Presidential election results 2020

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. 

Poll watchers, as the name implies, are expected to watch or observe what happens at polling places. Their primary job: Help ensure that their party has a fair shot at winning. Both parties do it.

But poll watchers can't interfere in any way with the actual voting process.

They can closely monitor the administration of the election to ensure that votes are counted accurately. And in some states, poll watchers can also challenge an individual voter's right to cast a ballot. Partisan poll watchers, however, must conduct those challenges through official poll workers and cannot stop or otherwise try to interfere with someone trying to vote.

Even if a poll watcher challenges an individual voter – for instance, by arguing that the person's name doesn't appear on the local voting rolls – states often allow that person to cast a "provisional" ballot to be counted later, once his or her right to vote has been verified.

Poll watchers can also help turn out the vote by counting the voters who have cast ballots and helping their respective candidates track which potential supporters haven't yet voted. That helps campaigns mount last-minute Election Day efforts to get those voters to cast their ballots before polls close.

Read more here.

Luzerne County in Northeastern Pennsylvania, which voted for Barack Obama in 2012 but went for President Trump in 2016, has begun processing approximately 52,000 mail-in ballots and expects that number to grow to nearly 60,000 by the time polls close at 8 p.m. ET, according to release from County Manager David Pedri.

He said volunteers were processing approximately 2,000 ballots an hour.

If that pace continues, workers will have processed a little more than one third of the anticipated number of mail-in ballots by 8 p.m. local time.

Pedri said the county was “experiencing great voter turnout at almost every polling place across the County.”

Pedri said there were “a few reported issues” at the county’s 129 polling places this morning, most of which were technical and resolved once diagnosed.

He said voters should anticipate waiting in a line and noted that as long as they were in line by 8 p.m. local time they would be allowed to vote.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said he thinks Ohio will know the results of the presidential election tonight. 

Early ballots will be counted first, DeWine told CNN’s Erin Burnett. 

The governor said he thinks Trump will perform well in rural areas of the state. 

“I think he could exceed even the votes he got the last time,” DeWine said. “…I think the intensity is there. The ground game it seems to me, from what I can observe for the Trump team, you know, has been a lot better than the ground game for the Biden team.” 

Watch:

More than 102 million Americans have voted nationwide before the polls opened on Election Day, according to a survey of election officials by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist.   

These votes represent more than 48% of registered voters nationwide. 22 states and Washington, DC have seen more than half of their registered voters cast ballots already.   

Pre-Election Day voting has skyrocketed nationwide amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. At least seven states, including Texas, Hawaii, Nevada, Washington, Arizona, Montana and Oregon, have surpassed their total turnout from the 2016 general election in recent days.  

In an additional seven states and DC, the pre-election vote represents at least 90% of their 2016 total vote – Utah, New Mexico, North Carolina, Colorado, Georgia, Florida and Tennessee. 

Nationwide, the 102.7 million ballots already cast represents 75% of the more than 136.5 million ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election.   

39 states and Washington, DC have crossed their halfway marks for total 2016 ballots cast, including 14 of CNN’s 16 most competitively-ranked states - Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin, Maine, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Ohio.  

A little less than half of the votes already cast this cycle comes from those 16 key states, which will play a crucial role in determining who wins the presidency this year. 

Some voter information comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.   

Here's a breakdown of early voting by state so far:

The biggest county in Iowa, which includes Des Moines, has finished counting all absentee ballots received through Monday, according to a tweet from the Polk County Auditor Jamie Fitzgerald. 

The results from those ballots will be posted shortly after polls close at 10 p.m. ET (9 p.m. CT.)

Polk County went for Hillary Clinton by 11 points in 2016.

The county has more than 300,000 registered voters and more than 136,731 had already voted or sent in an absentee ballot through Saturday.

Of those early voters, 58% were registered Democrats, 23% were registered Republicans, and 19% were not registered with either party.

Iowans still have time to return their absentee ballots. They will be counted as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 2 and arrive by Nov. 9.