Biden takes the LEAD in Georgia and piles up the votes after incredible rant from Trump claiming conspiracy against him by big tech, big money, the media, pollsters and Democrats that TV networks refused to screen
- Joe Biden has taken narrow lead in Georgia, jumping ahead of Trump by 1,096
- There are now less than 10,000 votes to be tallied in the state, with the count trending in Biden's favor
- If Biden wins Georgia, it means he only need to hold Arizona or win Nevada to be declared the next president
- If Trump loses Georgia, he has no route to victory - the best he can do is a draw by winning every other state
- Trump launched an extraordinary attack on the ballot late Thursday, alleging a vast conspiracy
- He lashed out at big tech, big donors, the media in general, social media, pollsters and the Democrats
- Some Republicans labeled him 'insane' and said he was sowing doubt in democracy
- Biden was measured, telling the American people in a separate press conference to be patient and calm
- The fiasco of why it is taking so long to tally all of the votes remains largely an unanswered question
- In some states, it is down to late mail-in ballots and in others, it's because their scanning systems changed
Joe Biden is on the cusp of declaring victory in the presidential election after taking the lead in the state of Georgia early on Friday morning, while Donald Trump clings to a narrow lead in other swing states that are still counting votes.
In Georgia, the latest figures puts both candidates in equal standing in terms of percentage points with each currently holding 49.4 per cent of the state vote.
There are now fewer than 10,000 votes that remain uncounted in the state across seven counties, in addition to any overseas and military ballots that are due at 5pm. As many as 8,889 of those could come in.
Biden's lead is less than 1 percent.
Despite being able to count more than 5million votes since the polls closed on Tuesday night, there has been an agonizing delay in the final tens of thousands in the key swing states cross the country.
Poll officials have no real answer for why it is taking so long. They said on Friday morning that 'hopefully' a final result would come today.
If Biden takes Georgia, then he only needs to hold his lead in either Nevada or Arizona to be declared the winner. Results in both states are expected later today.
If Trump loses Georgia, he has no path to victory. The best he can do is to tie with Biden, but would need to claim victory in every state remaining in play.
Biden is also narrowing Trump's lead in Pennsylvania, reduced from 600,000 on election day to a little over 18,000 in the early hours of Friday with around 140,000 ballots left to count. An update from the state is expected in the next few hours.
Despite the grim outlook, Trump is unlikely to concede amid a slew of legal action by his campaign and unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
Trump renewed those attacks on Thursday night in his first TV appearance since election day itself, where he called the entire presidential election into question, claiming it was rigged against him from start to finish by a vast conspiracy.
In his 17-minute tirade he claimed he was the victim of 'big media, big money and big tech' coming together to commit 'historic election interference' to give Joe Biden the presidency.
He claimed that if all 'legal votes' were counted he would win the election as he charged Democrats with trying to steal the contest 'corruptly' through mail-in ballots in a suddenly-announced White House address delivered as his tiny voting leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia slipped further.
All three broadcast networks - ABC, CBS and NBC - cut away from the press conference before it finished, warning their viewers that Trump had made 'a number of false statements' that needed clarifying.
MSNBC was the first to cut away, as anchor Brian Williams warned 'here we go again', but Fox News and CNN covered it in full.
In a series of tweets sent at 2.30am Washington time, Trump continued his tirade - attacking social media regulation, making baseless claims of fraud, casting doubt over several close Senate races, and calling on the Supreme Court to intervene.
Joe Biden remained narrow favorite to win the presidency on Friday, with results in a number of key swing states expected before the end of the day.
Having narrowly won the swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan, he has more routes to the White House open to him - with Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina yet to be called.
A win in Pennsylvania would hand him the presidency even if all the other states go to Trump. Holding his lead in Arizona and Nevada would also hand him the win.
Meanwhile Trump needs most of the outstanding states to go his way to stand a chance of winning.
Biden also gave a speech Thursday, calling for calm and patience while the votes are counted, insisting once again that when the dust has settled he will have beaten Trump.
'Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well,' the former vice president said from the stage of Wilmington's Queen theater late Thursday afternoon.
'So I ask everyone to stay calm, all people to stay calm. The process is working. The count is being completed and we'll know very soon.'
He also tweeted: 'No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever. America has come too far, fought too many battles, and endured too much to let that happen.
'Keep the faith, folks.'
Meanwhile Donald Trump Jr gave a speech in Georgia, where Trump's lead is now just a few hundred votes, calling for his father to 'fight to the death' and urging him to 'go to war' to 'expose all of the fraud that has been going on for far too long.'
'Americans need to know that this is not a banana republic and right now very few people have faith that's not the case,' he added.
At the podium in the briefing room on Thursday night, President Trump read from from a script and listed his grievances at Biden's campaign, 'suppression polls' and 'fraud.'
He left without taking a question as CNN's White House reporter Jim Acosta shouted: 'Are you a sore loser?' - then his press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had to scuttle back to the podium because he had forgotten to take his notes with him.
Trump's condemnation of the entire democratic system and his growing list of enemies was switched off rapidly by TV network after TV network.
MSNBC anchor Brian Williams said as they turned away less than a minute in: 'Here we go again.'
STATES STILL IN PLAY
ARIZONA - 11 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 240,000 votes to count
50.6% BIDEN - 1,528,319
48.54% TRUMP - 1,482,062
Biden leads by 46,257 with 90% of votes counted
Fox and the AP called Arizona for Biden on election day, but others held back as a slew of mail-in votes are counted
Unlike in other states, where mail-in ballots are swinging towards Biden, in Arizona they are trending towards Trump
PENNSYLVANIA - 20 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 140,000 votes to count
49.6% TRUMP - 3,286,171
49.2% BIDEN - 3,267,942
Trump leads by 18,229 with 97% of votes counted
GEORGIA - 16 electoral colleges votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 8,197 votes to count
49.4% BIDEN - 2,449,580
49.4% TRUMP - 2,448,484
Biden leads by 1,096 with 99% of votes counted
NEVADA - 6 electoral college votes
Result expected Friday, approx. 50,000 votes to count
49.4% BIDEN - 604,251
48.5% TRUMP - 592,813
Biden leads by 11,438 with 84% of votes counted 
Trust me I won: Donald Trump takes to the White House briefing room podium to claim he won
End of the show: As Trump spoke from the WHite House podium TV network after TV network turned off his conspiracy-theory laden tirade
CNN was among the few channels to air the president's full speech, after which Anderson Cooper said Trump was 'like an obese turtle flailing in the sun.'
'That is the President of the United States. That is the most powerful person in the world and we see him like an obese turtle on his back flailing in the hot sun realizing his time is over,' Cooper said on air.
'But he just hasn't accepted it and he wants to take everybody down with him, including this country.'
Republicans also turned on him within minutes with Larry Hogan, the Maryland governor, saying: 'There is no defense. No person or election is more important than our democracy.' GOP rep Adam Klinzinger called it 'insane.'
At the briefing room podium - where the only aide with him was White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnanany - Trump appeared downcast as he listed his enemies and claimed a victory which nobody has handed to him.
'If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,' he said during what he called a press conference.
Joe Biden tweeted a rebuke shortly after he finished saying: 'No one is going to take our democracy away from us.
'Not now, not ever. America has come too far, fought too many battles, and endured too much to let that happen.'
Trump unloaded on the democratic process again in a series of tweets posted at 2.30am Washington time, hitting out at laws regulating social media (top), voting (center) and tight races that could decide control of the Senate
Trump, whose campaign has launched lawsuits in several battleground states, spoke more about the polls than he did about his own campaign, calling them 'phony' and 'suppression polls,' claiming that errors by pollsters were a deliberate attempt to keep his supporters at home.
Then he turned on his own party saying that because of him was no 'blue wave,' referring to Democrats' failure to win the Senate and add to their majority in the House.
That was a coded attack on Republicans' most senior figures who have refused to come out in support of his claims of fraud. His son Don Jr. railed against Republicans earlier in similar terms - but Mitch McConnell has said that every vote must be counted.
'We won by historic numbers. And the pollsters got it knowingly wrong, they got it knowingly wrong. We had polls that were so ridiculous and everybody knew it at the time. There was no blue wave that they predicted,' Trump said.
Trump's lead in Pennsylvania is slipping and in Georgia too Biden is creeping up on him, while Biden remains ahead in Nevada and Arizona. Biden needs only Pennsylvania to win, taking him to 273 electoral college votes, or Nevada and Arizona, taking him to 270. In contrast Trump would need to secure North Carolina, Arizona and Pennsylvania to secure 271.
Trump had not been seen for more than 36 hours after appearing in the White House East Room at 2.30am on Wednesday morning in front of cheering fans in MAGA hats to claim then that he had 'won.'
But he spoke after a measured Biden asked Americans to be patient and calm as they waited for the final ballots in the presidential race to be counted - amid mounting anxiety over the long wait for results, and concern about public order.
'Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well,' the former vice president said from the stage of Wilmington's Queen theater late Thursday afternoon.
'So I ask everyone to stay calm, all people to stay calm. The process is working. The count is being completed and we'll know very soon.'
In the same brief statement, the Democratic nominee assured supporters that he and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, would come out on top.
In contrast Trump spent the his press conference railing. 'We grew our party by 4 million voters, the greatest turnout in Republican party history. Democrats are the party of the big donors, the big media, the big tech, it seems and Republicans have become the party of the American worker and that's what's happened,' Trump said.
He accused the media of giving Biden strong poll numbers as a way of keeping his voters at home.
That's all folks: Trump left the stage without taking questions. The only aide who went with him was Kayleigh McEnany, his White House press secretary. There was no sign of Vice President Mike Pence
Forgotten and almost lost: Trump left his prepared script, in giant text and scrawled on with sharpie at the podium and it had to be retrieved by press secretary Kayleigh McEnany
One page of Trump's notebook contained talking points on Georgia (left), which he is now poised to lose, and the other appeared to contain unsubstantiated claims of illegal voting (right)
MAGA is here: As Donald Trump spoke, his supporters in Arizona were demanding the count go on while his lawyers in Pennsylvania were demanding it stops
Damning verdict: Larry Hogan, the Republican Maryland governor became its most senior voice to speak out. Adam Kinzinger is a Republican congressman from Illinois who was one of the first of his party to slam Trump
'As everyone now recognizes media polling was election interference in the truest sense of that word.
'By powerful special interests, these really phony polls, I have to call them phony polls, state polls, were designed to keep our voters at home, create the illusion of momentum for Mr. Biden and diminish Republicans abilities to raise funds.
'They were what's called suppression polls, everyone knows that now. And it's never been used to the extent that it's been used on this last election,' he said.
He went on to accuse Democrats of tinkering with the election in states with outstanding results.
'There are now only a few states yet to be decided in the presidential race. The voting apparatus of those states are run in all cases by Democrats,' he said.
In fact Arizona and Georgia – two critical states that are still counting ballots – have Republican governors; Nevada's secretary of state is a Democrat and Pennsylvania's rules on counting were set by its Republican legislature.
He pointed to his campaign's lawsuits, which have alleged voter fraud but offered no proof of the allegations. Two were thrown out by judges Thursday, one claiming fraud for lack of any evidence.
'There's tremendous litigation going on and this is a case where they're trying to steal an election. They're trying to rig an election and we can't let that happen,' he said.
PENNSYLVANIA: Supporters of U.S. president Donald Trump hold signs and chant slogans during a protest outside the Philadelphia Convention center
ARIZONA: Far right radio host Alex Jones walks through the rally of pro Trump supporters outside the Maricopa County Recorder's Office last night in Phoenix
Black Lives Matter (BLM) demonstrators face police during a protest at Union Square in New York, New York, USA last night
NEW YORK: Ten people were arrested during demonstrations in Manhattan on Friday as Americans demanded that votes be counted
People demonstrate outside the Pennsylvania State Capitol to urge that all votes be counted
Donald Trump supporters get into an altercation with a driver that stopped to voice his support of Joe Biden during a protest about the Nevada vote outside Clark County Election Department
Trump supporters gather in Miami, Florida, to protest what they have deemed as election fraud from the Biden camp
Trump supporters wave flags and chant 'Stop the Cheat!' as they gather to rally at Lake Eola Park in Orlando
WASHINGTON DC: Crowds of both Boden and Trump supporters convene on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C.
Philadelphia police arrested two men who were allegedly involved in a plot to attack the Pennsylvania Convention Center on Thursday night
The blizzard of litigation he promised had been beset throughout the day by problems.
In Georgia, superior court judge James Bass said there was 'no evidence' to the Trump suit's claims that a 53 ballots arrived late and got mixed with other ballots. In Michigan, Judge Cynthia Stephens ruled against the Trump campaign's push to stop the count in order to gain additional access for its observers. 'I have no basis to find that there is a substantial likelihood of success on the merits,' she said.
In Nevada, he sent Ric Grenell, his former acting director of national intelligence to announce legal claims that out of state residents had been voting.
But the press conference went badly wrong when Grenell refused to say what his name was and was laughed at by reporters then chased into a van refusing to answer questions on what evidence he had.
In Pennsylvania, the campaign claimed they were 'banned' from watching poll counters in Philadelphia and are now suing in federal court.
And Jared Kushner was reported to be looking for a 'James Baker' figure to lead the litigation - hardly a vote of confidence in Rudy Giuliani who had been its public face for the last 48 hours.
Don Jr. headed to Georgia after tweeting a demand for 'total war,' and retweeting an appeal from a Trump supporter for a mass protest in Detroit against the count. Many of his tweets were flagged by Twitter.
Before he spoke Trump has responded to Biden's leads in Arizona and Nevada and his gains in Pennsylvania and Georgia on Twitter, often all in capitals. Several Tweets have been flagged by Twitter as misinformation.
Biden did not mention Trump's name Thursday.
But he did make a comment that was clearly aimed at Trump and his campaign team's legal efforts to stall vote-counting and rhetorical efforts to call into question the legitimacy of the election.
'In America, the vote is sacred. It's how people of this nation express their will. And it is the will of the voters, no one, not anything else, that chooses the president of the United States of America,' Biden said. 'So each ballot must be counted.'
Earlier Thursday, Biden was at the Queen to participate in a COVID-19 and also an economic briefing. He also made an appearance at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware Wednesday, where he again told Americans they needed to wait – but that he would win.
The appearance in Delaware was clearly intended to cast Biden as presidential and paint a contrast to Trump.
The plea for calm also spoke to increasing concerns about public order.To highlight just a few examples, the day before the election, Quinnipiac, which was wrong on every occasion that I know of, had Joe Biden up by five points in Florida. And they were off by 8.4 points and I won Florida easily, easily. I ended up winning Florida by a lot. Other than that, they were very accurate.
They had him up four points in Ohio, and they were up by 12.2 points. And they also won Ohio, the great state of Ohio, there easily. They had Joe Biden up 17 points in Wisconsin, and it was basically even. They were off by about 17 point. And they knew that. They were not stupid people. They knew that, suppression.
There are states yet to be decided in the presidential race. The voting apparatus of this state are run, in all cases, by Democrats. We were winning in all the key locations by a lot, actually, and then our numbers started miraculously getting whittled away, in secret, and they wouldn't allow, legally permissible observers.
We went to court in a couple of instances and we were able to get the observers put in. They wanted them 60, 70 feet away, 100 feet away, to observe.
There is lots of litigation. There is tremendous amount of litigation because of how unfair this process was. And I predicted that.
I talked about mail-in voting for a long time. It's really destroyed our system. It's a corrupt system. And it's made as corrupt, even if we are not corrupt by nature. It's too easy. They wait and wait and you see that on election night.
We were ahead in North Carolina by a lot, tremendous number of votes. And we're still ahead by a lot, but not as many because they're finding ballots all of a sudden.
It's amazing how these mail-in ballots are all one-sided. I know it's supposed to be to the advantage of the Democrats. But in all cases, they are one-sided.
We were up by 700,000 votes in Pennsylvania. I won Pennsylvania by a lot. And that gets whittled down to, now we're up by 90,000 votes.
They will keep coming and coming and coming and they don't want us to have observers, although we won a court case. And they're appealing. Actually, they're appealing. We won a case we want people to watch, and they're appealing. That's interesting. I wonder why they're appealing.
Likewise in Georgia, I won by a lot, a lot, with a lead getting close to 300,000 votes on election night in Georgia -- and by the way, got whittled down, and now it's getting to be to a point where I'll be winning by a lot by perhaps even being down a little bit.
In Georgia, a pipe burst, totally unrelated to the location, and they stopped counting and a lot of things happened. The election apparatus in Georgia is run by Democrats.
We've had margins of 300,000. Michigan, we won the state. In Wisconsin, we did likewise, fantastically well. And that got whittled down. In every case, they got whittled down. We're on track to win Arizona. We only need to carry 55% of the remaining vote, 55% margins, and that's a margin that we've significantly exceeded, so we'll see what happens with that.
Our goal is to defend the integrity of the election. We will not allow the corruption to steal such an important election, or any election for that matter, and we can't allow silence of anybody to silence our voters and manufacture results.
I've been doing a lot of public things for a long time. I've never had anything that's been as inspirational by people calling, talking, sending things to us.
I've never seen such love and such affection and such spirit as I've seen for this. People know what happening and they've seen what's happening.
There are many instances, which will be reported very shortly. There is tremendous litigation going on. And this is a case where they are trying to steal an election. They are trying to rig an election. We can't let that happen.
They cannot be responsible for engineering the outcome of the presidential race.
In Pennsylvania, Democrats have gone to the state supreme court to try to ban our election observers very strongly. We won the case, but they're going forward. They don't want anybody watching them as they count the ballots. And I can't imagine why. There is no legitimate reason why they would not want to have people watching this process.
Because if it's straight, they should be proud of it. Instead, they are trying obviously to commit fraud. There's no question about that.
In Philadelphia, observers are kept far away, very far away. So far, that people are using binocular's.
There's been tremendous problems caused, paper on all of the windows so you can't see in, and the people that are banned are very unhappy and have become somewhat violent.
The 11th circuit ruled that in Georgia, the votes have been in by election day, that they should be in by election day, and they weren't. Votes are coming in after election day. And they had a ruling already that you have to have the votes in by election day. To the best of my knowledge, votes should be in by election day.
Democrats never believed they could win this election honestly. I really believed that. Tremendous corruption and fraud going on. That's why they mailed out tens of millions of unsolicited ballots without any verification measures whatsoever.
And I told everybody that these things would happen. Because I've seen it happen.
I've watched a lot of different elections before they decided to go with this big massive election with tens of millions of ballots going out to everybody, in many cases totally unsolicited.
This was unprecedented in American history. This was by design despite years of claiming to care about election security.
They refuse to require signatures, identities, or to make sure they are eligible or ineligible to vote. People are walking in, they have no idea. They are writing down things, doing a lot of bad things.We have a lot of information coming that you'll see, will shake even you people up.
The officials overseeing the counting in Pennsylvania, all part of a corrupt Democrat machine that you've written about for a long time. You've been writing about a corrupt democrat machine.
I went to school there. It hasn't changed. It's gotten worse.
In Pennsylvania, partisan democrats have allowed the ballots to be received three days after the election, and we think much more than that. And they are counting those without any identification whatsoever. So you don't have postmarks, you don't have identification.
There have been a number of disturbing irregularities across the nation.
Our campaign has been denied access to observe any counting in Detroit. Detroit is another place. And I wouldn't say the best reputation for election integrity.
Poll workers in Michigan were duplicating ballots. When our observers attempted to challenge the activity, they jumped in front of the volunteers to block their view so they couldn't see what they were doing. And it became a little bit dangerous.
One major hub for counting ballots in they covered up the windows with large pieces of cardboard. So they wanted to protect and block the counting area the final batch did not arrive until 4:00 in the morning. So they brought it in. And the batches came in and nobody knew where they came from. We've been denied access.
Counting was halted for hours and hours on election night with results with held from major democrat-run locations only to appear later and they all had the name Biden on them or just about all, which is a little strange.
I challenge Joe and Democrats to clarify that they only want legal votes. I think they should use legal votes.
We want every legal vote counted. We want openness and transparency. No secret count rooms. No mystery ballots, no illegal votes after election day.
You have election day and the laws are very strong on that. You have an election day. We want an honest election and an honest count. We want people working back there because it's a very important job.
That's the way this country will win.
We think there's going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence and so much proof, but we think there will be a lot of litigation because we can't have an election stolen like this.
I tell you, I've been talking about this for many months with all of you.
I've said strongly that mail-in ballots are going to be a disaster, small very easy elections were disastrous.
This is a large scale version and it's getting worse and worse every day.
We're hearing stories that are absolute horror stories. And we can't let that happen to the united states.
It's not a question of who wins, Republican, Democrats, Joe, myself.
We can't let that happen to our country.
We can't be disgraced by having something like this happen. So it will be hopefully cleared up, maybe soon. I hope soon. But it will probably go through a process, a legal process.
As you know I've claimed certain states. He's claiming states. So we can both claim the states.
But ultimately, I have a feeling that the judges will have to rule.
There have been a lot of shenanigans and we can't stand for that in the country. 
A supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump holds a tiki torch and a pitchfork during a protest in Phoenix, Arizona where votes are still being counted
Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski speaks outside the Philadelphia Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, amid lawsuits by the campaign in the state
Trump supporters, including a small group of Second Amendment demonstrators, gather outside of the Maricopa County Recorder's Office in Arizona
A man wearing a flag with a "Q" addresses supporters of US President Donald Trump hold as they protest outside the Maricopa County Election Department
Why the deciding votes are taking SO long to count: Sluggish tallying of mail-ins, fixing ballots one-by-one, ink shortages and printer errors have drawn out the process for days as America and the world wait
As Americans sit on tenterhooks waiting for five key states to finally crown a victor in the presidential election, one question is on everyone's minds: What is taking so long?
Election officials in Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina have pleaded for patience as they continue chipping away at mountains of hundreds of thousands of uncounted ballots.
The paramount reason tallying has been sluggish is because of a record number of mail-in ballots, which take significantly more time to process than in-person ballots because they have to be verified and scanned via a system with multiple steps where things can, and have, gone awry.
Voting centers around the US have reported issues with ink shortages, ballots printed on the wrong paper and faulty machinery - exacerbating an already arduous process.
The states that still haven't been called as of Thursday are facing yet another challenge: Unprecedented pressure to make sure the results are right when the margin is razor-thin.
President Donald Trump on Thursday promised to mount legal battles in all battleground states won by his rival Joe Biden as he continued issuing fevered demands to stop counting in states that haven't been called yet.
Trump and Republicans have been waging a war against mail-in ballots for months, charging that they would lead to widespread voter fraud.
Now that mail-in ballots have led to delays, Republicans are arguing that the counting process is stacked against them as well - even in states where their own party makes the rules.
Meanwhile Biden and the Democrats have urged Americans to be patient and insisted that every vote be counted, especially since they expect the bulk of mail-in ballots to go in their favor.
With the eyes of the nation blaring down at them, election officials in the states still up for grabs are doing just that, making sure results are bulletproof in preparation for legal action by the Trump campaign.
Two days after the election, hundreds of thousands of mail-in ballots remain uncounted across Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina - prompting many to question why it's taking so long to reach a result. Pictured: Fulton County election workers examine ballots while vote counting at State Farm Arena on Thursday in Atlanta, Georgia
The states still counting as of Thursday afternoon:
- Pennsylvania (20
- Arizona (11)
- Nevada (6)
- Georgia (16)
- North Carolina (15)
Not knowing the winner of the presidential election two days after the polls closed is understandably unsettling for Americans, who are used to seeing a result the night of.
But in fact the counting process has always taken several days or weeks, continuing well after media outlets project the winner based on partial counts.
Each state has its own certification deadline to hand down an official count, ranging from two days after the election in Delaware to more than a month after in California.
Why mail-in ballots take so long to count
Experts have been predicting for months that counting votes would take much longer than in previous years because of an unprecedented number of voters sending ballots by mail due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Absentee ballots are considerably more time-consuming to process than in-person ballots.
When you vote in person, the ballot typically goes straight into the machine, where it is processed and counted almost immediately.
There are a couple more steps with mail-in ballots. The first step is processing, which in most states sees an election worker verify the signature on the exterior of the envelope against voter rolls.
A worker then takes time to carefully open the envelope and flatten out the ballot before it can be scanned into a system - a simple yet lengthy process in large numbers - at which point it is counted.
Technical snags and snafus in several jurisdictions across the US slowed the process further this week.
Absentee ballots are considerably more time-consuming to process than in-person ballots. Pictured: Mail-in ballots are processed, flattened and scanned by poll workers in the Philadelphia Convention Center in Pennsylvania on November 3
In Georgia, for example, a burst pipe caused delays in counting up to 60,000 absentee ballots in Fulton County, which includes part of Atlanta and leans Democrat.
In another Georgia county, there was a corrupt memory card on one scanner which meant 400 had to be recounted. Officials in some counties are also using paper ballots for the first time in 20 years because they voted earlier this year that machine voting was not secretive enough.
And in Wisconsin, absentee ballot results in and around Green Bay, a Democratic stronghold, were delayed after vote-counting machines ran out of ink and a batch of more than 60,000 ballots had to be reprinted.
While some states were able to get ahead by counting mail-in votes as they came in over the past two months, officials in three Midwestern battlegrounds - Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania - were not allowed to begin counting mail-in votes until on or just before Election Day.
Republican-led state legislatures in those three states had opposed changing laws to allow earlier preparations as other states did.
States can predict how many mail-in ballots they will receive based on how many requests were made, however that does not account for people who changed their minds and voted in person instead or who failed to mail their ballots by November 3.
Where the count process stands
Pennsylvania
As of Thursday afternoon Pennsylvania has by far the most ballots left to count, with an estimated 956,000.
The state, which has 20 electoral votes, is also continuing to accept ballots through 5pm Friday, as long as they were postmarked by Election Day.
Republicans had challenged that late deadline prior to Election Day, but it remained in place after the US Supreme Court declined to take up the case.
However, the justices have said they may reconsider the case afterward—meaning that any ballots received after Election Day could be tossed out, complicating matters further.
Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar on Thursday said that election workers could finish tallying 'the overwhelming majority' of the uncounted ballots to have a clear winner by the end of the day.
Boockvar has asked counties to separate any ballots arriving between 8pm on November 3 and 5pm on November 6 in preparation for a legal challenge from the Trump campaign.
However, Boockvar told CNN that she believes post-Election Day ballot numbers will only have a marginal impact on the outcome.
'It's not a huge number,' she said. 'So, I think, no matter what happens, I don't think it's going to be a tremendous impact on this race.'
The majority of the outstanding ballots in Pennsylvania are from Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, which tend to lean Democrat.
Counting stopped then restarted in Philadelphia as Trump's campaign sued claiming they are not being allowed to watch the count, winning their case first, then lost on appeal on Thursday. And in Pittsburgh, 35,000 votes cannot be legally counted until Friday.
As of Thursday afternoon Pennsylvania has by far the most ballots left to count, with an estimated 956,000. Pictured: Monroe County municipal workers count ballots on Thursday in Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania
Arizona
Arizona was expected to hand down a result on Thursday morning, before Secretary of State Katie Hobbs announced further delays.
Hobbs said there are about 450,000 ballots waiting to be counted across the state, with the majority - 300,000 - coming from Maricopa County, where pro-Trump protesters stormed an election office on Wednesday night.
Maricopa County added 62,000 votes to its tally on Thursday morning, putting Biden ahead by 68,400 votes, or less than three points.
Like Maricopa County, the other counties with outstanding votes - Pima, Cococino and Santa Cruz - are considered Democratic areas.
The AP and other outlets declared Biden the winner in Arizona on Tuesday night but the vote count is still being closely monitored.
Meanwhile the Trump campaign has said it is confident about winning the state.
Speaking on Thursday morning, Hobbs did not offer an estimate for how long it will be before an outcome is reached, but experts anticipate it could arrive by Friday.
Arizona did not accept any mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day.
There are about 450,000 ballots waiting to be counted across the state of Arizona, with the majority - 300,000 - coming from Maricopa County, where pro-Trump protesters stormed an election office on Wednesday night (pictured)
Georgia
Georgia currently has nearly 48,000 mail-in ballots waiting to be counted, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
The majority of the uncounted ballots - 17,000 - are in Chatham County, which includes Savannah.
Georgia's Voting System Implementation Manager Gabriel Sterling said on Thursday that the state is still working to determine how many provisional ballots have yet to be counted. He said he hoped they would have a number by the end of the day.
'Fast is great, and we appreciate fast,' Sterling said. 'We more appreciate accuracy.'
Asked why everything is taking so long, Sterling said there was nothing suspicious or strange about the process, but that elections were never normally so close so it doesn't always have to come down to an official count.
Trump and the Georgia Republican Party have filed a lawsuit against election officials in Chatham County on Wednesday, asking a judge to order all late ballots be secured and accounted for.
It was filed after a Republican observer claims to have witnessed mail-in ballots which arrived after the 7pm deadline added to a pile of lawful votes to be counted.
Sean Pumphry, a registered GOP poll-watcher, said he saw 53 unprocessed ballots added to processed ones.
But Chatham County Judge James Bass dismissed Trump's lawsuit on Thursday morning after county officials provided evidence to prove all ballots were legitimate and late ballots were not being accepted.
Nevada
Nevada officials have estimated that around 100,000 have yet to be counted, although that number is shaky because the state mailed ballots to all active registered voters.
The state, which has seen nearly half of its 1.2 million total votes come in by mail, will accept ballots through November 10.
Updated results released on Thursday afternoon showed Biden's lead has grown to nearly 12,000 votes, with 76 percent of expected votes counted.
The majority of the outstanding votes are in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and more than 70 percent of the state's voters.
Clark County officials have said they hope to conclude counting by the end of the weekend.
Washoe County, the state's second largest county, had about 9,000 mail-in ballots waiting to be counted as of midday Thursday.
The Trump campaign mounted a legal battle in Nevada on Thursday, claiming that 'tens of thousands' of people who voted in the state are no longer residents there.
North Carolina
Like Pennsylvania and Nevada, North Carolina extended its deadline to accept ballots postmarked on Election Day until November 12.
Election officials in the state, which saw a record 4.5 million absentee ballots cast ahead of Election Day, have said new results will likely not be released until next week, when the final ballots arrive.
There are currently about 116,000 outstanding requested absentee ballots, officials said, however it's unclear how many of those will actually be returned.
'With very few exceptions, North Carolina's numbers are not going to move until November 12 or 13,' State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said Wednesday.
Trump holds a one point lead in the state, with 94 percent of the expected vote in, according to the AP.
Biden leads at 49.4% in Nevada with 50,000 ballots left to count and the result expected later today
Joe Biden is now leading in Nevada by more than 11,000 votes as of Thursday night as President Donald Trump's campaign filed a federal lawsuit in the state, alleging that ineligible votes were cast in the Las Vegas area.
About 75 per cent of the Nevada votes are in and Biden is leading by 11,438 votes, which is only about 1 per cent, as of Thursday night, according to CNN.
But there are outstanding about 50,000 ballots left to be counted in the coming days. Under state law, they can still be accepted so long as they were postmarked by the November 3.
Trump narrowly lost Nevada in 2016 as the state has trended toward the Democrats in the past decade. The last Republican presidential contender to win the state was George W. Bush in 2004.
Nevada has delayed giving its election result, saying they need until at least tomorrow to count the remaining votes, as the country and the world wait in agony to find out who the next president will be.
Meanwhile, the Trump campaign's complaint filed in US District Court resurrected an effort abandoned just hours earlier in Nevada state court — a court order to stop the Clark County Registrar of Voters from using an optical scanning machine to process ballots and validate voter signatures.
Joe Biden is now leading in Nevada by more than 11,000 votes as of Thursday night as President Donald Trump's campaign filed a federal lawsuit in the state, alleging that ineligible votes were cast in the Las Vegas area. Trump supporters are seen demonstrating in Las Vegas on Thursday
The federal filing cites experiences of a woman who said Thursday she was turned away from voting in person because a mailed ballot had been cast with her signature and a political strategist TV commentator who said he was denied an opportunity to observe ballot counting late on election night.
Trump Nevada campaign co-chairman Adam Laxalt said the new filing 'highlights ongoing voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement in Clark County'.
State Attorney General Aaron Ford called it 'a Hail Mary' and 'another opportunity to undermine the confidence in this election' while ballots are still being counted.
Ford noted a federal judge dismissed in September an effort to block the state law that let mailed ballots go out to each of Nevada's more than 1.7 million active registered voters.
'When they can't stop you from voting, they try to stop your vote from counting,' he said.
If Biden claims Nevada today, he will win another 6 electoral college points, giving him 270 when factoring in the 11 that come from Arizona.
Arizona was called for him on Wednesday morning by Fox and the AP but with 450,000 votes still outstanding, it remains in play for Trump. If Biden loses Arizona, he has 259 electoral college votes. He'd need another 11 from either Georgia - which holds 16 - North Carolina - which holds 15 - or Pennsylvania - which holds 20 - to win.
It's unclear when North Carolina will announce, but it is expected to go to Trump as it did in 2016. The race in Nevada has been tight. For most of the morning, Biden led by only around 7,000 votes there.
Trump's team is crying fraud. They say they have 'evidence' that 'tens of thousands of votes' had been cast there fraudulently.
'We are confident that when all legal votes are tallied -- and only legal votes are tallied -- President Trump will win the state of Nevada,' Former Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell told Fox News on Thursday morning.
'The reality is transparency is not political. Ballots are not automatically legal votes until they're checked. We are not being able to check.
'There's a 30 day residency requirement in the state of Nevada. If you haven't been in the state for 30 days it is illegal to vote. We are filing this federal lawsuit to protect legal voters.
'It is unacceptable in this country to have illegal votes counted. That is what's happening in the state of Nevada,' Grenell claimed at a press conference.
Nevada law states that to be eligible to vote, a person has to have been a resident of the state for at least 30 days before the election.
That does not necessarily mean that they have to have been physically in the state for the 30 days preceding the election.
Trump's people also claim that many of the votes in Nevada came from people who no longer live there, or were cast under the names of deceased people.
Biden leads in Arizona with 50.1% of the vote but Trump narrows the gap to less than 47,000 votes
Katie Hobbs, Arizona's Secretary of State, said Arizona's won't be final until tomorrow night
Joe Biden's lead in Arizona has dropped to less than 47,000 votes after Donald Trump narrowed the gap following a dump of mail-in ballots on Thursday night.
Biden remains ahead in the battleground state but only by 46,257 or 50.1 per cent, compared to Trump's 48.5 per cent, after the president secured the majority vote in the most populous county, Maricopa.
The latest figures means Biden now leads by 1.5 percentage points, down from 2.4 points Thursday morning.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs said there are now 285,000 ballots that still need to be counted statewide, with 200,000 of those in Maricopa County. Officials are expected to update the count by 11am Friday.
It comes after the AP and and Fox News had both called Arizona early on Wednesday morning, claiming there was no possible way for Trump to claw it back from him - a move which was later called into question.
Arizona holds 11 crucial electoral college votes which, when giving them to Biden now, poises him for the White House with 264 of the 270 that he needs. He would only need to win Nevada, Georgia, or North Carolina to claim victory if his Arizona lead holds.
Nevada holds 6 electoral college votes and will be announced at noon EST. Georgia holds 16 and will be announced later. Trump is ahead in Georgia by only 18,000 votes and there are still some 60,000 votes left to count. The count is expected to be completed there today.
If Biden loses Arizona to Trump, Trump goes from 214 electoral college votes to 225. He would then only need 42 additional electoral college votes from Georgia (16), North Carolina (15) and Pennsylvania (20) - all states in which he is leading - to claim victory, assuming he wins Alaska's three electoral college votes which he is all but guaranteed to.
The delay prolongs an already excruciating wait to find out who will be the next President for frustrated Americans and people all over the world who are now asking why it is taking so long to reach a conclusion.
There has been no simple answer so far. In some states it's because the margin is incredibly tight. In others, it's because mail-in ballots haven't yet arrived and can be counted for days yet. Official counts are never normally returned on election day or even in the immediate aftermath. The election is always called instead by a TV or news network based on analysis of possible outcomes.
But none are calling it this year, because the race in the remaining swing states has been so tight.
As the excruciating wait dragged on on Thursday morning, Katie Hobbs, Arizona's Secretary of State, said the process would simply take as long as it takes.
'There are just under 300,000 votes left to count in Maricopa County which is two thirds of the voting population. Statewide, just under 450,000 votes left to count so we're getting there, we have said from the beginning this take's time. We're going to focus on making sure every valid vote counts.
'I haven't gotten an estimate from Maricopa County about how long it's going to take them to get through the ballots. It's not looking like today - probably closer to tomorrow that we'll be looking at getting through those ballots,' she told Good Morning America.
At 5pm EST, she said the same number still had to be counted and that Maricopa County were only getting through 140,000 a day - that means it could take another two days.
Pennsylvania still has 140,000 votes left to count with results expected Friday
Pennsylvania still has hundreds of thousands of votes left to count despite the secretary of state saying results could be returned on Thursday as Joe Biden closes the gap and President Donald Trump loses a legal bid to stop ballot counting in Philadelphia.
Pennsylvania is among a handful of battleground states Trump and Biden are narrowly contesting as they seek the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.
Trump, who held a 675,000-vote lead early Wednesday, prematurely declared victory in the state, which holds 20 electoral college votes. Trump leads the voting with 49.56% of the vote, compared to Biden's 49.29%.
'We're winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount. We're up 690,000 votes in Pennsylvania. These aren't even close. It's not like, "Oh, it's close," Trump said during an appearance at the White House.
But by early Friday, Trump's lead had slipped to about 18,229 votes, as mail in ballots from across the state continued to be counted. The late counted ballots were overwhelming in Biden’s favor.
Pennsylvania still has hundreds of thousands of votes left to count despite the secretary of state saying results could be returned on Thursday as Joe Biden closes the gap and President Donald Trump loses a legal bid to stop ballot counting in Philadelphia
There’s a possibility the race won’t be decided for days and according to MSNBC, there are about 140,000 ballots left to count. If there is less than a half percentage point difference between Biden and Trump’s vote total, state law dictates that a recount must be held.
Democrats had long considered Pennsylvania a part of their 'blue wall' — a trifecta that also includes Wisconsin and Michigan — that for years had served as a bulwark in presidential elections. In 2016, Trump won each by less than a percentage point.
Biden, who was born in Scranton, claims favorite-son status in the state and has long played up the idea that he was Pennsylvania’s 'third senator' during his decades representing neighboring Delaware. He’s also campaigned extensively in the state from his home in Delaware.
If Biden wins Pennsylvania, he wins the election. Currently, he has 264 votes - including Arizona despite that coming slightly back into play. Even without Arizona, if he won Pennsylvania, he would take the White House.
Trump cannot win on Pennsylvania alone; with 214 electoral college votes, he'd still need to pick up either Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona or Nevada - the four other states where a result is yet to be officially confirmed.
Earlier on Thursday, Kathy Boockvar told CNN's Jake Tapper that results Pennsylvania could be in by Thursday.
'I think there’s about 550,000 some odd — you know, plus or minus — ballots that are still in the process of being counted today. Some of those may have already been counted but are not yet uploaded. But yeah, they’re coming in. We’re getting 10,000 here, 20,000 here, counties are furiously at work.'
Results are now expected to be in for Pennsylvania by Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, Kathy Boockvar (left) told CNN's Jake Tapper that results Pennsylvania could be in by Thursday. 'I think there’s about 550,000 some odd — you know, plus or minus — ballots that are still in the process of being counted today. Some of those may have already been counted but are not yet uploaded.' Results are now expected on Friday
Meanwhile, Trump had sued Pennsylvania to undermine whatever election result is returned.
Voting was temporarily halted in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh on Thursday as a result of the legal row. A judge intervened and dismissed the federal motion.
In Nevada, there are only around 51,000 votes left to call before Friday and they say they need that much time. Arizona also says they need until Friday to deliver a result on their remaining 450,000 votes.
The Trump campaign had a brief legal victory in Pennsylvania on Thursday when a judge ruled ballot observers can watch officials count ballots within six feet. Representatives of both campaigns were in the room to watch the counts but at a further distance because of the coronavirus. A county judge agreed with the Trump campaign, but the state Supreme Court rejected it.
The situation in Pittsburgh is complicated by about 30,000 outstanding ballots, where a vendor sent the wrong ballots to voters and had to reissue new ballots with the correct races.
Poll workers now have to examine these ballots to make sure that people don't vote twice, or, if they sent in the wrong ballot, they didn't vote in races they aren't eligible for.
They cannot legally be counted until Friday when Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh sits, swears in a special board to examine these ballots, as required by law
Trump's team of lawyers have filed lawsuits on multiple fronts – to try to stem the flow of presumably pro-Biden mail ballots into the system, and to try to force greater access for observers so they presumably can challenge more individual ballots.
They scored an initial win Thursday morning, which former Florida Secretary of State Pam Bondi, a Trump backer, brandished at a press conference.
The ruling, by the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, reverses a decision by the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia. It lets Trumps observers 'be permitted to observe all aspects of the canvassing process, within 6 feet, while adhering to all COVID-19 protocols, including wearing masks and maintaining social distancing.'
Trump touted the 'Big legal win in Pennsylvania!' on Twitter. But then the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania almost instantly struck it down when Democrats appealed.
The reason of the appeal was not concern over the watching itself, experts said, but because Democrats say Republicans accepted the rules on watching before they went into effect.
Conceding that the rules could be changed after they had been agreed would open the way to more rules being changed, they argue.
That is not the end of the road for the Trump campaign.
The big battle, with a greater potential to affect the count, could come in an effort to challenge an earlier Supreme Court decision allowing the state to count mail-in ballots that come in three days after Election Day.
Conservative justices had indicated that it could get another hearing should these ballots that get counted later prove decisive.
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