US election update: Biden’s tightest path may run through Nevada

Democratic nominee Joe Biden is closing in on the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the presidency, while President Donald Trump’s path to re-election has narrowed. Biden needs a win in one more state – Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada or North Carolina – provided that other race calls stand.

But Trump has sought a recount in Wisconsin, filed lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia and complained about various states’ counting procedures.

Biden’s tightest path may run through Nevada
Nevada offers Biden his tightest path to the presidency. Its six electoral college votes would give him precisely the number he needs, assuming other states’ unofficial tallies hold up. By Wednesday night, he held a slim 7,600-vote lead over Trump there.

With the tabulation of the US election spilling over into a third day, Trump’s leads in Pennsylvania and Georgia have shrunk as mail-in ballots and backlogs of votes from major cities including Philadelphia and Atlanta are counted. Either comes with more than enough electoral college votes, and both offer Biden a tantalising chance to flip a state Trump won in 2016.

While the Trump campaign pursues a Wisconsin recount and lawsuits elsewhere, some of its supporters have gone public with their displeasure.

Alaska and North Carolina, two states where Trump is leading, also have not yet been called.

Pro-Trump protesters rally outside election centres (1 am)
With Nevada election results still unresolved, a small group of Trump supporters gathered outside the Clark County Elections Department in Las Vegas Wednesday night to protest what they called an unfair vote-counting process. Footage of a larger group waving pro-Trump flags and signs in the same location earlier in the evening spread on social media under the hashtag “#StoptheSteal.”

Protesters who remained outside after 9.30pm complained of not being allowed to observe election workers and criticised recent changes to Nevada election law that enabled mail-in voting, which they said widened the window for “fraud.”

Earlier in the day, the Nevada Republican Party issued a statement referring to concerns about invalid ballots and a lack of transparency around the vote-counting process in Clark County. Joe Gloria, the county registrar of voters, said at a press conference that the department is “statutorily required to let anybody witness everything that we count.”

Gloria added that the county had to remove a few poll observers who were disrupting workers. He was interrupted by a shouting Biden opponent.

In Reno, a similar group of protesters appeared outside the Washoe County Registrar of Voters office, but it dissipated quickly, said Bethany Drysdale, a county communications manager. Earlier Wednesday, hundreds of people converged outside a ballot-counting facility in Detroit, chanting “Stop the count.”

And in Arizona’s Maricopa County, demonstrators gathered outside a building where ballots were being tabulated, according to social media posts and CNN.