US ELECTION LATEST
TV PULLS PLUG ON TRUMP FRAUD CLAIMS
JOE Bid en last night continued his extraordinary momentum in election vote counting, mowing down Donald Trump’s lead in Georgia and Pennsylvania and increasing his own lead in Nevada.
With counting continuing and the Trump team mounting multiple legal challenges, America is no closer to knowing who will be president during the next four years, but Mr Bid en remains just six electoral college votes shy of claiming the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Earlier it looked as if Nevada might be the state that ultimately delivered the presidency to Mr Biden, but with a majority of postal votes going to the Democrats, it is entirely possible the former vice president will also pick up Georgia and Pennsylvania. Voting also continues in North Carolina, but with a lead last night of 77,000 votes it was widely anticipated that Mr Trump would hold the state.
But Mr Biden’s momentum in the other states has been little short of astounding.
In 24 hours, he pegged back Mr Trump’ s lead in Pennsylvania from 164,000 votes to 24,000.
And in the same time frame he clawed back Mr Trump’s lead in Georgia from more than 22,000 votes to fewer than2000.
While counting in Nevada continues to be slow — 16 per cent of ballots are still yet to be counted — Mr Biden also extended his lead there from 8000 votes to more than 11,000.
Mr Trump has also refused to concede Arizona, but with Mr Bid en ahead in the counting by more than 46,000 votes, it is widely regarded as a gain for the Democrats.
Professor Simon Jackman, from the US Studies Centre, predicted that Joe Bid en would have a “very narrow win ”.
Although there had been calls for recounts in some states, Professor Jackman said that in the age of machine counting, they tended to have very little impact on election results.
He was also sceptical about some of the legal challenges by the Trump team about the late counting of absentee ballots.
“This is absolutely bog standard absentee vote counting ,” hesaid.
Pennsylvania “had already been extensively litigated on this question”, and the Supreme Court had refused to overturn a judgment by the Pennsylvania State Supreme Courton the matter.
IT was the moment when Donald Trump went too far for America’s TV networks who pulled the plug on the president as he unleashed an extraordinary attack on US democracy.
At least four channels cut Mr Trump off over concerns of disinformation after he described the election as a“fraud” and appeared to label almost two-third soft he total 160 million votes cast invalid.
His unprecedented presidential spray came as late vote counting in battle ground states showed Democrat candidate Joe Biden steadily closing inonvictory.
As his legal teams mounted multiple legal challenges in several states, Mr Trump complained of illegal ballots, dodgy counting, and Democrat conspiracies to rob him of a secondterm.
“This is a case where they’re trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen ,” Mr Trump said.
“We think we will win the election very easily. We think there’s going to be a lot of litigation, because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it’s going to end up perhaps in the highest court in the land .”
He asserted that the 100 million postal ballots that were cast ahead of poll day, largely because of coronavirus, were either illegal or invalid.
“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from
us, if you count the votes that came in late ,” Mr Trump said.
The President appeared tired as he unleashed in his first public appearance after hunkering down at the White House for 36 hours and gave every indication that Americans are in for a lengthy period of uncertainty.
The outburst stunned many and
drew criticism from one of his top allies, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who warned it could in flame an already divided nation.
“We heard nothing today about any evidence,” Mr Christie said on ABC. “This kind of thing, all it does is inflame without informing. And we cannot permit inflammation without
information.”
One of Mr Trump’s key confidantes, Mr Christie helped him prepare for the presidential debates and became seriously ill with COVID in the Washington cluster that infected thePresident.
“If you’re gonna say those things from behind the podium at the White House, it’s his right to do it, it’s his right to pursue legal action. But show us the evidence ,” Mr Christie said.
Republican congressman Will Hu rd called Trump’ s call to stop votecounting“dangerous and wrong ”.
But other prominent party members rallied behind Mr Trump and signal led they could challenge the legitimacy of the state counts.
“I think everything should be on the table,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate judiciary committee, when asked if Penn sylvania’ s Republican-led legislature should refuse to certify results.
The President’s supporters converged on election offices in several cities demanding to see ballots being processed while Democrat supporters staged “count every vote”protests.
Earlier, Mr Biden appeared briefly to urge Americans to be calm and patient and also asserted that he was confident of victory.
“Each ballot must be counted and that’ s what is going on now ,” he said.
“Democracy is sometimes messy, so sometimes it requires a little patience. We continue to feel very good about where things stand. And we have no doubt that when the count is finished ,( we) will be the winners .”
In the US, results are called by media outlets and there are differing calls awarding Mr Biden between 253 or 264 of the 270 necessary electoral college votes to win. If he takes any of the remaining states, he will win.
Both candidates say they are on track to win Penn sylvania’ s 20 electoral college votes.
Arizona’s 11 votes have been awarded to Mr Biden by Fox News and the Associated Press but no other outlets have followed suit and Team Trump is demanding the network retract the call, saying he can still take the state. Without Arizona, Mr Trump needs to win the remaining four states, all of which are extremely tight. Mr Trump had been leading in the race for Georgia’s 16 votes but the race was narrowing last night.
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