The final countdown 

Just six states haven't called their election for either President Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden yet, mainly because of razor-thin margins and an overload of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic. So the counting of votes continues in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and oddly, Alaska. Biden could clinch the White House by winning just one more state, and Democrats voiced confidence he will get there today by winning his home state of Pennsylvania or some combination of two others. —Los Angeles Times

• — "Stop the count!" Or is it "Count the votes"? Not surprisingly, Trump and his supporters have an inconsistent view on democracy, depending on how it impacts Trump. In states where Trump is behind, supporters have gathered at counting facilities to encourage counting. In states where he is ahead, supporters are demanding that the counting stop. Trump himself tweeted earlier today "STOP THE COUNT!" Very presidential. —The Hill
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• — Armed agents? The Justice Department told federal prosecutors in an email yesterday that the law allows them to send armed federal officers to ballot-counting locations around the country to investigate potential voter fraud. The email created the specter of the federal government intimidating local election officials or otherwise intervening in vote tallying amid calls by the president to end the count in states where he is trailing in the race. —The New York Times
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• — Record turnout. More than 160 million Americans voted in this election, according to Michael McDonald of the University of Florida‘s U.S. Elections Project, the largest participation since 1900 and by far the biggest of the modern era. That number represents 66.9% of the potentially eligible voting population. "We broke a 120-year record on turnout—the kind of turnout people only dreamed of" in past elections, says political scientist Julia Azari of Marquette University. Good job, America! —Los Angeles Times

Focus on Arizona

As the president's potential paths to re-election narrow, the Trump campaign has launched legal fights in several battleground states, including Pennsylvania (pending), Georgia and Michigan (dismissed), and Nevada  (expected). He’s also called for a recount in Wisconsin. Another critical state for the president is Arizona—normally a Republican bastion, which he won in 2016—that could face a legal challenge if the final count doesn't go his way. —The Wall Street Journal

• — "They don't have a legal pathway to challenge." Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs responded yesterday that the Trump campaign does not have legitimate standing to sue and that counting every single vote on Election Day was never going to happen. "We are legally counting valid ballots, and there's not a way to stop that," Hobbs said. "We’ve said from day one that this is going to take time. We want to do it right. We want to make sure that every vote is counted." —The Hill
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• — Sharpiegate II. Some social media users are falsely claiming that ballots are being invalidated in Arizona due to Sharpie markers. The posts suggest that election officials in Maricopa Co. provided voters with Sharpie pens, which interfered with ballots being recorded for Trump. State election officials say that voting with a Sharpie would have no impact on the votes being recorded by tabulation machines. —Associated Press
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• — Fox News' early call roiled Trump. Trump campaign officials were livid on Election Night, when the president’s favorite news network called Arizona for Biden, when no other network had. Tensions boiled over onto the live broadcast, where former White House Press Sec. Sarah Sanders insisted it was a "premature call," and anchor Bret Baier called upon decision-desk director Arnon Mishkin to explain himself on camera, because "we’re getting a lot of incoming here." —The Washington Post

Wharton Business Daily: Misinformation is insidious

"Fake news certainly has an impact on consumers, sometimes with dangerous consequences, such as the debunked Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led a North Carolina man to fire shots inside a Washington, D.C., pizzeria he believed was part of a child sex-slave ring. But the misinformation that mainstream media spreads is powerful in more subtle ways, such as quoting President Trump saying that voter fraud among mail-in ballots is widespread although there is no evidence of fraud." —Knowledge@Wharton

MORE: Misinformation 2020: What the data tells us about election-related falsehoods —Defense One

US hits new coronavirus record

While the country was largely distracted by the presidential election yesterday, the U.S. quietly hit another grim milestone in the battle with COVID-19, reporting 102,831 new infections in one day. That's an all-time high that would have seemed unfathomable just a few weeks ago.

• — It’s not just due to more testing. New cases have increased 21% over the past week, according to Johns Hopkins University. But testing has only increased by 4.52% over the past week, according to the Covid Tracking Project. COVID-19 hospitalizations also reached all-time highs in 16 states yesterday.
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• — "I was predicting just a week or two ago we'd hit 100,000 (new cases a day). I didn't imagine it would be already there," said William Haseltine, a former Harvard Medical School professor and chair of ACCESS Health International, a global health think tank. 
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• — With hospitalizations and deaths surging, some state officials are enacting new rules to try to control the virus' spread. However, as has been the case throughout the pandemic, these restrictions are meeting with significant resistance. —CNN

Tucker: The hack that didn't come

"'Over the last four years, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has been a part of a whole-of-nation effort to ensure American voters decide American elections. Importantly, after millions of Americans voted, we have no evidence any foreign adversary was capable of preventing Americans from voting or changing vote tallies,’ CISA Director Chris Krebs said in a statement. All of those efforts play a strategic role not just helping the public understand and have faith in the electoral outcome—especially those who preferred a different outcome—but it holds a secondary value as well: telegraphing a deterrence message to U.S. adversaries." —Patrick Tucker in Defense One

Ed. Note: Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One. He’s also the author of "The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?"

MORE: Despite fears of violence, Election Day proceeds smoothly as millions line up to vote —The New York Times

Elections have consequences

An abysmal showing by Democrats in state legislative races on Tuesday not only denied them victories in Sun Belt and Rust Belt states that would have positioned them to advance their policy agenda—it also put the party at a disadvantage ahead of the redistricting that will determine the balance of power for the next decade.

• — The results could domino through politics in America, helping the GOP draw favorable congressional and state legislative maps by ensuring Democrats remain the minority party in key state legislatures. Ultimately, it could mean more Republicans in Washington—and in state capitals.
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• — Democrats did not flip a single statehouse chamber in its favor on Tuesday. And it remains completely blocked from the mapmaking process in several key states, including Texas, North Carolina, and Florida, which could have a combined 82 congressional seats by 2022.
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• — To be sure, Democrats are much better positioned than they were after 2010, when the GOP controlled the mapmaking process in nearly every major state. But Republicans will likely have total control over the mapmaking process for 181 districts, while Democrats will draw the maps for just 76. —Politico

Brownstein: America's cold war

"Once upon a time, a popular-vote victory as decisive as Biden's projected win would likely have swept his party to broad congressional gains. Democrats’ only modest advances in the Senate and modest retreat in the House testify to the durability of the divisions between a Democratic coalition rooted in the places immersed in the changes forging 21st-century America and a Republican coalition that dominates the places most apart from, and skeptical of, those changes. In America’s domestic cold war, this election was more like Antietam, a brutally bloody stalemate that wounded both sides, than a Gettysburg or Vicksburg, which pointed to a decisive victory for one side over the other. The election did more to underscore the impermeability of the nation’s divisions than to offer a path toward the reconciliation and unity that Biden has promised." —Ronald Brownstein in The Atlantic

Ed. Note: Ronald Brownstein is a senior editor at The Atlantic.

MORE: Trump's huge vote total breaks my heart. I recognize this America and I wish I did not —USA Today

"All votes must count and all Americans must accept the result. High participation should be something we all take pride in, regardless of outcome. We will need to learn hard lessons and bring in the ~50% of the electorate that doesn't agree with us. Because #HereRightMatters."  —Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (ret.) (@AVindman)

I really appreciated Yuval Levin's comments yesterday about going from here as citizens, solving the problems we face as a citizenry. Further, if our pick wins, we can't think we can now sit and let him fix everything without our help. And if our new president was not our pick, it will be time to hope for and contribute to his and our success. —Pam P., Utah

The views expressed in "What's Your Take?" are submitted by readers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff or the Stand Up Republic Foundation.