Four States in Play
Nov. 6, 2020 (EIRNS)—Regardless of the media hoopla, Joe Biden is credited with 253 electoral votes and Donald Trump with 232. Unchanged from Thursday night, there are still four states in play for the final 53 electoral votes. Trump is officially behind in all four. Automatic recounts are in line for Pennsylvania and Georgia. Legal challenges to the mail-in voting process awaits all four of these states.
Pennsylvania: (20 Electoral College votes) A massive push over Thursday night counted 32,477 for Biden and only 4,492 for Trump (unlike anything up to now), pushing Biden into the lead for the first time and generating the calls for Trump to throw in the towel. As of Friday evening, the official figures give Biden a lead of 16,041 votes, 0.24% ahead. By all previous reckoning, around 100,000 votes remain to be counted. However, curiously, the Pennsylvania officials reported at around 2 p.m. that there were only around 40,000 votes left to be accounted for (though it is not clear if they were including the military votes in that number). Regardless, it is about 100,000 votes less than all their previous figures—which suggests that the original “2.6 million” of mail-in votes to be counted was inflated by around 100,000 to allow for contingencies. It also leads one to wonder whether the vote count will cut off when Biden gets above 0.50% ahead—eliminating the automatic recount.
Georgia: (16 votes) Officially, Biden leads Trump by 2,915 votes, or a bit less than 0.08%. There would seem to be 6,600 or so votes still to count, probably some or all military. At 12:38 p.m., Trump tweeted: “Where are the missing military ballots in Georgia? What happened to them? Georgia law mandates a recount when the margin is 0.5% or less.” Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters on Friday: “As we are closing in on a final count, we can begin to look to our next steps. With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia.” There will also be a legal challenge as the Trump campaign said on Friday: “[W]e are confident we will find ballots improperly harvested.” Otherwise, there will be a runoff for the Senate. While Perdue (R) is 96,000 votes ahead of Ossoff, he is still 9,200 (0.21%) short of 50%—the requirement in Georgia to avoid a runoff.
Arizona: (11 votes) With 94.56% accounted for, Biden’s lead has shrunk to 36,845. There are at least 180,000 votes left. To overtake Biden, Trump needs about 101,500 of those votes, translating to a rate of about 56.4%.
Nevada: (6 votes) With 88.06% reported, Biden leads by 22,657, about 1.8%. With an estimated 160,000 votes to go, that is a lead that can be overcome. Trump would need around 91,400 or so. However, since Clark County (Las Vegas) has around 100,000 of those votes, the only guarantee is the count will continue to go slowly, and Clark County courts will be in business. Trump cannot win if what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.
Correction to yesterday’s EIR Daily Alert: The county seat of Clark County, Nevada is Las Vegas, not Reno as mistakenly stated. The references to Clark County (Las Vegas) in yesterday’s Alert are accurate.
