The Count Continues!
Joe Biden said in a speech Wednesday that his campaign believes it’s clear that they’re on track to win enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
“I’m not here to declare that we’ve won, but I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we’ll be the winners,” said the former vice president from Wilmington, Delaware.
Biden’s remarks came around the same time that The Associated Press projected he would win Wisconsin, bringing him to 248 electoral votes as of about 4 p.m. ET. At that same time, President Donald Trump had racked up 214.
“Of all the votes counted, we have won Wisconsin by 20,000 votes, virtually the same margin as when Trump won that state four years ago,” said Biden.
Biden is also leading in Michigan and Nevada, but by slim margins. If he were to claim those two states as well, he would reach the crucial 270-vote threshold.
“In Michigan, we lead by over 35,000 votes and it’s growing,” said Biden. “It’s a substantially bigger margin than when President Trump won Michigan in 2016.”
As for Pennsylvania, The Associated Press still had Trump leading, but Biden had made steady advances throughout Wednesday.
“I feel very good about Pennsylvania. Virtually all the remaining ballots to be counted were cast by mail and we’ve been winning 78% of the votes by mail in Pennsylvania,” said Biden.
The Democratic candidate said it’s been a long and difficult campaign, but admitted it’s been a more difficult time for our country. He said once the election is over, he hopes to bring Americans together, despite the partisan nature of the country.
The day after the election, the Trump campaign says it has filed lawsuits Wednesday in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, and will ask for a recount in Wisconsin.
Democratic challenger Joe Biden is projected to win Wisconsin with a roughly 20,000 vote lead. No presidential race winner has been projected for either Pennsylvania or Michigan at this time.
The lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania both demand better access for campaign observers to locations where ballots are being processed and counted, the campaign says.
“In Philadelphia and elsewhere, Democrat officials forced our observers to stay 25 feet or more from the counting process, leaving no meaningful way whatsoever for our observers to do their jobs,” the statement from Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, reads.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, elaborated on the campaign’s legal action in Pennsylvania.
With about 84 percent of the ballots counted in Pennsylvania, Trump leads Biden by almost 300,000 votes.
The Trump campaign said Wednesday they are also seeking to intervene in a state case at the Supreme Court that deals with whether ballots received up to three days after the election can be counted, deputy campaign manager Justin Clark says.
In the Michigan suit, election officials are asked to stop absent voter counting boards from counting because they are allegedly not complying with a state statute that 1 election inspector from each major political party be present during counting, according to the lawsuit.
It also asks that observers be allowed to view surveillance video of ballot boxes that were in “remote and unattended” locations.
In response to news of the lawsuit, demonstrators went to a building in downtown Detroit trying to get inside to challenge votes being counted.
Giuliani hinted the Trump campaign may bring a larger lawsuit about issues with observing ballot counting.
Trump tweeted Wednesday afternoon, without supporting data, that he claimed victory in Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states. He also made unsubstantiated claims about “secretly dumped ballots.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office released a statement asserting the state’s elections were “conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately.”
In Wisconsin, candidates are allowed to ask for a recount if the margin is less than 1 percent. The current margin is roughly .6 percent.
The Trump campaign said they would seek a recount. No word on when that will begin.
Governor Ron DeSantis says the way Florida handled election returns—as opposed to some other states—is “dramatic.” The governor said Florida has “vanquished the ghosts” of the 2000 election debacle.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani alleges massive voter fraud is underway and he is filing lawsuits in state and federal courts. Bondi accuses local officials of preventing Republican election observers from watching mail-in ballots being processed.
Several large pro-Trump protests converged at election counting locations in Michigan and Arizona on Wednesday, one day after Tuesday’s yet-to-be-called presidential election.
Meanwhile, “Count Every Vote” protests spread in other cities, in opposition to Trump’s call to stop the vote counting in several battleground states. Earlier on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign announced lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia in an attempt to stop the count of mail-in voting.
Michigan is projected for Joe Biden. Trump holds narrow leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia, but he has cut Trump’s lead significantly on Wednesday. Biden has benefited with the vote counting shifting from in-person votes to mail-in.
In Michigan, protesters supporting Trump demanded to enter a vote counting center in heavily Democratic Wayne County. Police stood outside to prohibit the protesters from entering, citing capacity concerns due to the pandemic.
On Wednesday morning, there was a rumor floating around that there were more ballots cast in Wisconsin than registered voters. As it turns out, that claim is false...
After a post went viral TWITTER, the Wisconsin Election Commission posted a tweet discussing the number of ballots in comparison to the number of registered voters in the state.
The election commission said the State of Wisconsin had 3,684,726 active registered voters as of Nov. 1. That is higher than the number of ballots counted so far, which is 3,240,275.
The WEC also pointed out that Wisconsin allows for same-day voter registration, which could further increase the number of total voters.
