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Where Presidential Election Votes Are Still Being Counted

Brakkton Booker , Jess Eng , Daniel Wood , Connie Hanzhang Jin | NPR

November 5th, 2020

Updated at 12:43 p.m. ET

With both President Trump and Joe Biden still short of the 270 electoral votes needed to claim victory, anxious Americans are left with little to do but be patient and wait as election officials in key swing states furiously work to complete their vote tabulations.

An already close race appeared to narrow even further with more votes being counted in four key states that The Associated Press, which NPR relies on for calls, has yet to announce: Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The AP has also yet to call Alaska.

After calls by the AP in the key states of Arizona, Michigan and Wisconsin, Biden holds an electoral advantage of 264 to Trump’s 214. That leaves both candidates with viable paths to victory.

Here’s what remains undecided.

Georgia

Georgia is one of two Sun Belt states Democrats pinned high hopes on flipping. After Trump surged to an early lead, Biden has cut into that significantly. With 99% of the expected vote in, the president was clinging to a narrow lead of less than 15,000 votes out of nearly 5 million cast, according to AP data.

As of Thursday morning there were roughly 50,000 votes left to be tallied, mainly from the cities of Atlanta and Savannah, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. If Georgia, with its 16 electoral votes, flips to Biden, it will be the first time a Democratic presidential candidate has won the state since 1992.

Nevada

Nevada with its six electoral votes has been trending for the Democrats in recent elections as the Latino population has increasingly become an important voting bloc in the state. The AP indicates that with 76% of votes tallied as of 12:28 p.m. ET on Thursday, Biden has increased his lead to about 12,000 votes, up from less than 8,000 earlier in the day.

Election officials in Clark County, which includes the Democratic stronghold of Las Vegas, are expected to release more results Thursday morning local time, the Las Vegas Sun reports. But it could still be a while still before final results are known, as mail-in ballots are due Nov. 10 if they were postmarked by Election Day.

North Carolina

North Carolina, another Sun Belt state Democrats were hoping to turn blue, surged early for Trump. With 94% of the expected vote tallied, according to the AP, Trump maintains an advantage of more than 76,000 votes as of Thursday.

The AP reports that there were approximately 348,000 votes still to count. In September, the state’s board of elections announced county officials can accept mail-in ballots through Nov. 12 as long as ballots are postmarked by Election Day. The state carries 15 electoral votes.

Pennsylvania

With 20 electoral votes at stake, the Keystone State is the biggest state still up for grabs. While Pennsylvania has nearly 90% of its vote tallied, there are still an estimated 956,000 votes to still be counted as of 11:30 a.m. ET, according to the AP.

As of 1 p.m. Thursday, Trump held a slim lead in the state of roughly 115,000 votes — down from what was an early lead of around 700,000 votes. That suggests mail-in voters are heavily going toward Biden. Unlike other states, Pennsylvania was not able to begin processing mail-in ballots until Election Day, and can continue counting ballots received by Nov. 6 if they were postmarked by Nov. 3.

Alaska

There is less suspense in Alaska, a state President Trump is widely expected to win. With 50% of the vote in, the AP has Trump up by around 54,000 votes. More than 190,000 votes have already been counted, but as Alaska Public Media reported Wednesday, election officials had more than 100,000 ballots still to count. The state has three electoral votes.

Jess Eng (on Twitter @jessicaeng17) is an intern with NPR’s News Apps team.