots left to count. The state has counted 88% of ballots and there are about 350,000 ballots left to count, with most of them coming from Philadelphia.
There are dueling protests outside of the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia with Trump supporters saying “stop the vote” and counterprotesters saying, “count every vote.”
In 2016, Trump won Pennsylvania by 44,000 votes.
Now, let’s look at Georgia, worth 16 electoral votes. Trump has a narrow lead of about 9,000 votes. There are about 45,000 ballots left to be counted. The state is updating counts throughout the day and night, so we could know who wins Georgia by tonight or tomorrow.
In 2016, Trump won Georgia by about 200,000 votes, so it’s very different in 2020 with a surge of blue voters and it is close.
Trump is leading by 76,000 votes in North Carolina and there are about 200,000 mail-in ballots still outstanding.
Biden gave a speech this afternoon from his headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware. He said each ballot must be counted and that democracy is sometimes messy. He said he has no doubt that when the votes are counted, he will be declared the winner.
President Trump has tweeted that this election is a fraud. He has demanded that the count should be stopped. He said there is plenty of proof in the media, but Fox News or other media outlets have not shown reports of what voter fraud is.
Trump’s son, Eric, tweeted a video of what he said was 80 ballots for Trump being burned in Virginia Beach. City officials said they were sample ballots not official ballots. The video itself was deleted.
There was a viral video of a man bringing a case on a wagon into a Michigan voting center. A Trump supporter said it was ballots illegally being brought into after a deadline, but that wagon and case was actually a news cameraperson loading his equipment.
BBC News did an article about three “fake news” going around about voter fraud — that Michigan was blocking votes for Trump, that Wisconsin had more ballots than registered votes, or that Arizona voting officials gave sharpie pens to “red” districts so the ballots would later be disqualified. All three were debunked and found to be false.
I know the election is a frustrating process, but it is the same process that got Trump elected in 2016 and that got Obama elected in 2008. There are more mail-in ballots than normal because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the concept is not new and election officials know how to count them and spot fraud. The process is the same.
That is all the updates for now. I don’t know when we will know who wins the presidency. It depends on how votes are tallied in key states such as Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, or North Carolina. We know that Nevada won’t be finalized until Tuesday, and that Trump leads in other states — Georgia and Pennsylvania. If Biden wins Georgia or Pennsylvania by tonight or tomorrow, then the presidency is his. If Trump wins these states, then it’ll be down to Nevada.
I’ll see you next time. Stay with the light.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/05/tech/arizona-fox-news-associated-press-projection/index.html
https://results.arizona.vote/#/featured/18/0
https://www.wsj.com/articles/who-is-winning-the-election-in-nevada-its-close-as-votes-are-counted-in-las-vegas-11604593368
https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/live/elections-2020-results-candidates-updates-news-pennsylvania-20201105.html
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-election-47k-votes-left-counted/
https://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2020-54811410
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/us-elections-government/ny-eric-trump-video-burning-ballots-fake-virginia-beach-city-officials-20201105-7iqw7s6tojhlbkpjcabwqp7xam-story.html
https://www.metrotimes.com/news-hits/archives/2020/11/05/viral-video-alleging-a-ballot-box-had-entered-detroits-tcf-center-after-deadline-was-actually-camera-equipment