With two days to go, Trump casts doubt on integrity of prolonged vote count
ROME, Ga./ PHILADELPHIA, (Reuters) - President Donald Trump cast doubt on the integrity of the U.S. election again yesterday, saying a vote count that stretched past Election Day would be a "terrible thing" and suggesting his lawyers might get involved.
With two days to go until Tuesday's election and trailing Democratic rival Joe Biden in opinion polls, Trump raced through battleground states in a late hunt for support, while Biden implored attendees at two rallies in the pivotal state of Pennsylvania to get out and vote.
Americans have rushed to vote early, already casting nearly 60 million mail-in ballots that could take days or weeks to be counted in some states - meaning a winner might not be declared in the hours after polls close on Tuesday night.
"I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait for a long period of time after the election," Trump told reporters before a rally in North Carolina. Some states, including Pennsylvania, do not start processing mail-in votes until Election Day, slowing the process.
Trump has said repeatedly without evidence that mail-in votes are prone to fraud, although election experts say that is rare in U.S. elections. Mail voting is a long-standing feature of American elections, and about one in four ballots was cast that way in 2016.
Democrats have pushed mail-in voting as a safe way to cast a ballot during the coronavirus pandemic, while Trump and Republicans are counting on a big Election Day inperson turnout.
"We’re going in the night of - as soon as the election is over - we’re going in with our lawyers," Trump told reporters without offering further explanation.
Trump denied an Axios report that he has told confidants he will declare victory on Tuesday night if it looks like he is ahead, even if the Electoral College outcome is unclear. But he said it was a "terrible thing" that ballots would be counted after Election Day.
Asked about the Axios report, Biden told reporters between campaign stops in Philadelphia: "The president's not going to steal this election."
Trump, aiming to avoid becoming the first incumbent president to lose a re- election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992, trails Biden in national opinion polls.
But the race is seen as close in enough battleground states that Trump still could achieve the 270 votes needed to win in the state-bystate Electoral College that determines the victor. Trump held rallies in Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina and Georgia, and planned a late one in Florida.
Biden, the former vice president, made several appearances in closely contested Pennsylvania, the state where he was born and one that is crucial to his quest for the White House.
"There is nothing he can do to stop this nation from voting," Biden told a drive-in rally in a parking lot outside a Philadelphia church, where supporters honked their car horns in approval.
"He knows that if you get to have your say, he doesn't stand a chance. But the American people will not be silenced," Biden said.