Election night” in the USA has entered its third full day, while the last remaining states continue to count postal ballots. Among them are Georgia and Nevada – two crucial swing states whose results will determine the presidency.
The Associated Press has not yet called for both states. Election officials in both Georgia and Nevada claimed they were ready to report an updated total vote count by Thursday noon Easter, but that deadline has come and gone.
Georgian Foreign Minister Brad Raffensperger said that about 50,401 ballots are still outstanding in Georgia on Thursday at 12:45 ET, WSB-TV reported. In Nevada, according to NPR, about 398,000 ballots remained.
President Donald Trump, according to AP, currently leads the democratic candidate Joe Biden in Georgia with about 14,000 votes. The New York Times reported that more than half of the remaining ballots were in districts that are traditionally democratically lean, including the suburbs of Atlanta and the city of Savannah.
“Officials in many precincts continue to count ballots, with strict security protocols in place to protect the integrity of our election,” Raffensperger said Thursday morning. “It’s important to act quickly, but it’s even more important to do it right.
According to WSB-TV, Raffensperger initially said that he expected the results from Georgia by noon at the latest. But other state officials said on Thursday morning that they were still processing outstanding ballots, which would take all day and possibly into the evening.
Shortly before 1:00 p.m., election officials in Fulton County, Atlanta’s hometown, said they had officially finished counting over 145,000 absentee ballots. These ballots will be completed during the afternoon and added to the nationwide totals.
In Nevada, Biden’s lead over Trump at 12:00 p.m. ET increased by about 12,000 after new votes were reported in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. But the state will have an estimated 12 percent of the votes left until the winner can be determined.
Almost every county in the surprise swing state has outstanding ballots to count, suggesting that Nevada could still go either way. While the majority of the state’s counties are solidly Republican, two Democratic strongholds, Reno and Las Vegas, are the state’s largest cities.
Nevada officials hinted that they would update the results Eastern at noon Eastern on Thursday, the Times said.
Biden currently leads Trump in both popular and electoral votes, having 264 votes over Trump’s 214. Nevada has only six votes, while Georgia has 16 votes. But Biden has a greater chance of securing Nevada than Georgia, and his victory there would put him directly on the 270 votes needed to win the presidency.
Besides Nevada and Georgia, the AP has not yet named Alaska, North Carolina or Pennsylvania. Alaska will almost certainly choose Trump, as he leads Biden with almost twice as many votes as there. But so far only 50 percent of the state’s votes have been counted, so the final result is unknown.
Similarly, Trump leads Biden in North Carolina with almost 77,000 votes after the last count. There are still a considerable number of postal ballots that could take several days to process.
Also in Pennsylvania, Trump currently leads Biden with more than 115,000 votes according to the AP. But about 12 percent of the state still has outstanding ballots to report, as poll workers are still busy processing ballots.
