Joe Biden, the Democratic party candidate, has won Hawaii seizing four electoral college votes to broaden his narrow lead over President Donald Trump in the race to reach 270 votes needed to win the US election.
Americans have cast their votes on November 3 to decide the future leadership of the nation and the whole world is watching the electoral vote counts closely as and when they are made public.
The path to the White House is 270 votes by elected college, i.e. a member of the United States Congress. Currently, in the US presidential election, Mr Biden is in the lead with 238 votes and Mr Trump giving a tough tussle with 213 votes according to The Associated Press.
2020 is crucial, and presently the cards are in the hands of swing states or battleground states which decides the settling number of votes. The swing states an influence both Democrats and Republicans, and it becomes tough to anticipate which side they will lean onto, making the outcome of the results interesting.
Swing States to watch out:
Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Ohio and Texas are central battleground states for this year. Mainly, Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes make a big difference, where both the candidates, Mr Biden and Mr Trump appealed to the people on the eve of the election.
The electoral votes are unevenly distributed among the states. California has 55 votes as it has the largest population; however, largest USA state Alaska has only 4 electoral votes. Further, in an established two-party system, the democrats and Republicans have historically influence over certain states which have always preferred their respective candidate.
For example, California and New York have mostly elected a democratic leader and this year is no different as Mr Biden makes a big win of 84 votes from these states.
Arizona, a predominant republican state for the first time since 1996 chooses a Democratic leader gaining more hope for Mr Biden with 11 votes; similarly, Mr Trump in his rally at Minnesota said “If I lose Minnesota, I’m never coming back” and Minnesota chose Mr Biden, wining 10 votes.
Florida has supported the winner of the presidential election since 1996. The major battleground Florida and Texas, which were swing state by yesterday supports Mr Trump today with a total of 67 votes after a tough fight with Mr Biden.
The results now remain in the hand of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina. Currently Mr Biden’s narrow lead expanded to about 20,000 votes — out of more than 3.2 million tallied, as the race is still to continue. Mr Trump is leading in the other 4 swing states, though tens of thousands of ballots remain to be counted in those states, many of the votes cast by mail in the areas around major cities, which traditionally favour Democrats.
Everybody’s eyes are on these swing state. Presently, the lead is with Mr Trump in the swing states, but the trend could change as mailed-ballots haven’t been counted and it is past midnight in America. So, the counting would start by morning again.
Pennsylvania, a key state still has 1 million mailed votes to count as per the Democrat Governor Tom Wolf.
Let’s be clear: This is a partisan attack on Pennsylvania’s elections, our votes, and democracy.
Our counties are working tirelessly to process votes as quickly AND as accurately as possible.
Pennsylvania will have a fair election and we will count every vote.
— Governor Tom Wolf (@GovernorTomWolf) November 4, 2020
Leaders and their gratitude on election night:
As the voting period is over, Mr Trump’s recent tweet is labelled misleading by Twitter.
We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2020
Mr Trump says the election is rigged particularly in Pennsylvania as the Supreme Court has ruled to count the mailed votes in the state up to 3 days after November 3 because of the absentee vote amid the coronavirus pandemic.
In his speech at election night, Mr Trump said “This is a fraud on the American public. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election. We want the law to be used properly. We’ll be going to US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.”
The votes are still being counted, and Mr Trump already declared the victory.
To answer back, Democratic candidate Mr Biden tweeted:
It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare the winner of this election. It's the voters' place.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 4, 2020
According to Reuters, Mr Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said: “If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort.”
Live from Willington, Delaware, Mr Biden said “Your patience is commendable. We knew this would go long, but who knew it would go till tomorrow morning, or even longer. We feel good about where we are; we really do. We are on track to win this election.”
Delay in results:
The counting will re-start tomorrow morning, and as Mr Trump suggested he would challenge the extension of votes in Supreme court, the remaining states and their votes could be on halt.
Moreover, millions of Americans decided to vote by mail rather than at a polling place. Plus in general, those mail ballots take longer to count, making it is physically next to impossible to count all the votes in one night.
It is also to see that, most of the mailed ballot votes could account for Democrats as the people didn’t believe in Government’s handling of the pandemic, making it precisely the reason why Republicans are afraid of mailed votes.
