04 November 2020
Election workers in the United States continue to count votes from the American presidential election held Tuesday. President Donald Trump, the Republican Party candidate, and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, remain locked in close races in the battleground states.
In the North, vote counting continues in the states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin. On the southeast coast, results are still coming in for Georgia and North Carolina. And the counting continues in the western states of Arizona and Nevada, as well.
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, a Democrat, wrote on Twitter, "We still have over 1 million ballots to count in Pennsylvania." He added, "I promised Pennsylvanians that we would count every vote and that's what we're going to do."
Biden made a brief appearance in Wilmington, Delaware in the early hours of November 4th. He told supporters the election "ain't over until every vote is counted." He added, "It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare who's won this election. That's the decision of the American people."
Speaking from the White House, Trump said he had won the election. He called the voting process a "a major fraud," and said, "we will be going to the U.S. Supreme Court."
Both candidates gained expected victories. Biden has been predicted the winner in states from Virginia up through the East Coast. Other states called as Biden victories include California, on the west coast. Trump was the predicted winner in much of the South, including Alabama, as well as several central states, including Kansas and Missouri.
Election Day is usually the end of the presidential race in the United States. This year, it may just be the beginning.
More than 100 million voters sent their ballots through the mail or voted early. The record number equates to 73 percent of all voters in the 2016 presidential election. The early votes, however, will take days to count. Each state has its own deadline for confirming election results.
Activists from the Republican and Democratic parties have fought about the voting process since well before Election Day. Late on Tuesday, both sides were preparing for possible legal fights over ballots and the process for seating the winner.
What's next?
The U.S. presidential election is decided by an Electoral College system and not the popular vote.
There are 538 electors in the Electoral College. The winner of the popular vote in a state will win the electors from the state. December 8 is the deadline for the states to choose electors. They will meet on December 14 to vote for president and vice president. A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the president.
There have been five winners of the Electoral College who actually lost the popular vote. They are John Quincy Adams in 1824; Rutherford B. Hayes in 1876; Benjamin Harrison in 1888; George W. Bush in 2000; and Donald J. Trump in 2016.
On January 3, 2021, members of the new Congress take office. Three days later, the new Congress will count the electoral votes and officially confirm the winner.
I'm Caty Weaver.
Hai Do wrote this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter, Jr. and Caty Weaver were the editors.
________________________________________________
Words in This Story
locked –v. held in a fixed position
battleground states –n. a state in which voters of both major parties are fairly evenly split
fraud - n. the crime of using dishonest methods to take something
deadline –n. a date or time when something must be finished