Presidential election results 2020

Joe Biden is heading home to his family to watch the returns after stopping at the aquatic center in Wilmington. The question is whether he speaks tonight here outside the Chase Center where he accepted the Democratic nomination for president.

Campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon told reporters earlier today that Biden would address the nation tonight — regardless of outcome. Biden said a few moments ago that it was still to be determined whether he spoke.

The Biden campaign believes it will have a sense of the direction things are going — but are pessimistic on Florida.

“It is a tough lift for us, but people are still voting there,” a campaign official said.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wouldn't commit to a plan if election results aren't made clear by the end of Tuesday night, telling reporters in Wilmington, Delaware, that he'll say something when he's ready.

"There’s just so much in play right now … We’ll see. If there’s something to talk about tonight, I’ll talk about it. If not, I’ll wait ‘til the votes are counted the next day," Biden said.

Asked if he plans to respond if President Trump declares a victory before the results are clear, Biden said he doesn't feel a responsibility to respond, adding, "It depends on what he says and how he says it."

"Presidents can’t determine what votes counted or not counted and, you know, voters determine who is president," Biden said. "No matter what he does or what he says, the votes are going to be counted."

The former vice president also said that he was "superstitious" about predicting an outcome of the election, but said he remained "hopeful," expressing confidence in "overwhelming" voter turnout among key demographics and key states.

Asked if he was confident that he was on the path to winning, Biden said, "Well, I don’t know."

"For example ... Florida came in and I won, it’s over. Done. If Florida doesn’t come in and, you know, what happens is the early votes occur, and some other states are going to do well, and we’re going to reestablish that blue wall," Biden said. "I feel good about that."

Despite his uncertainty, Biden seemed baffled that traditionally red states, like Texas, may be up for grabs tonight.

"It’s just so uncertain," Biden admitted. "Look, you can’t think of an election in the recent past where so many states are up for grabs. The idea I’m in play in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Florida — I mean, come on. Texas?"

In Michigan, 12,530 new voters registered as of 2:30 p.m. today, taking advantage of same-day voter registration, according to Secretary of State spokesman Jake Rollow.

In a call with reporters, Rollow said there were lines of people waiting to get registered or to update their registration specifically in two college towns: Ann Arbor, which is home to the University of Michigan, and Grand Rapids, which is near Grand Valley State University. Overall, things are running smoothly across the state, Rollow said. 

The state has seen more than 359,000 new voter registrations since August 5, the day after the August primary, which was for state elections.

This is the first presidential election in Michigan to allow same-day voter registration, after voters passed a ballot initiative in 2018 establishing the practice. Already, the number of Michiganders who registered today is larger than President Donald Trump’s margin-of-victory in 2016, which was 10,704 votes. 

Heavy turnout in competitive suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania, is creating very long waits at polling places.

Bucks County Commissioner Gene DiGirolamo told CNN he’s heard from voters who spent three to four hours in line. At Bensalem High School, CNN talked to voters who reported spending about 90 minutes waiting to vote. Officials at this voting location say turnout appeared to be double that of typical election years.

Bucks County Public Information Director Larry King said heavy Election Day turnout may be due to fewer than half of the 488,000 registered voters applying for mail-in ballots. 

 “We did have one polling place where there was a problem with the scanners being able to read ballots. There were some markings on the edge of the ballot that were trimmed a little close, so I think might have held that particularly polling place up a little bit but that to my knowledge has been rectified,” said King. 

King said that he himself waited about an hour and a half to vote this morning and that he expects others might be waiting the same amount of time. 

Both candidates have visited this crucial county in the northern Philadelphia suburbs. Hillary Clinton barely won this county in 2016.

CNN's Kate Bolduan reports:

Gabriel Sterling, Georgia’s Voting System Implementation Manager, says that the average wait time across the state remains at two minutes.   

“Everything has been steady as she goes across the state of Georgia. We are seeing pretty even turnout throughout the day,” Sterling said, updating the press Tuesday afternoon. 

Spalding County, located in west central Georgia south of Atlanta, and Morgan County, located in north central Georgia east of Atlanta are both now fully back online after “data set issues” slowed down voting in some locations earlier.    

Sterling said that the main technical issue Georgia has seen today is having to clean some of the scanners sometimes. 

“When the ballots go through them after a while they just want to clean it to make sure it is registering everything properly. But outside of that it has been steady as she goes pretty much across the state.”   

Sterling told CNN on camera that DeKalb County extending hours at two precincts won’t impact the Secretary of State releasing any statewide results when some of the polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden has an air of confidence today, his final day of his third presidential campaign.

He wanted to spend the day on the road — he asked his advisers specifically —to get a sense of something he’s missed during this pandemic campaign. He wanted to see the crowds and hear the chants. It belies a nervous energy that he has heading into the final hours

Democrats are confident, but they also know their decision to campaign carefully in the coronavirus crisis took away a central part of the party’s backbone: traditional field organizing, the get out the vote effort that won the White House for Obama and Biden twice before.

“We have no regrets how we ran this campaign,” a campaign official tells CNN, but adds they will wonder if a virtual campaign was enough until the final votes are counted.

92% of all absentee ballots across Michigan have been returned, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson tweeted Tuesday afternoon.

Absentee counting is “going smoothly & very efficiently” and “precincts are islands of calm,” she noted.

Michiganders can drop off their ballots for the next four hours.

Here's the tweet:

Sen. Kamala Harris made a surprise stop at Greater Grace Temple polling place on 7 Mile in Detroit, Michigan, a predominantly Black community, to thank voters for staying in line to cast their ballots on Election Day.

“Encourage people to stand in line, I know it may be asking a lot but when we think about what we want for ourselves, for our children, for our families, for our community over the next four years and for the next generation this is probably o.k. to do compared to what we're going to get in return,” Harris said.

The vice presidential hopeful referred back to the 2016 election results, saying voters can make the difference this time.

With reporting from Deanna Hackney and Vanessa Price

Carl Anderson, the chairman of Pennsylvania's Erie County Board of Elections said Tuesday that things were going well for Election Day. 

Erie County which is located in northwestern part of the state, had one of the narrowest margins of victory for President Donald Trump in 2016, who won the county by a little over a percentage point.

Amid the smoothness of the day, Anderson noted that the county may even be on track to exceed its goal of processing at least 10,000 mail-in ballots by tonight. 

“The word I have asked people for is patience and that seems to be accepted by an overwhelming majority. Very few and very isolated reports of voter intimidation. People have been very respectful,” Anderson added.