Election 2020 presidential results

There were several voting issues reported to nonpartisan voting rights groups in Pennsylvania but people turned out and were able to cast their ballot, despite "significant obstacles" to do so, according to Suzanne Almeida, interim executive director for Common Cause Pennsylvania. 

Among the issues reported to nonpartisan groups were several instances of voters feeling intimidated by armed constables wearing Kevlar vests and "carrying guns on their person in a way that made voters feel...really really uncomfortable," Salewa Ogunmefun, Civic Engagement and Political Manager at the Center for Popular Democracy, said.

"An election is successful when every single eligible voter is able to cast their ballot and have equal access to a positive experience at the polling place. We did not see that yesterday, so that being said, we also did not see a disaster," Almeida said at a Pennsylvania Election Protection Coalition news briefing.

There were also "language access issues" reported in York, Berks and Lehigh Counties where volunteers assisted in interpreting for voters, Ogunmefun said.

There were some voting victories, said Witold Walczak, legal director of ACLU of Pennsylvania.

This is the first general election following one of the biggest election reforms in the state, Act 77, which, among other things, shortened the period between the registration deadline and Election Day, Walczak said.  

"On a positive note, we actually got way fewer complaints from voters who had registered to vote" despite the registration deadline being shortened from 30 days to 14 days, according to Walczak. 

CNN has reached out to the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency (PCCD) and the governor's office for comment on constables but has not yet heard back. 

County Boards of Elections in the still “too close to call” state of North Carolina continue to process absentee ballots that are coming in, as well as provisional ballots cast in-person on Election Day. 

Wake County Board of Elections External Communications Manager, Stacy Beard, tells CNN staff are processing provisional and absentee ballots “right now as we speak.”  

“But it won’t be until at least Tuesday that the absentee results are released, and it will be sometime next week that the provisionals will be released although you will find out how many provisionals we got. The State Board will get those and report those probably by end of day today,” said Beard.  

As of this morning, the North Carolina State Board of Elections reported that there are approximately 117,000 outstanding absentee by mail ballots. This number does not account for people who may have voted or mailed their ballot on Election Day. It is also possible many of these voters did not cast a ballot at all. 

Wake County, a Democratic stronghold in North Carolina, has thousands of absentee ballots that have yet to be returned. 

“There are still 14,000 [outstanding ballots] in our system that have no status whatsoever. We have not received them yet. We have not spoiled them. They’re just out there,” said Beard. “I can’t tell you how many of those will come back."

“There’s no way of predicting. Did people just wait until the last minute? Did they throw them away?" she added. 

Biden campaign senior adviser Anita Dunn stressed again this afternoon that the campaign is confident that they will receive 270 electoral votes, saying that Joe Biden will declare victory once the campaign believes they have reached that number, regardless of whether news outlets have called those races. 

Asked if Biden would declare victory even if all the states' results had not yet been called by the networks, she replied, "If we feel comfortable that he has 270 electoral votes, yeah." 

The Trump campaign says it will “immediately” request a recount in the battleground of Wisconsin. But under Wisconsin law, a campaign can’t petition for said recount until the Wisconsin Election Commission completes the canvass from county election boards.

CNN's David Chalian breaks down Trump campaign's request:

A federal judge was so angered by the US Postal Service's inability to sweep its facilities for ballots yesterday afternoon, following a court order to do so, that he said he will want answers under oath from Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

He said he was not pleased the USPS couldn't comply with the Election Day court order, and didn't notify him until the court's deadline passed that they didn't have personnel on site in facilities to look for ballots in the mid-afternoon. 

Sullivan has put in place several court orders requiring the Postal Service to explain how much election mail it's failing to process daily, especially in states with low performance, which includes parts of key battleground states like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

The court's order on Tuesday for an additional sweep was in response to reports of lower performance in some areas —where strict deadlines for absentee ballots to get to elections boards approached — and questions about what happened to 300,000 ballots without final scans before their delivery.

 "Someone may have a price to pay about that," the judge said about the USPS's failure to sweep facilities an additional time on Tuesday.

"It's your clients," Sullivan told a Justice Department attorney representing the USPS. "I am concerned about your clients, each and every one starting at the top of the food chain."

Joseph Borson, representing USPS, told the judge the reason the postal service didn't conduct the sweeps was that "it took some time for this information to get to the right people."

CNN's Ana Cabrera reports on USPS developments:

President Trump's campaign is signaling to its allies it plans extensive legal challenges in states where vote margins are currently slim, including Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump's campaign manager Bill Stepien told campaign surrogates in a telephone call this morning that campaign lawyers are already in those states in anticipation of filings, a person familiar with the matter said.

Trump campaign officials told allies on the call that the first likely step would be requesting recounts in states including Wisconsin and Michigan.

Trump also signaled before the election his lawyers would intervene in Pennsylvania shortly after the election, and officials have told Trump allies they anticipate a filing there in the next few days. It wasn't yet clear yet what would constitute the legal challenge in Pennsylvania.

Trump campaign lawyers are currently on the ground in several other states, including North Carolina and Georgia, officials familiar with the matter said.

Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he hopes to have a full result from his state by the end of today, even with about 200,000 ballots yet to be counted.

"That's what we're pushing for," Raffensperger told CNN's Erin Burnett.

He noted that the bulk of votes are coming from larger populated areas like Fulton County and Dekalb County.

"Some fast growing counties have like 7,000. It's really statewide, but they are working really diligently today to finish up and get all the absentee ballots scanned and tabulated," Raffensperger said.

Georgia is a key battleground state where CNN has not yet projected a winner.

Georgia secretary of state estimates timeline for state's results:

Wisconsin’s chief election official said all votes have now been counted statewide, except for a small town with fewer than 300 voters.

Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Wisconsin Election Commission said she misspoke earlier this morning when she told a different news outlet that all of the unofficial results were in from municipal clerks across the state.

Wolfe said that, to her knowledge, all votes have been counted statewide, “except for one township of less than 300 voters, and they are working to get their ballots finished and posted.” 

"We have no reason to believe there are any other ballots that have not yet been counted and included as part of those unofficial totals," Wolfe said.

What comes next: Wolfe said the state's official results won't be certified until December 1, despite nearly all of the jurisdictions reporting voting totals.

Now, the municipalities start the process to double check the results, she said.

"Today at 4:00 is actually the deadline for municipalities to start their canvass process and route their materials over to counties where they start their certification process at the county level," Wolfe said, adding that once those ballots are certified at the local and county levels, they are then checked by the state.

This is important because if either campaign legally challenges the election results, they will have to wait until December when the results are official.

"All this publicly observable. You can watch in your local communities. If you're skeptical about the process, engage," Wolfe said.

"I feel 100% confident in the election that they conducted," she added.

Officials in Luzerne County in Northeastern Pennsylvania hope to finish counting mail-in ballots by late today or early tomorrow morning, according to County Manager David Pedri.

Pedri said volunteers have counted approximately 37,000 of the 57,066 ballots received by the time polls closed on Election Day. 

He said additional staff has been added to deal with the count and it is proceeding at a pace of about 3,000 mail-in ballots per hour.

As of Wednesday morning, the county’s website showed President Trump leading former Vice President Joseph Biden by 27,598 votes with 20,066 remaining to be counted.

Luzerne backed Barack Obama in 2012 but supported Donald Trump in 2016.

CNN has not projected a winner in Pennsylvania.