November 05, 2020
By Kimberlee Buck Hayes
Contributing Writer
The 2020 presidential election is a historic fight for the nation's soul as current president, Donald J. Trump, and his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., battle for the White House.
For the first time in over a century, Americans witnessed a record-breaking voter turnout of 101.2 million early votes, resulting in the highest turnout of eligible voters in a presidential election.
The race to the White House isn’t over yet.
As of press time, Biden leads the election with 220 electoral votes, and Trump trails closely behind with 213 votes. Only 270 electoral votes are needed to win the election; however, at this point, polls can work in favor of either candidate.
This year marks the most massive mail-in ballots. Unfortunately, this has resulted in a few hiccups. Biden encouraged Americans to vote early due to the pandemic, and those ballots are expected to give him and vice-presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, the push they need to win the race.
Ultimately, the election will come down to four battleground states, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
According to election officials, there are more than 1 million mail-in ballots that have not been counted.
What’s the hold-up?
Several states had technology issues. In Wisconsin, there were 13,500 misprinted absentee ballots. In South Carolina, a printing error delayed 14,600 absentee mail-in ballots in Dorchester County. In Florida, an internet outage occurred, delaying the counting of ballots.
In some states, election officials have called it a night and plan to resume counting ballots in the morning. In Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, election officials could not process the absentee ballots until Election Day (November 3).
Despite the delay in election results, both candidates are hopeful for a big win.
“We can know the [election] results as early as tomorrow morning, but it may take a little longer,” said Biden.
“As I’ve said all along, it’s not my place or the place of Donald Trump to declare who’s won this election.
It’s the decision of the American people, but I’m optimistic about this outcome.”
Following his speech, Biden tweeted: “We feel good about where we are. We believe we are on track to win this election.”
Trump also made a statement during election night, falsely claiming victory, although several states have not counted their ballots.
“Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight, and a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people, and we won’t stand for it,” said Trump.
“For the good of this nation, this is a very big moment. We want the law to be used in a proper manner, so we will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court; we want all voting to stop!
We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4:00 a.m. and add them to the list. We will win this, and as far as I’m concerned, we already have.”
So, what happens now? The election results will be delayed until all ballots are counted.
Until then, Americans will have to patiently wait on the edge of their seats to find out who will be the next President and lead this country for at least the next four years. In the meantime, Trump will make his way to the Supreme Court as an attempt to stop the counting of ballots cast by valid legal voters.