Trump could still win...

[nzoomed]

If the courts order to remove all the late ballots from the count.
Biden is only about 20K votes ahead in some of those key states.

I wonder how many late votes have been counted overall?

I think things are going to get ugly whatever the outcome and can expect legal challenges from noth sides, especially if courts order to remove late votes from the tally.

[Rumpelteazer]

I am not sure just what you mean by "late ballots" In New Zealand I think that all ballots have to be in the hands of the Returning Officers by polling day. However I have gained the impression that in the US Postal Votes are considered valid if they are in the hands of the Postal Service by that time. In NZ very little mail is datestamped with the time and date of receipt by the Post Office. What happens in the US I do not know.

The question I have is how is it possible to distinguish between postal votes cast before the close of polls but still in the post and delivered on subsequent days and postal votes cast after the close of polls and delivered late?

It seems that the system is open to fraud and this is what President Trump is going to court over.

[thephoenix]

I read somewhere that in Pennsylvania there's about four thousand late ballots which are being counted separately, and I'm not sure if they've even been included in Pennsylvania's total. Being one of the larger states, you would expect other states to have less so-called "illegal votes" which wouldn't be enough to save Trump. Potentially he could get Arizona but he might need the late votes - which makes it a little awkward.

Trump has muddied the waters a little by insinuating that everything that's been counted over the last couple of days are late ballots and (bigly) illegal, but they're not. In the case of PA, they weren't able to start counting/preparing the postal ballots until election day so they were never going to get it all counted by the time Donny went to bed on election night.

Unlike NZ, the mail does get datestamped (assuming that wasn't one of the cutbacks put forward by the USPS), so they should know what time things arrived.

It's going to be a messy few weeks, not helped by the unhelpful rumourmongering on social media... 14,000 dead people voted in a county (no they didn't - one elderly woman wasn't even dead), "I threw out 100 Trump ballots today" (no you didn't, you don't even live there), This guy was seen dumping ballots behind the polling centre, here's where he lives and his drivers license number (he was literally taking out the rubbish).

Good luck to Biden in binding the US together again. Can't see it happening tbh.

[nzoomed]

Dead people voting is nothing new, it reportedly happened last election and likely previous ones too, likely on both sides I expect.

As far as late ballots go, I was watching an interview at a counting station on CNN, apparently they get counted, and go to the official count, but they said they ate marked and put separate so if there is litigation, they know how many to remove.

What is unclear is how many late votes arrived that were illegally datestamped with a November 3rd watermark, apparently this is under investigation after what a whistle-blower said who works at the UPS.

[thephoenix]

With the backdating (if it turns out to be true), it's not going to be a whole lot. Plus it's going to be on the postmaster, since he/she doesn't know what the envelopes contain. Maybe the postmaster just wanted everyone's votes to count, and not be chucked out! Honourable, but wrong, lol. Anyway, the Republicans will be hard pressed to pin it on the Democrats as some part of their grand master plan to steal the election.

See that the "whistleblower" in Erie has got US$115k in a gofundme page. Hope it's not just a money making exercise...

Funny how postal voting is seen as problematic, but we all (well, some) happily write a few numbers down or tick boxes for the local body elections, post it back, and don't bat an eyelid when they announce which fifty-seven strangers made it onto some health board.

[nzoomed]

I wonder why he needed a gofundme page?
Is he up for legal costs as a result?
Trump is correct that mail in votes are open for fraud, to what extent we really don't know, but there are cases of voting harvesting going on, but the polling stations are supposed to check signatures etc, apparently there are allegations that this has been happening in some places.

Perhaps that's why they have been taking so long to count?
It would take a very long time to verify all those ballots by hand.

Its a joke how long Nevada is taking to count!

I guess more will come to light soon, but I do agree its strange how some of the counting centre's started boarding up the windows.

[thephoenix]

Trump could probably serve another term by just asking for a recount in Nevada. It would take that long.

While the optics of boarding up windows isn't a great look, you've got to remember that the Reps and Dems had their maximum number of observers in the building already, plus it was being filmed 24/7. The people outside seemed to be protestors, chanting, banging on the windows etc. I don't know about you, but I'd struggle to do my job properly if all that was happening in my eye line.

Hasn't been much in the way of evidence from the Republicans, and the Four Seasons Total Landscaping booking is still bringing a smile to my face.

[nzoomed]

IDK, if there really is compelling evidence, we will know soon or else it will just get thrown out of court.