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CNN Live Event/Special

Mail-in Ballot Counting Continues as Biden's Votes Grow; Parsing Numbers State by State Bodes Well for Biden; Republican State Legislatures Responsible For Delayed Results. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 05, 2020 - 14:00   ET

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

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We're tracking every vote in every critical battleground as Election Day in America continues.

Right now, former Vice President Joe Biden is eyeing four states with the potential to make him president-elect of the United States. President Trump, meanwhile, is still hoping to find a route to re- election, but the map is not looking good for him.

Biden has been slicing into Trump's lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania as votes have been coming in all day today. And Biden got a new bump in Nevada, building on his lead there. He's hoping to do the same thing in Arizona, where new results are expected later today.

One or two of those undecided states could potentially push Biden to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Remember, he's close to that right now with 253 versus 213 for Trump. Let's go over to David Chalian now.

We're looking closely at Nevada and Pennsylvania right now. What do you see?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes. In the last hour, Wolf, you heard, live on CNN, a press conference in Nevada and then an interview with the secretary of state in Pennsylvania, giving us new information about how many votes are outstanding.

So we want to take a look at the state of play. Here in Pennsylvania, you see Donald Trump has 114,000-vote lead over Joe Biden, 50.2 percent to 48.5 percent. That's with 92 percent of the estimated vote in Pennsylvania that's been in.

So how much is outstanding? Well, the secretary of state of Pennsylvania just told us, 550,000 ballots remain uncounted -- uncounted votes so far that still need to be counted in Pennsylvania. That means that Joe Biden would need about 58 to 61 percent of those 550,000 uncounted votes in order to overtake Donald Trump's lead and win Pennsylvania.

Here's what you need to understand about that Joe Biden win percentage: He has been gaining about 74 percent of the vote coming in from Pennsylvania over the last 24 hours, running well ahead of what he needs. So as this mail vote comes in, this pro-Biden vote, mail vote from Democratic areas, Joe Biden's been getting 75 percent of them. He only needs 58 to 61 percent of what's left to be counted in Pennsylvania. So if he keeps up that pace, he has the real potential to overtake Donald Trump.

Now, Trump is in the lead right now, and there is more Trump vote to come in too, no doubt. He only needs about 38 to 40 percent of the 550,000 outstanding votes in Pennsylvania in order to hang onto that lead and keep Pennsylvania in his column, which he desperately needs to be re-elected. There's no path without it.

In Nevada, we heard from a Clark County official there, so we have a new estimate there of the outstanding vote. But first, just take a look at the state of the play statewide. Joe Biden, 11,438-vote lead over Donald Trump -- that's a bigger lead than when we started the day because we got some new vote -- 49.4 percent for Joe Biden, 48.5 percent for Donald Trump, 89 percent of the estimated vote is in.

We now know that the outstanding vote in Nevada is 149,000 votes. Again, not a precise number, everyone, it's just a rough estimate that's about what we think is outstanding in Nevada. Well, of the 149,000 votes not yet counted, Joe Biden needs 44 to 46 percent of them. Donald Trump would need 52 to 54 percent of the outstanding votes in order to overtake Biden's lead and win Nevada.

Again, I will just say, Joe Biden is running well ahead of the votes that we're seeing come in in Nevada today. He's winning about, so far, 54 percent of them. So that is well ahead of the 44 to 46 percent he would need of the total universe of uncounted ballots -- that 149,000 -- in order to hang onto his lead in Nevada and keep that state Hillary Clinton won four years ago in his column on the road to 270 -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Yes, very, very impressive context, David Chalian. Thank you very much .

You know, John King, it's looking good for the former vice president right now as we look at those states. Before we go to those states, take a look at the popular vote right now, John. You can see, Biden has what, 3,700,000 more votes than Trump right now, 50.5 percent to 47.9 percent, 89 percent of the vote is in.

That number is likely to go up big-time because they're still counting votes on the West Coast, California, Oregon, Washington State. So that -- and in New York State, huge population there --

JOHN KING ,CNN HOST: Huge --

(CROSSTALK)

BLITZER: -- so that number is likely to go up. I'm sure when President Trump sees that Biden is more popular, has a bigger number there than he has, he's not going to be very happy about that.

KING: It's just -- it's just an absolutely stunning number. And again, congratulations to all of the American people. The president of the United States, the incumbent, is losing with 68 million votes. That is a higher vote total than Hillary Clinton received four years ago, when Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but lost the presidency because of our Electoral College.

And this is also bigger than the lead Hillary Clinton had over Donald Trump four years ago, 3.7 million as of now. And you make a very important point, it's going to take -- this number will go up for a couple of weeks as they count the votes in California. It will continue to climb, and you know how deep blue that is. So Joe Biden's lead there is going to go up, they're still counting votes.

[14:05:14]

They're still counting votes in some other places, too. The president will get some votes, but nothing to match what we're going to see when we get California and Washington State -- it's always been a mail-in vote state -- it takes some time to count the final votes. Military ballots coming in maybe helps the president a little bit there. But you look at that right there in New York State, you mentioned that as well.

So that's the national state of play, that is a convincing win for Joe Biden and it is likely to grow. That is not how we pick presidents. So you want to add a popular vote win to an Electoral College vote win. That's what Hillary Clinton did not get four years ago. Now can Joe Biden get there? He's at 253, which means he's knocking on the door. He has to get to 270.

If you look at the map now, I just want to do this to bring this out -- we've not called Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, Arizona and Nevada, that's what we're waiting on -- and Maine's Second Congressional District as well.

But I'll bring it back here now to show you the states where the president is leading. But here's the fascinating dynamic, the president leads in Pennsylvania but as David just laid out so well, Joe Biden is closing in well within reach when you look at the outstanding votes.

The president of the United States leads in Georgia. It is essentially the same dynamic. He had a huge lead on Election Night, it is shrinking by the hour as mail-in ballots are counted. And remember, the coronavirus pandemic election, Democrats voted disproportionately in greater numbers than Republicans through mail-in balloting, it was a deliberate strategy.

The president staged rallies at the end of the campaign for Election Day turnout, they were successful. Were they successful enough? We're going to see. As we count votes here and we count votes here, we could have -- this could be the decisive day, could be, we're not sure yet.

But the president needs them both. The president must win Pennsylvania and Georgia, otherwise the math does not work and Joe Biden is closing in on both states.

The only place we have seen a trend in the other direction has been Arizona, Biden leading but it has been shrinking. We're waiting for more votes there.

BLITZER: You're speaking about Georgia, Marty Savidge is in Savannah, Georgia for us. You're getting some new information, Marty?

MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we do, Wolf. The fact that so much focus has been on the Atlanta area, of course because of its population and the heavy Democratic population. But according to the secretary of state of Georgia, the largest outstanding number of ballots yet to be counted is not up in the Atlanta area, it's in Chatham County, which is where we are right here, which is just Savannah. And that's the area that now becomes the real focus here.

It is said that there are about 17,000 ballots yet to be counted. Now, when you talk to the county election supervisor here, he says it's more like 15 to 17,000. And he says it is his hope that they can process that number by the end of business today. He didn't give any kind of specific time, implying it could be tonight.

However, that's a significant number of ballots to be handled in what is essentially a relatively small operation. They've got two scanners here, and they've got about 38 personnel working inside of a borrowed warehouse. So it's a lot to aim for. That's what he hopes, and he says he won't be adding those numbers - not incrementally through the day, but delivering them at the end of the day today. So it could be a while.

And of course, there's still military votes that have to come in potentially from overseas. They've got until 5:00 tomorrow evening. But again, 17,000 votes they're talking about in Chatham County yet to be counted. And that's the largest amount of votes still outstanding in the state of Georgia -- Wolf.

BLITZER: Are those mostly mail-in ballots? Do we know, Martin?

SAVIDGE: We do believe that -- yes, it's mostly mail-in absentee ballots that are being tabulated. And there's no set time when they come in. There were some that were delivered a short time ago -- they come in batches.

The biggest problem they have here is one, going through opening and then looking at the ballots, they put them in the scanners -- two scanners that can scan 60 ballots per minute. However, it's the adjudication. That's what's really slowing down the process.

This is where the machine will kick out a ballot saying there's some anomaly with this ballot. It needs to be looked at by the adjudication team. That's not done in this building, it has to be taken off-site about a quarter of a mile away. They're trying to bring in a second adjudication team. Right now, they've got a lot of work ahead of them.

BLITZER: Seventeen thousand ballots. Did they say what time we should get those results, Martin?

SAVIDGE: No, and you know, one of the things that's hard to understand here is that typically -- yesterday, they handled about 2,000 ballots. Fifteen to 17,000 is far more than they've ever handled in a single day. So as much as they may be willing and as much as they're practiced, that is a huge number to try to get all counted in one day in this particular facility.

So the county supervisor may say it's his goal, but the reality is they never reach that kind of numbers in a single day and the truth is more ballots could come in tomorrow. Some have spoken of thousands more ballots coming in here.

[14:10:08]

So precisely when they'll be done here is unclear. They are working as hard and as fast as they can, but they only move at the pace that the ballots come in and there, they say, they're waiting on the ballots to be delivered. And they come from the Registrar's Office.

BLITZER: Yes, they're all working really hard. We appreciate what those poll workers are doing. Martin Savidge out in Savannah, Georgia for us, thank you very, very much. Maybe by the end of the day we're going to get the results, John, of the 17,000 uncounted ballots in Georgia. Georgia's such a critically important state right now, and it's close.

KING: Absolutely. And again, as Martin just laid out, there's another collision between the campaign and the coronavirus in the sense that there's so many more mail-in ballots in this campaign because so many people decided, for safety reasons, to vote by mail. And so in these small counties, they have to count them.

They don't have the infrastructure for this so it's going to take time. And it's going to take time on a day when there's obviously, for good reason because Joe Biden is so close -- 253 electoral votes -- great sense of anxiety, anticipation, call it what you will no matter where you are on the partisan question of who you want to be president. You know this could be a decisive day, so you wish the count would be faster.

But 17,000 ballots here, and Joe Biden is getting 58 percent -- if you round up -- in this county. You know, he needs about 60 percent of the ballots in Georgia. As we go, I'm just looking down to check, it was 62 percent earlier, as these ballots come in -- somewhere in that ballpark, right?

So Joe Biden, and he's close to that there. But we also know in the mail-in ballots he tends to run higher than that. That doesn't mean he will in this county, but 17,000 ballots there, think about the context. The president's lead is 13,534. So you have 17,000 ballots in a county that has been voting blue, voting for Joe Biden. There's a big chunk there. As Martin said, that's the biggest chunk left.

Many of the others are up in here, right? We know Fulton County was finishing, we knew there were several thousand more. I haven't seen the update on those as yet, and those numbers are still the same when you look at them. So we're still waiting for several thousand -- I think it's four or 5,000 in Fulton County.

And we know we had some more over here in Gwinnett County. The reason I'm showing you these counties is look at the totals Biden is getting overall. We know in the mail-in ballots it tends to run a little bit higher than that, so the math is possible. The math is possible as we try to count the final votes in Georgia.

And again, 13,000 now, that was 600,000 or more late on Tuesday night, Election Night. It is just -- Democrats voted predominantly by mail, Republicans voted on Election Day. As they count the mail-in ballots later, now into Thursday, Joe Biden is catching up. Is it enough? That's what the next several hours will tell us.

BLITZER: It's a nail-biter for both campaigns in Georgia right now. Let's check in with Anderson for more -- Anderson.

COOPER: Yes, Wolf, thanks very much.

We are obviously watching very closely. Want to take a look just at the count right now -- Nevada, 11,438, Joe Biden in the lead; in Georgia, 13,534, President Trump in the lead there. But again, that is narrowing and has been repeatedly with every increase in the vote count.

Arizona, Joe Biden has a lead of 68,390. In that state, his lead has been shrinking over time. The question is, how many more votes there are. North Carolina of course, the president has a lead of 76,000. That has remained somewhat constant.

In Pennsylvania, the president is up with 111,369 votes but there are hundreds of thousands of votes still outstanding as we have heard. We are likely to get the results, those votes should be counted by the end of today, we just heard from the secretary of state there.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. And should Biden win there, obviously, that's the ball game.

COOPER: How many votes are still to be counted? I'm unclear, how many votes are still to be counted in Pennsylvania? Because the secretary of state said 550,000 --

BORGER: Right, right. And our guidance now is that it's 370,000 left that the secretary of state may have used a dated number when she appeared on CNN. So that number is --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: So big picture, what is the state of the race as you see it?

BORGER: Well, in Pennsylvania, it makes it -- Rick Santorum makes a difference how many votes are left to be counted. But it seems that when you look at the votes left to be counted, where they are from that according to our numbers, Biden needs somewhere between 58 and 61 percent of those votes to win.

But this -- the votes that are outstanding are in areas where Biden has been winning by more than 70 percent.

DAVID AXELROD, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I think one thing we've got to keep in mind is they're counting mail-in votes now --

BORGER: Yes.

AXELROD: In Pennsylvania, three quarters of the people who voted by mail were Democrats. So even in counties where you have strong Republican vote, the people who voted mail-in would lean more toward Democrat.

RICK SANTORUM, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, I -- I looked -- I went through -- you know, what I do in my free time, I went through and looked at every single county in Pennsylvania. And I think there was only one county in the state where Trump won the mail-in. Every other -- I mean, and --

[14:15:02]

COOPER: So when you --

SANTORUM: -- he was winning 80 percent of the vote, but he lost the mail.

COOPER: So when you hear there are 370 -- given what you know about Pennsylvania, and you know better than anybody -- given that there's 370,000 outstanding votes, it's mail-in votes. What does that tell you?

SANTORUM: Well, how many are from Philadelphia? Because if it's Philadelphia, the initial -- the tranches that I've seen from Philadelphia, he's getting about 95 -- Biden's getting about 95 percent of the vote.

COOPER: OK.

SANTORUM: And so it most of those votes are from Philadelphia --

COOPER: Well let's see, because I want to get clarification. I mean, I find it odd that the secretary of state put out 500,000 and now we're being told that may be wrong. So let's check on all those numbers.

But just big picture, let's talk about the state of the race, David.

AXELROD: Yes, look, I mean, it is impossible not to look at this and say that there isn't a wall of numbers closing in on this president and this -- in this election. We do have to, as John King always reminds us, we do have to count them and we'll see. But patters develop here and there are certain things we know about the nature of the votes that are coming in.

In Nevada, almost everything that's coming in is going to -- from this point on is going to be from Clark County. And it's almost all mail-in vote now, and that vote has been going 63 percent in favor of Biden. Hard -- it's hard to see how the president --

SANTORUM: On the other hand, Arizona is the place where actually the vote is narrowing for Trump. I mean, that's the one place -- and again, and the Trump map, he needs Georgia, Pennsylvania and either Arizona or Nevada. So Nevada's not critical --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: I was getting around the corner on that. I mean, we'll see -- we'll get some more numbers from Arizona, but he needs to continue --

SANTORUM: Yes.

AXELROD: -- at a clip that may be difficult for him there. Georgia looks like it's coming down to sort of a dead heat. These are not encouraging numbers. So you know --

COOPER: I do want to just repeat, we need to confirm the total vote count still to be counted in Pennsylvania.

AXELROD: But if -- let's say it is --

BORGER: YEs.

AXELROD: -- the lower number and he continues to get ballots that are in proportion to the way mail ballots came in, 70, 75 percent Democrat, he will get to where he needs to go --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: -- it's hard to see how the lines don't cross here.

BORGER: You know, I was on a call, a press call with the Trump campaign this morning, and they're talking about how these votes late in the game are, quote, "magically appearing" --

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No.

BORGER: for -- well, of course, for Biden. They are not magically appearing. The Democrats overwhelmingly voted by mail. Mail takes longer to count or is being counted later all over the country, and they're not magically appearing.

COOPER: I just want to take a look at two statements that we have heard, it gives you a sense of kind of the tale of two candidates here.

We heard from Joe Biden today saying, "Be patient, folks. Votes are being counted and we feel good about where we are."

The president of the United States said, "If you count the legal votes, I easily win the election. If you count the illegal and late votes, they can steal the election from us."

JONES: Just a completely despicable, irresponsible, dangerous, wrong. Listen, some of these people voted first. The crazy thing is, these are not magically appearing, these are people who cared enough about their own health to protect it and their own country to vote early. Some of these votes have been sitting there, waiting to be counted. So now, guess what, everybody gets to count. And the thing about it is, I was talking to some people on the ground

in Fulton County in Georgia, people worked hard for this. The idea that Georgia may go blue? Is because people like Stacey Abrams, who got defeat in a way that she didn't feel was fair, she turned her pain into promise for her state.

You've got groups out there like the New Georgia Project, black women, lesbian women who are out there organizing, real people. Now they're curing -- people are doing the hard work of democracy and the president is disrespecting democracy and the rule of law.

The rule of law says you count the votes. And so you have a lawless president who says he's law and order, behaving in a lawless way and he is throwing sparks. The disinformation out there now on Facebook is unreal. And he is adding to disinformation, and therefore disorder in his own country. It's unforgivable, it's despicable, he needs to stop.

SANTORUM: I don't agree with the president's statement, number one. Number two, what I think he's referring to -- again, the president can be a blunt instrument when there is a specific issue --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: He's not referring to a specific issue. Come on, Rick.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: No --

COOPER: You're a smart guy and you are focusing on what is a very real legal issue --

SANTORUM: Pennsylvania, right.

COOPER: -- in Pennsylvania. The president of the United States is not saying that. He's smart enough to know if there was a specific issue that he was focusing on, he would say about the specific issue, he would call out people by name.

[14:20:02]

He's saying that there are -- stop counting votes. He's saying stop counting votes.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: He's not saying stop counting votes because they have people outside the Maricopa County courthouse demanding people --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: He is. I mean -- well, we'll pull the tweet up. He is literally saying --

SANTORUM: No I understand, but --

COOPER: -- stop counting votes.

SANTORUM: -- but he would lose Arizona if they stopped counting votes.

COOPER: Well yes, but that's what the president's saying.

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: But it makes no sense.

COOPER: Yes, it makes no sense.

SANTORUM: OK, we -- we agree on that.

BORGER: Rick, you can't be the Trump translator --

(CROSSTALK)

SANTORUM: I'm not -- I call myself the Trump whisperer, OK?

BORGER: -- you're trying but you -- well, maybe you can be the whisperer, but you can't be the translator.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't think there's that much whispering around Trump. But I'll tell you something, if it weren't in the --

COOPER: By the way, there it is: "STOP THE COUNT!"

BORGER: OK.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: I think what he's really saying is --

(LAUGHTER)

SANTORUM: It's a nuanced -- it's a nuanced --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Count Chocula and --

AXELROD: Just in case you're confused, Rick Santorum, the president put it in caps for you.

(LAUGHTER)

AXELROD: No, look --

SANTORUM: That's a code --

AXELROD: -- it is a signal -- SANTORUM: T hat's a code to me.

BORGER: That's a code for "Vote"?

AXELROD: -- it is not -- it is a dangerous, dangerous signal.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

AXELROD: And all of this, I agree with Van. And it's been going on for months. It's not just that now. These ballots are only being counted now because they were required by law not to --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And let me also just point out something.

AXELROD: -- processed earlier.

COOPER: We saw Joe Biden going into a building, Joe Biden is attending a meeting on COVID right now --

BORGER: Right.

COOPER: That is what Joe Biden has done today, he's attending a meeting on COVID. Yesterday was the worst -- the highest number of COVID cases --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the world.

COOPER: -- in this entire pandemic, in the world, 102,000 cases. We're already on track today to have it be even worse.

So Joe Biden is taking on time, being briefed today on COVID. What do you want to bet the president of the United States is certainly not being briefed on COVID today? It's doubtful he's being briefed on anything having to do with America's business, national security. He doesn't get those briefings --

BORGER: He's actually, according to Jim Acosta, he's actually in the Oval Office today, but there are televisions.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: Well of course. He's watching, he's tweeting and talking to his --

(CROSSTALK)

BORGER: But the thing is, but the thing is that --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go ahead, go ahead.

BORGER: Thank you.

The thing is that Biden knows -- COOPER: Right, Trump -- I'm sorry, Trump wants to stop the counting

for stop the votes, stop the counting, stop the testing? I mean, this is what he does.

BORGER: Right, and Biden is having this briefing on COVID because he knows that, should he become president, he'll finally get the brass ring but there are lots of strings attached. And one of those is dealing with COVID because you can't deal with the economy --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: To me, it just -- it is emblematic of the two approaches --

BORGER: Exactly.

COOPER: -- that Joe Biden, who is not in office, is being briefed on COVID as he has been all along, and is taking it seriously enough that on such a difficult day in the pandemic, he is taking time to be briefed on this --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: That's right. And I also think -- I also think it's the message that they want to send. I think it's -- I think there's no doubt, he's getting his arms around what he's going to face if this goes down as it appears to be.

It's also a way of saying to the country --

COOPER: Yes.

AXELROD: -- I got this, I'm on the job. We're ready to move forward.

BORGER: I can be president.

SANTORUM: The other -- look, Biden is -- people are very, very confident. The numbers are moving in his direction right now, and Trump campaign is not as confident and is very frustrated that you know, they see that the wave didn't come. The wave was predicted, it didn't come.

He -- I congratulate him for the campaign that he did because he saved the United States Senate, he probably, you know, helped the Republicans pick up seats in the House of Representatives, and now he sees, well, the House saved -- we didn't lose the state legislature, we picked up seats in the House and somehow he's falling short.

And that's -- that's --

(CROSSTALK)

JONES: You know what's interesting about that?

SANTORUM: -- a tough thing to deal with.

JONES: But you know what? But why is that? It's because you had people who are Republicans, who went and voted for Republicans to go to the House, for Republicans to go to the state legislature, and voted against Donald Trump.

In other words he's got to take responsibility for the fact, it's not just some liberal conspiracy. And all these people on Facebook have to take responsibility for the fact, you have Republicans who said we like the tax cuts, we like the judges, we can't stand the crazymaking irresponsible conduct of the commander in chief. And they fired him.

Because that's the only way you can explain --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: No I actually disagree with you on that. The reason we have the effect that Rick's talking about is that in places where Trump was strong and brought out big rural and small-town turnout, Republicans were bolstered by that.

In other places -- you know, I think we're very polarized country. So when we vote by district, and we vote by state and you bring out a big Republican turnout in those areas, Republicans benefit from that.

But I will say this. I think if you ask Donald Trump if you could trade, we could save the Senate, we could save the legislatures and we could save those -- we could save those congressmen, or you could be president for another four years --

[14:25:03]

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: -- I don't think he'd --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: But I just -- right, but let's just look at what we have on the screen. Biden on brink of win --

BORGER: Noticed (ph) that.

COOPER: -- waiting for Pennsylvania. That is the situation we are in right now, David, correct?

AXELROD: Yes, yes.

COOPER: I mean -- and by the end of today, they -- the secretary of state says the votes will be counted. All the votes -- these are not new votes, these are the votes that have already been cast. They will finally be counted, likely by the end of today --

AXELROD: Yes --

COOPER: -- and if Pennsylvania goes for Biden, he will be the president and we will know that today (ph).

AXELROD: Yes, yes. BORGER: And --

(CROSSALK)

AXELROD: Yes. And -- and to Van's point, a lot of these votes, you know, they were cast before the election, these states were not allowed to process them by law in the states --

COOPER: Right, by the legislatures in the states.

AXELROD: -- in the states. So they weren't allowed to start processing them until Election Day. And therefore because there were an inordinate number -- an unusual number of mail-in ballots because of the virus, there is this waiting period --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And let me --

(CROSSTALK)

AXELROD: -- we all knew that was going to happen.

JONES: Following the rules that often Republican legislatures kept in place to keep the count that way, and that's -- you are going to see this -- you are going to see there is some ticket-splitting, you can see that in some of the exit poll data.

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: All right, I've got to get a break in. We're going to go check in live in some of the critical battleground states, where they are still counting votes right now, votes that have already been cast including Georgia, where we're expecting a news conference as well. Election Day in America continues, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)