Philadelphia to have another US presidential race vote count update in ‘the next hour or two’

WASHINGTON D.C., Nov 6, 2020, CNN. Philadelphia City Commissioner Al Schmidt said that there will be a vote count update in “the next hour or two.” “We have been counting for the past several hours. And I expect you’ll see another update in the next hour or two,” he told CNN’s Don Lemon.

“The counting in Philadelphia has continued uninterrupted from the beginning. We had a brief pause yesterday for about two hours as a result of some litigation, but it’s just critically important that we continue counting every eligible vote cast by voters in Philadelphia,” he said. “We got about 360,000 total mail-in ballots in Philadelphia. We’ve counted about a little over 306,000 … and [are] at 50,000 some yet to report.”

The next update will not be the total 50,000 ballots, Schmidt said, adding that “it’s important that we all do this in the right way and that we report information until the official channels like we always do.”

Schmidt also said that election observers have been watching the vote count process “the entire time.”

“Observers from the Democratic Party and Republican Party, from the Biden campaign and the Trump campaign, have been in our counting area observing right up against where the process is taking place from the very beginning on election morning when we began this,” he said.

CNN projects Biden will win at least three of Maine’s four electoral votes, plus Wisconsin, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, Minnesota, Virginia, California, Oregon, Washington state, Illinois, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Colorado, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Vermont, Delaware, Washington, DC, Maryland, Massachusetts and one of Nebraska’s five electoral votes. Nebraska and Maine award two electoral votes to their statewide winners and divide their other electoral votes by congressional districts.

CNN projects Trump will win Montana, Texas, Iowa, Idaho, Ohio, Mississippi, Wyoming, Missouri, Kansas, Utah, Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Kentucky, West Virginia, Florida and Tennessee and four of Nebraska’s five electoral votes.

Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.

Ballots are still being counted in several key states, with elections officials expected to provide updates later today.

Joe Biden holds a 253-213 lead in the Electoral College. In addition to Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, the races in Alaska and North Carolina remain still too close to call.

If you’re just reading in, here’s what you need to know about the race:

All eyes on the Keystone State: Pennsylvania, the state that could take Biden over the 270-vote threshold needed to win the presidency, could complete most of its outstanding counts on Friday, officials there said. The former vice president is only behind President Trump by a little more than 18,000 votes in the Keystone State after having trailed at one point by more than half a million ballots in the hours after polls closed. Tens of thousands of votes — most of them from strongly Democratic areas, including around Philadelphia — remain to be counted.

The latest from Georgia: In Georgia, another state that Trump cannot afford to lose with its 16 electoral votes, Democratic hopeful Joe Biden has taken the lead with 99% of the state vote count reported. Trump cannot find a route to 270 electoral votes without Georgia and Pennsylvania, so his chances of securing reelection will hinge on developments in the two states in the coming hours.

Trump mounts aggressive legal strategy: Trump’s team, seeking to keep his slim path to victory alive, has launched a flurry of sometimes contradictory and scattershot legal challenges, without offering evidence of irregularities, demanding vote counts continue in states where he is behind and wanting them shut down in those where he leads.

Trump stages corrosive attempt to undermine votes: On Thursday night, Trump effectively sent a signal that he has no intention of leaving power without a fight if he ends up losing the election. The President’s speech from the White House briefing room could end up being one of the most dangerous presidential statements in American history. In it, Trump falsely claimed that votes that were cast before and during the election, but counted after Election Day, are illegal votes.

Biden urges calm: The former vice president emerged in Wilmington, Delaware, Thursday for a short speech meant to project optimism, urge patience in the vote counting and to apparently create a picture of a presidency in waiting. “In America, the vote is sacred. It is how the people of this nation express their will,” he said, calling for calm and patience as the vote counting process unfolds.