Election officials scramble to count ballots in key states

ATLANTA (AP) — Election officials in several key states furiously counted ballots Wednesday as the nation awaited the outcome of the race between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden and braced for possible recounts and legal challenges.

Unlike in previous years, states were contending with an avalanche of mail ballots driven by the global pandemic. Every election, what’s reported on election night are unofficial results and the counting of votes extends past Election Day. This year, with so many mail ballots and close races in key states, counting every vote was expected to take more time.

Here's what was happening Wednesday in six key states:

GEORGIA

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said he was pushing counties to complete vote tallies by the end of Wednesday, with roughly 200,000 ballots left to count as of late morning.

There was a narrow margin between Trump and Biden in Georgia, a close race in a state that has not backed a Democrat for president since 1992. There is no automatic recount, but a candidate can request one if the margin is within 0.5%.

“My team has sent reminders to counties to get all, let me repeat, all of our results counted today. Every legal vote will count,” Raffensperger said.

The outstanding vote was primarily in the Atlanta area, which tends to lean Democratic. On Wednesday, about 50 people were counting votes inside State Farm Arena, the home of the Atlanta Hawks NBA team. Counties have until 5 p.m. on Nov. 13 to certify results.

At stake in Georgia are 16 electoral votes. All absentee ballots were due Tuesday.

MICHIGAN

In Michigan, at least 100,000 ballots had yet to be counted as of around noon, according to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Many were in Democratic cities including Detroit, Grand Rapids,...