The election that started on Nov. 3, between Incumbent President Donald Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden is still ongoing in a truly historic fashion.
This year, voting came down to the wire in many swing states, some voting margins named as “too close to call” for days. Considering this year's contentious nature of the election, we at the Echo feel that it is especially important that every count is counted.
“Turning up to vote, whether you win or lose, makes you and people like you more represented,” Miller said in the Oct. 29 edition of the Echo.
We often hear the phrase “every vote counts,” around election season.
Used as a reminder to register to vote and fill out your ballot, this phrase almost seems to lose meaning in election years.
However, in 2020, every vote really did matter, with the presidential race being as close as 71,592,684 votes for Trump to 76,492,792 votes for Biden, according to the Associated Press as of Nov. 10.
As of Nov. 11, Associated Press has reported two states that remain uncalled. North Carolina and Georgia remain at 99% counted. Alaska was recently called remains at 75%.
According to Forbes, Alaska counted its in-person votes cast on Election Day and early votes that were cast in person through Oct. 29, after the polls closed. This totals to 250,704 ballots. Trump was called as the winner of Alaska with 56.9%.
Alaska’s not so speedy counting is due to the fact that they did not start counting any absentee ballots or early votes cast in person after Oct. 29 until Nov. 10, resulting in Alaska coming in last for counting ballots.
Though it is easy to question the essentiality of Alaska’s votes, especially when they only hold the weight of three electoral votes, we must persist with the notion that every state’s votes matter.
Likely, the turnout of Alaska will not change the outcome of the 2020 election. However, other states with slightly more electoral votes do have the ability to change the verdict of an election.
For example, in 2020, all eyes were on Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia as vote counting happened slowly.
In the case of Georgia, which still has not been called, a recount will be necessary to determine who its 16 electoral votes will go to.
According to USA Today, Secretary of Georgia, Brad Raffensperger announced that the state will recount all of its votes due to the slim margin of .2% with Biden in the lead and 99% of votes counted. The state still had 4,169 votes left to count, according to Gabriel Sterling, Georgia's official voting system implementation manager.
It is now predicted that a recount will take until the end of the month.
Even if the Georgia recount were to result in the state flipping to Trump’s advantage, it would not affect the end result of the election.
With multiple states experiencing this type of limbo, and Trump refusing to concede the election, many believe the election is not over, and the country could, in fact, change the majority leading candidate before Inauguration Day, though this is unlikely to happen.
No matter your personal opinions on the candidates, issues at play or the election process, one thing we can all take away from the drama of the 2020 presidential election is that your vote does matter. Every vote matters.
