Battleground States Working To Finish Vote Count In 2020 Presidential Election

The effort to count the millions of ballots cast in the 2020 General Election remains ongoing with several battleground states still undecided.  As vote counters continue their work in several states, the Trump campaign is utilizing the courts to attempt to stop vote counting in some states.

Neither former Vice President Joe Biden nor President Donald Trump have reached the 270 electoral vote threshold to win the presidency.  Biden leads in the popular vote by more than 3.5 million votes.

Ohio went solidly for President Trump again in 2020 but other Midwest swing states flipped.

Yesterday, Wisconsin went into the win column for Biden and later he flipped Michigan to blue.  Both states help the Democrats rebuild the so-called “blue wall” that Trump dismantled in 2016 on his way to winning the White House.  The Trump campaign has signaled it will seek a recount in Wisconsin.

Other battleground states remain to undecided including Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada.

The number of electoral votes for each candidate varies depending on whether a state has been called for a candidate.  The Associated Press says it called Arizona for Biden after determining there were not enough ballots left to count for the President to make up the difference.  But other media outlets still put Arizona in the to be decided category.

A final call on the election outcome could come as soon as today. 

President Trump  continues to sow doubt about the ballots being counted, falsely and baselessly asserting election fraud. 

Trump supporters have shown up at vote counting centers in Michigan and Arizona while demonstrations have taken place in other states calling for all votes to be counted.

Biden made a short statement to the media yesterday and signaled he believes his campaign will win the needed 270 electoral votes but stopped short of declaring victory.

He also fired back on efforts to stop vote counts saying that “we the people” would not be bullied nor silenced.

 The extended process to count the votes results from the historic levels of ballots cast in the election.  It also underscores that voters do not directly elect the president.  Instead, electoral votes are apportioned by states to the candidates and a majority of electoral votes wins the White House not a win in the national popular vote.  The Electoral College will meet in December to cast its ballots for president.

Chris Cillizza, Reporter, Editor-at-Large, CNN Politics 
David B. Cohen, Ph.D., Professor of Political Science, Interim Director, Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics, University of Akron 
Kyle Kondik, Managing Editor, Sabato's Crystal Ball, The University of Virginia Center for Politics