Election 2020 presidential results

Gwinnett County, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, has faced a day-long delay in reporting a crucial batch of votes due to a technical problem as the presidential race in the state hangs in the balance.

At around 5 p.m. ET Friday, Gwinnett County was finally able to upload about 4,000 outstanding absentee-by-mail ballots, as well as re-run roughly 460 early voting ballots that had to be transferred from a "bad data card," Gwinnett County spokesperson Joe Sorensen told CNN. 

Originally, the county had hoped to upload these results at 8 a.m. ET; however, there was a technical issue with the Dominion system used to upload to the Georgia Secretary of State's office, Sorenson said. Gwinnett County says the blame for the delay falls solely on Dominion Voting Systems. 

Kay Stimson, vice president of Government Affairs at Dominion Voting Systems, told CNN that the situation in Gwinnett County “does not relate to system software and has had no impact on the accuracy of vote totals or tabulation."

Stimson added that "the company regrets the operational delays the issue has caused for the county."

Once this upload is complete, Gwinnett County says the only ballots remaining will be a currently unknown number of ballots needing cure, provisional ballots waiting for review and any outstanding military/overseas ballots received by today's 5 p.m. ET deadline. 

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms told CNN's Erin Burnett that she "absolutely" believes Georgia will flip for Joe Biden.

"This is our year. I've known for a while that Georgia was trending blue," she said.

Bottoms noted she knows "it's going to be a thin margin, but we're used to close elections."

Bottoms referenced her own election which had a 132-vote difference with almost 100,000 votes as an example.

When asked about the possibility of a recount, Bottoms expressed confidence in Biden's chances.

Bottoms also remarked on the historic nature of Biden's campaign and Kamala Harris potentially becoming the first woman of color to hold the second highest office in the country.

"This is a historical election and to have Sen. Harris join the ticket and for us to be a part of changing the history of this country, I think really speaks to the legacy of John Lewis and Joseph Lowery and Dr. C.T. Vivian. All three great giants who we lost this year in our state. It's a great year. And this really is the most important election of my lifetime and so many others and to have Kamala Harris be a part of this historic moment makes it even more special," Bottoms said.

Remember: CNN is yet to project a winner in Georgia. There are 16 electoral votes at stake in the state. Neither Biden nor Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

Watch:

Michigan Republican House Speaker Lee Chatfield announced Friday that the legislature’s oversight committees will meet Saturday “to begin an inquiry into the election and counting procedures in our state for this election and future ones.” 

Chatfield affirmed, “whoever gets the most votes will win Michigan! Period. End of story. Then we move on,” waving off concerns about electors breaking with the results.

Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich criticized the decision, calling it a “very sad development.”

“This is a very sad development and it only serves to feed the chaos on which this president thrives,” Ananich said in a statement provided to CNN.

Some context: The announcement comes as Trump and the Michigan Republican Party have tried to make claims of fraud in how the election was conducted in Michigan without any success.

The Trump campaign’s lawsuit claiming voter fraud in Michigan has already been thrown out and no new claims with evidence have been brought forward.

There are still approximately 35,000 outstanding mail-in ballots in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, but results could start coming in today, CNN's Brian Todd reports from an elections returns warehouse in Pittsburgh.

"Some of those were postmarked before Election Day, some were postmarked on Election Day. They're arriving and they didn't start counting until after Election Day," Todd reports.

Inside the election returns warehouse in Pittsburgh, Todd described the vote counting process.

"These are the people doing the most critical work. They're called the return board," he explained.

"They're counting ballots right now. Right now, the ballots that we're told they're counting are from military members overseas ... who have registered to vote in this county. Earlier, they went through damaged ballots," Todd said.

He added that the return board members had counted about 3,000 damaged ballots of the 35,000 outstanding ballots. "We're told they have about 3,500 military and overseas ballots that they're going through," Todd also noted.

There are an additional 29,000 other ballots that need to be counted as well, which are being segregated because they had the "wrong information put on them when they were mailed out. That was corrected," Todd said.

"They were re-mailed out and then people mailed them back, but because of that issue, by court order, they've got to be counted starting at 5 p.m. ET today," Todd explained.

Todd explained that there is an observer watching the voting process from behind.

"Very transparent process," Todd said, noting that there are cameras mounted in the room and monitors showing the voting process.

See Brian Todd's reporting:

Arizona has an estimated 250,000 to 270,000 unaccounted ballots left to count, according to Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.

Hobbs, speaking to CNN's Anderson Cooper, said 137,000 of those ballots were in Maricopa County and that after the release of more results tonight, that number would go down below 100,000 ballots.

Hobbs said the other counties with larger amounts of outstanding ballots included: 

Remember: CNN is yet to project a winner in Arizona. There are 11 electoral votes at stake in the state. Neither Biden nor Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

The presidential race between President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden remains on a razor's edge as election workers in key states continue to count ballots.

Most states, with the help of USPS, sent ballot envelopes with a unique set of numbers for each individual voter. Those numbers are often known as Intelligent Mail Barcodes, which allow the Postal Service to track the ballot.

It's still too close to call a winner in these six states as votes continue to be counted: Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

If you submitted your ballot in one of these states and want to check its status, here's where you can go:

Learn how you can check your ballot in other states here.

And if ballot tracking technology isn't available where you live, you can contact your local election office if you have questions or concerns about your ballot.

CNN is yet to make a projection in six states. Neither Joe Biden nor President Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

The race remains tight as votes continue to be counted in key states that could decide the presidency.

According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said that the presidential race in the state "remains too close to call" during a news conference Friday.

"The focus for our office and for the county elections officials, for now, remains on making sure that every legal vote is counted and recorded accurately," he said.

Raffensperger added that out of about the 5 million votes cast, the margin will be within a "few thousand."

"With a margin that small, there will be likely a recount in Georgia," he said.

Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's voting system implementation manager, said the number of outstanding votes remains "about the same as they were this morning. Not too much change."

Sterling said that there were about 4,000 outstanding ballots to be counted across a handful of counties earlier in the day.

Sterling noted that 18,008 ballots from military and other citizens from Georgia who are overseas have been accepted by the state. Approximately 8,410 are “still available to be received” he said, if those ballots were postmarked by Election Day and received by end of business Friday.

“That does not mean that there’s a bucket of 8,410 votes to be counted. That means there are 8,410 votes that could have been postmarked Tuesday and could be received by the elections officials today, so as I said earlier, it’s going to be more than 0 and less than 8,410," Sterling explained.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden currently leads President Trump in total votes counted to date across Georgia by 1,585 votes, Sterling said.

Remember: CNN is yet to project a winner in Georgia. There are 16 electoral votes at stake in the state. Neither Biden nor Trump have received the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. According to CNN's latest projections, Biden has 253 electoral votes to Trump's 213.

Hear the announcement:

As vote counting has stretched into the afternoon, Joe Biden and his campaign are closely and patiently watching the results as they hope a state will soon put them over the top.

Biden has spent the day at home with family and senior advisers, sources familiar with his plans say, watching results and getting updates from the campaign. 

At the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, top advisers have been seen spotted in the lobby of the hotel and staff has been diligently working throughout the day preparing the site for his expected remarks this evening.

Jeeps and trucks with camping chairs in their beds are positioned in front of the stage where the remarks from Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris are expected to take place.