ABC NewsBy CATHERINE THORBECKE, MORGAN WINSOR, LIBBY CATHEY, ADIA ROBINSON, LAUREN KING and EMILY SHAPIRO, ABC News

(WASHINGTON) — Election Day is turning into election week as the counting of votes continues across the United States, with preliminary results showing the path to re-election has narrowed for President Donald Trump in several key battleground states.

Candidates need 270 Electoral College votes to secure the presidency. ABC News projects Trump currently has 214, while former Vice President Joe Biden has 253. Biden’s count includes Wisconsin, where ABC News is characterizing him as the apparent winner because the vote is very close and has not yet been certified.

Both Trump, the Republican incumbent, and Biden, the Democratic challenger, have addressed the nation while waiting for election results and offered contrasting messages on the American election process. Trump has sowed doubt in its integrity, firing off baseless claims of voter fraud after his campaign filed a barrage of lawsuits to stop vote counts in a number of crucial states. Biden, meanwhile, has projected confidence that he’ll win the White House and has urged Americans to keep calm while every vote is counted.

The 2020 election has shattered voting records, surpassing the 138 million who went to the polls in 2016. Biden has also broken the record for obtaining the most votes ever cast for a U.S. presidential candidate, with more than 73 million and counting. As of Thursday night, Biden has the highest popular vote total in U.S. history, followed by Trump.

Here’s how the election is unfolding. All times Eastern:

Nov 07, 12:59 pm
Giuliani says Trump will file lawsuit Monday contesting Pennsylvania vote count

Trump’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, on Saturday vowed to file a lawsuit Monday to challenge the conduct of elections officials in Pennsylvania.

In comments laced with vague and unfounded allegations of voter fraud in Pennsylvania, Giuliani alleged that the Trump campaign was deprived of the ability to watch the ballots being processed. And he said the campaign would make similar allegations in other states that could lead the campaign to make the case a “massive nation-wide lawsuit.”

“We were deprived of the right to inspect if a single one of those ballots is legitimate,” Giuliani said. “That is unheard of, it’s illegal, it’s unconstitutional, and we will be bringing an action challenging that.”

The Trump campaign has now brought multiple similar charges into court since Election Day and all but one of the cases has been rejected – in Michigan and Nevada. In Pennsylvania, a state judge ordered election officials to allow observers to move closer to poll workers, but a federal judge refused to halt the count based on the claims.

In several of the cases, judges have used strikingly similar language to criticize Trump campaign attorneys for bringing the cases without sufficient evidence. Biden attorney Bob Bauer on Thursday called the lawsuits “meritless.”

Observers are permitted to watch the processing of ballots in most states, including Pennsylvania, but not allowed to intervene as the ballots are processed. They can note any irregularities and report them back to their campaign’s legal team.

Giuliani alleged that Trump campaign representatives were not close enough to see if ballots had errors or irregularities. But for days, Trump campaign officials have not been able to explain what remedy they could expect should a court agree that they were not given sufficient access to watch the poll workers open envelopes of mail-in ballots and inspect them to make sure signatures match, dates are accurate, and the secrecy envelope is used properly.

-ABC News’ Matt Mosk and Alex Hosenball

Nov 07, 12:44 pm
Trump says ‘election is far from over’

Trump, who is golfing on Saturday, released a defiant statement through his campaign, claiming, “this election is far from over.”

Trump blasted Biden for “rushing to falsely pose as the winner.”

Following media projections, Biden changed his Twitter bio to “President-elect.” Biden said in a statement Saturday, “I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me.”

Trump also touted the coming legal fight.

“Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated,” he said. “The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots.”

The president again pushed unfounded claims that “Only a party engaged in wrongdoing would unlawfully keep observers out of the count room – and then fight in court to block their access.”

Asked if Trump would call Biden to concede, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere said: “No scheduling updates. The campaign has released a statement from the president.”

Nov 07, 12:31 pm
Joe Biden set to become next president

ABC News can characterize Joe Biden as the apparent winner in Pennsylvania — a win that makes him president-elect. Based on these numbers and those in other states, Joe Biden will be the next President of the United States.

ABC News was able to characterize Biden as the apparent winner of Pennsylvania after the state, as of 11:35 a.m., put Biden ahead with 49.6% (3,345,724 votes) over Trump’s 49.1% (3,311,310 votes).

Biden was at home with his family when he learned of the news, a Biden aide told ABC News. Biden is expected to address the nation Saturday night.

Biden said in a statement Saturday, “I am honored and humbled by the trust the American people have placed in me and in Vice President-elect Harris. In the face of unprecedented obstacles, a record number of Americans voted. Proving once again, that democracy beats deep in the heart of America. With the campaign over, it’s time to put the anger and the harsh rhetoric behind us and come together as a nation. It’s time for America to unite. And to heal. We are the United States of America. And there’s nothing we can’t do, if we do it together.”

Saturday marks 48 years to the day that Biden was elected in his first Senate race. Biden, then 29 years old, won his first Senate election on Nov. 7, 1972.

For first time in history, the first and second in line to the presidency will be women: Sen. Kamala Harris as vice president followed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Harris tweeted a video showing her on the phone with Biden. “We did it, Joe,” she said. “You’re going to be the next president of the United States.”

Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, tweeted, “So proud of you.”

The White House declined to comment on several news organizations projecting Biden as the apparent winner.

Nov 07, 12:20 pm
Americans take to streets to celebrate Biden win

From New York to Philadelphia to Atlanta, Americans are cheering, honking horns and taking to the streets to celebrate Biden’s win.

Nov 06, 8:21 pm
Last of Georgia vote trickling in

The vote in Georgia is trickling in little-by-little, county-by-county, with about 25,000 ballots outstanding, with the potential to be counted. Most were overseas/military and provisional ballots

Biden is leading by 4,023 votes and at about 49.4% (2,456,561 votes) to Trump’s 49.3% (2,452,538 votes).

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 06, 8:06 pm
Nevada judge denies GOP motion to halt signature machines, change observation rules

A Nevada district court judge denied an emergency injunction request by Nevada GOP groups for Clark County to stop using its signature-verification machines and to give more leeway to ballot-counting observers.

Judge James Gordon said he didn’t think the plaintiffs came to the court with “sufficient evidence” to get what is required of the “extraordinary relief of an injunction” that would get him to “dictate how Clark County should do their job.”

The injunctive relief directed poll workers to manually check all ballot signatures instead of using the machines. Gordon noted that halting the use of the signature-verification machines, which verify about 30% of signatures on ballots, leaving 70% to be done manually already, would significantly delay results.

“The public interest is not in favor of disrupting the processing and counting of the ballots,” he said.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 06, 6:39 pm
Biden ahead by 22,657 votes in Nevada

In Nevada, Biden’s lead has expanded to 22,657 votes following a batch of ballots from Clark County, home to Las Vegas.

Biden has 49.8% of the vote (632,558 votes) to Trump’s 48.0% (609,901 votes).

Nevada has 93% of its expected vote in.

Nevada has six electoral votes to offer.

-ABC News’ Meg Cunningham and Kendall Karson

Nov 06, 6:29 pm
Biden leading Arizona by 39,070 votes

Biden is leading Arizona by 39,070 votes, with 49.9% of the vote compared to Trump’s 48.6%.

About 254,000 ballots are outstanding statewide.

Arizona has 11 electoral votes.

-ABC News’ Meg Cunningham

Nov 06, 6:12 pm
Biden now leads Georgia by 4,182

In Georgia, Biden now leads by a margin of 4,182 votes after more than 7,000 votes came in from Gwinnett County, near Atlanta.

Biden has 2,455,802 votes (49.4%) while Trump has 2,451,620 votes (49.3%).

Georgia has 16 electoral votes.

There are approximately 26,500 ballots outstanding.

“The focus for our office and for the county election officials, for now, remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted and recorded accurately,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday.

Gabriel Sterling from the secretary of state’s office said at a news conference, “We will know the final universe of numbers by today.”

-ABC News’ Soorin Kim and Quinn Scanlan

Nov 06, 6:11 pm
Biden ahead in Pennsylvania by 14,541 votes

Biden is leading Pennsylvania by 14,541 votes.

Biden has 3,315,745 votes, or 49.5%, compared to Trump’s 3,301,204 votes, or 49.3%.

Pennsylvania has 20 electoral votes.

-ABC News’ Adam Kelsey and Alex Hosenball

Nov 06, 4:21 pm
CISA pushes back on claims of counterfeit ballots

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency pushed back on claims there were counterfeit ballots.

The agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, did not mention Trump by name.

“Local election offices have security and detection measures in place that make it highly difficult to commit fraud through counterfeit ballots,” the agency said on its rumor control page. “While the specific measures vary, in accordance with state and local election laws and practices, ballot security measures can include signature matching, information checks, barcodes, watermarks, and precise paper weights.”

In a subsequent tweet,  Director Chris Krebs said there was disinformation floating around that CISA printed ballots, which is untrue.

-ABC News’ Luke Barr

Nov 06, 3:04 pm
Trump campaign to tap Dave Bossie to lead legal efforts

The Trump campaign is expected to name adviser Dave Bossie to lead the campaign’s legal efforts challenging the election results, sources confirmed to ABC News.
Bossie is the head of Citizens United — a conservative nonprofit organization — and was Trump’s deputy campaign manager in 2016.

The news was first reported by The New York Times

-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and John Santucci

Nov 06, 2:51 pm
Michigan judge denies Trump campaign effort to stop ballot count

Judge Cynthia Stephens issued a formal order Friday denying the Trump campaign’s request to stop counting in Wayne County, Michigan, home to Detroit.

Stephens specifically cited the lack of evidence and detail provided by the campaign in the case.

“As stated on the record at the November 5, 2020 hearing, plaintiffs are not entitled to the extraordinary form of emergency relief they have requested,” she wrote.

The suit tried to stop the vote count in based on allegations that the campaign was not given adequate access to observe the vote counting process. It was also seeking access to review any ballots that were opened which they were unable to witness.

-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin and Allison Pecorin

Nov 06, 2:41 pm
PA Republicans seek emergency order from SCOTUS mandating late-arriving ballots not be counted

With Trump trailing Biden in the Pennsylvania vote count, state Republicans are asking the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency order to ensure that no late-arriving mail ballots are added to the totals.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar has already confirmed to ABCNews that those ballots are not showing up in the tally.

But in the attached filing, the GOP argues that Boockvar’s guidance is non-biding on county boards and claims that 25 of 67 counties haven’t indicated whether or not they are abiding by it and in fact segregating the late-arriving votes.

“Without an immediate order from this Court, [Republican Party of Pennsylvania] could lose its right to ‘a targeted remedy’ if the State Supreme Court’s decision is ultimately overturned,” they write.

-ABC News’ Devin Dwyer

Nov 06, 12:54 pm
Biden expected to speak Friday night

Biden is expected to speak during prime time Friday night, a Biden campaign official told ABC News.

The event is expected to be similar to Tuesday night’s, when Biden addressed supporters outdoors in front of the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, a senior adviser said.

Sen. Kamala Harris will also give remarks at Friday night’s event, according to two Harris aides.

Asked if Trump plans to make any remarks on Friday, White House deputy press secretary Judd Deere told ABC News there are “no scheduling updates at this time.”

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle and John Verhovek

Nov 06, 12:16 pm
Pennsylvania ‘late-arriving’ ballots not currently part of count

Pennsylvania has not started counting late-arriving ballots postmarked by Nov. 3, Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar initially confirmed Thursday.

That means Biden’s current lead over Trump does not include those ballots, which Republicans are seeking to challenge in the Supreme Court.

Officials in the state’s biggest counties — Philadelphia, Allegheny and Montgomery — all confirmed to ABC News that they have not started counting those ballots and have only segregated them and put them aside.

Allegheny and Montgomery officials said they have no plans to count them until 5 p.m. ET Friday at the earliest.

-ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim, Benjamin Siegel, Adam Kelsey, Alex Hosenball, Lucien Bruggeman

Nov 06, 11:50 am
Biden nearly doubles his Nevada lead

Biden nearly doubled his Nevada lead over Trump after more votes came in from Clark County, home to Las Vegas.

Biden is now up 22,076 votes over Trump. Before he was up 11,438 votes.

Biden leads 49.8% to Trump’s 48.1% statewide.

Approximately 159,828 ballots are outstanding statewide, including about 139,678 in Clark County.

-ABC News’ Meg Cunningham

Nov 06, 11:32 am
Maricopa vote narrows Biden’s lead again

As more votes from Maricopa County, Arizona, come in, Biden’s statewide lead is narrowing.

Biden is ahead by 43,569 votes, shrinking from his earlier lead of 47,052 votes.

Biden’s vote count is at 1,560,347 to Trump’s 1,516,778.

Biden still leads 50.0% to Trump’s 48.6%.

About 201,211 votes are outstanding statewide.

-ABC News’ Meg Cunningham

Nov 06, 11:32 am
Mark Kelly projected to win Arizona senate race

Astronaut Mark Kelly is projected to win his Arizona senate race against incumbent Republican Martha McSally.

Kelly will fill the seat once held by the late Sen. John McCain.

This was Kelly’s first run for political office. He is married to former Arizona Rep. Gabby Giffords who became a champion for gun control after she survived an assassination attempt in 2011.

Nov 06, 11:08 am
Biden leading Georgia by 1,579 votes

Biden is now leading Georgia by 1,579 votes after more votes were reported from Clayton County.

Biden has 49.4% (2,450,117 votes) while Trump has 49.4% (2,448,538 votes)

“With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Friday.

There are no automatic recounts in Georgia. A candidate must request a recount and can only do so if the margin between the two candidates is less than 0.5% of the total votes in the race.

There are 4,196 outstanding ballots in four counties. Most of the outstanding ballots are in Gwinnett County, near Atlanta, where there are 3,500 ballots remaining.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 06, 10:20 am
Trump campaign: ‘This election is not over’

As Biden takes the lead in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign issued a defiant statement making it clear that the president is not ready to concede.

“This election is not over,” Matt Morgan, the Trump 2020 campaign general counsel, said in a statement Friday.

Morgan blasted what he called the “false projection of Joe Biden as the winner,” which he said was “based on results in four states that are far from final.”

Morgan also claimed that “Georgia is headed for a recount,” alleging — without evidence — that “we will find ballots improperly harvested.”

Meanwhile, Morgan claimed there were “many irregularities in Pennsylvania,” but only provided one example of volunteer legal observers not “having meaningful access to vote counting locations.”

Morgan also said, “there appear to be thousands of individuals who improperly cast mail ballots” in Nevada — a baseless claim for which the Trump campaign has provided no evidence.

“Biden is relying on these states for his phony claim on the White House,” Morgan said, “but once the election is final, President Trump will be re-elected.”

-ABC News’ Will Steakin

Nov 06, 9:00 am
Biden pulls ahead in Pennsylvania

Biden has pulled ahead in Pennsylvania, overtaking Trump’s lead.

As of 8:50 a.m. ET Friday, Biden has 3,295,304 votes in the Keystone State while Trump has 3,289,717, with 95% of the expected vote reporting. That’s a difference of 5,587 votes.

There are approximately 150,000 ballots left to be counted in Pennsylvania.

Trump flipped the blue state red on his path to the White House in 2016. He won Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes, defeating Hillary Clinton there by 44,292 ballots.

Before that year, Pennsylvania had voted for Democratic presidential candidates in six consecutive elections.

Nov 06, 8:33 am
Over 1,700 mail-in ballots found at USPS facilities in Pennsylvania

Mail inspectors in Pennsylvania turned up more than 1,700 ballots at postal facilities across the state on Thursday, according to U.S. Postal Service data filed in court overnight.

The vast majority of those mail-in ballots were discovered in Democratic strongholds, nearly 1,400 of which are in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Mail inspectors found an additional 266 ballots in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley region.

Those votes, along with any additional ballots received before Friday afternoon, will be sequestered pending a Republican-led effort to have thrown them out.

Meanwhile, mail inspectors found more than 500 ballots in North Carolina following sweeps there.

These twice-daily sweeps were ordered Thursday morning by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., as part of a lawsuit brought by the NAACP against the U.S. Postal Service and its embattled leader, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, claiming that a series of cost-cutting measures imposed at the mail agency over the summer threatened to disenfranchise people of color.

Nov 06, 8:18 am
Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor says the math ‘doesn’t bode well’ for Trump

Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman said he expects Biden to take the lead in his state soon, as ballots continue to be counted.

Trump currently holds an edge of about 16,000-18,000 votes, and there are “north of” 150,000-160,000 ballots left to be counted in the Keystone State, according to Fetterman, who noted that Pennsylvania’s Republican-controlled state legislature did not allow local election officials to pre-canvas mail-in ballots before Election Day.

“Counting is ongoing and updates are going to be coming in, and I would expect the president’s margin to evaporate shortly and go into the positive category for Vice President Biden,” Fetterman told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on Good Morning America.

Fetterman, a Democrat, called Trump’s evidence-free claims of election fraud in Pennsylvania “lies” and “blatantly untrue.” He said the election has run “smoothly” in his state and that the only evidence of fraud so far was a registered Republican in Luzerne County who tried to vote for his dead mother and has since been charged with voter fraud.

“The math that currently remains in front of us doesn’t bode well for the president, and the closer it gets I think you’re going to see more and more of that kind of incendiary misinformation,” Fetterman said.

Nov 06, 7:45 am
Georgia’s voting system implementation manager says they are counting ‘every single legal vote’

Gabriel Sterling, who oversees the statewide voting system in Georgia, said election officials are still counting thousands of legal votes and they haven’t seen any evidence of widespread irregularities.

“We’ve had reports of specific things, we sent investigators out looking for specific evidence and, the reality behind those, we always get those in every election — it’s a normal thing. We have not seen anything so widespread that it could potentially effect the outcomes,” Sterling told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Friday on Good Morning America.

“The counties are being diligent, they are working hard, they are all exhausted. But we feel like they’re doing a good job and treating everybody fairly,” he added. “Our goal is to count and report every single legal vote.”

Sterling said they expected vote counting to take days due to the nature of this election — a surge in absentee ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic. There are 8,197 absentee ballots left to be counted across Georgia, as well as 8,899 military and overseas ballots that are still available to come in Friday, according to Sterling.

Biden currently leads Georgia by 1,096 votes, after overtaking Trump’s edge in the Republican stronghold early Friday morning.

“When we know the outcome of this election, we’re going to have an audit afterwards and we have a very good likelihood that its going to be within a half of a percentage,” Sterling said. “Under our laws, whoever comes in second in this election [in Georgia], they can request a recount.”

Nov 06, 5:18 am
Biden increases his edge over Trump in Arizona

Biden’s lead in Arizona increased by 795 votes overnight, as the longtime Republican stronghold edges toward flipping blue.

As of 4:50 a.m. Friday, Biden has 1,532,062 votes — 50.1% — while Trump has 1,485,010 votes — 48.5% — with 90% of the expected vote reporting statewide. That’s a difference of 47,052 votes.

About 263,000 ballots are left to be counted in the Grand Canyon State, where 11 Electoral College votes are up for grabs.

Republican candidates have won Arizona in every presidential election but one since 1952. Bill Clinton flipped the red state blue in 1996.

Nov 06, 4:53 am
Biden takes the lead in Georgia

Biden has overtaken Trump’s lead in Georgia by 917 votes.

As of 4:50 a.m. Friday, Biden has 2,449,371 votes while Trump has 2,448,454 — 49.4% each — with 99% of the expected vote reporting.

About 10,000 ballots are still left to be counted in the Deep South State, where 16 Electoral College votes are up for grabs.

Voters in Georgia, once a reliable Republican stronghold, haven’t swung for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Nov 06, 3:59 am
Biden chips away at Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania

Biden continued to chip away at Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania early Friday morning, with the two candidates now separated by just 18,229 votes

As of 3 a.m. ET, Trump has 3,286,171 votes in the Keystone State while Biden has 3,267,942.

Trump flipped the blue state red on his path to the White House in 2016. He won Pennsylvania’s 20 Electoral College votes, defeating Hillary Clinton there by 44,292 ballots.

Prior to that year, Pennsylvania had voted for Democratic presidential candidates in six consecutive elections.

Nov 06, 3:26 am
Trump’s lead in Georgia dwindles to just 665 votes

Trump’s lead in Georgia dwindled to just 665 votes early Friday morning.

As of 3 a.m. ET, Trump has 2,448,183 votes while Biden isn’t far behind with 2,447,518.

Sixteen Electoral College votes are up for grabs in Georgia, a longtime Republican stronghold. Voters in the Deep South state haven’t swung for a Democratic presidential candidate since Bill Clinton in 1992.

Nov 06, 12:45 am
Trump campaign files lawsuit in Nevada

The Trump campaign has finally filed a lawsuit in Nevada, almost 12 hours after holding a press conference Thursday morning that included claims without any evidence whatsoever.

The lawsuit includes complaints they’ve already put before the courts and that were unsuccessful, like trying to get the signature matching verification machines thrown out in Clark County and trying to stop the count until they had more “meaningful access” to ballot counting.

This lawsuit was brought before the federal district court, against Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske.

The lawsuit also reiterates the new claims former acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell and former Republican Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt made Thursday morning.

“Irregularities have plagued the election in Clark County, including lax procedures for authenticating mail ballots and over 3,000 instances of ineligible individuals casting ballots. Ballots have even been cast on behalf of deceased voters. Moreover, the public has often been prohibited from observing the processing of mail ballots, resulting in much of their work being done in the shadows without public accountability,” the lawsuit alleges.

Overall, there is no evidence of any of these claims.

Nov 05, 11:28 pm
Trump campaign, Nevada GOP ask Attorney General Barr to investigate voting in state

The Trump campaign and the Nevada GOP — citing unfounded allegations regarding potential voter fraud — Thursday evening requested Attorney General Bill Barr investigate unclear violations of federal law.

The party has identified what they allege are 3,062 individuals “who appear to have improperly cast mail ballots in the election.”

Any official body can make this kind of request, known as a “criminal referral,” essentially a notice to the Justice Department or FBI alerting federal officials of a potential federal crime. But the notice in recent years has been increasingly utilized by partisan actors seeking to cast a cloud of suspicion over their political enemies. The bar to make a criminal referral is very low.

In order for the federal government to get involved, there must be suspected violations of federal law, as states are responsible for overseeing elections.

They have not provided any identifiable information that can be verified.

When asked Thursday night by ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos if he was aware of any instances of voter fraud in the state, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford responded, “None.”

“In fact, what we heard from our county registrar down in Clark County, for example, is that the only instance they’ve seen of voter fraud was a Trump supporter trying to vote twice,” Ford said. “At the end of the day, we’re looking out for it — if you do it, we’re going to prosecute you.”

Nov 05, 11:24 pm
Some aides couldn’t bear to watch Trump’s press conference: Sources

For the first time in days there was one thing White House aides all reacted to Thursday afternoon — total fear of Joe Biden speaking. They did not fear what the former vice president would say or not say — but they knew just him speaking would make their boss want to do the same.

Some Trump aides couldn’t bring themselves to watch the president’s speech because they knew it was going to be bad, according to sources.

As Trump claims he wants to go to the Supreme Court, his lawyers so far can’t find a viable method to get there. Members of his legal team have been studying but can’t find a way as of now.

The lawsuits brought by Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and his colleagues in some states have been dismissed by senior Trump aides as pointless and lacking a cohesive legal strategy.

Nov 05, 10:18 pm
Trump leading by fewer than 2,000 votes in Georgia

Trump now leads in Georgia by 1,797 votes as the margin gets tighter following the latest reporting out of Clayton, Rockdale and Forsyth counties.

Just south of Atlanta, Clayton is the fifth-most-populated county in the state. Nearly two-thirds or 73% of its residents are Black and another 13% are Hispanic/Latino, according to U.S. Census estimates.

Hillary Clinton won this county by a 70-point margin in 2016, earning about 78,000 votes. Biden currently has over 90,000 votes in Clayton.

Clinton won Rockdale County by a 26-point margin in 2016. Biden’s margin is even bigger, at 40.8 points.

The candidates are neck-and-neck in Georgia — 49.4% to 49.4% — as Trump leads slightly with 2,447,337 votes to Biden’s 2,445,540.

There were about 16,000 outstanding ballots as of 8:40 p.m., according to the Georgia secretary of state.

Nov 05, 9:55 pm
If 2018 was the year of the woman, 2020 is the year of even more women

At least 106 women will serve in the House, based on the latest ABC News projections, eclipsing the previous record of 102 set in 2019, according to the Center for American Women and Politics.

Of those, at least 46 are women of color, which is also record-setting, beating out the record of 44 set in 2019.

Republican women are making up significant ground after 2018, with at least 24 projected by ABC News to win their contests. The current total stands just shy of the record of 25 GOP women serving in the House, which was set in 2006.

Some of the winners include Stephanie Bice in Oklahoma’s 5th Congressional District, Ashley Hinson in Iowa’s 1st Congressional District and Michelle Fischbach in Minnesota’s 7th Congressional District, who all flipped Democratic-held seats. Marjorie Taylor Greene in Georgia’s 14th Congressional District and Lauren Boebert in Colorado’s 3rd Congressional District — two controversial candidates who either embraced or showed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory — will be among the GOP’s ranks in the next Congress.

Nov 05, 9:30 pm
Latest totals from Arizona’s Maricopa County cut into Biden’s lead

New vote totals from Arizona’s Maricopa County slightly reduce Biden’s lead in the Grand Canyon State.

Statewide, the former vice president leads Trump 50.3% to 48.3%, with Biden up by 46,257 votes. That new vote total is a decrease of about a thousand ballots for Biden.

In Maricopa County, Biden leads Trump 51% to 47.6%, with 944,285 votes compared to the president’s 880,347. Arizona’s most populous county has an estimated 224,866 ballots left to count.

In the Arizona Senate race, Democratic candidate Mark Kelly leads Republican Sen. Martha McSally 52% to 48%, with 1,565,506 votes compared to McSally’s 1,462,532.

ABC News has not made a projection in either race out of Arizona.

Nov 05, 9:21 pm
Some Republicans vocalize their support for Trump’s comments

While some Republicans rebuked the president’s remarks on Thursday night, others supported and even echoed his comments.

Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton tweeted “all votes that are *legally* cast should be counted.”

“There is NO excuse not to allow poll watchers to observe counting,” he added, also tweeting a link to the president’s legal defense fund.

Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley also tweeted in support of Trump.

“The American people, whatever their party, deserve total transparency in the election vote,” he said. “Allow poll watchers to be present as ballots counted. Full accounting of all ballots. Ban ballot harvesting.”

Nov 05, 8:45 pm
Trump Jr. and others rally Republican supporters in Atlanta

Donald Trump Jr. and a few Trump campaign surrogates held a press conference in Atlanta Thursday night.

Georgia State Rep. Vernon Jones kicked things off by falsely claiming illegal ballots were being counted and that Trump supporters should be ready for a fight.

“We need to know now. … How the hell you can send a man to the moon, but you can’t get results in 24 hours? Something’s wrong with that,” he said.

Trump Jr. took the stage next and said, “I think the number one thing that Donald Trump can do in this election is fight each and every one of these battles to the death, so that we get full transparency in the process and everyone on the Democrat side should welcome this unless they’re actually cheating. Because if they’re winning these things fair and square, then everyone would love to know that because me as an American, I’d like to know that because I’ve lost all faith in the process.”

Throughout the event there were several rallying cries of the Republican members in the audience who loudly chanted “stop the steal” and “Georgia is red.”

-ABC News’ Justin Gomez and Terrance Smith

Nov 05, 8:31 pm
RNC, Trump campaign ask to join Arizona Sharpie lawsuit

The RNC and Trump campaign filed a motion Thursday to intervene in an Arizona lawsuit that raises issues with the use of permanent markers on ballots in Maricopa County and other regions of the state.

The case is being brought by a woman in Arizona who claims that a ballot box failed to properly read her vote after she was provided a Sharpie to fill out her ballot at her polling place.

The plaintiffs are requesting that ballots that could not be read by the voting machines due to the use of Sharpies be allowed to be cured, and that individuals who experienced errors with voting machines due to use of a Sharpie be allowed to observe the ongoing adjudication process.

The plaintiffs said they’d like discovery to occur in the case and suggested a hearing a week from Thursday. RNC interveners suggested an even longer timeline.

Tom Liddy, an attorney for Maricopa County, argued at a conference Thursday that the case ought to be dismissed — and that it should be done quickly in order to prevent any potential delays in tabulation.

“The voters have a right to know that the allegations flying around the internet about sharpies being dropped from black helicopters to trick people out of votes are fake,” Liddy said. “They are not real but they are scaring people.”

Liddy also noted that those interested in watching the ballot adjudication process can do so online right now.

The judge said it was not immediately clear to her how allowing individuals to watch ballot tabulation and adjudication was an appropriate remedy for those concerned that their ballots were not counted correctly.

The judge ordered that parties in the case decide on a path forward and present it to her by 11:30 a.m. MT Friday.

The Arizona secretary of state and Maricopa County elections officials have asserted that Sharpies are a safe — and even preferred — method for casting in-person ballots in the state.

-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin

Nov 05, 8:07 pm
Some Republicans criticize Trump’s remarks

Several moderate Republicans quickly responded to Trump’s remarks Thursday night.

Illinois Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger called for the president to stop spreading misinformation, saying “this is getting insane.”

Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who has said he did not vote for Trump, tweeted that there was “no defense for the President’s comments tonight undermining our Democratic process.”

Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, the only Senate Republican who voted to convict Trump during his impeachment trial, did not mention the president by name but said, “have faith in our Democracy, in our Constitution, and in the American people.”

Nov 05, 7:51 pm
Federal court denies Trump campaign complaint to stop Philadelphia vote count

Trump campaign surrogates Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, and Corey Lewandowski appeared Thursday evening in the middle of dueling protests outside the Philadelphia Convention Center to say they had filed a lawsuit in federal court meant to immediately stop the Philadelphia vote count.

The court, “in light of the Parties’ agreement,” denied without prejudice, the Trump campaign’s request.
 
The federal lawsuit alleged that the Philadelphia County Board of Elections is “intentionally refusing to allow any representatives and poll watchers for President Trump and the Republican Party” from properly observing the vote, disobeying an earlier order.

“They have refused to let us have meaningful — a meaningful view of the vote count,” Bondi said Thursday evening. “They are not letting us look at anything at all, nothing. So we have filed in federal court. We have just filed a motion in federal court for immediate injunctive relief to shut down the voting process until — until we can get a resolution where we can look at these ballots.”

-ABC News’ Matthew Mosk and Alex Hosenball

Nov 05, 7:00 pm
Trump again says he wins ‘easily’ with ‘legal votes’ counted

Trump Thursday evening falsely declared victory again, claiming, “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”

Trump has 214 electoral votes while Biden has 253. Biden’s count includes Wisconsin, where ABC News is characterizing him as the apparent winner because the vote is very close and has not yet been certified.

Trump baselessly made claims of “historic election interference from big media, big money, and big tech.”

The president also slammed mail-in voting, calling it “a corrupt system.”

“It’s really destroyed our system,” Trump said. “They want to find out how many votes they need and then they seem to be able to find them. They wait and wait and then they find them and you see that on election night.”

More Democrats have voted by mail. Many mail-in ballots are still being counted so they are added to totals after Election night.

“It’s amazing how those mail-in ballots are so one-sided,” Trump said.

“They are trying to steal an election. They are trying to rig an election and we can’t let that happen,” Trump added.

Nov 05, 6:14 pm
Trump’s lead in Georgia slips under 10,000 votes

Trump’s lead is narrowing in Georgia. The president is now ahead by only 9,426 votes as more results are reported from Fulton County, home to most of Atlanta.

Trump now has 49.5% or 2,439,925 votes, while Biden has 49.3% or 2,430,499 votes.

Still not reported are roughly 17,000 ballots from Chatham County, which is home to the Democratic-leaning city of Savannah.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 05, 6:04 pm
Trump team files complaint in federal court to stop Philadelphia vote count

Trump campaign surrogates Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, and Corey Lewandowski appeared again Thursday evening in the middle of dueling protests outside the Philadelphia Convention Center to say they had filed a lawsuit in federal court meant to immediately stop the Philadelphia vote count.

A federal judge set a 5:30 p.m. hearing for the case — which is currently underway.
 
The federal lawsuit alleges that the Philadelphia County Board of Elections is “intentionally refusing to allow any representatives and poll watchers for President Trump and the Republican Party” from properly observing the vote, disobeying an earlier order.

“They have refused to let us have meaningful — a meaningful view of the vote count,” Bondi said Thursday evening. “They are not letting us look at anything at all, nothing. So we have filed in federal court. We have just filed a motion in federal court for immediate injunctive relief to shut down the voting process until — until we can get a resolution where we can look at these ballots.”

-ABC News’ Matthew Mosk and Alex Hosenball

Nov 05, 6:01 pm
Vote count ongoing in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar, providing an election update Thursday evening, told reporters they’re coming in the “homestretch” but that ballot counting will continue into the evening.

“Hundreds of thousands of ballots have been counted so far today, and we’re in very good shape, but there’s still some to count,” she said. “Stay tuned.”

Boockvar said the majority of in-person votes have been counted but they’re still in the process of counting mail-in and absentee ballots, as Pennsylvania is among the handful of states that did not begin processing absentee ballots until Election Day morning. She expected an “overwhelming majority” will be counted by Friday.

“But then there’s still going to be provisional ballots, the military and overseas ballots and so forth. So the closer the race is, the longer it takes,” she said, adding “it’s not quite clear yet who the winner is.”

If Biden were to win Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes, it would put him over the top of the necessary 270 votes to win the presidency.

Nov 05, 5:57 pm
Trump to speak at 6:30 p.m. ET

Trump will speak from the White House at 6:30 p.m. ET Thursday. The president last spoke to the public in the early hours of Wednesday.

Nov 05, 5:46 pm
Pa. Dems, secretary of state ask Supreme Court to deny Trump request to join pending case

Pennsylvania Democrats and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to deny the president’s request to formally join a pending challenge to the state’s three-day mail ballot deadline extension.

In a pair of filings, Boockvar argued that allowing Trump to join “would significantly prejudice the existing parties” and that he has not provided any justification for why he should be added to the case at this stage.

The case has been ongoing for six weeks.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously denied Trump’s motion to join the lawsuit citing “insufficient” justification of mere “generalized grievance.”

Pennsylvania’s Democratic Party also urged the court to reject the president’s assertion that the case could determine who wins the presidency.

“You may not need to hear and decide these cases,” they wrote, noting that the universe of contested votes is not yet fully known nor is the math as to whether it would have any impact on the outcome.

-ABC News Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer

Nov 05, 5:06 pm
Trump campaign says ‘all options are on the table’ as count continues in Arizona

The Trump campaign held a news conference in Phoenix Thursday afternoon and said it won’t be announcing any legal challenges in Arizona yet as the count proceeds in the state but that “all options are on the table.”

“All of the litigation strategies are being thought about and contemplated. There’s been no decisions on anything as of yet, but absolutely all options are on the table,” said campaign adviser David Bossie.

The campaign projected confidence that Trump will ultimately overcome Biden, who is currently leading in the state by nearly 70,000 votes.

Trump supporters interrupted the press conference with chants of “Count our votes!” after the president tweeted this morning, “STOP THE COUNT!”

 Nov 05, 4:42 pm
Nevada has 190,000 ballots to count, mostly near Las Vegas

About 190,150 ballots in Nevada have yet to be counted. Of those, 90% are in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, state officials said.

Of the 190,000 ballots statewide, 123,554 are ballots that were either returned by mail or dropped of in person at a ballot drop-off location, and 66,596 are ballots that were cast in person at a polling place, either during early voting or on Election Day, by voters who took advantage of Nevada’s new same-day voter registration law.

Mail-in ballots will continue to be counted through Nov. 10 so long as they arrive postmarked by Nov. 3. “We cannot estimate with any degree of accuracy how many ballots might fall into this category,” Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske said.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson and Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 05, 4:34 pm
Biden stresses calm, says ‘each ballot must be counted’

Biden addressed the nation Thursday afternoon, saying, “Each ballot must be counted.”

“Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience,” Biden said.

“We have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator [Kamala] Harris and I will be declared the winners,” he said. “So I ask everyone to stay calm… The process is working. The count is being completed and we’ll know very soon.”

Before speaking about the election, Biden mentioned COVID-19, saying he and Harris just finished briefings on the pandemic and the economy.

“Cases are on the rise nationwide and we’re nearing 240,000 deaths,” Biden said. “Our hearts go out to each and every family that has lost a loved one to this terrible disease.”

Nov 05, 4:10 pm
ABC News to broadcast prime-time special on election

ABC News will broadcast another one-hour prime-time special, “Election 2020 — A Special Edition of ’20/20′” at 10 p.m. Thursday on the ABC television network and on ABC News Live.

Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos will lead coverage from New York City joined by “World News Tonight” Anchor David Muir, “ABC News Live Prime” Anchor Linsey Davis and ABC News’ powerhouse political team reporting the newest developments on the race to the White House. ABC News correspondents will report from battleground states where the decision still hangs in the balance.

Nov 05, 3:40 pm
Trump’s lead in Georgia is under 13,000 votes

Trump is leading Georgia by just 12,835 votes.

Trump has 49.5% (2,436,443 votes) while Biden has 49.2% (2,423,608 votes).

Approximately 47,277 ballots were still outstanding in the state as of 2:40 p.m., according to the secretary of state.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 05, 2:41 pm
Clark County Clerk concerned about safety of staff

In Clark County, Nevada, county registrar Joe Gloria said the tightening race is leaving him “concerned for the safety of my staff.”

There have been some protests outside the building.

“My wife and my mother are very concerned for me, but we have security here,” Gloria said. “We have law enforcement who are protecting us. I am concerned for the safety of my staff. We’re putting measures into place to make sure that we have the security that’s necessary.”

“We’re going to be okay. We’re going to continue to count. We will not allow anyone to stop us from doing what our duty is: counting ballots,” he said.

-ABC News’ Meg Cunningham

Nov 05, 2:25 pm
Nevada’s Clark County to release results from 51,000 votes on Friday

In Nevada, the gap between Biden and Trump remains at 11,438 votes. Biden has 604,251 while Trump has 592,813.

Clark County, home to Las Vegas, will release results from 51,000 votes on Friday, said Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria. So far, Clark County mail-in results have been favoring Biden.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 05, 2:15 pm
Pennsylvania expects majority of votes counted by end of day

Pennsylvania expected to have the “majority” of the remaining votes counted by Thursday night, the state’s attorney general’s office told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Eva Pilgrim

Nov 05, 1:52 pm
Judge says she will deny Trump campaign effort to stop ballot count in Michigan

A judge in Michigan said Thursday afternoon she would deny a plea from the Trump campaign to stop the processing and counting of absentee ballots in the state, mainly citing the fact that the counting is already largely done.

-ABC News’ Allie Pecorin and Olivia Rubin

Nov 05, 1:33 pm
Roughly 166,000 ballots outstanding in Nevada

There are roughly 166,000 ballots outstanding across Nevada.

With about 88% of the expected vote in, Biden’s edge over Trump stands at 11,438 votes with less than 1 percentage point separating the two (49.4%-48.5%).

The only county at 99% expected vote in is Eureka. Every other county has between 82% to 95% of the expected vote in.

A large chunk of the vote is outstanding in Clark County, home to Nevada, where there is 85% of expected vote in. Clark County officials say they have 63,262 ballots left to process, but that doesn’t account for what ballots may come in by the deadline on Nov. 10 or be cured. Officials don’t expect the bulk of the mail ballot count to be finished before the weekend.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson and Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 05, 1:21 pm
Biden up by 10,000 votes in Washoe County, Nevada

Among the 12,189 new votes coming in from Washoe County, Nevada, home to Reno, Biden gained 5,802 votes, compared with Trump’s 5,469.

With 94% of the expected vote reporting in Washoe, Biden has 50.6% or 123,501 votes while Trump has 46.5% or 113,394

In 2016, Hillary Clinton won Washoe  by a narrow margin of just 2,621.

In Clark County, home to Las Vegas, much of the vote is still outstanding, but the newest batch of votes went to Biden by a 2-to-1 margin, compared with Trump’s votes. Biden gained more than 9,000 votes and Trump gained more than 4,000.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson and Cheyenne Haslett

Nov 05, 1:04 pm
In Georgia, Trump leading by 13,540 votes

In Georgia, Trump is now leading by 13,540 votes. As of 1 p.m. ET, Trump has 49.5% (2,436,007 votes) while Biden has 49.2% (2,422,467 votes).

As of 12:45 p.m., Georgia had about 50,401 absentee ballots still outstanding, said Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

As of 9:15 a.m., Chatham County, home to the Democrat-leaning city of Savannah, had the most outstanding absentee ballots with about 17,000. Chatham County went for Hillary Clinton by a 14.7-point margin in 2016.

-ABC News’ Elwyn Lopez and Quinn Scanlan

Nov 05, 12:58 pm
Trump team says they’ve not been provided up-close access to observe Philly vote counting despite court order

Trump campaign senior adviser Corey Lewandowski said the Trump team has not been provided up-close access to observe the Philadelphia vote counting — in spite of a Thursday morning court order allowing them to stand closer.
 
“This makes it look like a kangaroo court. We deserve better. And we’re not leaving until we witness every single vote that transpires here,” Lewandowski said.
 
A Pennsylvania judge Thursday morning granted the Trump campaign’s request to observe — up-close — poll workers as they process the remaining mail-in ballots, overturning earlier rules that kept them farther back out of concern about the coronavirus.

The city of Philadelphia has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn the Thursday morning decision.

-ABC News’ Alex Hosenball, Ben Siegel and Matt Mosk

Nov 05, 12:53 pm
Judge to order twice-daily sweeps in mail facilities

A federal judge is preparing to order twice-daily sweeps at mail facilities in states with extended ballot-receipt deadlines after the U.S. Postal Service submitted data indicating that thousands of ballots postmarked over the weekend were not returned by Election Day.
 
New Postal Service data released Thursday showed that as many as 9,000 ballots postmarked over the weekend did not arrive at their destination until Wednesday, including in states with no ballot extension deadlines. In the Atlanta area, for example, 68 such ballots arrived late.

-ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman
 

Nov 05, 12:43 pm
Biden lead tightens in Nevada

With 88% of Nevada’s expected vote in, Biden’s lead over Trump has tightened to over 11,000 votes.

In Clark County, home to Las Vegas, Biden is ahead 53.1%-45.2%, with 85% of the expected vote in.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson

Nov 05, 12:35 pm
Judge permits campaign observers up-close view of ballot count after Trump complaint

A Pennsylvania judge has granted the Trump campaign’s request to observe — up-close — Philadelphia poll workers as they process the remaining mail-in ballots, overturning earlier rules that kept them farther back out of concern about the coronavirus.

The city of Philadelphia has filed an appeal to the Pennsylvania state Supreme Court. The court has not yet acted.

-ABC News’ Alex Hosenball, Ben Siegel and Matt Mosk

Nov 05, 12:17 pm
Trump campaign’s Georgia lawsuit dismissed

A judge in Chatham County, Georgia, home to the Democrat-leaning city of Savannah, dismissed the Trump campaign’s lawsuit during a Thursday morning hearing, according an official in the judge’s office.
 
The suit alleged that the county may be mishandling ballots and therefore inadvertently mixing up ballots that arrived on time with ones that arrived late. The suit was based on one allegation from an out-of-state Republican poll observer and involved less than 60 ballots.

The suit, filed alongside the Georgia Republican Party, sought to order the county to compile, store and account for all ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day (the receipt deadline).
 
-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin

Nov 05, 12:14 pm
Biden continues to gain ground in Pennsylvania

The percentage of expected vote reporting in Pennsylvania has ticked up from 89% to 92%, as Biden continues to narrow his defecit with Trump from 164,414 votes to 121,857.

Trump now leads in the Keystone State with 3,226,685 votes — 50.3% — while Biden has 3,104,828 — 48.4%.

Biden would need about 60.8% of the remaining ballots to eclipse Trump’s 3,226,685 tally in order to win the state.

-ABC News’ Adam Kelsey

Nov 05, 12:06 pm
Vote counting in Arizona’s Maricopa County could take days, officials say

Election officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County told ABC News that ballot counting there could take days and will likely continue into the weekend.

Historic voter turnout in Arizona’s most populous county has pushed officials to count more ballots than ever before, officials said.

Some 275,000 absentee ballots and 17,000 provisional ballots have not yet been counted in Maricopa County, along with several thousand early votes that need additional research, according to officials. It was unclear how many ballots would be counted Thursday.

Maricopa County accounts for nearly two-thirds of the state’s registered voters. The county seat is Phoenix, the capital of Arizona and the fifth-most populous city in the United States.

With 86% of the expected vote reporting, Biden currently leads in Maricopa County — 51.4% to Trump’s 47.2%.

Biden also holds an edge over Trump statewide, with 1,469,341 votes against Trump’s 1,400,951 — 50.5% to 48.1%. About 86% of Arizona’s expected absentee vote and 86% of the state’s expected vote overall are in.
 

-ABC News’ Jenna Harrison, Whit Johnson and Matthew Seyler

Nov 05, 11:40 am
Georgia leaning to Biden, campaign manager says

Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon on Thursday called Georgia a “toss-up,” and said Trump is in the lead, but Biden is cutting into that lead as more outstanding ballots are counted.

Georgia “is going to be very very close,” she said, and “at this stage, leans to the vice president.”

O’Malley Dillon said Biden is up narrowly in Nevada and is on track to win the state.

She said the remaining ballots to be counted in Pennsylvania are expected to heavily favor Biden.

O’Malley Dillon called Trump’s lawsuits “meritless” and an effort to “distract and delay.”

Nov 05, 11:00 am
Fulton County, Georgia, will be done counting its votes within the hour

An official in Georgia’s Fulton County, home to Altanta, says the county has under 2,500 ballots left to count and should be done counting within the hour.

As of 9:15 a.m., Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said the state had about 61,000 ballots still outstanding. Most ballots are anticipated to be counted Thursday.

As of 9:15 a.m., Chatham County, home to the Democrat-leaning city of Savannah, had the most outstanding absentee ballots with about 17,000. Chatham County went for Hillary Clinton by a 14.7-point margin in 2016.

-ABC News’ Elwyn Lopez and Quinn Scanlan

Nov 05, 10:32 am
Trump tweets ‘STOP THE COUNT!’

As ballots continued to be counted in several key states Thursday morning, Trump took to Twitter demanding, “STOP THE COUNT!”

 

STOP THE COUNT!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020

 

Trump tweeted again, saying, “ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!” Twitter flagged his second tweet as “disputed and might be misleading.”

 

ANY VOTE THAT CAME IN AFTER ELECTION DAY WILL NOT BE COUNTED!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020

 

Trump’s tweets come as his own campaign team argues that the ongoing vote count in Arizona will prove to be a win for the president.

The president does not have the power to stop the legal vote counting process. Nevertheless, the Trump campaign has filed lawsuits to halt vote counting in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Shortly before Trump’s tweets, Biden took to Twitter himself to say, “Every vote must be counted.” Biden’s tweet included a video with no audio urging “count every vote.”

 

Every vote must be counted. pic.twitter.com/kWLGRfeePK

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 5, 2020

 

Nov 05, 9:28 am
Trump’s lead in Pennsylvania gets slimmer

The percentage of expected vote reporting in Pennsylvania has ticked up from 88% to 89%, while the amount of mail-in ballots counted has remained close to 71%.

Biden has continued to narrow his deficit with Trump from 186,755 votes to 164,414.

There are roughly 775,000 outstanding votes that have yet be counted in the Keystone State, including 717,412 mail-in ballots, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State.

Of the remaining 775,000 or so votes, Biden would need 469,707 — 60.6% — to Trump’s 305,293 to win Pennsylvania.

Nov 05, 9:14 am
50,000 ballots left to be counted in Georgia, secretary of state says

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV on Thursday morning that there are about 50,000 ballots left to be counted statewide and that it should be done no later than the afternoon.

Earlier, Raffensperger had said there were under 25,000 outstanding votes before updating that figure to 50,000.

Trump currently has 49.6% of the vote in Georgia, while Biden has 49.2%.

The outstanding votes include mail-in ballots from population-dense counties in the Atlanta metro region, which lean Democratic. Biden is outperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing in those counties, including in the more upscale suburban reaches.

A Democratic presidential candidate has not won the battleground state since 1992.

Nov 05, 9:01 am
Michigan’s secretary of state calls Trump lawsuit ‘meritless, frivolous’

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said a lawsuit from the Trump campaign aiming to temporarily halt vote counting is “meritless, frivolous.”

“I see this as a meritless, frivolous lawsuit that’s just an attempt to sow seeds of doubt in our election process, which is quite secure, quite accessible,” Benson ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Thursday on Good Morning America.

“As an election law attorney for the better part of two decades and former dean of a law school, I’m very familiar with how to ensure our procedures comply with the law,” she added. “We’ve worked hard to make sure every single vote counts.”

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Michigan state court, demands vote counting to stop until courts can enforce rules that permit campaign observers to watch the ballots being opened and counted. The Trump campaign has not produced any evidence of cheating but has alleged that poll watchers were being denied close-up access to observe vote counting at locations in Detroit.

Benson said counting is now finished in her state and the results will be released soon.

“So right now, we are in a position where the unofficial tabulation in Michigan is complete, the final touches are being made before it is uploaded and put on our website,” she said.

With 99% of the expected vote reporting in Michigan, Biden currently leads with 51% of the vote while Trump has 48%.

“The results you’re seeing out of Michigan now are quite near complete, if not fully complete,” Benson said. “I don’t expect any major changes in any of the totals.”

Nov 05, 8:38 am
‘We have to allow democracy to work,’ Klobuchar says

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said the American people shouldn’t be concerned that some states are still counting ballots.

“These states that are late counting, we expected this. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, they don’t start counting until the day of the election,” Klobuchar told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Thursday on Good Morning America.

“We have to allow democracy to work,” she added.

As the election continues to unfold and it appears Democrats will keep control of the House of Representatives while Republicans will hold the Senate, Klobuchar said she has already reached out to a number of GOP senators in an effort to help bridge the “big divide” in the country.

“There’s already talk about can we get pandemic relief package done immediately when we go back. I think those are the kinds of things we should be working on to give Americans faith that people can work together,” she said. “It wasn’t an easy election for anyone. But the fact that a record number of Americans have voted, it just shows you that, to me, people want change, people are focused and they expect a government that works for them as hard as they work every day.”

Nov 05, 8:04 am
Arizona’s secretary of state doesn’t anticipate a recount

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said she doesn’t expect there to be a recount in her state.

“Our recount margins are very narrow,” Hobbs told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Thursday on Good Morning America. “So I don’t think we’re going to get to that territory.”

A recount in Arizona is automatically triggered if the margin is within 0.1% of the total number of votes. A recount also is triggered, according to state statutes, if the margin is 200 votes or fewer and the total is more than 25,000, or if the margin is 50 votes or fewer and the total doesn’t exceed 25,000.

There is no set deadline for the completion of an automatic recount. Recounts may not be requested.

Hobbs said there are just under 350,000 votes left to be counted across Arizona, including 300,000 in Maricopa County, which accounts for nearly two-thirds of the state’s registered voters.

“We have said from the beginning that this takes time, and we’re going to focus on making sure every valid vote counts,” she said. “It’s not looking like today, probably closer to tomorrow that we’ll be closer to getting through all those ballots.”

With 86% of the expected vote reporting in the Grand Canyon State, Biden is leading there by 50% with 1,469,341 votes compared to Trump’s 48% with 1,400,951 votes.

As the Trump campaign files lawsuits to stop vote counting in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, Hobbs said she doesn’t see any “legal path” for them to bring a challenge in Arizona.

“There’s nothing wrong with continuing to count ballots after Election Day. We’ve never finished counting ballots after Election Day,” she said. “I’m not really sure what they would challenge legally.”

Nov 05, 7:27 am
Under 25,000 ballots left to be counted in Georgia, secretary of state says

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV on Thursday morning that there are now less than 25,000 ballots left to be counted statewide and that it should be done no later than the afternoon.

Trump currently has 49.6% of the vote in Georgia, while Biden has 49.2%.

The outstanding votes include mail-in ballots from population-dense counties in the Atlanta metro region, which lean Democratic. Biden is outperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 showing in those counties, including in the more upscale suburban reaches.

A Democratic presidential candidate has not won the battleground state since 1992.

Nov 05, 6:25 am
Trump’s lead in Georgia shrinks to just 18,540 votes

The margin between Trump and Biden in Georgia shrunk even more Thursday morning as thousands of additional votes were counted in Fulton County, the state’s most populous county, which continues to process and tabulate ballots.

Trump now holds onto his lead in Georgia by just 18,540 votes. He has 49.6% of the vote — 2,431,724 — while Biden has 49.2% — 2,413,184.

There are about 7,500 votes left to be counted in Fulton County. It’s unclear how many remain outstanding statewide.

Military votes and overseas ballots must be received by Friday to be counted in Georgia’s race, while provisional ballots must also be processed by Friday.

There are no mandatory or automatic recounts in the Peach State. A candidate may request a recount if they lose by less than 0.5% of total votes cast in the race. The deadline to request a recount is two business days after statewide election results are certified.

Nov 05, 5:50 am
Trump’s lead in Georgia shrinks to just 23,009 votes

The margin between Trump and Biden in Georgia shrunk even more Thursday morning as some 10,000 additional votes were counted in Fulton County, the state’s most populous county, which continues to process and tabulate ballots.

Trump now holds onto his lead in Georgia by just 23,009 votes. He has 49.6% of the vote — 2,429,783 — while Biden has 49.1% — 2,406,774.

There are about 7,500 votes left to be counted in Fulton County. It’s unclear how many remain outstanding statewide.

Military votes and overseas ballots must be received by Friday to be counted in Georgia’s race, while provisional ballots must also be processed by Friday.

There are no mandatory or automatic recounts in the Peach State. A candidate may request a recount if they lose by less than 0.5% of total votes cast in the race. The deadline to request a recount is two business days after statewide election results are certified.

Nov 05, 3:39 am
Biden continues to hold lead in Arizona’s Maricopa County

Election officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County said early Thursday morning that they have an estimated 275,000 more ballots to process and tabulate.

With 86% of the expected vote reporting, Biden continues to lead in Maricopa County — 51.4% to Trump’s 47.2%. The county is Arizona’s most populous and the fourth-most populous in the United States. The county seat is Phoenix, the capital of Arizona and one of the largest cities in the country by population.

Biden also holds an edge over Trump statewide, with 1,469,341 votes against Trump’s 1,400,951 — 50.5% to 48.1%. About 86% of the expected absentee vote and 86% of the expected vote overall are in.

In the Senate race, Democratic challenger Mark Kelly still leads incumbent Republican Sen. Martha McSally 52% to 48%. Kelly is currently outpacing Biden’s vote statewide at 1,504,460 votes.

Nov 04, 11:30 pm
Eight arrested, riot declared in Portland protests; over 20 arrested in New York City

Protests over the election turned violent in multiple cities across the country Wednesday night.

In Portland, Oregon, a riot was declared and the National Guard was activated due to violence downtown. At least eight people have been arrested, according to the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.

In New York City, skirmishes broke out between police and protesters in Greenwich Village. The New York City Police Department said more than 20 people were arrested in the violence.

“We appreciate and value the importance of freedom of speech. Our top priority is and always will be safety,” the department said in a tweet. “We have arrested more than 20 individuals who attempted to hijack a peaceful protest by lighting fires, throwing garbage and eggs in Manhattan.”

Protesters across the country called for officials to count every vote as President Donald Trump baselessly claimed current vote counts were fraudulent and filed lawsuits in several states to challenge vote totals.

Nov 04, 11:16 pm
Final results in North Carolina not expected until next week

Final results from North Carolina are not expected to come in until next week, ABC News correspondent Janai Norman reported. Currently, Donald Trump is leading in the state with about 76,000 more votes than Biden with 117,000 absentee ballots outstanding.

“If you’re Joe Biden that’s not a whole lot to be excited about,” Norman said. “He did what he was expected to do in those heavily urban areas — Raleigh, Durham, here in Charlotte — but he wasn’t able to really run up this or the suburbs.”

“This isn’t even a case of seeing a slow trickle, and those numbers fluctuating, going up in the next few days,” she added. “They’ll remain pretty steady until the 12th [of November] at the earliest, 13th at the latest.”

Nov 04, 11:13 pm
Michigan secretary of state rebuffs Trump claims of not enough transparency

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said that the Trump campaign’s claim there is not enough transparency in the ballot counting process “doesn’t really line up with the facts.”

“In our experience here in the state where we actually have bipartisan poll watchers, a number of other people, a lot of people with eyes on the process,” she said.

“We always knew we’d be here from when the polls closed as we went through that tabulation, there would be a lot of efforts to undermine people’s perceptions about the integrity of our process,” Benson added. “But we’ve always had a lot of faith in the truth underneath our work.”

Nov 04, 11:07 pm
Biden closing in on Trump in Pennsylvania

The percentage of expected vote in Pennsylvania has ticked up from 84% to 88%, the percent of mail-in ballots counted has increased from nearly 59% to nearly 71%, and Joe Biden has decreased his deficit with Donald Trump from 320,000 votes to 186,755.

There are roughly 850,000 total outstanding ballots. Of those, 763,311 are mail-in ballots and registered Democrats returned mail-in-ballots by a 3-to-1 margin compared to registered Republicans. Additionally, several of the most-Democratic counties in the state continue to be where the largest number of outstanding votes are located, including Philadelphia and Allegheny counties — home to the state’s two largest cities — both pivotal to Biden’s catch-up effort.

Nov 04, 10:59 pm
Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar says counting ‘ahead of schedule’

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos they are “ahead of schedule” and the state has under one million ballots left to count.

“We’re actually ahead of schedule of where I thought we’d be,” she said. “So I’ve been saying that I thought the overwhelming majority of ballots would be counted by Friday. I now believe that the overwhelming majority of ballots will be counted by tomorrow.”

Boockvar also said that she thought legal action from Trump would not make a difference in the election results.

“What we care about here is making sure that every qualified voter — that their vote counts, that their voices get heard and we want to make sure no voter is disenfranchised when they’re a qualified voter,” she said. “So we’re going to count every vote and, hey, that’s what makes our democracy great.”

Nov 04, 10:45 pm
Macomb County GOP called for supporters to visit vote processing center before skirmish

Before the chaotic protests at a processing facility in Detroit, where poll workers were tallying votes, the Macomb County GOP encouraged supporters on Wednesday morning to stop by the TCF Center in Detroit, urging “all hands on deck!”

“Trained Poll Challengers and or Volunteers willing to be trained needed immediately at TCF Center (Cobo Hall),” the email, which was obtained by ABC News, reads.

The email makes the baseless claim that “questionable” ballots came in at 3 a.m. Wednesday.

ABC News reached out to the Macomb County Republican Party, but has not heard back.

Nov 04, 10:31 pm
Outstanding vote in Ga. from Democrat-leaning counties

According to a Georgia elections official, all of the outstanding vote in Georgia is from Democrat-leaning counties and Biden needs to win 64% of it to overtake Trump.

Right now, Trump has 2,426,104 votes and Biden 2,392,804 votes.

According to a press release from Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, as of 10:15 p.m., there are approximately 90,735 ballots still outstanding.

Trump is currently up by 33,300 votes.

Nov 04, 10:01 pm
Trump appears to make up some ground in Arizona

Biden still leads statewide, but in Maricopa County, Arizona, his margin is smaller.

At 9 p.m., Biden was leading Trump 51% – 48% statewide with 1,444,213 votes to the president’s 1,365,040. So far, 86% of the expected absentee vote was in, with 86% overall expected vote in as well.

Arizona’s most populous county had about 400,000 votes to process and their most updated release indicated 338,000 are remaining. County officials said they’re expecting to release more information at 12:30 a.m. ET/ 10:30 p.m. MT.

In the Senate race, Democrat Mark Kelly still led Sen. Martha McSally 52%-48%. This has narrowed since an earlier update where he led 53%-47%. ABC News has not made a projection this race.

Nov 04, 9:08 pm
Trump campaign files second suit in Pa.

The Trump campaign has filed a second lawsuit in Pennsylvania.

This suit, filed in state court and naming Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar and all 67 counties in Pennsylvania, alleges that Boockvar illegally extended a deadline for mail-in voters to supply any missing identification requirements from Nov. 9 to Nov. 12.

The suit says Boockvar acted unilaterally and illegally in doing so and that the voter ID deadline must be rolled back to Nov. 9.

If voters with missing proof of identification information were not to provide that information to be processed by Nov. 9, then the ballot could be thrown out.

-ABC News’ Matthew Mosk, Benjamin Siegel and Alex Hosenball

Nov 04, 8:54 pm
‘We’re as divided as we were since 1860’: Matthew Dowd

ABC News Chief Political Analyst Matthew Dowd said that he thinks Americans are as divided now as they were in the lead up to the Civil War.

“Well to me we’re as divided as we were since 1860. I think that’s where we are,” he told ABC News Live Prime Anchor Linsey Davis. “As a country, because of how we people have lined up and where they are in this country and the level of frustration and anger in some instances and distrust to each side, that we’re as divided as we’ve been in 160 years.”

Dowd added that he thought Democrats should be concerned about the results of this election.

“They’re losing in places they used to win, they’re not winning by as big margins as they used to do in blue areas,” he said. “This is a divided country. They may end up winning the presidency in this instance and keeping the House, but this thing is on a razor edge in who’s got the lead in the country today and it’s exceedingly close in every election.”

Nov 04, 8:22 pm
Peters projected to keep his Senate seat in Michigan

Democratic Michigan Sen. Gary Peters will win his Michigan Senate race, ABC News projects.

Peters has held the seat since 2014.

Peters defeated John James, a former Apache combat helicopter pilot in Iraq, who previously ran for the Senate in 2018. During the campaign Peters touted his accomplishments for Michigan and tied James to Trump, while James sought to portray Peters as too liberal for the Rust Belt state.

Nov 04, 8:16 pm
Democrat in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District race concedes

Attorney Hillary Scholten, the Democrat running in Michigan’s 3rd Congressional District to replace retiring Rep. Justin Amash, conceded to Republican candidate Peter Meijer Wednesday.

“We may not have won tonight, but this isn’t the end of our fight for a better and bright West Michigan for all,” Scholten said in a statement.

Meijer tweeted that he spoke with Scholten and congratulated her on running a “strong and focused campaign.”

“We may differ in approach, but we share common ground in wanting to see West Michigan thrive,” he tweeted.

Amash left the Republican Party last year. He also considered running for the Libertarian Party’s presidential nomination, but decided against it and ultimately chose to retire from Congress after finishing his current term.

Nov 04, 7:56 pm
At least 600,000 ballots in Arizona’s most populous county not yet counted

At least 600,000 ballots in Maricopa County, Arizona, are still outstanding, ABC’s “Good Morning America” weekend co-anchor Whit Johnson said.

These ballots are absentee ballots that voters brought to the polls in person on Election Day or the weekend before, he said on ABC News Live Prime.

“We’re looking at 600,000, maybe even more outstanding ballots here in the state of Arizona which could potentially swing things,” he said. “We have seen Donald Trump getting closer and closer, inching and narrowing that lead that is currently possessed by Joe Biden, but right now the Democrats are confident. They’re hanging on.”

ABC News has not projected a winner in Arizona.

Nov 04, 7:45 pm
Trump campaign files 3rd lawsuit

The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia Wednesday night — its third of the day.

This suit, filed in Chatham County, home to Savannah, alongside the Georgia Republican Party, is seeking to order the county to compile, store and account for all ballots received after 7 p.m. on Election Day, the receipt deadline.

The suit alleges that the county may be mishandling ballots, and therefore inadvertently mixing up ballots that arrived on time with ones that arrived late.

This suit is based on a single allegation from an out-of-state Republican poll observer that involves less than 60 ballots.

-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin

Nov 04, 7:39 pm
Protesters in several cities call for counting every vote

Protesters have gathered in cities across the country including New York, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., Wednesday night to call for counting all of the votes cast in this election.

Nov 04, 7:26 pm
Nevada not expecting new results Wednesday

A spokesperson for the Nevada secretary of state told ABC News that there are no new results expected to be released for the state Wednesday night.

Results expected Thursday morning will likely paint a more complete picture of the standings in the Silver State, which has Biden up by about 8,000 votes with 86% of the expected count in.

Nevada’s largest county does not expect to have information on how many mail-in ballots have yet to be counted there, Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria said at a press conference Wednesday afternoon, but the sought-after tally will likely bring good news for Biden where in-person turnout in was strong among Republicans and mail-in vote counts have been stronger for Democrats.

-ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Meg Cunningham

Nov 04, 7:08 pm
Pa. governor says he’ll ‘fight like hell’ to continue counting votes

After the Trump campaign filed a petition with the Supreme Court to halt the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf held a news conference to respond, saying they will continue to count ballots in the state.

“This afternoon, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit to stop the counting of ballots in Pennsylvania. That is simply wrong,” Wolf said. “These attempts to subvert the democratic process are simply disgraceful.”

Wolf, a Democrat who has faced heavy criticism from Trump, went on to say, “I’m going to fight like hell to protect the vote of every Pennsylvanian.”

While the Trump campaign argues in the Supreme Court filing it wasn’t given “meaningful access … to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process,” Wolf argued the state election process has “never been more transparent than it is right now.”

A commonwealth court scheduled an initial hearing for the filing for 7 p.m.

ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl said Trump’s strategy “seems to be to basically create doubt about the integrity of the election itself, which seems to be reflection that he believes that if all the counting goes on to conclusion, he will not emerge in the lead.”

Nov 04, 6:34 pm
Biden team launches transition website

While the Biden campaign has been careful not to officially declare victory, it is projecting confidence and moving ahead with transition plans, launching buildbackbetter.com — the official Biden transition website.

“The American people will determine who will serve as the next President of the United States,” the site says. “Votes are still being counted in several states around the country. The crises facing the country are severe — from a pandemic to an economic recession, climate change to racial injustice — and the transition team will continue preparing at full speed so that the Biden‑Harris Administration can hit the ground running on Day One.”

The statement is all that currently exists on the website but illustrates how the campaign has been quietly working on transition plans behind the scenes, even as the race remains undecided.

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle

Nov 04, 6:19 pm
US seized 27 domain names Iran allegedly used in global influence campaign

The Justice Department announced Wednesday that on Election Day it successfully seized 27 domain names it said were used by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in an unlawful global covert influence campaign.

“Today’s 27 seizures are another important step against Iran’s worldwide disinformation campaign,” U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California David Anderson said in a statement. “This work will continue.  We cannot allow Iran’s attachment to fake news to overtake our commitment to the rule of law.”

According to the Justice Department, four domains purported to be news outlets targeting audiences in the U.S. to influence policy and public opinion. Others were used to target audiences around the globe.

-ABC News’ Alexander Mallin

Nov 04, 5:45 pm
Top House Republicans hope to maintain leadership ranks

While there are already rumblings that some Democrats might not be pleased reelecting Nancy Pelosi as House speaker in the 117th Congress, Republicans seem satisfied with the status quo atop their ranks.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy informed the conference earlier Wednesday that he’s seeking his party’s top post in the House — remaining as House minority leader. McCarthy has been in the House GOP’s top leadership ranks since the tea party wave of 2010 put them in the majority for the 112th Congress.

His No. 2, House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, the Republican most likely to succeed McCarthy atop the GOP conference, has sent a letter to Republicans announcing his intent to seek reelection for the post — signaling there won’t be a dramatic challenge between the two veteran lawmakers.

Each party will elect their leadership teams later this month.

-ABC News’ John Parkinson

Nov 04, 5:44 pm
Trump files suits in Michigan, Pennsylvania

Trump’s legal team announced lawsuits in Pennsylvania and Michigan to halt vote counting until courts can enforce rules that permit campaign observers to watch the ballots being opened and counted.

“They’re not letting our poll watchers watch the polls, not letting them inside,” Eric Trump said at a news conference. “They’re trying to cheat.”

The legal action would not impact the vote tallies in either state, where elections officials are still counting ballots.

Myrna Perez, the director of the Brennan Center’s Voting Rights and Elections Program, called the suit a “nuisance” saying it is “designed to distract Americans from the counting process.”

“The courts are unlikely to take this seriously,” Perez said.

The Biden campaign slammed the lawsuits as “pathetic” and “fruitless attempts.”
 
-ABC News’ Olivia Rubin, Alex Hosenball, Benjamin Siegel and Matthew Mosk

Nov 04, 4:39 pm
Biden projected to win Michigan

ABC News projects Biden will win Michigan.

Nov 04, 4:34 pm
Trump asks to join pending Pa. GOP’s Supreme Court petition on mail-ballot deadline

Lawyers for Trump have filed with the Supreme Court seeking to join a pending lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania GOP seeking to challenge a three-day mail ballot deadline extension.

The U.S. Supreme Court has previously rejected the Pennsylvania Republicans’ requests to block the extension, but four justices last month did signal openness to potentially take up the case on the merits after Tuesday.

That cert petition has been pending and is not on any timeline for a decision. By adding himself as a party, Trump seems to be attempting to boost the chances the Court will take it up.

“Given last night’s results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States. And this Court, not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should have the final say on the relevant and dispositive legal questions,” the president’s counsels wrote in their filing.

The controversy stems from a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision, which initially granted the extension. Republicans have said the matter of counting votes should be left to the state legislature not the state’s highest court.

It remains unclear if the Supreme Court will take up the matter. It’s also unclear whether the justices’ involvement would have any impact on the outcome in Pennsylvania.

The universe of votes arriving Wednesday, Thursday and Friday is not yet known, nor is the ultimate margin of votes between Biden and Trump in Pennsylvania and whether those late-arriving ballots would sway the results one way or the other.

-ABC News’ John Santucci, Benjamin Siegel and Devin Dwyer

Nov 04, 3:40 pm
Trump’s lead tightens in Georgia

With 93% of the expected vote reporting in Georgia, Trump’s margin has tightened slightly. Trump is now leading by 79,509 votes — the president has 2,391,871 votes (50%) and Joe Biden has 2,312,362 votes (49%).

Earlier, Trump was leading by about 103,00 votes.

In Fulton County — Georgia’s most populous county — there are about 67,000 to 68,000 votes that still need to be reported, according to the county Director of Registration and Elections Rick Barron.

The outstanding votes are made up of about 25,000 that have already been scanned and are going through an adjudication process. Another roughly 42,000 absentee ballots need to be processed, scanned and adjudicated.

Barron estimated that the votes will be finished between 9 p.m. and midnight.

There are no mandatory recounts in Georgia. The losing candidate must have lost by less than 0.5% of the total votes cast in the race in order to request a recount, according to the secretary of state’s office.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 04, 3:40 pm
Michigan attorney general responds to Trump campaign’s suit

The Michigan attorney general’s office responded to the Trump campaign saying earlier today it had filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt ballot counting, claiming it had not been provided “access to numerous counting locations.”

The office said it has not been notified about the suit yet in court but that the election process is transparent.

“Michigan’s elections have been 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,” Ryan Jarvi, a spokesperson for Attorney General Dana Nessel, said in a statement.

“Michigan will always continue to protect the rights of all voters to have their ballots counted,” Jarvi added.

-ABC News Kendall Karson

Nov 04, 3:20 pm
Lansing, Michigan, finishes ballot count

Lansing, the capital city in Michigan, is done counting ballots, the city clerk’s office told ABC News.

With 99% of the expected vote reporting in the county, Biden has won 65% compared to Trump’s 33%.

Lansing sits in Ingham County, which Hillary Clinton won by roughly 35,000 votes in 2016. Biden’s margin is over 46,000 votes.

-ABC News’ Kendall Karson

Nov 04, 2:51 pm
Trump projected to win 1 out of 4 electoral votes in Maine

ABC News now projects that Biden will win three out of Maine’s four electoral votes, raising his Electoral College standing to 227 votes. Trump is projected to win Maine’s final vote, bringing his count to 214.

A candidate needs 270 in order to win the presidency.

Nov 04, 2:49 pm
Biden characterized as apparent winner of Wisconsin

With 100% of precincts reporting, ABC News reports that Biden has a lead of about a half a percentage point over Trump in Wisconsin. Because the vote is very close and has not yet been certified, ABC News is not projecting a winner, but is characterizing Biden as the apparent winner.

Nov 04, 2:28 pm
Trump campaign announces suit in Michigan to halt counting

The Trump campaign announced that it filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Claims to halt ballot counting.

Trump 2020 campaign manager Bill Stepien said that the “campaign has not been provided with meaningful access to numerous counting locations to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process, as guaranteed by Michigan law.”

They are also demanding a review of ballots that were opened and counted because of their claim that they did not have meaningful access.

The announcement comes after Stepien said earlier in a press call that they were confident in a pathway to victory that includes Michigan, but that Republican counties still need to be counted.

-ABC News’ Terrance Smith

Nov 04, 2:17 pm
Trump falsely accuses Michigan of having ‘found the ballots’ to hurt John James

In a tweet Wednesday afternoon, the president baselessly accused Michigan of having “found the ballots” to keep Republican candidate John James from winning a Senate seat.

His tweet marks another false accusation from the president in an attempt to delegitimize ballots that still need to be counted. The state is still counting ballots and most are outstanding from Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo.

-ABC News’ Justin Gomez

Nov 04, 2:15 pm
Trump campaign promises recount in Wisconsin

The Trump campaign will request a recount in “razor thin” Wisconsin, campaign manager Bill Stepien said.

Without providing evidence, Stepien claimed “there have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.”

In Wisconsin, you can request a recount if you’re within one percentage point in Wisconsin. Right now, the margin is .7% — about 20,000 votes.

At this time Biden is leading Trump by nearly 21,000 votes in Wisconsin.

A recount is unlikely to yield major changes.

Scott Walker, a former Republican Wisconsin governor and Trump ally, tweeted that he thinks 20,000 votes is a “high hurdle” for the president to overcome. “After recount in 2011 race for WI Supreme Court, there was a swing of 300 votes. After recount in 2016 Presidential race in WI, (Trump’s) numbers went up by 131,” he tweeted.

-ABC News’ Political Director Rick Klein, Benjamin Siegel and Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer

Nov 04, 2:02 pm
Biden campaign manager sends fundraising email for new ‘fight fund’

Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillion launched a new “fight fund” in a fundraising email following Trump’s remarks on election night.

“The President threatened to go to court to prevent the proper tabulation of votes. We are standing up the biggest and most comprehensive legal effort ever assembled. This work could stretch on for weeks, so I am coming to you to ask you to pitch $25 in to the newly-formed Biden Fight Fund,” she wrote.“The Biden Fight Fund will fund election protection efforts for Joe Biden and Democrats up and down the ballot. If he makes good on this threat, our legal team is standing by. And they will prevail.”

-ABC News’ Molly Nagle

Nov 04, 2:02 pm
Trump campaign hosting press conference in Philadelphia at 3:30 pm ET

In the battleground state of Pennsylvania where votes are still being counted, the Trump campaign will host a press conference in Philadelphia at 3:30 p.m. ET.

Attending the press conference will be Eric Trump, his wife Lara Trump, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi and senior campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski.

-ABC News’ Terrance Smith

Nov 04, 1:47 pm
Trump’s top campaign advisers plotting path forward: Sources

Sources tell ABC News that Trump’s top campaign advisers are huddled at the campaign offices outside of Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon plotting a path forward. Among the campaign advisers there are White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner.

Sources say the teams have spent the day in meetings and conducting calls with staff.

As of now, it is unclear if Trump will make any public appearance Wednesday.

-ABC News’ John Satucci and Katherine Faulders

Nov 04, 1:47 pm
DHS officials urge patience, vigilance during vote counting

As the count continues across the country, top Department of Homeland Security officials are urging patience and vigilance.

Chris Krebs, the Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency (CISA) tweeted a photo of his socks with the #TrustedInfo2020.

“Patience is the name of the game and look to your state and local election officials for updates,” he said.

Tuesday night, a senior CISA official said that the environment is ripe for foreign actors to spread disinformation and urged Americans to be on the lookout. The FBI and DHS issued guidance in September.

-ABC News’ Luke Barr

Nov 04, 1:46 pm
Sharpies safe to use on ballots: Arizona secretary of state

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs appeared on a local Fox new station Wednesday to debunk concerns that ballots were being invalidated because permanent markers, such as Sharpies, were used to fill them out.

Her response came after Matt Schlapp tweeted that voters in GOP precincts were given Sharpies at the polling place, causing ballots to be invalidated.

Hobbs assured that those ballots filled out with Sharpies at the polls “are being counted.”

“I can assure voters that nobody in a polling place — a trained employed polling place worker — is not going to give you a pen to mark your ballot that is going to invalidate your ballot. They knew what they were doing and those ballots are being counted,” Hobbs said.

Hobbs also said that people who filled out their ballots at home using a Sharpie can also feel confident their vote will count.

“We have ways to address ballots that have stray marks or things that are going to interfere with the tabulator being able to read them,” Hobbs said. “There are adjudication boards that are looking at some of these ballots right now to determine the intent of the voter and make sure that their votes are able to be counted.”

Additionally, the Maricopa County Elections Department posted a video to Twitter Tuesday clarifying to voters that the use of Sharpies was approved in the county.

According to the video, “Sharpies are safe to use.”

Bleed-through from a Sharpie is not an issue because the columns on the ballot are offset from one another, the video explains.

“It’s the fastest drying ink and works best on the tabulation equipment,” the video says.

-ABC News’ Allison Pecorin

Nov 04, 1:37 pm
Susan Collins wins Senate race in Maine

Following a tight Senate race, Sara Gideon, a Democrat and speaker of the Maine House, has conceded to longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

Gideon said Wednesday that she spoke with Collins and congratulated her.

“I told her that I will always be available to help serve the people with me,” Gideon said.

“Regardless of the result, together, we built a movement that will help us make progress for years to come,” she added.

At an outdoor COVID-19 compliant party Tuesday night, Collins touted her history of never missing a vote in the Senate, more than 7,400 votes over 24 years.

Nov 04, 1:27 pm
Twitter slaps a ‘disputed’ label on Trump’s tweet about unfounded tweet claiming ‘surprise ballot dumps’

Twitter hit one of Trump’s morning tweets with a label saying the content is “disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process.”

In a tweet posted just after 10 a.m. ET, the president claimed that “surprise ballot dumps” are stealing the election away from him.

“Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled,” he wrote. “Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the ‘pollsters’ got it completely & historically wrong!”

 

Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the “pollsters” got it completely & historically wrong!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020

 

In a follow-up tweet Wednesday morning, the president doubled down on his misleading claims about mail-in ballots, writing: “How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?”

The president has repeatedly attacked mail-in ballots throughout the campaign.

This late blue wave is not surprising because early voting and mail-in ballots were expected to be heavily Democratic.

Nov 04, 1:24 pm
McConnell says ‘you should not be shocked if both sides’ have lawyers

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he thinks President Trump “ran a heck of a race.”

“Everybody was writing him off,” McConnell said. “He went out and really worked himself to death for the last two months with multiple rallies every day and turned it into a cliffhanger against everybody’s expectation.”

Asked about the president falsely declaring victory, McConnell said, “It’s not unusual for people to claim they’ve won the election, I can think of that happening on numerous occasions, but claiming you’ve won the election is different from finishing the counting.”

“What we’re going to see here in the next few days both in the Senate races and in the presidential race is each state will get to a final outcome and you should not be shocked if both sides are going to have lawyers there, both in these close Senate races and in the presidential contest,” he said.

McConnell also changed his timeline on COVID-19 relief, saying he believes the Senate needs to do a relief package “before the end of the year.” That’s a departure from comments he made just before Election Day that relief ought to be taken up “right at the beginning” of next year.

-ABC News’ Allie Pecorin

Nov 04, 12:42 pm
Biden officially wins most votes for any presidential candidate

Former Vice President Joe Biden has 69,543,071 votes tallied for him so far, breaking a record of most votes for any presidential candidate.

In 2008, then-candidate Barack Obama made history by winning 69,498,516 total votes, according to the FEC — the most of any presidential candidate in history at that time.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 04, 12:38 pm
Georgia Sec. of State says ‘every legal vote will be counted’

Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that “every legal vote in Georgia will count” during a news conference Wednesday morning.

Raffensperger said that his office has instructed the counties to finish tabulating results for this election today.

“My team has sent reminders to counties to get all — let me repeat all — of our results counted today,” he said. “Every legal vote will count.”
 
He added that the state has about 200,000 ballots that are left to be counted.

Of those ballots left to be counted, Georgia officials said they do not know how many of them are coming from Fulton County, but a breakdown should be coming this afternoon.

-ABC News’ Quinn Scanlan

Nov 04, 12:18 pm
Biden projected to win Maine

ABC News projects Biden will win three electoral votes in Maine. There is one electoral vote remaining in Maine.

A candidate needs 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Nov 04, 12:01 pm
Michigan may have ‘unofficial result’ Wednesday

In Michigan, there are “tens of thousands of ballots that still need to be counted,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Wednesday.

“Ballots are still being counted in our largest jurisdictions including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Kalamazoo, and numerous other Michigan cities and townships,” she said.

“I’m optimistic that by the end of the day, the majority of our ballots will be tabulated and we’ll be much closer to having a full, if not a full and complete, unofficial result to announce,” Benson said.

In Michigan, the voting tabulation staff is made up of 600 people — 300 Democrats and 300 Republicans — who work in bipartisan pairs to open the envelopes, verify names and ballot numbers, tally votes and scan ballots into the system, according to the Michigan Secretary of State’s office.

“Boards at the county and state level that are also comprised of people from both parties will then review the procedures and counts of the entire election before the results are certified as official,” Benson said.

“Every single valid ballot in Michigan will be counted,” Benson stressed.

Nov 04, 11:46 am
Trump campaign baselessly claims he won ‘if all legally cast ballots are counted’

The Trump campaign on a press call Wednesday argued both that if all “legal ballots” are counted the president wins — despite not providing any evidence that there have been any illegally cast ballots — while also projecting confidence that the remaining vote count in a number of states will swing to the president.

“If all legally cast ballots are counted, the President would win,” Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien claimed.

The campaign did not provide any evidence throughout the call, or even attempt to explain, what basis they had for claiming ballots might be illegally cast and took no questions.

The Trump team hinted at a legal fight; Stepien said Wisconsin is within 1% and in “recount territory.”

Trump campaign senior adviser Jason Miller said he believes Nevada is “still in play,” banking on mail-ballots. Without providing evidence, Miller also said Nevada is a place that is “rife with corruption,” setting the stage for a battle and argument if Trump does not win.

In Arizona, Stepien claimed the final batch of votes being counted will bring more votes to the president.

And in Pennsylvania, where Stepien acknowledged that there are still over 1 million ballots to be counted, he added that he’s confident Trump will hold his lead.

Miller said they believe that Trump is going to continue to over-perform with Black and Latino voters there as well, contributing to Trump’s lead.

Stepien ended the call by saying, “honing in specifically on Pennsylvania and Arizona, if all legally cast ballots are counted, the president will win.”

-ABC News’ Will Steakin

Nov 04, 11:43 am
Biden’s campaign says it expects to win the election by this afternoon

Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said her team is “confident” that the former vice president will win the White House, based on the available data from states.

“Joe Biden is on track to win this election and he will be the next president of the United States,” O’Malley Dillon told a virtual press conference Wednesday morning. “So we believe we are on a clear path to victory. By the afternoon, we expect that the vice president will have leads in states that put him over 270 electoral votes.”

O’Malley Dillon said the campaign anticipates Biden to ultimately win the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin, which would bring his tally of Electoral College votes well past the 270 mark needed to secure the presidency.

She said Georgia remains “a toss-up,” but added that there are many outstanding ballots in Atlanta, an area that favors Biden. She said North Carolina is also a tight race and the campaign believes it’s currently leaning toward Trump.

“Last night, the president of the United States falsely claimed that he had won this race and then demanded that votes stop being counted,” she told reporters. “Let’s be extremely clear about something. If Donald Trump got his wish and we stopped counting ballots right now, Vice President Joe Biden would be the next president of the United States.”

ABC News projects Trump currently has the lead in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina, while Biden has a slight lead in Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin.

With 86% of expected vote reporting nationwide, ABC News projects Biden currently has 225 Electoral College votes while Trump has 213. ABC News has not yet projected wins for Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Nov 04, 11:25 am
Pennsylvania officials say they’re approaching 50% of mail-in ballots being counted

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf said at a news conference Wednesday morning that election officials “are still at work counting the votes” and added “we may not know the results even today.”

“But the most important thing is that we have accurate results, again, even if that takes a little longer than we’re used to,” he added. “I will do everything within my power to ensure that the results are fair and that every vote is counted.”

Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said the state is approaching 50% of the mail-in ballots being counted, but added “there’s still millions of ballots left to be counted.”
 
Boockvar said the state had somewhere between 2.5 and 3 million mail-in ballots cast this year, or about 10 times the number of mail-in ballots than in the previous presidential election.

Nov 04, 9:21 am
Rubio counters Trump’s stance on vote counting

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., took to Twitter Wednesday morning to apparently contradict Trump’s stance on counting votes.

“The result of the presidential race will be known after every legally cast vote has been counted,” Rubio tweeted.

Rubio is the first Republican senator to publicly react to Trump falsely declaring victory in the presidential election and urging the national vote count to be halted.

Nov 04, 8:22 am
Georgia’s secretary of state expects counting to be done by end of day

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said vote counting in the Peach State will “definitely” be done by the end of the day.

“By midday, we should be pretty much through it. Probably by the end of the day, we’ll definitely have it done,” Raffensperger told ABC’s Good Morning America co-anchor Robin Roberts in an interview Wednesday.

“We had a successful election,” he added. “Over 4.8 million Georgians voted, which is also a record turnout for a presidential election.”

Once counting is done, Raffensperger said Georgia’s election officials will conduct the first statewide audit of paper ballots to help verify the results and “give voters that additional layer of confidence.”

“That’s very important,” he said.

There are 16 electoral votes up for grabs in Georgia, a key battleground state in the race to 270. With 92% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has a slight lead in Georgia with 50% while Biden has 48%.

Nov 04, 8:19 am
‘Way too early’ to call a winner in Pennsylvania, attorney general says

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said it’s still “way too early” to know which presidential candidate will win the 20 electoral votes up for grabs in the Keystone State.

“There’s still a lot of vote left,” Shapiro told ABC News chief anchor George Stephanopoulos in an interview Wednesday on Good Morning America.

“Counties are full steam ahead on counting every eligible vote,” he added.

With 75% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has the lead in Pennsylvania with 55% while Biden has 44%.

When asked about Trump falsely and prematurely declaring victory, claiming he will go to the Supreme Court to stop vote counting nationwide, Shapiro said, “It doesn’t work that way.”

“The president doesn’t count these votes. The clerks in our communities count these votes,” he said. “We’re not going to let anything interfere with that process.”

“The bottom line is we’re going to make sure here in Pennsylvania that we respect the will of the people,” he added. “We’re going to get an accurate count, it’s the law.”

Nov 04, 7:25 am
‘Hundreds of thousands of ballots’ still uncounted in Michigan

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said election officials in her state were counting ballots through the night and they’re not done yet.

“Hundreds of thousands of ballots in our largest jurisdictions are still being counted, including Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Warren & Sterling Heights,” Benson wrote on her official Twitter account Wednesday morning. “Every vote will count.”

Michigan is a key swing state in the race to 270 electoral votes. With 86% of expected vote reporting, ABC News projects Trump currently has a slim lead over Biden of less than 27,000 votes.

Nov 04, 6:39 am
Nevada says no more results till Thursday

Nevada’s elections division announced Wednesday morning that no more results will be released until Thursday at 9 a.m. PT (12 p.m. ET).

The division said in-person early votes, in-person Election Day votes and mail-in ballots through Nov. 2 have all been counted so far. That means mail-in ballots received on Election Day, any mail-in ballots that will be received over the next week and provisional ballots have not yet been counted.

All active registered voters in Nevada were mailed a ballot for the 2020 presidential election.

“Ballots outstanding is difficult to estimate in Nevada because every voter was sent a mail ballot,” Nevada’s elections division wrote on its official Twitter account. “Obviously, not all will vote.”

With 86% of the expected vote reporting in Nevada, ABC News projects Biden currently has a very narrow lead in the Silver State, by less than 8,000 votes.

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