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Joe Biden has taken his lead in Georgia to 1,096 with 99% of the vote counted this morning. Final counts are expected to be announced this afternoon. 10,000 votes remain to be counted.
While Trump had held a weak lead in Georgia since Wednesday morning, Joe Biden has edged closer and closer to an lead in the key battlefield state and has now moved in the shadow of the winning spot in Georgia. The Trump Campaign will almost certainly request a recount, as the margin is within the legal threshold of 1pc to do so.
Meanwhile, President Trump has continued to make unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud and has even resorted to attacking Twitter for censoring his tweets.
Trump said Twitter was “out of control.”
President Trump said on Twitter: “I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with REPAIRED LEGAL VOTES. OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape or form, to do their job and therefore the votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES. The United States Supreme Court should decide! “
There is no evidence for any of these baseless claims made by President Trump.
The Pennsylvania Secretary of State has also stated that 163,000 votes remain to be counted, all of which are absentee or mail ballots. Election officials in the Commonwealth revealed that so far, mail-in votes have greatly favored Joe Biden, with the Democratic candidate winning 77% of these in the state. If this trend continues, Biden will win the state and the presidency.
Conspire to attack
Philadelphia police are investigating an alleged plot to attack the city’s Pennsylvania Convention Center, where votes are counted from a tightly-contested presidential election.
Local police received a tip about a Hummer with gunmen arriving from Virginia with plans to attack the convention center, a police representative said.
Police arrested at least one man and seized a gun and the Hummer about which they had received a tip. No injuries were reported and no further details about the alleged plot were released.
This comes as Biden narrowed the gap to just 17,000 votes in Pennsylvania while closing in on the coveted target of 270 to win the presidency.
Earlier Thursday, supporters of both United States President Donald Trump and his Democratic rival held rallies in Philadelphia as election staff slowly counted thousands of mail-in ballots that could decide the crucial 20 votes of the Pennsylvania Electoral College. .
Trump activists waved flags and carried signs that read, “Voting Stops On Election Day” and “Sorry, Polls Are Closed” as Biden supporters danced to music behind a barricade across the street. street earlier that day.
A state appeals court ruled Thursday that more Republican observers could enter the building in Philadelphia where poll workers were counting the ballots.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) said about 1,700 ballots in Pennsylvania had been identified at processing facilities during two raids late Thursday and were in the process of being handed over to election officials.
Trump has repeatedly said without evidence that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud, although election experts say that is rare in American elections.
Meanwhile, Facebook on Thursday removed a fast-growing group in which supporters of US President Donald Trump posted violent rhetoric as he and other companies addressed unsubstantiated claims and potential violence after a controversial election.
The “Stop the Steal” group, which called for “boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote,” was adding 1,000 new members every 10 seconds and had grown to 365,000 members in one day.
“The group organized around the delegitimization of the electoral process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members,” said a Facebook spokeswoman.
The group’s sponsors said they were organizing peaceful protests, that they had been working hard to control comments, and that Facebook had given no warning. Chris Barron, a spokesman for the group, said that political opponents were also organizing protests, but that they were not banned.
“If Facebook wants to become the arbiter of truth, then they have a lot of work to do,” Barron said.
Facebook said the removal of the group was in line with “exceptional measures” amid “heightened tension.”
The measures Facebook introduced on Thursday include warning users that the results are not final, as well as limiting the number of people who watch live video about the elections or posts that the company’s algorithms believe contain political misinformation.
For months, Trump and Republican allies have been laying the groundwork to question the integrity of the vote should the president lose his re-election bid.
As the counts increasingly improve the odds for Trump’s Democratic challenger Joe Biden, and as US broadcasters and other major media outlets ignore Trump’s victory claims, the president and his supporters have turned to the social media to try to change the narrative, floating in conspiracy. theories using the hashtag #StopTheSteal.
But social media companies have shown less patience with misinformation and calls for violence. Eleven of the president’s 32 tweets since Election Day Tuesday have been placed behind a warning label saying they were disputed, prompting him to use email and other means to express his claims, the researchers said. .
“Social media platforms cannot be allowed to be used to promote undemocratic and potentially violent activities,” said Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Stern Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University.
Bannon suspended
On Thursday, Snap Inc’s Snapchat removed a video from Trump’s account in which Biden said he has an extensive “voter fraud organization.” Biden’s statement came during an interview discussing his team fighting voter suppression efforts, and Snap found that Trump’s use out of context violated his policy against undermining the integrity of civic processes. .
Trump’s campaign social media manager Ryann McEnany condemned Snap’s action in a tweet, saying in capital letters: “Why don’t you let the American people see this?”
Twitter suspended an account used by former Trump campaign manager Steve Bannon on Thursday after he recorded a video calling for the beheading of FBI Director Christopher Wray and government infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci. for being disloyal to Trump.
A Twitter spokesperson cited the company’s policy against glorifying violence. Other services also removed the video for similar reasons.
But the takedowns and warnings are something Trump supporters seem to be prepared for. Before Facebook removed “Stop the Steal,” organizers directed members to an email sign-up page “in case social media censors this group.”
The group’s membership increased because seven prominent conservatives promoted it to their hundreds of thousands of followers, according to Renee DiResta, a researcher involved with the Alliance for Election Integrity Against Disinformation.
While Facebook groups generally function as forums for shared interests, they can harbor hyperpartisan misinformation.
“Facebook has been enabling and amplifying the infrastructure that is now being used to attack our democratic process,” said Arisha Hatch, executive director of the Color of Change political action committee, one of the nation’s largest online racial justice groups.
A review of a small number of comments posted to “Stop the Steal” prior to its removal found no direct call for violence, but its organizing premise – that Republican votes are being “overridden” by Democrats – has no basis for done.
Facebook, which normally recommends groups to users who want to join, suspended these recommendations for political groups and new groups around the elections last week.
The “Stop the Steal” group was led by the Trump Women for America First action group. The nonprofit organized protests against the Covid-19 restrictions and supported Trump during his impeachment hearing.
Reuters
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