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WASHINGTON: Democrat Joe Biden came closest to victory over President Donald Trump in the US presidential race on Thursday (November 5) when election officials counted the votes in the handful of states that will determine the outcome.
The Republican president, who during the long and spiteful campaign attacked the integrity of the US voting system, alleged fraud without providing evidence, filed lawsuits and asked for at least one recount.
Some legal experts called the challenges a long shot that will likely not affect the final outcome of the election.
READ: Live updates: Biden picks up more key statuses as path to president widens
As the count continued two days after Election Day, slowed by a slew of mail-in ballots this year, Biden led in Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona and was close to Trump in Georgia and Pennsylvania. Multiple Trump lawsuits and a recount request would have to be successful and, in some cases, find tens of thousands of invalid ballots to reverse the outcome if Biden prevails.
Some of the outstanding votes in Georgia and Pennsylvania were clustered in places that were expected to lean Democratic, such as the Atlanta and Philadelphia areas.
In Fulton County in Georgia, which includes most of Atlanta, officials said they expected to finish counting the vote Thursday morning, with 10,000 missing ballots to be counted. As of early Thursday, Trump was leading with 19,000 votes out of the nearly 5 million cast in the state.
Trump had to win the states in which he was still ahead, including North Carolina, as well as Arizona or Nevada to succeed and avoid becoming the first sitting US president to lose a re-election bid since his fellow Republican George HW Bush. in 1992.
The president seems to have gotten angrier that his advantages in some states have diminished or evaporated during the count. On Thursday morning, he took in on Twitter and wrote: “STOP THE COUNT!”
LEE: Trump alleges ‘surprise ballot dumps’ in the states where he led
To conquer the White House, a candidate must accumulate at least 270 votes in the Electoral College state by state. These electoral votes are based primarily on the population of a state. Edison Research gave Biden a 243-213 lead in Electoral College votes. Other networks said that Biden had won Wisconsin, which would give him another 10 votes.
The recounts and court challenges set the stage for days, if not weeks, of uncertainty before Dec. 8, the deadline for resolving electoral disputes. The president takes office on January 20, 2021.
“The litigation looks more like an effort to allow Trump to continue to rhetorically attempt to delegitimize an electoral loss,” said Joshua Geltzer, executive director of the Georgetown Law Institute for Constitutional Defense and Protection.
US President Donald Trump speaks on the first results of the 2020 US presidential election in the East Room of the White House in Washington, the United States, on November 4, 2020 (REUTERS / Carlos Barria).
THIN MARGINS
Biden, a 77-year-old former vice president, predicted victory on Wednesday and launched a website to begin the transition to a Democrat-controlled White House. Trump, 74, is seeking a second four-year term after a tumultuous first term.
READ: Biden says he hopes to win the US presidency.
The Trump campaign called for a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden led with roughly 21,000 votes out of 3.3 million cast, a margin thin enough to qualify for a recount. However, election experts said a recount in Wisconsin was unlikely to alter the outcome.
His campaign also filed lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop the vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, in charge of the election, called the Trump team’s lawsuit “frivolous.”
READ: Biden wins Wisconsin in the fight for the White House while Trump demands a recount
LEE: Biden wins in Michigan, in another great blow to Trump
The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to demand that Chatham County, which includes the city of Savannah, segregate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.
He also asked the United States Supreme Court to allow Trump to join a pending lawsuit brought by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether the battlefield state should be allowed to accept late-arriving ballots that were sent by. mail before Election Day.
The Trump campaign said it planned to make an announcement in Las Vegas later Thursday. Fox News reported that the campaign would announce another lawsuit, alleging voter fraud in Nevada.
READ: Comment: The lack of a landslide victory in the US elections is worrying news
Despite Trump’s fraud allegations and a baseless accusation that Democrats are trying to “steal” the election, US election experts say voting fraud is rare.
Biden said that all votes must be counted. “No one is going to take away our democracy, not now, not ever,” Biden said Wednesday in his home state of Delaware.
GRIDLOCK
If victorious, Biden would face an uphill battle to govern, and Republicans would seem willing to maintain control of the US Senate, which they could use to block much of his legislative agenda, including expanding access to care. health and efforts to combat climate change.
READ: Comment: Biden risks being a boorish president if he wins
The controversial aftermath of the elections capped a virulent campaign that unfolded amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 233,000 people in the United States and left millions more out of work. The country has also faced months of unrest related to 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 Nevada’s vote in front of the Clark County Elections 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 pistols, gathered outside an election office in Phoenix, Ariz., Wednesday after unsubstantiated rumors that votes were not being counted.
In Detroit, officials blocked about 30 people, mostly Republicans, from entering a vote counting center amid unsubstantiated 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. More than 100 events are planned across the country between Wednesday and Saturday.
By early Thursday, Biden had garnered about 3.6 million more votes than Trump nationwide. Trump defeated Democrat Clinton in 2016 after winning crucial states on the battlefield and securing the Electoral College victory even though he garnered about 3 million more votes across the country.
