<p>The presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden now depends on the outcomes of a handful of states, each with varying rules on counting votes and contesting results -- delaying the declaration of a winner.</p>.<p>Five states are extremely close and continue to count ballots -- Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. They haven’t been called by major media organizations, with the exception of Arizona, which was called for Biden by two outlets. Elsewhere, Wisconsin and Georgia are preparing for recounts, and Michigan is among several states subject to legal battles.</p>.<p><strong><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/2020-us-election-results-live-updates-presidential-biden-joe-donald-trump-results-counting-democratic-party-republican-president-senate-house-gop-protest-campaign-910667.html" target="_blank">Follow all the live updates on the US elections 2020 here</a></strong></p>.<p>Excluding those, Biden has 227 electoral votes of the 270 required for victory, with Trump at 217 including Alaska.</p>.<p>The following shows the state of play and potential outlook for these seven states, three days after voters flocked to the polls nationwide in a record turnout.</p>.<p><strong>Pennsylvania (20 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The state has yet to be called by networks and the Associated Press.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden led Trump by more than 12,000 votes at 12:50 p.m. Friday, after trailing the president since Election Day. About 124,000 mail-in ballots had yet to be counted. Biden has received about 77% of the mail-in votes so far, Department of State data show.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign claimed a small victory Thursday morning when a court ordered Philadelphia election officials to watch the counting of mail-in and absentee ballots from as close as six feet. The city filed a petition with Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court asking it to allow an appeal to overturn that order.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>State officials have projected they’d be finished counting the outstanding ballots by end of the day Friday. About 40,000 ballots remain in Philadelphia as of Friday, according to city officials. “We’re coming in the home stretch here,” Kathy Boockvar, secretary of the commonwealth said in a Thursday press conference.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>As expected, Pennsylvania has become a central focus of political -- and now legal -- warfare over the election outcome.</p>.<p><strong>Georgia (16 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden overtook Trump’s lead early Friday and was ahead by about 1,557 votes by 1:25 p.m. Friday, as counting continued. The state had had about 4,169 ballots uncounted at 10:30 a.m., with the largest number, about 3,500, in Gwinnett County in the Atlanta area, according to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The state also has up to 8,900 ballots from overseas military members and Americans abroad that it could receive by Friday evening.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that Chatham County is improperly counting absentee ballots that were received after the state’s deadline. A poll watcher claims that a poll worker was storing and counting ballots improperly.</p>.<p><strong>What’s Next:</strong></p>.<p>“With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,” Raffensperger said Friday morning.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>The margin in Georgia is the tightest of any state. If it shrinks as additional votes come in, a recount in this state could yield a different victor than the initial count.<br />Nevada (6 Votes)</p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden expanded his lead to over 20,000 votes, with hundreds of thousands of ballots remaining to be counted as of midday Friday, according to data from the secretary of state.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign announced a lawsuit to challenge the count in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas, on Thursday morning.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Clark County registrar of voters Joe Gloria said remaining results will be released in two batches a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, local time. Clark is home to Las Vegas and has about 63,000 votes still to be processed. Results will continue to be released over the weekend.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>With Biden leading and mail-in ballots expected to skew Democratic, prospects look promising for him. Yet with lots of ballots still to be counted, the timing of a final count remains uncertain.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/us-presidential-election-joe-biden-to-address-the-nation-912336.html" target="_blank">US presidential election: Joe Biden to address the nation</a></strong></p>.<p><strong>Arizona (11 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The Associated Press has called the race for Biden but not all networks have followed.</p>.<p>Where it stands:</p>.<p>Biden led Trump by roughly 44,000 votes as of Friday at 11:20 a.m. after the latest returns from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, trimmed his lead over Trump.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>Biden now leads in Arizona by 1.4 percentage points. Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller has called on the AP and Fox News to withdraw their calls for Biden. “This was erroneous. It was a mistake,” Miller said on Wednesday.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>The next results from Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, are expected at 7 p.m. local time. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said that by Friday evening much of the state’s outstanding ballots should be reported.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are expressing confidence they’ll win the battleground state.<br />North Carolina (15 Votes)</p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Trump led Biden by about 77,000 votes Friday midday, according to the AP. A number of absentee ballots and provisional ballots remain outstanding. Absentee ballots can be counted up to Nov. 12, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>No major lawsuits have yet been filed in North Carolina, but provisional ballots could be an area where tension erupts. The state had been planning to release numbers on provisional ballots midday Thursday. In 2016, less than half of the 61,000 provisional ballots cast were counted.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Counties have scheduled meetings for Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 to tally the results from their outstanding absentee and provisional ballots after they conduct audits and other procedural checks. Due to public notice requirements under state law, those meetings can’t be moved earlier. The state Board of Elections will provide a final and official count that will be certified at a Nov. 24 meeting.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>It could take a week to get final results, but Trump appears to be more likely to win the state.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/trump-s-supreme-court-comments-put-justice-barrett-in-a-bind-912322.html" target="_blank">Trump’s Supreme Court comments put Justice Barrett in a bind</a></strong></p>.<p><strong>Wisconsin (10 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The AP has called the race for Biden.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Election commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said Wednesday that ballot counting was complete. The state doesn’t provide an official count until one is certified on Dec. 1. Unofficial counts showed Biden with 20,538 more votes than Trump.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>Trump’s campaign plans to exercise its right to demand a recount, as the unofficial margin of 0.7 percentage point was within the 1% that allows for such a move. Campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement Wednesday that “there have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.” He also suggested that public polling showing Trump trailing had been used as a “voter suppression” tactic.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Election clerks are working through the steps in Wisconsin’s certification process, including an audit of voting equipment. If Trump’s campaign formally calls for a recount, it may take several days to process. In a recount of the 2016 presidential election, counties completed the process within 10 days.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>Overturning a lead of more than 20,000 votes is a “high hurdle,” said Scott Walker, a Republican former governor of Wisconsin.</p>.<p><strong>Michigan (16 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>AP called the race for Biden.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden won Michigan with 50.6% of the vote, compared with Trump’s 47.9% according to figures posted on the Michigan secretary of state website that showed 5.5 million votes had been tallied. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said late Wednesday that “all valid ballots, and only valid ballots, have been counted, securely and accurately.”</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>A state judge Thursday ruled against an effort by Trump’s campaign to halt the counting of absentee ballots until an election inspector from each party was present to observe the process, saying that the process has effectively ended.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>There’s still the possibility of a recount in Michigan, where the legal standard is easy for challengers to meet.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>If Biden’s lead gets certified, it would flip a state Trump won in 2016 into Biden’s column and bring him to the brink of victory.</p>
<p>The presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden now depends on the outcomes of a handful of states, each with varying rules on counting votes and contesting results -- delaying the declaration of a winner.</p>.<p>Five states are extremely close and continue to count ballots -- Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. They haven’t been called by major media organizations, with the exception of Arizona, which was called for Biden by two outlets. Elsewhere, Wisconsin and Georgia are preparing for recounts, and Michigan is among several states subject to legal battles.</p>.<p><strong><a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/2020-us-election-results-live-updates-presidential-biden-joe-donald-trump-results-counting-democratic-party-republican-president-senate-house-gop-protest-campaign-910667.html" target="_blank">Follow all the live updates on the US elections 2020 here</a></strong></p>.<p>Excluding those, Biden has 227 electoral votes of the 270 required for victory, with Trump at 217 including Alaska.</p>.<p>The following shows the state of play and potential outlook for these seven states, three days after voters flocked to the polls nationwide in a record turnout.</p>.<p><strong>Pennsylvania (20 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The state has yet to be called by networks and the Associated Press.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden led Trump by more than 12,000 votes at 12:50 p.m. Friday, after trailing the president since Election Day. About 124,000 mail-in ballots had yet to be counted. Biden has received about 77% of the mail-in votes so far, Department of State data show.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign claimed a small victory Thursday morning when a court ordered Philadelphia election officials to watch the counting of mail-in and absentee ballots from as close as six feet. The city filed a petition with Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court asking it to allow an appeal to overturn that order.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>State officials have projected they’d be finished counting the outstanding ballots by end of the day Friday. About 40,000 ballots remain in Philadelphia as of Friday, according to city officials. “We’re coming in the home stretch here,” Kathy Boockvar, secretary of the commonwealth said in a Thursday press conference.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>As expected, Pennsylvania has become a central focus of political -- and now legal -- warfare over the election outcome.</p>.<p><strong>Georgia (16 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden overtook Trump’s lead early Friday and was ahead by about 1,557 votes by 1:25 p.m. Friday, as counting continued. The state had had about 4,169 ballots uncounted at 10:30 a.m., with the largest number, about 3,500, in Gwinnett County in the Atlanta area, according to Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. The state also has up to 8,900 ballots from overseas military members and Americans abroad that it could receive by Friday evening.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that Chatham County is improperly counting absentee ballots that were received after the state’s deadline. A poll watcher claims that a poll worker was storing and counting ballots improperly.</p>.<p><strong>What’s Next:</strong></p>.<p>“With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,” Raffensperger said Friday morning.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>The margin in Georgia is the tightest of any state. If it shrinks as additional votes come in, a recount in this state could yield a different victor than the initial count.<br />Nevada (6 Votes)</p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden expanded his lead to over 20,000 votes, with hundreds of thousands of ballots remaining to be counted as of midday Friday, according to data from the secretary of state.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>The Trump campaign announced a lawsuit to challenge the count in Clark County, the home of Las Vegas, on Thursday morning.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Clark County registrar of voters Joe Gloria said remaining results will be released in two batches a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon, local time. Clark is home to Las Vegas and has about 63,000 votes still to be processed. Results will continue to be released over the weekend.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>With Biden leading and mail-in ballots expected to skew Democratic, prospects look promising for him. Yet with lots of ballots still to be counted, the timing of a final count remains uncertain.</p>.<p><strong>Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/international/world-news-politics/us-presidential-election-joe-biden-to-address-the-nation-912336.html" target="_blank">US presidential election: Joe Biden to address the nation</a></strong></p>.<p><strong>Arizona (11 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The Associated Press has called the race for Biden but not all networks have followed.</p>.<p>Where it stands:</p>.<p>Biden led Trump by roughly 44,000 votes as of Friday at 11:20 a.m. after the latest returns from Maricopa County, home to Phoenix, trimmed his lead over Trump.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>Biden now leads in Arizona by 1.4 percentage points. Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller has called on the AP and Fox News to withdraw their calls for Biden. “This was erroneous. It was a mistake,” Miller said on Wednesday.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>The next results from Maricopa, Arizona’s largest county, are expected at 7 p.m. local time. Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said that by Friday evening much of the state’s outstanding ballots should be reported.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are expressing confidence they’ll win the battleground state.<br />North Carolina (15 Votes)</p>.<p>The state has yet to be called.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Trump led Biden by about 77,000 votes Friday midday, according to the AP. A number of absentee ballots and provisional ballots remain outstanding. Absentee ballots can be counted up to Nov. 12, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>No major lawsuits have yet been filed in North Carolina, but provisional ballots could be an area where tension erupts. The state had been planning to release numbers on provisional ballots midday Thursday. In 2016, less than half of the 61,000 provisional ballots cast were counted.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Counties have scheduled meetings for Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 to tally the results from their outstanding absentee and provisional ballots after they conduct audits and other procedural checks. Due to public notice requirements under state law, those meetings can’t be moved earlier. The state Board of Elections will provide a final and official count that will be certified at a Nov. 24 meeting.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>It could take a week to get final results, but Trump appears to be more likely to win the state.</p>.<p><strong>Also Read | <a href="https://www.deccanherald.com/opinion/trump-s-supreme-court-comments-put-justice-barrett-in-a-bind-912322.html" target="_blank">Trump’s Supreme Court comments put Justice Barrett in a bind</a></strong></p>.<p><strong>Wisconsin (10 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>The AP has called the race for Biden.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Election commission administrator Meagan Wolfe said Wednesday that ballot counting was complete. The state doesn’t provide an official count until one is certified on Dec. 1. Unofficial counts showed Biden with 20,538 more votes than Trump.</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>Trump’s campaign plans to exercise its right to demand a recount, as the unofficial margin of 0.7 percentage point was within the 1% that allows for such a move. Campaign manager Bill Stepien said in a statement Wednesday that “there have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results.” He also suggested that public polling showing Trump trailing had been used as a “voter suppression” tactic.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>Election clerks are working through the steps in Wisconsin’s certification process, including an audit of voting equipment. If Trump’s campaign formally calls for a recount, it may take several days to process. In a recount of the 2016 presidential election, counties completed the process within 10 days.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>Overturning a lead of more than 20,000 votes is a “high hurdle,” said Scott Walker, a Republican former governor of Wisconsin.</p>.<p><strong>Michigan (16 Votes)</strong></p>.<p>AP called the race for Biden.</p>.<p><strong>Where it stands:</strong></p>.<p>Biden won Michigan with 50.6% of the vote, compared with Trump’s 47.9% according to figures posted on the Michigan secretary of state website that showed 5.5 million votes had been tallied. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said late Wednesday that “all valid ballots, and only valid ballots, have been counted, securely and accurately.”</p>.<p><strong>Disputes:</strong></p>.<p>A state judge Thursday ruled against an effort by Trump’s campaign to halt the counting of absentee ballots until an election inspector from each party was present to observe the process, saying that the process has effectively ended.</p>.<p><strong>What’s next:</strong></p>.<p>There’s still the possibility of a recount in Michigan, where the legal standard is easy for challengers to meet.</p>.<p><strong>Bottom line:</strong></p>.<p>If Biden’s lead gets certified, it would flip a state Trump won in 2016 into Biden’s column and bring him to the brink of victory.</p>