Biden leading with 253 electoral college votes, while Trump sits at 214
Millions of votes are still being counted two days after the U.S. presidential election, leaving a handful of key states up for grabs in an extremely close race.
As of Nov. 5 at 3:30 p.m. EDT, Biden is in the lead at 253 electoral votes, while Trump sits at 214, according to CBC.
To declare a winner, one of the candidates must reach 270 electoral votes.
According to the Associated Press, votes are still being counted in Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Alaska. While they have called Arizona for Biden, which puts him at 264 electoral votes, CBC “considers it too close to call and is waiting to make the determination.”
This delay is no surprise, as more than 100 million people voted early amid the pandemic, both in person and by mail. Mail-in ballots take longer to process, and the rules on how they are counted vary in each state. In addition, several states, including Pennsylvania, accepted mailed-in votes after election day if they were postmarked by Nov. 3.
Mail-in ballots also take longer to count than in-person ballots because they have to be verified for legitimacy, according to CBC.
Early Wednesday morning, Trump falsely claimed he had won the election. He has since tweeted several times over the last few days, claiming votes that have been received after election day will not be counted, encouraging people to “stop the count,” and saying that the democrats are “stealing the election.” Twitter and Facebook have flagged several of these posts for being “disputed and misleading.”
Trump’s campaign also announced it would be suing to stop the vote count in Michigan and Pennsylvania over concerns of voter fraud, and to order officials in Georgia to “follow the law on storing and counting absentee ballots,” according to CBC. The case in Georgia has already been dismissed. Experts don’t believe there have been any violations to the rules, and that there is no evidence to Trump’s claims about fraudulent mail-in voting.
In his address on Nov. 3, and across multiple tweets on Twitter, Biden has said that he believes “we will win this” but has not outright declared victory.
The Trudeau government has been quiet during the election process, only breaking their silence to offer neutral affirmations that they will work with whoever is elected.
Beyond supportive statements, experts say it’s important for Canada and other allies to remain quiet in order to maintain a positive relationship with both candidates, and avoid a potential damaging economic backlash.
It could take days or weeks to finish counting the ballots, and states legally have until Dec. 8 to finalize their vote count.
Please visit www.theontarion.com/submit to find out how you can share your work with The Ontarion.