By Meg Wagner, Melissa Mahtani, Melissa Macaya, Jessica Estepa, Veronica Rocha and Fernando Alfonso III, CNN
From CNN's Jim Acosta
A source close to the White House said it's becoming apparent that GOP officials are beginning to lose patience with some of President Trump's behavior as he baselessly claims fraud is robbing him of the presidency.
Trump is "bleeding GOP support," said the source, who described the President's complaints as an "ambulance chasing routine."
The source went on to criticize the Trump campaign for leveling charges of voter fraud in Pennsylvania.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is leading the race with 253 electoral votes. President Trump has 213 electoral votes.
Based on these projections, this is where the race to 270 currently stands.
Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.
From CNN's Jeff Zeleny
Joe Biden is holding a call with his campaign’s National Finance Committee shortly, according to two sources familiar, thanking his top contributors for building what unexpectedly became the bright spot of his operation: A major financial advantage over the Trump campaign.
The call underscores the optimism inside Democratic circles at the prospect of Biden winning. After a day of counting, a top adviser tells me their confidence has increased significantly as the day has moved along.
One thing Biden will not have tonight: a victory rally outside the Chase Center. The stage remains set. The red, white and blue neon Biden-Harris signs are still on. Flags are rippling in the breeze, but there will be no fireworks tonight.
Even with an air of confidence, a message has gone out to Biden world: They need to see this through, keeping a close eye on Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. Legal teams are ready to be deployed, along with other workers if needed.
One thing not being talked about tonight: The Biden transition. It’s been in place for months, as required by law, but it’s a topic that’s off-limits here in Wilmington.
Votes are still being counted in several key states, which could determine the outcome of the presidential race between President Trump and Joe Biden.
We're still awaiting for results in these states:
Currently, Biden leads the race with 253 electoral votes over Trump's 213 electoral votes.
Reminder: Each candidate needs 270 electoral college votes to win the presidency.
From CNN's Brian Fung
Fake Twitter accounts impersonating the Associated Press sowed disinformation online Wednesday by attempting to call election results prematurely, prompting national security officials to issue warnings about the behavior.
Screenshots of one of the accounts showed impostors appearing to call Michigan for Joe Biden. As of this write, the AP has not called Michigan for either candidate. CNN has called Michigan for Joe Biden.
CNN was unable to independently view the impersonator accounts before Twitter removed them from their platform.
AP spokesperson Patrick Maks told CNN, “These are bogus accounts not affiliated with AP.”
The Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency said it has witnessed multiple reports of social media accounts pretending to be legitimate news outlets calling election results, and that it had anticipated the tactic.
“Don’t fall for it!” tweeted CISA director Chris Krebs, linking to an agency guide telling voters that “malicious actors can use fake personas and impersonate real accounts.”
“Most media accounts on platforms will have a checkmark, so if they’re not verified, dig deeper!” Krebs said in a follow-up tweet.
The tweets mark Krebs’ first public warning of a specific threat affecting the current election.
The accounts in question "were in violation of our impersonation policy,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNN. "They are permanently suspended.”
Twitter said it has not witnessed any large-scale attempts to impersonate media outlets but that it will suspend any account that attempts to do so.
If Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden maintains his lead in Nevada and Arizona, he will secure the 270 electoral votes needed to take the presidency, CNN's John King said this afternoon.
"Nevada and Arizona are not called but Joe Biden is leading and Wolf [Blitzer] made the point if Joe Biden protects the lead in Nevada and Arizona and he gets to 270 electoral votes even if he doesn't win the commonwealth of Pennsylvania," King said.
Drilling down into the Arizona numbers: The state still has more than 600,000 ballots remaining to be counted, officials tell CNN.
Between 615,000 and 635,000 ballots, possibly more, remain to be counted in Arizona, according to the officials.
Biden currently leads Trump by about 93,000 votes statewide, 51% to 47.6%, according to CNN’s latest count. According to informal estimates, Trump would need to win approximately 58% of the outstanding vote to overcome Biden’s lead.
CNN's John King breaks down the map:
From CNN's Bob Ortega
Arizona still has more than 600,000 ballots remaining to be counted, officials tell CNN.
Between 615,000 and 635,000 ballots, possibly more, remain to be counted in Arizona, according to the officials.
Biden currently leads Trump by about 93,000 votes statewide, 51.% to 47.6%, according to CNN’s latest count. According to informal estimates, Trump would need to win approximately 58% of the outstanding vote to overcome Biden’s lead.
Roughly two-thirds of the remaining votes to be counted come from Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, which Trump won four years ago 49% to 46% over Hillary Clinton, but where Biden currently holds a lead of about 99,000 votes.
Maricopa elections officials say they have between 428,000 and 446,000 ballots still to count. This includes 248,000 mail ballots that were returned in the last three days before the election; between 160,000 and 180,000 mail ballots returned on Election Day; and 18,000 provisional ballots, according to the Maricopa County Recorder’s Office. County officials said they expect to release updated count numbers around 9 p.m. ET. But they have not said when final results will be released.
The next biggest share of votes come from blue-leaning Pima County, home of Tucson, which has just under 91,000 ballots left to count.
Of Arizona’s 13 other counties, five have not posted information about their number of remaining votes to count. Seven of the remaining eight were counties that Trump won over Clinton in 2016; but, all told, they account for about 12% of the known remaining ballots to be counted.
CNN's Kyung Lah reports:
From CNN's Kyung Lah
Arizona's Maricopa County, the most populous county that includes Phoenix, will release two batches of voting results Wednesday night, according to Megan Gilbertson from the Maricopa County Elections Department.
Here's when they numbers will be released:
There is no estimate on how many ballots each batch will contain.
Among the first ballots counted today are the 248,000 early ballots that were not processed before Election Day. Those ballots will go more quickly as more of them have been taken out of envelopes and signature verified already.
The roughly 160,000 to 180,000 early ballots dropped off on Election Day have not been removed from envelopes or signature verified—these will take time to process.
From CNN's Bob Ortega, Ashley Fantz and David Williams
Election officials in Arizona are tamping down viral claims online that voters who used Sharpie pens on their ballots wouldn’t have their votes counted.
The confusion, fueled largely on social media, has prompted Secretary of State Katie Hobbs to tweet: “IMPORTANT: If you voted a regular ballot in-person, your ballot will be counted, no matter what kind of pen you used (even a Sharpie).” In Maricopa County, officials said Sharpies are actually the preferred method of marking ballots.
But the state attorney general’s office said it will look into “hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations.”
Some more context: In one video viewed more than a million times on Twitter– and shared widely on Facebook and Instagram – an unidentified woman claims without proof that poll workers tried to force her to use a Sharpie and that she insisted on using an ink pen, to make sure her vote would count. The video was shot outside the Communiversity at Queen Creek polling site in Maricopa County by Marko Trickovic, who can be heard asking her: “So What they’re doing is they’re telling people to use Sharpies – that way those votes aren’t counted?” She responds, “Yes.”
The woman says four different polling places between “Queen Creek and the edge of Gilbert,” which is near the border with Pinal County, insisted that voters use Sharpies instead of pens. At one point, Trickovic asks her to confirm whether poll workers were “yanking” pens from voters hands. She says, “Yes, they tried to do that to me.”
State Attorney General Mark Brnovich tweeted that, “We have received hundreds of voter complaints regarding Sharpies at polling locations. Accordingly, we sent this letter to Maricopa County election officials. Let's get some answers.”
The letter asks the Maricopa County Elections department several questions, including what voting sites used Sharpies and how many ballots were rejected.
Maricopa County officials said poll workers were actually trained to require voters to use Sharpies at voting sites.
