Thomas and Alito believe in a legal theory that SCOTUS must in all situations no matter how stupid or meritless hear original jurisdiction cases. That is complaints between states not heard by a lower court first which includes the TX v PA lawsuit. The is no historical support for this, no prior justices believed this, and none of the other seven seated justices share this view. They and only they are convinced that SCOTUS must accept original jurisdiction cases.

So in every single original jurisdiction case they slow everything down. The demand that the justices accept the case and then dismiss it instead of declining to review it. When they lose (and they always lose) they demand to write a dissent and scold the rest of the court for not following procedures as they see they should be.

If this seems stupid and trivial well it is. Nobody on the planet except those two idiots cares. This isn't a Republican thing or a conservative judge thing or a federalist society thing. This is a special brand of stupid sauce shared between Alito and Thomas.

So that could be the delay. It could (not saying will but could) even delay things until Sat/Sun over essentially nothing.

If I am right this is likely what is happening right now:
7 justices: consensus is the case has no merit and no standing lets decline to review
Alito and Thomas: no you must accept the case and then dismiss instead of declining to review
7 justices: we aren't doing that like the other 20 times you pulled this stunt
Roberts: calling the vote. 7-2 decline to review
Alito and Thomas: I want to write a dissent I need 24 hours.

I am not saying that will happen. Hopefully we get an order issued today and that is that just pointing out what might be causing the delay so far and why that delay could go past the end of the day today.

So what happens if there is no order issued today? Well SCOTUS can issue an order on the weekend. They usually don't but this isn't a usual situation. They won't want to wait until Monday and the confusion/chaos that would bring so an order (w/ the dissent from the two stupids) could happen on Saturday or Sunday.

Already starting to see Trumpers saying "no state has certified anything yet so nobody has won yet". While it is correct that none of the states have certified the final count yet, it is all but certain they will eventually certify the same winners we are seeing now on the projection maps at various media outlets.

In case you are wondering when that happens, here is a list of certification dates for each state as defined by state law
https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results_certification_dates,_2020

The cheatsheet of the states you are probably the most interested in is:
Georgia (Nov 20)
Michigan (Nov 23)
Pennsylvania (Nov 23)
Minnesota (Nov 24)
Arizona (Nov 30)
Wisconsin (Dec 1)
Nevada (Dec 1)

These dates can sometimes be inexact as state law may allow exceptions to the deadline. Also if states get done early in most states they can release final certified results prior to the deadline too.

Still I wonder what the Trumpers in denial will be saying in a bit over two weeks as states start one after another certifying the results.

his team to the various governmental agencies. The longer they wait the more it will hamper the incoming Biden administration's ability to make a smooth transition. Biden win was finally called on a weekend so I don't think it is an issue yet but a story worth tracking over the coming week.



https://www.politico.com/newsletters/transition-playbook/2020/11/07/meet-washingtons-most-powerful-woman-temporarily-791464

The tears from MAGAts are going to be a tidal wave in a couple weeks.

Done with being a silent many
Every voice rings out and carries
No we won't just go back
Home without you hearing
The sound when the many say
We are done

He also never had an approval rating above 50% and he was impeached. Despite the fact that Trumper's love him and think he is so great today, history will not be kind to him.

America never wanted him, he never rose to challenge of earning America's respect, and America got rid of him.

At that time Nate Silver said



https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1324712125537935365

Since then Biden's lead in PA has increased consistently. There is no rational reason every network hasn't already called this thing. I mean Fox even called AZ and that was and still is slightly less certain than PA. Of course calling AZ didn't end the race the way calling PA would.

The only reasons they have are:
1) milking this for ad revenue.
2) they are all cowards and hope another network will blink first and get the brunt of Dumpy ire.

It seems that some people thinking "calling" a state is official or has some legal weight. It doesn't. When the networks "call" a state that is simply a projection. It is the network statisticians looking at the results and concluding that it is infeasible for the other candidate to win and thus it is safe to declare for example that Biden "WILL" (note the future tense) win Virginia.

So any map you see on NYT or NBC news showing Red of Blue states is simply a projection, an opinion on what will eventually happen. These are almost never wrong but they have zero weight under the law. None of them are official. Virginia is not official, Maine is not official, Florida is not officially. All these are just projections that when the official certified results are posted that is who will win that state. Someone asked why don't people wait for the certified results and the answer is you certainly can but most people are impatient.

The next step in the process is the states conclude their counting and post final tallies. Then they will conduct any required recounts, resolve any legal challenge, and finally certify the final results. The process for this varies by state and so do the timelines. Virginia is required under law to certify results no later than 11/10 while California has until 12/11.

If you are curious when your state does that here is a helpful list. Regardless it will be many weeks before all 50 states have official certified results.
https://ballotpedia.org/Election_results_certification_dates,_2020

The next step after that is the electors chosen in each state as a result of the certified state results meet. While we say "electoral college" they never actually meet as a single body. Electors just meet in each state and vote for that state. That happens on 12/14. The states then have a hard deadline under federal law to deliver certified results of the electoral college to Congress no later than 12/23.

The final step is Congress certifies those results. If one candidate has 270 votes he/she becomes the official President elect. That happens on Jan 6th. As a technicality there is no official (by the letter of the law) President Elect until this day. Personally I am calling Biden President elect starting today.

Then of course Biden will become President on Jan 20th at exactly noon.

Short version
11/3 - Election day
11/3 to ??? - Unofficial results and network projections of a winner (you are here)
11/10 - The deadline for the earliest states to provide certified results
12/11 - The deadline for the last states to provide certified results
12/14 - The electoral college meets and votes
12/23 - The deadline for states to deliver results to Congress
01/06 - Congress certified the electoral college results and names the Pres/VP elect.
01/20 - The President and vice president take the oath of office and assume the office

From the NYT rolling ticker updates.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html