WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump's campaign said on Thursday (Nov 5) it is expected to launch additional legal action in Pennsylvania and Nevada and predicted that the Republican incumbent would emerge victorious in the US election as early as Friday evening.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien told reporters on a conference call that Trump was "alive and well" with regard to the presidential race.
Campaign adviser Jason Miller said he expected legal action in Pennsylvania to ensure visibility on previous ballots that have been counted in that state.
Trump has attacked the integrity of the US voting system, alleging voting fraud without providing evidence, filed lawsuits and called for at least one state recount.
His campaign's latest move was a lawsuit expected to be announced later on Thursday alleging voting fraud in Nevada, one of the pivotal states where he narrowly trails Biden.
Some legal experts called the challenges a long shot unlikely to affect the eventual outcome of the election.
As counting continued two days after election day, slowed by large numbers of mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, Biden was leading in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona and closing in on Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Multiple Trump lawsuits and a recount request would have to succeed and find in some cases tens of thousands of invalid ballots to reverse the result if Biden does prevail.
Trump has to win the states where he is still ahead, including North Carolina, plus either Arizona or Nevada, to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George Bush in 1992.
Some fellow Republicans have voiced unease over Trump's claims of voting fraud.
"The problem with throwing up unsubstantiated charges is it undermines faith in democracy," Adam Kinzinger, a Republican US congressman from Michigan who was re-elected on Tuesday, told CNN.
WASHINGTON: Democrat Joe Biden edged closer to victory over President Donald Trump in the US presidential race on Thursday (Nov 5) as election officials tallied votes in the handful of states that will determine the outcome.
The Republican president, who during the long and rancorous campaign attacked the integrity of the American voting system, has alleged fraud without providing evidence, filed lawsuits and called for at least one recount.
Some legal experts called the challenges a long shot unlikely to affect the eventual outcome of the election.
As counting continued two days after Election Day, slowed by large numbers of mail-in ballots this year, Biden was leading in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona and closing in on Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Multiple Trump lawsuits and a recount request would have to succeed and find in some cases tens of thousands of invalid ballots to reverse the result if Biden does prevail.
Some of the outstanding votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania were clustered in places expected to lean Democratic - like the Atlanta and Philadelphia areas.
In Georgia's Fulton County, which includes most of Atlanta, officials said they expected to finish vote tallying on Thursday morning, with 10,000 absentee ballots left to count. By early Thursday, Trump led by 19,000 votes out of nearly 5 million cast in the state.
Trump had to win the states where he was still ahead, including North Carolina, plus either Arizona or Nevada to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George HW Bush in 1992.
The president appears to have grown more upset as his leads in some states have diminished or evaporated during the counting. On Thursday morning, he weighed in on Twitter, writing, "STOP THE COUNT!"
To capture the White House, a candidate must amass at least 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College. Such electoral votes are based largely on a state's population. Edison Research gave Biden a 243 to 213 lead in Electoral College votes. Other networks said Biden had won Wisconsin, which would give him another 10 votes.
The counting and court challenges set the stage for days if not weeks of uncertainty before Dec 8, the deadline to resolve election disputes. The president is sworn into office on Jan 20, 2021.
"The litigation looks more like an effort to allow Trump to continue rhetorically attempting to delegitimatise an electoral loss," said Joshua Geltzer, executive director of Georgetown Law's Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection.
US President Donald Trump speaks about early results from the 2020 US presidential election in the East Room of the White House in Washington, US, Nov 4, 2020. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)
RAZOR-THIN MARGINS
Biden, a 77-year-old former vice president, predicted victory on Wednesday and launched a website to begin the transition to a Democratic-controlled White House. Trump, 74, is seeking a second four years in office after a tumultuous first term.
Trump's campaign called for a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden led by roughly 21,000 votes out of 3.3 million cast, a margin slim enough to entitle him to a recount. However elections experts said a recount in Wisconsin was seen as unlikely to alter the result.
His campaign also filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in charge of elections, called the Trump team's lawsuit "frivolous."
Trump's campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham County, which includes the city of Savannah, separate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.
It also asked the US Supreme Court to allow Trump to join a pending lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether the battleground state should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots that were mailed by Election Day.
Trump's campaign said it planned to make an announcement in Las Vegas later on Thursday. Fox News reported the campaign would announce another lawsuit, this one alleging voter fraud in Nevada.
Despite Trump's allegations of fraud and an unsubstantiated charge that Democrats are trying to "steal" the election, US election experts say fraud in balloting is rare.
Biden said every vote must be counted. "No one's going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever," Biden said on Wednesday in his home state of Delaware.
GRIDLOCK
If victorious, Biden would face a tough battle to govern, with Republicans appearing poised to keep control of the US Senate, which they could use to block large parts of his legislative agenda, including expanding healthcare access and efforts aimed at fighting climate change.
The contentious election aftermath capped a vitriolic campaign that unfolded amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 233,000 people in the United States and left millions more jobless. The country has also grappled with months of unrest involving protests over racism and police brutality.
The United States set a one-day record for new coronavirus cases on Wednesday with at least 102,591 new infections, according to a Reuters tally.
Supporters of President Donald Trump protest the Nevada vote in front of the Clark County Election Department, Wednesday, Nov 4, 2020, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
With tensions rising, about 200 of Trump's supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election office in Phoenix, Arizona, on Wednesday following unsubstantiated rumours that votes were not being counted.
In Detroit, officials blocked about 30 people, mostly Republicans, from entering a vote-counting facility amid unfounded claims that the vote count in Michigan was fraudulent.
Anti-Trump protesters in other cities demanded that vote counting continue and there were arrests in Portland, Oregon, as well as New York, Denver and Minneapolis. Over 100 events are planned across the country between Wednesday and Saturday.
By early on Thursday, Biden had drawn about 3.6 million more votes than Trump nationwide. Trump defeated Democrat Clinton in 2016 after winning crucial battleground states and securing the Electoral College win even though she drew about 3 million more votes nationwide.
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke alongside his running-mate Kamala Harris
The knife-edge US presidential race tilted toward Democrat Joe Biden early Thursday, with wins in Michigan and Wisconsin bringing him close to a majority, but President Donald Trump claimed he was being cheated and went to court to try and stop vote counting.
Tallying of votes continued through a second night in the remaining battleground states where huge turnout and a mountain of mail-in ballots sent by voters trying to avoid exposure to the coronavirus made the job all the harder.
Both men still had paths to winning the White House by hitting the magic majority threshold of 270 of the electoral votes awarded to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in a given state.
But momentum moved to Biden, who made a televised speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware to say that "when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."
By flipping the northern battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin, and also winning formerly pro-Trump Arizona, Biden reached 264 electoral votes against 214 so far for Trump.
To reach 270 he was hoping next to add the six electoral votes from Nevada, where he had a small and shrinking lead, or, even better, the larger prizes of hard-fought Georgia or Pennsylvania.
In stark contrast to Trump's unprecedented rhetoric about being cheated, Biden sought to project calm, reaching out to a nation torn by four years of polarizing leadership and traumatized by the Covid-19 pandemic, with new daily infections Wednesday close to hitting 100,000 for the first time.
"We have to stop treating our opponents as enemies," Biden, 77, said. "What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart."
- Trump claims being cheated -
However, Trump, 74, claimed victory unilaterally and made clear he would not accept the reported results, issuing unprecedented complaints -- unsupported by any evidence -- of fraud.
"The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself," he tweeted, alleging without proof or explanation that "secretly dumped ballots" had been added in Michigan.
Trump's campaign announced lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia and demanded a recount in Wisconsin.
In Michigan, the campaign filed a suit to halt vote tabulation, saying its "observers" were not allowed to watch at close distances.
Tension also shifted to the streets, even if so far there has not been the kind of unrest that some feared just ahead of the election, prompting businesses in several major city centers to board up windows.
In Detroit, a Democratic stronghold that is majority Black, a crowd of mostly-white Trump supporters chanted "Stop the count!" and tried to barge into an election office before being blocked by security.
US news networks showed an aggressive pro-Trump crowd also gathering outside a vote counting office in the important Arizona county of Maricopa, which includes Phoenix.
Burly law enforcement officers formed a protective line at the facility's doors. Some of the protesters openly carried firearms, which is legal in the state, while people chanted "Count the votes!"
Just before midnight local time, Maricopa authorities posted new vote totals, with Trump slashing Biden's Arizona vote lead from 79,000 to under 69,000, a gap of 2.4 percent with 86 percent of precincts reporting.
Georgia's largest county of Fulton, which includes parts of Atlanta, was processing ballots through the night. Over a 90-minute period Biden narrowed Trump's lead there from 29,000 votes to 23,000, with 95 percent of precincts reporting.
The tight nature of Georgia's race -- Biden trails Trump by half a percent -- raises the prospect of a recount.
- Be 'patient' -
The US election -- usually touted as an example to newer democracies around the world -- brought statements of international concern, with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer warning of a "very explosive situation."
An observer mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors votes around the West and former Soviet Union, found no evidence of election fraud and said Trump's "baseless allegations" eroded trust in democracy.
Unless Biden racks up a winning score earlier, the whole contest could eventually wind up being decided by the winner of Pennsylvania, where Trump's initially big lead dwindled rapidly.
The state is a major target for Trump campaign lawyers, who have already challenged its rule on allowing mailed-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted in the US Supreme Court.
Tom Wolf, the state's Democratic governor, insisted on everyone being "patient" and promised all votes would be "counted fully."
The tight White House race and recriminations evoked memories of the 2000 election between Republican George W Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
That race, which hinged on a handful of votes in Florida, eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which halted a recount while Bush was ahead.
The US Elections Project estimated total 2020 turnout at a record 160 million including more than 101.1 million early voters.
Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke alongside his running-mate Kamala Harris
The knife-edge US presidential race tilted toward Democrat Joe Biden early Thursday, with wins in Michigan and Wisconsin bringing him close to a majority, but President Donald Trump claimed he was being cheated and went to court to try and stop vote counting.
Tallying of votes continued through a second night in the remaining battleground states where huge turnout and a mountain of mail-in ballots sent by voters trying to avoid exposure to the coronavirus made the job all the harder.
Both candidates still had paths to hit the magic number of 270 electoral votes representing a majority of states, thereby winning the White House.
But momentum moved to Biden, who made a televised speech from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, to say that "when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners."
By flipping the northern battlegrounds of Michigan and Wisconsin, and also winning formerly pro-Trump Arizona, Biden reached 264 electoral votes against 214 so far for Trump.
To reach 270 he was hoping next to add the six electoral votes from Nevada, where he had a tiny lead, or, even better, the larger prizes of hard-fought Georgia or Pennsylvania.
In stark contrast to Trump's unprecedented rhetoric about being cheated, Biden sought to project calm, reaching out to a nation torn by four years of polarizing leadership and traumatized by the Covid-19 pandemic, with new daily infections Wednesday close to hitting 100,000 for the first time.
"We have to stop treating our opponents as enemies," Biden, 77, said. "What brings us together as Americans is so much stronger than anything that can tear us apart."
- Trump claims being cheated -
However, Trump, 74, claimed victory unilaterally and made clear he would not accept the reported results, issuing unprecedented complaints -- unsupported by any evidence -- of fraud.
"The damage has already been done to the integrity of our system, and to the Presidential Election itself," he tweeted, alleging without proof or explanation that "secretly dumped ballots" had been added in Michigan.
Trump's campaign announced lawsuits in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia and demanded a recount in Wisconsin.
In Michigan, the campaign filed a suit to halt vote tabulation, saying its "observers" were not allowed to watch at close distances.
Tension also shifted to the streets, even if so far there has not been the kind of unrest that some feared just ahead of the election, prompting businesses in several major city centers to board up windows.
In Detroit, a Democratic stronghold that is majority Black, a crowd of mostly-white Trump supporters chanted "Stop the count!" and tried to barge into an election office before being blocked by security.
US news networks showed an aggressive pro-Trump crowd also gathering outside a vote counting office in the important Arizona county of Maricopa, which includes Phoenix, with burly law enforcement officers forming a protective line at the facility's doors. Some of the protesters openly carried firearms, which is legal in the state.
- Be 'patient' -
The US election -- usually touted as an example to newer democracies around the world -- brought statements of international concern, with German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer warning of a "very explosive situation" that could create a "constitutional crisis."
An observer mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, which monitors votes around the West and former Soviet Union, found no evidence of election fraud and said that Trump's "baseless allegations" eroded trust in democracy.
Unless Biden racks up a winning score earlier, the whole contest could eventually wind up being decided by the winner of Pennsylvania, where Trump's initially big lead dwindled rapidly.
The state is a major target for Trump campaign lawyers, who have already challenged its rule on allowing mailed-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted in the US Supreme Court.
Tom Wolf, the Democratic governor of the state, insisted on everyone being "patient" and promised all votes would be "counted fully."
The tight White House race and recriminations evoked memories of the 2000 election between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore.
That race, which hinged on a handful of votes in Florida, eventually ended up in the Supreme Court, which halted a recount while Bush was ahead.
The US Elections Project estimated total turnout at a record 160 million including more than 101.1 million early voters, 65.2 million of whom cast ballots by mail amid the pandemic.
WILMINGTON (REUTERS) - With the US presidential election between Republican President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden too close to call, Mr Trump turned to the courts on Wednesday (Nov 4) to try to invalidate votes in Pennsylvania and block Michigan officials from counting ballots.
Below is a list of the cases that will play out in the coming days and possibly weeks.
Michigan ballot counting fight
Mr Trump's campaign said on Wednesday it had filed a lawsuit in Michigan to stop state officials from counting ballots.
The campaign said the case in the Michigan Court of Claims seeks to halt counting until it has an election inspector at each absentee voter counting board. The campaign also wanted to review ballots which were opened and counted before an inspector from its campaign was present.
Mr Biden held a razor-thin margin in the state with 94 per cent of the expected vote in, according to Edison Research.
Pennsylvania court battles
Republican officials on Tuesday sued election officials in Montgomery County, which borders Philadelphia, accusing them of illegally counting mail-in ballots early and giving voters who submitted defective ballots a chance to re-vote.
At a hearing on Wednesday, US District Judge Timothy Savage in Philadelphia appeared sceptical of their allegations and how the integrity of the election might be affected.
In a separate lawsuit, the Trump campaign asked a judge to halt ballot counting in Pennsylvania, claiming that Republicans had been unlawfully denied access to observe the process.
Meanwhile, Republicans in Pennsylvania have asked the US Supreme Court to review a decision from the state's highest court that allowed election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day that arrived through Friday.
On Wednesday, Mr Trump's campaign filed a motion to intervene in the case.
US Supreme Court justices said last week there was not enough time to decide the merits of the case before Election Day but indicated they might revisit it afterwards.
Justice Samuel Alito, joined by fellow conservatives Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, said in a written opinion that there is a "strong likelihood" the Pennsylvania court's decision violated the US Constitution.
Pennsylvania election officials said they will segregate properly postmarked ballots that arrived after Election Day.
With about 88 per cent of the vote counted, Mr Trump led Biden in Pennsylvania with 50.9 per cent of the vote to 47.8 per cent, according to Edison Research.
US postal service litigation
A US judge on Wednesday said Postmaster General Louis DeJoy must answer questions about why the US Postal Service failed to complete a court-ordered sweep for undelivered ballots in about a dozen states before a Tuesday afternoon deadline.
US District Judge Emmet Sullivan is overseeing a lawsuit by Vote Forward, the NAACP, and Latino community advocates who have been demanding the postal service deliver mail-in ballots in time to be counted in the election.
Georgia ballot fight
The Trump campaign on Wednesday evening filed a lawsuit in state court in Chatham County, Georgia. Unlike the Pennsylvania and Michigan actions, that lawsuit is not asking a judge to halt ballot counting. Instead, the campaign said it received information that late-arriving ballots were improperly mingled with valid ballots, and asked a judge to enter an order making sure late-arriving ballots were separated so they would not be counted.
NEW YORK: Thousands of Joe Biden supporters marched on Wednesday (Nov 4) evening in New York to demand every vote in the tight presidential election be counted, as some Donald Trump supporters protested in Detroit demanding a halt to ballot counting in the key state of Michigan.
New York demonstrators were peaceful and spanned generations, with marchers heading from Fifth Avenue towards Washington Square Park in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.
In New York's Democratic stronghold demonstrators were hopeful but wary of calling it for their candidate Biden just yet.
Supporters of US President Donald Trump bang on the glass and chant slogans outside the room where absentee ballots for the 2020 general election are being counted at on Nov 4, 2020 in Detroit. (Photo: AFP/Jeff Kowalsky)
"We need to count every vote in this election," said Sarah Boyagian, part of the Protect The Results Coalition behind the demonstration organised under tight police supervision.
"Donald Trump has claimed the election before every vote is counted and we are sending the message that that is not acceptable," the 29-year-old told AFP.
John Fraser, 47, said he's "worried Trump is going to void the vote".
"I am not sure Biden has won, we have to wait until all votes are counted," said the software developer, adding: "I am worried that democracy is hanging by a thread right now."
The Detroit protest outside a ballot processing centre were far more tense, according to an AFP photographer and clips on social media.
Cries of "stop the count!" rang out in the city in Michigan - where US media declared Biden the victor - as Trump's campaign announced a lawsuit to try and suspend the vote count, claiming its team was denied proper access to observe vote counting.
Social media clips showed protesters with fists raised prevented from entering the centre by police.
With Michigan's 16 electoral votes, Biden now has a total of 264 - six shy of the magic number of 270 needed to win the US presidency, according to US network projections.
