Presidential election results 2020

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Cheri Bustos, expressed confidence Democrats will expand their House majority tonight.

On a Zoom conference call with reporters, Bustos said the party is “well-positioned to have a good night.” 

She declined to predict how many seats Democrats will gain. 

“We’re not going to put a number to it,” she said, adding that “you make your own luck going into any election.”

Bustos also said Democratic leaders are preparing for “extended counts and even potential recounts” after Election Day.

On the call, Nancy Pelosi reiterated her advice to Democratic voters:

She said she believes Joe Biden will be inaugurated in January. 

However, Pelosi refused to answer CNN’s Manu Raju when asked if she would abide by her promise to only serve as speaker through the end of 2022. In order to secure the votes for speaker in 2019, Pelosi promised she would only serve as speaker for this current Congress and the next Congress, which begins in January.

Officials in the city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, say they haven’t received any reports about problems so far, either at polling places or at the city’s absentee ballot counting center. 

“No news is good news,” Mayor Tom Barrett said. “We’re off to a great start.” 

All of the city’s 173 polling places opened successfully, Barrett added.

At the central count location where volunteers are tallying about 175,000 absentee ballots today, more volunteers showed up than expected, Election Commission executive director Claire Woodall-Vogg said. 

“Poll workers turned out in just phenomenal numbers today so we’re confident our polling places are fully staffed,” she said. 

As of 10 a.m., there have been no disruptions at the central count location and no valid challenges of absentee ballots by election observers or vote-counters, Woodall-Vogg said. 

Barrett noted that the city’s absentee voting numbers “shatters all records” set in previous elections. He reminded Milwaukee voters that they have until 7:30 p.m. to return ballots to the city’s 15 dropboxes and that anyone who is standing in line at the polls at 8 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

Brandon Davis, a 34-year-old truck driver, had anticipated a long wait when he showed up to cast his ballot this morning at the Sandtown Park Recreation Center west of downtown Atlanta in Fulton County. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised by the experience.  

Fulton County — Georgia’s largest county, which includes most of the city of Atlanta — has seen some long lines in past elections, including the June primary, when some voters waited eight hours to cast their ballots. 

For this election, the county greatly expanded the number of early voting locations and increased its capacity to process absentee ballots, in the hopes of cutting down lines on Election Day. 

So far, signs indicate its plan is working: By mid-morning, average wait times across Fulton were under 30 minutes, according to county election officials. 

And even if he had run into a long line, Davis said he was willing to wait it out. 

“Even if I had to sit out here for six hours, it didn’t matter because we need to vote,” he said. “The fact that I was only here maybe five minutes, that’s just the icing on the cake. Now I get to go enjoy my day and go to work later.”

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar on Tuesday reminded voters to have patience and that not all vote counting is finished on Election Day. 

“Vote counting is never finished on Election Day and if we stop counting ballots on Election Day, we will be disenfranchising all the men and women who serve our country, all the military and civilian overseas voters whose ballots by law must be accepted up to seven days after the election," she said.

“We are the only ones that can actually declare results of an election or an election count being over," said Boockvar. “Everyone should have patience.” 

The number of people attending today's White House election night party has been reduced to 250, one source familiar tells CNN.

This source added that all guests will receive a rapid test for Covid-19, and each guest will receive a testing bracelet. 

CNN previously reported that as many as 400 people could attend. 

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Fences surrounding the White House went up overnight. Authorities say there are no credible threats at the moment, but they want to take precautions for any worse case scenarios that may come about tonight or in the coming days, CNN’s Vivian Salama reports.

Crews worked around the clock to put up non-scalable fences that are eight-feet high and four-feet wide. Each panel is locked together, Salama says, standing on the west side of the White House.

In total, there is 52 acres surrounding the White House are fenced off. Lafayette Park is also fenced off since many protests took place there over the summer over George Floyd’s death. Authorities are trying to keep people as far away from the White House complex as possible, Salama says. 

This adds to businesses preparing for possible unrest across the national capital as well as some other areas around the country. Businesses are putting up boards and plywood as a caution against any vandalism that may occur in the event of possible unrest. 

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An election official in Nebraska is warning people to disregard an anonymous robocall telling people to "stay safe and stay home." 

It's currently unclear who is responsible for the robocall, but when the call is picked up, a robotic voice tells people, “This is a test, stay safe and stay home." 

A CNN employee in the Atlanta area received the call within the past hour.

The number that appears to be calling is, "spoofed." That means that the entity responsible for the robocall has disguised the real number and is making the number that pops up look like it's from a local number.

This robocall is nothing new, or specific to Election Day. Users on social media have been complaining about similar robocalls as far back as July.

However, given the fear of voter intimidation on Election Day, some election officials are issuing statements on the call.

Asked about reports that emerged yesterday of robocalls and text messages being sent in Florida and Michigan to suppress the vote, a senior official at the Department of Homeland’s cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency said, “those sorts of things happen every year,” during a background call with reporters. 

CNN has reached out to the FBI for comment on the calls.

CNN's Geneva Sands contributed to this report.

Joe Biden visited his childhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania, this morning. While there, he signed one of the living room walls.

“From this house to the White House with the grace of God. Joe Biden 11-3-2020," he wrote.

Here's what it looks like:

For the fifth day in a row, the US Postal Service moved fewer ballots on-time in critical battleground states than it did in the previous day, according to new court filings.

Five of the states with low processing scores — Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, New Hampshire and Maine — do not allow ballots to arrive after Election Day.

The continued drops in performance mean ballots are now at significant risk of not arriving to election offices in time to be counted. In more than half of the states, mail-in ballots will not count if they arrive after polls close.

A higher processing score means that a higher percentage of ballots are traveling through the mail system on time. 

The Postal Service said that on a national level, it moved fewer ballots on time on Sunday and Monday than on Friday, with the service’s overall processing score dropping from 91% to 90%. Scores have been steadily declining since Wednesday, when USPS reported it moved 97% of ballots on time.

The Postal Service reported that it moved at least 740,864 ballots on Sunday and Monday.

Some critical battlegrounds states are still experiencing a drop in processing scores below 90%.  

Just 52% of the Atlanta district's ballots, and 69% of ballots in wide swaths of North Carolina moved on-time on Sunday and Monday, the USPS reported. The two districts had the lowest processing scores in the US. 

Fewer than than 80% of ballots in Pennsylvania and Ohio were moved on time, with Central Pennsylvania and the Ohio Valley sinking into the low 70s. Michigan, Wisconsin, New Hampshire and Maine all had processing scores well below the 90% mark.

These figures do not include ballots being returned through what USPS calls "local turnaround." That's the process USPS says some post offices have implemented, where ballots are being delivered directly to local boards of election -- they are postmarked, but don't go through normal mail processing.  

USPS has reiterated that the delays are largely due to staffing shortages due to Covid-19.    

To fix the issues, USPS has provided "multiple layers of operational oversight,” is coordinating closely with the USPS inspector general, and has been holding daily troubleshooting calls with problem areas. 

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