- Americans continue to watch and wait to see who will be declared the winner of Tuesday’s presidential election.
- Currently, Biden is projected to have won 264 electoral votes, Trump 214, and 270 are needed to win.
- Alaska, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania are still counting ballots and winners have not been projected in those states.
- Arizona has been projected for Biden, but as the count continues there, his lead has shrunk.
Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the US elections. This is Jihan Abdalla.
New Mexico elects all women of colour to Congress
New Mexico became the first US state to elect all women of colour in all three of its congressional districts.
Incumbent Deb Haaland, a Democrat and a Native American, won reelection to her House seat.
Teresa Leger Fernandez, also a Democrat won the open seat against Republican challenger Alexis Johnson representing the state’s 3rd Congressional District.
And Republican Yvette Herrell – a member fo the Cherokee Nation – defeated incumbent Representative Xochitl Torres Small for the state’s 2nd District.
Trump campaign attacks Fox News polling expert
Trump’s campaign attacked Arnon Mishkin, a polling expert at Fox News’ as a “Clinton-voting, Biden-donating Democrat,” over his projection calling Arizona for Biden.
Trump’s campaign website said Mishkin “prematurely called Arizona for Joe Biden before hundreds of thousands of ballots had been counted. Even left-leaning election analysts like (538’s) Nate Silver have criticized the decision, but Mishkin is standing by his terrible decision despite and refusing to retract his unjustified call.”
The website added that Mishkin: “has a long record of donating to Democrats, including the 2008 Obama-Biden campaign.”
With Arizona in Biden’s column, he would have 264 of the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House, putting him closer to victory and narrowing Trump’s path to re-election.
Postal Service told to sweep processing centers
A federal judge in Washington, DC has ordered the US Postal Service to perform twice daily sweeps of processing centers in states with extended ballot receipt deadlines to check for mail-in votes and to expedite them for delivery.
Thursday’s order will remain in place until the end of states’ windows for accepting ballots.
According to court records, a similar order by the same judge earlier this week found just 13 ballots in a search of 27 processing hubs in several battleground areas.
Facebook removes pro-Trump group
Facebook said it had taken down a rapidly growing group where Trump supporters posted misinformation, violent rhetoric and organised protests against the baseless claim that Democrats were stealing the election.
“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group,” a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement.
She said the move was in line with measures Facebook was taking during “this period of heightened tension.”
The “Stop the Steal” group, which called for “boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote,” had ballooned to more than 365,000 members in one day.
Largest Nevada county still tallying mail votes
Nevada Clark County Registrar Joe Gloria says it could take until Saturday or Sunday before the state’s largest county finishes tallying mail-in ballots that have been returned.
“Our goal here in Clark County is not to count fast. We want to make sure that we’re being accurate,” Gloria said at a press conference.
Officials say Clark County has at least 63,262 ballots left to count, including 34,743 returned in drop boxes on Election Day and 4,208 returned via the US Postal Service. But as mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day continue to trickle in, Gloria said he had no way of knowing the total number of outstanding ballots.
“That’s a number that I can’t give you. I can’t predict to you what’s going to come through the US mail,” he said.
The last day to count ballots in Nevada is November 12.
More than a dozen arrested as protesters demand vote count
Police arrested dozens of people in Seattle, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon overnight during protests demanding a tally of all votes in the US election, while smaller groups backing Trump returned to tabulation sites in closely contested states to insist counting be halted.
In Seattle, seven people were arrested. In Minneapolis, police arrested more than 600 demonstrators who marched onto an interstate protesting Trump’s threats to challenge the election results.
In Portland, protesters smashed windows at businesses, hurled objects including fireworks at officers. Police made at least 10 arrests, according to a statement from the Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office.
In New York, hundreds of people paraded past boarded-up luxury stores on Manhattan’s Fifth Avenue, and in Chicago, demonstrators marched through downtown and along a street across the river from Trump Tower. Protesters also gathered in cities including Los Angeles, Houston, Pittsburgh and San Diego.
Trump campaign loses lawsuit seeking to halt Michigan vote count
A judge tossed a lawsuit brought by Trump’s campaign that demanded halting vote-counting in Michigan.
Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens made the ruling during a court hearing on Thursday. She said she planned to issue a written ruling on Friday.
The lawsuit claimed Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, was allowing absentee ballots to be counted without teams of bipartisan observers as well as challengers. She was accused of undermining the “constitutional right of all Michigan voters … to participate in fair and lawful elections.”
Benson, through state attorneys, denied the allegations. Much of the dispute centered on the TCF Center in Detroit where pro-Trump protesters gathered while absentee ballots were being counted.
Biden calls for patience
Amid rising tensions over the outcome of the election and controversy over the vote count in key states, Biden urged for patience.
“Be patient, folks. Votes are being counted, and we feel good about where we are,” he said in a tweet.
Georgia judge dismisses Trump campaign lawsuit
A judge in Georgia has dismissed a lawsuit by the state Republican Party and Trump’s campaign that asked him to ensure a coastal county was following state laws on processing absentee ballots.
Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass did not provide an explanation for his decision Thursday at the close of a roughly one-hour hearing. The county includes the heavily Democratic city of Savannah.
The suit had raised concerns about 53 absentee ballots that poll observers said were not part of an original batch of ballots. County elections officials testified that all 53 ballots had been received on time.
Biden campaign slams Trump for “attempt to distract and delay”
Biden’s campaign is expressing optimism at the ultimate result of the election but warning supporters to “stay patient and stay calm” as vote counting continues.
Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said on a briefing call with reporters that “the story of today is going to be a very positive story” for their campaign, but cautioned that as the counting continues, “we need to allow it to get done and get done well.”
She says the campaign expects their lead to fluctuate in some states as more votes come in.
O’Malley Dillon also charged that legal challenges by President Donald Trump’s campaign to halt vote counting in some states and seek a recount in Wisconsin are a “flailing strategy” that are an “attempt to distract and delay” from the results of the election.
Follow Al Jazeera’s interactive map of results here.
Facebook group pushing claim of stolen US election rapidly gaining members
A public Facebook group pushing false claims about voter fraud and Democrats trying to “steal” the US election rapidly swelled to more than 325,000 members on Thursday, a day after it was created.
The “Stop the Steal” group, which says it was started by the conservative non-profit Women for America First, called for “boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote.”
Trump says campaign will legally challenge “Biden claimed states”
Trump threatens more legal challenges to results in a handful of states, claiming – without any evidence – that voter fraud has been committed in places where Biden appears to have won.
“All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud,” Trump wrote in a tweet, without listing specific states or examples of alleged fraud.
The post was flagged by Twitter as citing potentially misleading information.
Peaceful protests in Philadelphia as vote count continues
Hilary Beaumont sent this report from Pennsylvania
Small crowds gathered in Philadelphia early Thursday morning outside the Pennsylvania Convention Centre where election workers began their third day of scanning ballots.
A DJ played for one group of protesters, who danced while asking for every vote to be counted, while across the street a smaller group were calling on officials to stop counting votes received after Election Day, echoing a Trump campaign request to the US Supreme Court. The demonstrations followed a peaceful march in favour of counting every vote on Wednesday evening, organised by unions and Black Voters Matter.
On Thursday morning Trump was ahead in Pennsylvania by about 176,000 votes, but the race has narrowed considerably from his lead of about 675,000 early Wednesday morning. The reason is mail ballots, which skew Democrat. By law, Pennsylvania officials could not start counting mail ballots until Election Day. There are still hundreds of thousands of mail ballots uncounted.
As protests continued, the Trump campaign legal team held a press conference in front of the convention centre to display a court ruling allowing them to observe the ballot counting process. “We are planning to enter that building right now,” campaign lawyer Pam Bondi told reporters before she and the Trump team walked into the building.
Arizona officials say 450K ballots still to be counted
Arizona state officials say there are 450,000 ballots still to be counted in the Western battleground.
The Associated Press has called the presidential race in Arizona for Biden. Sally Buzbee, AP executive editor said: “The Associated Press continues to watch and analyze vote count results from Arizona as they come in. We will follow the facts in all cases.”
Biden holds a 2.35 percentage point lead over Trump in Arizona, an advantage of about 68,000 votes.
The vast majority of the ballots yet to be counted are from Maricopa County, the most populous area of the state.
Dow jumps 430 points as post-election stock rally rolls on
Wall Street’s main stock indexes extended their post-election rally on Thursday as investors bet that if Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the White House, his plans to tighten regulations and increase taxes would be blocked by a Republican-controlled Senate.
With presidential election votes still being counted, the Dow Jones Industrial Average vaulted more than 431 points, or 1.55 percent, to 28,279.54 at the opening bell on Wall Street.
Read more here.
California Prop 22 rewrites road map for gig workers’ rights
While ballots are still being counted in California, the pro-Prop 22 campaign – which lobbied California voters to pass a law that lets them keep classifying app-based drivers as independent contractors – is significantly ahead with 58 percent of the vote, marking the beginning of the end of the most expensive and closely watched ballot operation in California’s history.
Read more here.
Trump again seeks to stop the counting of votes
With Biden edging closer to victory, Trump reiterated that he wants the vote counting to stop, tweeting on Thursday morning: “STOP THE COUNT!”
It is important to note that elections – including the decisions to count ballots – are run by individual state, county and local governments. And Trump’s comments have no impact on the tallying of votes across the country.
Biden’s path to victory much wider than Trump’s
With 264 electoral votes called for Joe Biden, he is on the verge of capturing enough electoral votes to be projected the winner.
Slim margins separate Donald Trump and Biden in the remaining states’ vote counts and a Biden victory in any one of those states, except Alaska, would put him over the 270 vote threshold needed.
The key remaining states are Pennsylvania (20 electoral votes), Georgia (16 electoral votes), North Carolina (15 electoral votes) and Nevada (six electoral votes). If Biden wins one of those, he will hit 270 or above.
Trump is currently at 214 electoral votes and would need a combination of those. He is expected to win Alaska, the other uncalled state, which has three electoral votes.
Trump backers hold out hope for Arizona
The Associated Press news agency and Fox News projected Joe Biden as the winner of Arizona on election night, but other US media did not.
Now, as the vote count continues and Biden’s lead shrinks a bit – he holds a 68,000-vote lead with 86 percent of the count in – Trump supporters are holding out hope that the Biden projection was made in error. Al Jazeera’s Patrick Strickland reports from Arizona.
