Election 2020 presidential results

The Trump campaign is going to the Supreme Court, asking it to intervene in a pending case challenging a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed ballots to be counted after Election Day. 

The justices refused to expedite the appeal before the election, but they are still considering whether to take up the case. 

“The time has come. Given last night’s results, the vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States,” Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for the President, said in the new filing.

“And this Court, not the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, should have the final say on the relevant and dispositive legal questions," he said.

Some context: The President is laying the groundwork to challenge the election results in Pennsylvania at the United States Supreme Court.

His attorneys filed a petition with the Supreme Court to insert the President personally as a party to the lawsuit that is currently pending.

The case involves a challenge to Pennsylvania’s mail-in ballot deadline extension  — the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is allowing for mail-in ballots to be accepted through Friday at 5 p.m. ET, including ballots without a legible postmark. 

The Supreme Court deadlocked 4-4 in October, allowing the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling to stand, and did not grant an expedited review of the case in the days before the election. However, the Supreme Court is still deciding whether to take up the underlying case.

CNN's Pamela Brown reports:

The Trump campaign says it's suing in Pennsylvania over poll watchers and voter ID laws.

Trump deputy campaign manager Justin Clark says in a statement: “Bad things are happening in Pennsylvania. Democrats are scheming to disenfranchise and dilute Republican votes. President Trump and his team are fighting to put a stop to it.”

Clark continues: “We are suing to stop Democrat election officials from hiding the ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers — observers whose only job is to make sure every valid ballot is counted, and counted once.”

Clark also writes, “The Trump Campaign is also suing to stop Pennsylvania Democrats from breaking the very law that helps America vote—the Help America Vote Act (HAVA). While HAVA requires that states ensure certain first-time voters provide identification in order to vote, Secretary Boockvar—three days ago—re-wrote Pennsylvania Election Code to abuse her unilateral executive fiat and move the deadline for absentee and mail-in voters to provide missing proof of identification well past the deadline.”

CNN teams in Pennsylvania are checking to see if the suit has actually been filed.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said of the lawsuit: "I think that's probably more of a political document than a legal document." 

Shapiro told CNN's Jake Tapper: "There is transparency in this process. The counting has been going on. There are observers, observing this counting and the counting will continue. I recognize that right now the campaign wants to spin, they want to say whatever they're going to say. But, Jake, here's the deal. The campaign is over." 

He said the state "will not let anything interrupt that process of counting" of votes. 

Some context: Early Wednesday, Trump attempted to claim victory in the presidential race and called for a halt to legitimate vote counting that is underway around the country. He currently holds a lead in Pennsylvania, but counting continues in the state. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said that the majority of the ballots in her state could be counted "significantly sooner" than Friday. 

See Pennsylvania Attorney General's response on CNN:

Georgia is one of the battleground states that is still counting ballots as the winner of the presidential election is still unknown.

President Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden are battling to reach 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.

Here are some of the major counties that are still counting. Most of these are absentee ballots:

DeKalb County

Fulton County

Cobb County

Forsyth County

Houston County

USPS' Kevin Bray, who's in charge of all mail processing during the 2020 election, testified in court Wednesday that the US Postal Service will continue to implement extraordinary measures to deliver ballots in time to count through Saturday.

This is important because some states allow properly postmarked ballots to be counted if they arrive after Election Day.  Those ballots must be postmarked on, or before, Election Day.

Bray said that USPS, through Saturday, would continue to utilize the express mail network— it guarantees delivery by one to two days — and what they call "local turnaround” that allows for local ballots to be delivered the same or next day. 

The Trump campaign has released a statement saying it has filed a lawsuit in Michigan asking the state to halt counting until it receives “meaningful access” to observe the opening of ballots and the counting process.

CNN teams in Michigan have not seen evidence that the suit has actually been filed but continue to check.

While the Trump campaign has said that lawsuit has been filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, docket clerk for the Court of Claims, Morgan Adams, told CNN that the court has not received the filing.

Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told CNN on Wednesday that the state could end up in a recount situation once all the ballots are counted, but it’s not “inevitable.”

President Trump currently leads former Vice President Joe Biden in Pennsylvania by about 458,915 votes with about 80% of the vote reported.

“In Pennsylvania there’s an automatic recount if the race is within 0.5 percent difference between the winner and the person in second. So in 2016, I believe the final results were 0.7 percent, so there was no automatic recount. Today remains to be seen,” she said.

 “I think we’ll know more by the end of the day where we see where we are,” Boockvar added.

Watch the moment:

A Trump campaign adviser said the President is the driving force behind nearly all of the rhetoric from the campaign questioning the legitimacy of the election and the ballot counting process. 

Aides are encouraging Trump to stay in the fight, but Trump doesn't really need the nudge, the adviser said. Trump wants to fight it out until the end, the adviser added. 

The adviser said the President has been livid watching Biden's lead increase in states like Michigan and Wisconsin. 

The adviser acknowledged that it is unlikely Trump will close the gaps in Arizona and Wisconsin, not to mention Michigan which is viewed as an even tougher challenge for the President.  CNN has projected Biden will win Wisconsin.

The adviser added that campaign officials remain furious with Fox for calling Arizona, saying they believe the race there is very tight and was called too early by Fox.

The margin in the vote count between presidential candidates is substantial enough that it is "highly unlikely" there will be a legal challenge against absentee ballots received after 8:00 p.m. Tuesday night, the Minnesota secretary of state said.

During a Wednesday press conference, Secretary of State Steve Simon said that about 240,000 requested absentee ballots haven't been received, but that number is most likely inflated. This number could include those who requested a mail ballot but decided to vote in-person, or requested one and didn't vote at all. 

Right now, Biden is leading by approximately 230,000 votes in Minnesota, and the remaining absentee pile would be unlikely to dramatically change his vote count, Simon said. He also noted that there is no new litigation filed against his office as of this morning. 

Some background: The absentee ballots that haven't been received previously played a crucial role since a federal appeals court ruled last week that any ballots received after 8:00 p.m. on election night must be segregated.

As of now, the late ballots will be segregated but included in the total vote count. The Secretary of State's office would only remove them completely if there was a legal challenge against them, according to Simon. 

A new order from Judge Emmet Sullivan instructs USPS to conduct two sweeps for ballots in Texas.

Lawyers for the NAACP asked for the order, which Sullivan granted.

It instructs USPS to conduct two sweeps in all Texas processing plants for ballots postmarked on Election Day or earlier.

The first sweep must start immediately; the second must take place at 4 p.m. ET.

Any ballots postmarked on or before Election Day found in the sweeps must be delivered to election officials by 5 p.m. ET, according to the order.

The order also requires USPS to report on how many ballots were found during those Texas sweeps.

USPS' Kevin Bray, who is in charge of all mail processing during the 2020 election, told the court that the instructions had already been sent to postal employees in the Lone Star State.

In post offices, the order instructs the USPS to remind all managers that ballots should implement local turnaround, which skips normal processing procedures so that ballots can be delivered immediately.

This order is important because Texas allows for the counting of ballots that arrive by 5 p.m. Wednesday (November 4) as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day.