Election 2020 updates: Biden warns of 'dark winter,' pushes masks in pandemic plan

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs appeared on a local Fox new station Wednesday to debunk concerns that ballots were being invalidated because permanent markers, such as Sharpies, were used to fill them out. 

Her response came after Matt Schlapp tweeted that voters in GOP precincts were given Sharpies at the polling place, causing ballots to be invalidated. 

Hobbs assured that those ballots filled out with Sharpies at the polls "are being counted." 

"I can assure voters that nobody in a polling place -- a trained employed polling place worker -- is not going to give you a pen to mark your ballot that is going to invalidate your ballot. They knew what they were doing and those ballots are being counted," Hobbs said. 

Hobbs also said that people who filled out their ballots at home using a Sharpie can also feel confident their vote will count.

"We have ways to address ballots that have stray marks or things that are going to interfere with the tabulator being able to read them," Hobbs said. "There are adjudication boards that are looking at some of these ballots right now to determine the intent of the voter and make sure that their votes are able to be counted."

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Biden, Trump race undecided as states count ballotsThe decisions for the 2020 presidential race are still outstanding in the key battleground states of Michigan, Georgia, Wisconsin, Arizona and Pennsylvania.

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Additionally, the Maricopa County Elections Department posted a video to Twitter Tuesday clarifying to voters that the use of Sharpies was approved in the county.

According to the video, "Sharpies are safe to use." 

Bleed-through from a Sharpie is not an issue because the columns on the ballot are offset from one another, the video explains. 

"It's the fastest drying ink and works best on the tabulation equipment," the video says.

--ABC News' Allison Pecorin

Following a tight Senate race, Sara Gideon, a Democrat and speaker of the Maine House, has conceded to longtime Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

Gideon said Wednesday that she spoke with Collins and congratulated her.

"I told her that I will always be available to help serve the people with me," Gideon said.

"Regardless of the result, together, we built a movement that will help us make progress for years to come," she added.

At an outdoor COVID-19 compliant party Tuesday night, Collins touted her history of never missing a vote in the Senate, more than 7,400 votes over 24 years.

Twitter hit one of Trump's morning tweets with a label saying the content is "disputed and might be misleading about an election or other civic process."

In a tweet posted just after 10 a.m. ET, the president claimed that "surprise ballot dumps" are stealing the election away from him.

"Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key States, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled," he wrote. "Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted. VERY STRANGE, and the 'pollsters' got it completely & historically wrong!"

In a follow-up tweet Wednesday morning, the president doubled down on his misleading claims about mail-in ballots, writing: "How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?"

The president has repeatedly attacked mail-in ballots throughout the campaign.

This late blue wave is not surprising because early voting and mail-in ballots were expected to be heavily Democratic.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he thinks President Trump "ran a heck of a race."

"Everybody was writing him off," McConnell said. "He went out and really worked himself to death for the last two months with multiple rallies every day and turned it into a cliffhanger against everybody's expectation."

 Asked about the president falsely declaring victory, McConnell said, "It's not unusual for people to claim they've won the election, I can think of that happening on numerous occasions, but claiming you've won the election is different from finishing the counting."

"What we're going to see here in the next few days both in the Senate races and in the presidential race is each state will get to a final outcome and you should not be shocked if both sides are going to have lawyers there, both in these close Senate races and in the presidential contest," he said.

McConnell also changed his timeline on COVID-19 relief, saying he believes the Senate needs to do a relief package "before the end of the year." That's a departure from comments he made just before Election Day that relief ought to be taken up "right at the beginning" of next year. 

-ABC News' Allie Pecorin