Tag: presidential election

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Michigan: Republicans In Wayne County Block Certifying Election Results

Voting

UPDATE: Just hours after announcing a deadlock on certifying the election results in Wayne County, the Board of Canvassers reversed itself and certified the results by unanimous vote.

The four-member Board of Canvassers in Wayne County, Michigan, deadlocked along party lines on certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election today. Wayne County includes Detroit and its surrounding areas – can everyone hear the dog whistle? From the New York Times:

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers was deadlocked on Tuesday on certifying results in the county, which voted for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. by a margin of nearly 323,000 votes.

The two Republicans on the board said they had voted against certifying the results because many precincts in the county were out of balance by a few votes. Monica Palmer, one of the Republicans, suggested that the board would certify the county’s results without the totals from Detroit, where Mr. Biden won with 94 percent support.

The election results now move to Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers, which will complete the work that the Wayne County board could not finish. The state board also has a 2-2 Republican-Democratic split.

In a statement posted on Twitter on Tuesday night, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of Michigan said the Board of State Canvassers would be responsible for certifying the Wayne County results if the county board’s decision held.

The Board of State Canvassers meets on November 23. Team Trump has been hoping that the decision would fall to the Republican-controlled Michigan state legislature to choose their own electors to vote in the electoral college. But the Republican state Senate leader, Mike Shirkey, told the press today that Biden won Michigan and the legislature won’t interfere — “That’s not going to happen.”  

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Election 2020: Where We Are So Far (With Updates)

(graphic via NY Times)
With six states left undecided in the presidential race, most folks are saying they’d rather be in Joe Biden’s shoes than Donald Trump’s at this point. I’ll be updating this page as states are called. Update 1: Wisconsin was just called for Biden giving him 237 electoral votes to Trump’s 213. Update 2: CNN just called Michigan for Biden taking him to 252 electoral votes to Trump’s 213. The Trump campaign is already calling for a recount in Wisconsin but state law says a recount can’t happen until 10 days after an election. Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says Biden’s 20,000+ advantage could be tough to overcome in a recount tweeting, “After recount in 2011 race for WI Supreme Court, there was a swing of 300 votes. After recount in 2016 Presidential race in WI, Trump’s numbers went up by 131.”

Here’s an abbreviated version of how things stand according to Nate Cohn at the New York Times: Nevada: Mr. Biden has a narrow lead (7,600+), with only 86 percent of Democratic stronghold Clark County (Las Vegas) has been counted. The remaining ballots look to be Democratic-leaning late mail and provisional ballots. Arizona: Biden leads by 3.5 points and there’s more than 10 percent of the vote yet to be counted in Democratic strongholds Maricopa and Pima Counties. There are late mail ballots, received by the state over the last few days and those ballots usually tilt Democratic. Michigan: Biden leads with over 48,000 and almost 20 percent of heavily Democratic Wayne County (Detroit) remains to be counted. It’s reasonable to assume that much of the outstanding vote is Democratic mail-in ballots. Pennsylvania: Trump currently leads here by 463,000+ votes – but only 80 percent of the votes have been counted. There are many outstanding votes in Democratic-leaning areas like Philadelphia and the Pittsburgh area. The majority of those are mail-in ballots, which Biden has won those by a margin of 78 percent to 21 percent. There are more than 1.4 million absentee votes left to count, according to the secretary of state, plus more that could arrive over the next few days. If Biden wins those by the same margin he’s been winning them so far it would net him 800,000 votes. Georgia: Trump leads with 93 percent of the vote in (83,000+ votes). An estimated 200,000 uncounted votes remain in the state, and most come from left-leaning areas of metropolitan Atlanta, which could mean they’re likely to skew Democratic. According to the secretary of state, the winners of most races in the state should be announced by Wednesday afternoon. North Carolina: Trump leads by 1.4 points (76,000+ votes), so it’s not really that close. But, the state accepts mail ballots received after the election until November 12, and there were around half a million absentee ballots still outstanding heading into Election Day. I personally don’t expect Biden to win here.