Biden has an advantage in the electoral count, but when will it be known who won the presidency?

"The election is not over," declared the campaign of Republican candidate Donald Trump on Friday.

That's right, and specialists indicate that it could still be extended hours, days or weeks, in compliance with the law.

Multiple experts and state authorities, both Republican and Democratic, have explained that it is normal in an election that the tabulation of the ballots is not completely ready on the same day of the vote, as has happened this year, and that this

, as he repeats despite Trump being false.

Plus, there could still be a tie, and the recount (Georgia will, and the Republican nominee has asked in Wisconsin) could go on for weeks.

So far, the Democratic candidate, Joe Biden, has the advantage (although very small, only thousands of votes) in the counts of four of the five states still in dispute.

Biden already has 253 electoral votes, 17 less than necessary to win the White House.

Trump has 214 in the Electoral College, the system that determines who wins the presidency and whose result does not always coincide with the popular vote.

But the choice is not defined.

We explain the pending processes.

Finishing the initial count: inspections and adjudications

Although the president himself said yesterday, in a speech full of falsehoods, that he is already considered the winner, that there was fraud (it is a lie) and that the count should be stopped, this morning his campaign indicated in a statement that many votes remain to be tabulated. .

Indeed, in five states whose result will be key for the presidential election, the ballots have not been completed: they

Alaska is also pending, but with 3 electoral votes the result is not decisive.

"Our office has many safeguards, in place for many years, to ensure that everything is correct," emphasized this Friday the manager of the process in Georgia, Republican Gabe Sterling.

"Our instruction is to ensure that every legal vote is counted," he added.

[See the interactive map with the results of each state]

In some cases, for example,

the ballots of military personnel who voted from where they are stationed, as well as ballots of those who voted by mail

,

now that this modality has been expanded by the COVID-19 pandemic.

They are votes sent legally, and from before the voting centers closed, but which took a long time in transit.

That does not mean that thousands of ballots of mysterious origin are suddenly being "thrown away", as Trump has falsely suggested.

That is why specialists warned of mirages from the initial counting trends: Trump had had a slight advantage in states like Pennsylvania in the first hours of tabulation, when the votes cast in person were counted mostly by Republicans, but that did not mean that he would have the triumph because there were still millions of ballots to be counted of those sent by mail, a way that was used by the majority Democrats.

Each of those ballots still needs to be inspected, or "curated," 

and then counted, if it meets standards such as the signature on a vote-by-mail envelope matching that of that voter's driver's license.

That count can also be extended, because sometimes there are

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For example, if the marker smeared outside of the circle then a Democratic representative and a Republican representative review the ballot together to determine what the voter's intent was.

If they cannot agree, it is determined by an independent inspector.

All these precise processes, designed and applied for years to avoid fraud, take time.

In North Carolina, for example, election officials said the count won't be complete until next week;

in Nevada the officials believe that it would be until November 12 that they will have 100% of the ballots counted.

The certification: the official results and the Electoral College

The laws of many of the states provide that

.

Some give until December 11, like California.

It is for those dates that the so-called certification ends, in which the final count is formalized since the ballots and tabulations were inspected again.

It is until after the certification ends that the persons designated as electors for the Electoral College meet, the representatives of each state who confirm how each state voted.

This year that meeting is scheduled

[How do the counts work?

Learn what the laws of key states say]

That is, 

the result of who won the presidency will not be official until mid-December.

This is what the certification of the count looks like when it is presented at the Electoral College meeting: The Ohio certificate is presented to then-Vice President Dick Cheney in January 2009, when Barack Obama's victory was official.Getty Images /

The clearest example of that extension of time is the 2000 election between Democrat Al Gore and Republican George W. Bush: it was not decided until December 12 due to court cases calling for a recount.

The final ruling was issued by the Supreme Court and Bush became president.

This year something similar could well happen.

The pending: counts, demands, tiebreakers

The electoral authorities of Georgia were already emphatic this Friday:

That is because the difference between the two candidates has been minimal;

at noon East Coast time, they were tied for vote percentage at 49.4%.

Georgia law allows you to request a recount if the margin is 0.5% or less.

Then that status and its important 16 Electoral College votes won't be defined for another, perhaps, weeks.

Keep in mind though that counts very rarely change the result.

The Trump campaign highlighted in its statement this Friday that it considers that there can still be no winner because

that the Republican team has presented

also

.

He has asked for a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden was declared the winner;

and in Nevada the local branch of the Republican Party has expressed its intention to ask the Department of Justice to investigate if there were problematic ballots.

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 The argument in Nevada is that some people who do not currently reside in the state voted by mail there;

This is not illegal because many people who traveled temporarily for business or to go to college, and who intend to return, can continue to vote in their state of postal residence.

But all those legal moves must be resolved before considering that the count is final.

In addition,

, in which both Biden and Trump get 269 electoral votes without reaching the 270 required.

Why doesn't the candidate with the most votes always win the presidency

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If there is a 269-269 result, Congress is the one that could break the tiebreaker and the situation would also end in court to decide if and where there are recounts.

Therefore, the final date of this unprecedented election to take place in the middle of a pandemic and a rebound in COVID-19 infections is still up in the air.