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Wisconsin Election Official Gives Update On Vote Count; Biden Leads In Michigan, Wisconsin, Trump Leads In Pennsylvania; Trump Campaign Says It Will Request A Recount In Wisconsin. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired November 04, 2020 - 12:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:30:00]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Let's go back to John King. John, let's talk about Pennsylvania and Georgia and Nevada. Let's wonder whichever one you want to start with those may be Nevada since we were just there with Erica Hill. It is a tight race there were the votes still to be counted?

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: West to east in this hour Anderson. We're going to keep counting throughout the day. As Erica just very smartly noted, look, if you look at the math right now, this is pretty close, right, very close. 7,647 vote lead for Joe Biden 49.3 to 48.7. So the Trump campaign says, let's keep counting, they've every right to do so. Let's see if they have consistency when we come east. But to Erica's point, most of your votes, more than 70 percent of your votes, 72, 73 percent of your votes are going to come right out of here, Clark County. This is Las Vegas and among the fastest growing suburbs in America around it right here. This is where again, more than seven and 10 votes are going to come right here out of this county.

Joe Biden winning 53 to 45, if you look at it right now, about 84 percent in Clark County, that means a giant chunk of votes coming out of a predominantly Democratic area. And they are mail-in votes, which we know are going toward Joe Biden. So every reason for the Biden campaign to think you're going to grow here, second largest county in the state is Washoe up here in the western part of the state Reno and then the lands above it. When you get further north, this gets more rural and more Republican. But down in Reno in the suburbs now, you see, it's pretty close. This used to be a swing area. It leans Democratic now, about 51 to 47 there, about 11 percent more.

So the bulk of the votes are in the two big population centers, the Reno area and around it, the Vegas area and around it. Joe Biden ahead by 7,000 votes, again, a common sense tells you you're leading, you have mail-in ballots, you're likely, even if they just split like this, but we count them. That's why we count them. And the Trump campaign has every right to say let's wait this one out and see how it goes. Let's move to the east as we come.

And again, that's the intellectual inconsistency, if you will. They say keep going out there. And they're close. And they have every right to say that, but they want to stop here because they're ahead, 472,000 votes right now, 472,623. That's a healthy lead, especially when you see 80 percent there. The question is, where is the 20 percent you're missing? And the Secretary of State in Pennsylvania tells us about a million ballots still to be counted. This is a rolling number. So if I say something that I may have counted some ballots in the last 10 minutes or so, but a big chunk about a million votes still to be counted. A lot of them come from here.

And again, you have to use your common sense at home. No matter who you support in this election. You got 60 percent of the vote just above it counted in Philadelphia, it's always blue, it will be blue for the foreseeable future. You've got Joe Biden winning with 78 percent, when you round up, the president is at 22 if you round up. A lot of votes to be counted here, so we'll see as this goes by. Go ahead, Anderson.

COOPER: Yes. We're hearing from Wisconsin election officials, let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEAGAN WOLFE, WISCONSIN ELECTIONS COMMISSION ADMINISTRATOR: Valid ballot has been counted and reported accurately. Today, the Wisconsin Elections Commission staff will be standing ready to assist clerks as they start the process of triple checking the results. The statutorily required canvas process begins today before we can certify those results. This includes the random selection of 5 percent of voting equipment for -- that's used in this election, which must be audited to make sure that the paper tally is the same as the voting equipment. So, all those things have to happen before we have certified results.

Yesterday's voting process and election night counting went very well in Wisconsin and across the country. Despite more absentee ballots, the evening proceeded in a very normal fashion. Our election was executed with precision and it's, you know, every step of the process is publicly observable, and I think that's really important. Every step of the elections process is publicly observable. You can observe Election Day in voters casting their ballot. You can observe the votes being tallied at night.

The voter registration records are public information. The absentee data is public information. Each of the results are posted on the county's website. So again, our job as election administrators is to follow the law. And what the law says, that on election night, that each municipality submits their unofficial results, unofficial being the keyword, to their county and the county then posts the unofficial results by reporting unit on their website. There is no certified election night aggregate of results that is according to state law.

That is not a process that we made up or adopted, that is according to state law, and we followed state law. Part of democracy is following the laws that have been prescribed by our elected lawmakers. And the elected lawmakers have prescribed this process for canvassing in our jurisdictions. I'm incredibly proud of the work done by Wisconsin's election officials. And I feel a 100 percent confident in the election that they conducted, and that the laws that are established by our elected lawmakers were followed in yesterday's election. [12:35:11]

So we don't, there's no calling elections at the state level, right? That's called certification. And certification is a very meticulous, careful process that commences with the certification at the state level on December 1st. Up until that point, there is no statewide aggregate. There is no calling an election. Any of those predictions that you're hearing are predictions by the media and other groups based on unofficial results. And I just think that's so important.

And I know for so many of us, we've spent the last few months talking about this, on end, talking about the mechanics of how the process works. And so I think, you know, as we head into today, it's really important to continue to convey that message, that we've all been working so hard to understand exactly how the process works and bring those mechanical facts to Wisconsin voters.

Unfortunately, earlier this morning, I may have misspoken about all of the unofficial results being in from our municipal clerks around the state. So again, we have 1,850 municipal clerks around the state, and it looks like according to looking through, again, all those county websites, that every single one of those jurisdictions has submitted their unofficial results, except for one tiny township of less than 300 voters. And they're working to get their ballots finished and counted and posted as we speak. And so beyond that, we have no reason to believe that there are any other ballots that have not yet been counted and included as part of those unofficial totals.

But again, the canvas process, so important, right? The canvas process is where the municipal election officials double check all the results to make sure that they have the correct number of registrations, to make sure that everything checks out. Then the counties they do the same. So today at 4 o'clock is actually the deadline for the municipalities to start their canvas process and to then route the materials over to the counties where they start their certification process at the county level. They again do those double checks, all this publicly observable. You can go watch in your local communities. If you're skeptical about the process, engage, you can go watch the process in your local community.

And so then it goes to the county level, they do their double checks. From there, it comes to the state. By state law, on December 1st at the public meeting of the Wisconsin Elections Commission is when those results are certified. And that's when we will have the official winner. We'll have the official results of the election at that December 1st meeting as prescribed by state law. And so with that, I don't know Reed, if you had any other background you want to lend, then we can open it up for some questions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: OK. You've been listening to Wisconsin officials talking about the elections, the state of the race there, John King, correct me if I'm wrong, essentially, she is saying there are no more ballots, no more votes really to count except for one township, that they're may be about 300 or so votes. Right now, Vice President Biden has a lead of about 20,000 votes in Wisconsin.

KING: Right. That is what she said. And what you just heard there was very refreshing and very revealing. Refreshing in the sense that again, the state election officials feel the need to talk about how transparent this process is, how normal this process is, even though we're going into overtime, if you will, the day after we're counting votes, right? We're not done. This is what happens in the close elections. So that's refreshing to talk about the transparency, everybody can watch this, the media can watch it, individual citizens can watch it. Both campaigns, again, both parties are represented in every room, are there counting ballots.

The revealing part, she said December 1st is when they certify the results in Wisconsin because of this 20,697. Again, as she noted, every county now goes back and does a sort of a systems check, a quality control check, you check some machines, some of your machines, a percentage of them and you match it up with what you reported. You say OK, everything matches up or that's a little off. Let's go back and double check something. All the counties will go through that today. That's what happens in every election in America on the morning after every time, nothing unusual.

So she says we're just about done. So, that means if Joe Biden has a 20, if that holds up, 20,697 votes, maybe a few more hundred to come in, but you're largely counted here. So you pop up, here again, Milwaukee County, we have it at 95 percent. The county may change those numbers. But if this is the count, what she just said the most interesting part there is they don't certify it. She does not call the election. Sometimes the media make projections. She will certify this on December 1st, December 1st.

So if we're going to have legal challenges, if we're going to have lawsuits, if we're going to have challenges and processes or if the Trump campaign wants to request a recount, you have to wait until the state certifies the results, then you do that.

[12:40:06]

So if we are in an uncertain period where if this holds up 20,000 there, again, I'm going to walk over here, if that holds up, and you have this here, Wisconsin holds, if the Michigan lead holds, if the Arizona though Arizona lead holds, and the Nevada lead holds, that gets Joe Biden to 270, Anderson, just that. We're still counting in Pennsylvania. We're still waiting to get the rest of North Carolina, Georgia official say that one is getting closer, some important votes to count in Democratic counties.

But with Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, if those leads hold, Joe Biden is leading and all four of those I just told you, that would get Joe Biden to 270. It would get them to 270 in our math, and would get him to 270 in the publicly available results that we have over here. It's not certified. And so that's when you get into the process of what could be. I'm going to say interesting and contentious next several days and potentially several weeks.

Again, every campaign has the legal right to double check the ballots, every campaign can look at state law, can you request a recount? There's nothing wrong with that. And we should be patient and walk through that. But the fact that the state doesn't certify it until December 1st, we're in a little bit of limbo here.

COOPER: Yes. When we come back to you, John, let's look at Arizona and Nevada, and obviously also in Wisconsin and Michigan and see where any votes that are left, where they are, what kind of counties that they are left to be counted in. Right now, let's go back to Erin.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right. Yes, as we tried to, you know, wait on these states filling these gray states into the color they will be I want to go to the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Secretary, thank you very much for being with me. So, look, Georgia, we're still waiting. Where does the counting stand right now?

BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (R-GA) SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, right now, we're finishing up that process, there's probably, about in the order of about 200,000 ballots that yet to be counted, and we're pushing the counties really hard to finish that up today.

BURNETT: So you want to finish up today. I just want to understand where those 200,000 are, if we could, 200,000 you're saying still outstanding. I know, we had just heard about, you know, 74,000 of those come from Fulton County near Atlanta. Do you know really where all those 200,000 come from?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, the larger numbers are from the larger populated counties. So Fulton, DeKalb County has a few. And then some of the fast growing counties have like 7,000. So it's really statewide, but they're working really diligently today to finish up and get all the absentee ballots, scanned and tabulated.

BURNETT: You know, look, in Georgia, I know there's no automatic recount law, but you can get a recount requested if the margin is equal or to or less than point 0.5 percent, half of 1 percent. Is my understanding correct? And do you think that you're going to be in those margins and this could happen?

RAFFENSPERGER: Well, I wouldn't be surprised if we have that, particularly for a state house or a state Senate, just because sometimes those elections are with 100 or 200 votes. So it's very possible to have those. But then we also could have that for a congressional seat or even a U.S. Senate and perhaps a presidential, but we will face that if it comes to it. But within a half percent, the candidate that's short by that amount, they can request a recount, and we can do that.

BURNETT: All right. Well, as you said, by the end of the day is the bottom line, you hope that we will have a full answer from Georgia, correct?

RAFFENSPERGER: That's what we're pushing for.

BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you very much Secretary Raffensperger. You heard him there by the end of the day and still 200,000 of those absentees yet to count about 74,000 of them coming from Fulton County with Atlanta.

[12:43:41]

And next a live report on some of the issues that have plagued ballots, especially those carried by the U.S. Postal Service. So we have new figures on how many votes may not make it in by the state deadlines, right? It had to be received by a certain date or your vote doesn't count. We'll be right back.

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COOPER: With the President now complaining about the mail-in vote as he has been in a federal court is getting new data on how shockingly slow the delivery of the ballots have been. It is breaking news, CNN's Ana Cabrera has that for us. Ana?

ANA CABRERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, a federal judge saying just moments ago he needs answers going so far as to say the Postmaster General may need to be deposed or testify under oath. Now this is all as new court filings show there were a significant amount of ballots that did not move on time on Election Day. Let's take a look at the key state of Pennsylvania where we learned only 62 percent of the ballots in the Central Pennsylvania, USPS district and only 67 percent in the Philadelphia Metro USPS district were processed on time.

And now we've learned this affected 13,411 ballots in those districts. Now thankfully in Pennsylvania ballots are allowed to arrive up until Friday, three days after Election Day as long as they're postmarked by Election Day. But in six of the battleground states with low processing scores Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Florida, New Hampshire, and Maine, they do not allow ballots to arrive after Election Day.

So this means some ballots may not have arrived on time to be counted. And in three of these states that we just mentioned, of those six states that are still battlegrounds, or there was that low processing score three of them have yet to be called Michigan, Wisconsin, and Georgia. It's unclear though, how many ballots in those states specifically may have been affected. But this really matters. Two- thirds of voters in Michigan voted absentee or by mail according to the Secretary of State there. And think about the slim margin we're seeing in a state like Wisconsin 97 percent of the vote counted there. Biden is leading by only about 20,000 votes, Anderson, every vote counts.

[12:50:14]

And we just learned there are ongoing sweeps right now being done at some of these USPS processing facilities in battleground states. We'll, of course, keep you posted, especially if we learn more, as this court hearing continues.

COOPER: A judge in previously said that they had to do sweeps before the election. Do we know were those done?

CABRERA: Well, some of them were done, but they weren't completed on time. And that was a big part of the problem. As far as we know, based on the reporting we have, only 13 ballots were identified in those suites. But again, the judge unhappy because the sweeps weren't done on time and we do know that the processing has been slow in so many of these battleground states, Anderson?

COOPER: Ana Cabrera, appreciate the update. A new reporting just in on Wisconsin, we've just learned that the Trump campaign is saying that they are going to contest the outcome in Wisconsin. Let's go to CNN's John Harwood for details. John?

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Great.

COOPER: John is not ready yet. This is just coming in. Let's go to David Chalian who's standing by. David, the Trump campaign saying they're going to contest in Wisconsin?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. Here's the statement from campaign manager, Bill Stepien. I'm just going to read it Anderson. It says the President is well within the threshold to request a recount, and we will immediately do so. The campaign goes on to complain that it's a razor thin race, we knew it would be. And there have been reports of irregularities they claim in several Wisconsin counties which raise doubts about the validity of the results. That's what the Trump campaign is claiming.

We know that in Wisconsin, if the margin between the candidates is less than 1 percent. Certainly, the losing candidate can indeed request a recount, Anderson. It doesn't necessarily mean that much may change. I mean, in 2016, I think Jill Stein requested a recount, and I don't think many votes shifted at all after that recount. And that was when Donald Trump won the state by about a similar vote margin, some 20,000 votes that he's losing it right now. And I think we heard that Wisconsin elections officials say they only have about 300 votes left to actually count. So this is a near complete initial count that we're seeing in Wisconsin.

COOPER: Right. The election official in Wisconsin was saying that there's only one township that hasn't sent in the results. And in that township, there's only about 300 votes outstanding. At last count in Wisconsin, as you see there on your screen, Vice President Biden is up by a little bit more than 20,000 votes. And Wisconsin says essentially, the votes have been counted. We'll see how the -- what the state says on the recount.

John Harwood is standing by as well, monitoring events from the White House where the Trump campaign is headquartered. John?

HARWOOD: Anderson, one thing we need to point out is that you can't make a formal request for a recount until 10 days after the votes have been canvass. There's a review process at the end of that 10 day process, then they can formally request a recount. It's also worth pointing out that the Trump campaign in 2016, after losing, after winning Wisconsin by a narrow margin over Hillary Clinton, opposed having recount, which ended up not making all that much difference. So obviously, it turned about here. But this is a legal strategy that the Trump campaign can avail itself of, and they are going to avail itself -- avail themselves of that strategy while trying to simultaneously continue counting votes in Arizona, where it might help them stop the counting of votes in Pennsylvania, where it could hurt them.

COOPER: Yes. I want to go to Franita Tolson, CNN legal analyst. Franita, just in terms of how recounts work, how would about the Trump administration or I should say the Trump campaign requesting a recount, what's the legality on this?

FRANITA TOLSON, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Well, I first Anderson, thank you for having me, let me emphasize that this is still part of a normal process. When you have two candidates that are as close as Vice President Joe Biden and President Trump, it is normal for the campaign trail and to request a recount. In so in Wisconsin, the margin is sealed within 1 percent. So the -- it's not unusual that the Trump campaign has articulated their desire to request a recount.

What he does do though, is it, it drags out the process a little bit. But maybe we should normalize patience, right? We have been saying for months now that, you know, this process would have to play out, the votes would have to be counted. It is unlikely that we will know who the President is on election night. And I just view this as part of that larger narrative that it may be a few days before and possibly weeks before we know who the President is. This recount process is part of the broader selection process of choosing a President.

COOPER: Yes, And John Harwood was saying, 10 days -- it has to be the official request has to be 10 days from now or from the election, generally how long does a recount take?

[12:55:08]

TOLSON: It can drag out. So in 2000 with the dispute over Bush versus Gore, it was 34 days before we had any resolution in that dispute. There have been Senate races. Coleman-Franken, for example where it took some months before we knew who won that seat. So it just really depends. It depends on how close the margin is. It depends on the disputed ballots. It depends on how contentious the race is because the more contentious it is, the more lawyers involved, the more heavily litigated it is. So there are a number of things that are still up in the air that could determine what happens in Wisconsin, for example.

COOPER: Franita Tolson, I appreciate it. Thanks, great having you.

Votes are still being counted at this hour in several states, too close to call. What does it mean in the race for 270 electoral votes? Well, we're keeping an eye on all that with John King. We'll go back to him shortly. CNN special live coverage continues right after this.

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