Presidential election results 2020

Maribeth Witzel-Behl, the city clerk in Madison, Wisconsin, tells CNN that as of noon, more than a third of the absentee ballots from across the city have already been processed.

“And then those locations that have processed the least percentage of their absentees are getting additional help dispatched to their locations so they can focus on that,” Witzel-Behl added.

The city clerk’s office also tweeted that 33.48% of absentee ballots have already been processed.  

As of Tuesday morning, the city of Madison had 121,207 absentee ballots returned out of 127,900 absentee ballots issued. Voters in Madison can return their absentee ballots to their local polling locations or the city clerk’s office today by 8 p.m. local time.

Witzel-Behl added that she requires poll workers in the city to call in to alert her office when there are lines longer than 10 minutes, and she said she has not received any of those calls yet today.

Witzel-Beh also said there were no problems to flag in Madison. She did say that a few absentee ballots jammed, but they were cleared really quickly, and that is the extent of the issues she has heard about.

President Trump suggested on Tuesday that he does not a have a concession or acceptance speech prepared.

A member of the press asked Trump at the RNC annex in Arlington, Virginia, whether he had written an acceptance or concession speech.

The President responded, “No, I’m not thinking about concession speech or acceptance speech yet.”

“Hopefully we’ll be only doing one of those two and you know, winning is easy. Losing is never easy. Not for me it’s not,” he continued.

Watch:

Federal authorities have put into place "non-scalable" fence around the the perimeter of the White House in preparation for potential civil unrest.

As of this afternoon, peaceful protesters and demonstrators were outside of the fencing near Lafayette Park and St. John's Church.

Here's what the scene looked like:

The fencing, the same type that was put up during protests this summer, encompasses the Ellipse and Lafayette Square.

President Trump again strongly criticized the decision by the Supreme Court to allow Pennsylvania to receive ballots up to three days after Election Day, calling it “a very dangerous decision for our country.”

“I think the ruling on Pennsylvania was an unfortunate one by the Supreme Court because I think we should know what happens on the night. Let people put their ballots in earlier, but you have to have numbers, you can have these things delayed for many days and maybe weeks, you can’t do that,” Trump said during remarks at his campaign headquarters in Virginia on Tuesday.

“And a lot of shenanigans, a lot of bad things happen with ballots when you say ‘oh let's devote days and days’ and all of a sudden, the ballot count changes,” Trump baselessly added, implying cheating could occur if ballots are counted after Election Day.

However ballots are always counted after Election Day. Per a CNN fact check: “it's media outlets, not the government, that sometimes — but not always — unofficially project a winner on election night. The outlets do so by making projections based on the incomplete available data, not because they possess certified final totals."

Last night, Trump said the decision by the Supreme Court “will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets.” Twitter flagged the tweet as misleading.

 “I think it's a very dangerous decision for our country in many ways dangerous, in many ways,” Trump added in his remarks Tuesday.

Approximately 50 voters were given an incorrect ballot when they showed up to vote at Hickory Ridge Middle School in Harrisburg, North Carolina, this morning.

Cabarrus County, which is northeast of Charlotte, has determined the wrong ballots were distributed between 6:30 a.m. ET until just before 7:30 a.m. ET. The ballots distributed at that time did not include the North Carolina 83rd District House race.

The Cabarrus County Board of Elections is encouraging voters who were at that polling place between those times to return to the site and cast a provisional ballot, for the House race only, by 7:30 p.m. ET. If they don’t cast a provisional ballot, their vote will still count. They just won’t have voted for the House race. 

Kasia Faryna Thompson, Cabarrus County Director of Communications, says the board is working to track down those voters and at this point, “the board knows who each of the voters are.”

CNN's Washington Bureau Chief Sam Feist explained how CNN makes projections and why 2020 is different to other years.

"This year's different than any other year. Everything in the country is different because of [Covid-19,]" Feist said.

One of the biggest changes in 2020's election rhythm is the massive uptick in mail-in ballots.

"It takes longer to count mail-in ballots. You have to open the envelope, open the outer envelope, check the signature, scan the ballot. It takes a while," he said. 

Certain states, including Florida and North Carolina, have been processing mail-in ballots for weeks, with early counts likely to favor Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Elsewhere, including Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, mail-in ballots aren't tabulated until after voting closes, a detail that could favor President Trump initially.

"Those states may favor Donald Trump late into the night, until those mail-in ballots go in, and then the count will even out a little bit," Feist said.

A look at how CNN makes projections: Wolf Blitzer announces that the network has projected this or that candidate will win a particular race.

The process that leads to Blitzer saying those words is careful and complicated. It involves both real-time results and information from exit polls. CNN, NBC, ABC and CBS work with the polling firm Edison Research in what is known as the National Election Pool for results and exit polling data. Fox News and the Associated Press have a separate arrangement.

For additional details as to how CNN calls a presidential election, read more here.

Watch:

Judge Emmet Sullivan of the US District Court of the District of Columbia ordered the United States Postal Service to sweep all processing facilities by 3 p.m. ET in a number of states, including some critical battleground state.

The order mandates that USPS postal inspectors "or their designees" must start sweeping the processing facilities by 3:00 p.m. ET.

According to the order, this is,

The sweeps must be conducted in the following USPS districts: 

Seven battleground states are conducting sweeps and do not allow ballots to arrive after Election Day. They include: Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida, New Hampshire, Arizona, and Maine.

President Trump just walked into the bullpen of his campaign headquarters in Virginia to sustained cheers from campaign staff.

"I feel very good," Trump told reporters.

Trump said his message to America was that "everybody should come together, and success brings us together." 

CNN reported earlier, that Trump huddled with his top campaign staffers in a conference room at the headquarters, a source tells CNN, including Bill Stepien, Justin Clark and several others. They met for about 20 minutes. 

Watch Trump address campaign staff at RNC headquarters:

The North Carolina State Board of Elections says the board will meet at 1 p.m. ET this afternoon to consider extending hours at four voting locations.

The locations are: one polling place in Guilford County, one polling location in Cabarrus County, and two locations in Sampson County.

An extension of hours at even one of these locations would delay the reporting of results statewide. 

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said one of the reasons the sites opened late was because of poll workers arriving late. 

CNN reported earlier that slight opening delays had been reported in Sampson and Guilford counties. 

There was a printer issue at Marks First Missionary Baptist Church in Concord, North Carolina, which is in Cabarrus County. Kasia Faryna Thompson, Cabarrus County Director of Communications, estimates the issue delayed the poll from opening by about 15-20 minutes. 

Under state law, the State Board of Elections, by a majority vote, may extend voting hours at a polling place if polls are delayed in opening for more than 15 minutes or are interrupted for more than 15 minutes after opening.

The State Board may extend the closing time by an equal number of minutes.