US election 2020: Russian Foreign Ministry also expressed fears that contested elections could lead to unrest
Washington:
The biting US election was set to finally produce a winner on Thursday, with Democrat Joe Biden strengthening his lead over President Donald Trump and the decisive state of Pennsylvania set to release the results.
Two days after the most tense election in decades, the meticulous process of counting the votes – complicated this year by a flood of mail-in ballots due to the coronavirus crisis – has reached the end of the game.
Biden, 77, was only one or at most two states from the battlefield of securing a majority to take the White House. Trump, 74, needed an increasingly unlikely combination of victories in multiple states to stay in power.
The Republican, who shocked the world when he won the presidency in 2016 in his very first run for public office, spent another day attacking the election, claiming fraud and demanding an end to the government. counting.
“IF YOU COUNT THE LEGAL VOTES, I EASILY WIN THE ELECTION!” he said in a statement sent by his campaign, accompanied by no evidence. “IF YOU COUNT ILLEGAL AND LATE VOICES, THEY CAN STEAL THE ELECTION!”
Biden, who has vowed to heal a country bruised by Trump’s extraordinarily polarizing four years in power, has maintained his signature message of calm.
“Be patient, people. The votes are counted and we feel good where we are,” he tweeted.
All about Pennsylvania?
In Georgia, a generally Republican state, Trump had a lead of less than 13,000 people. With 98% of the ballots already counted, the president and Biden were heading for a photo finish.
In Arizona and Nevada, Biden kept thin tracks. If Biden won those two states, he would also win the presidency.
But the biggest piece of the puzzle was Pennsylvania, where Trump’s lead was running out again, as election officials focused on processing mail-in ballots, which are more commonly cast. by Biden supporters.
The Democratic hopeful currently has 253 of 538 electoral votes spread across the nation’s 50 states – and 264 with the inclusion of Arizona, which Fox News and Associated Press have called in his favor.
If Biden took Pennsylvania, he would win 20 more electoral votes – instantly pushing him past the peak of 270 needed for general victory.
Pennsylvania’s official election oversight official Kathy Boockvar told CNN a winner there “could definitely” be determined by the close of business on Thursday.
About 550,000 ballots were still counted and “it looks like we will have the overwhelming majority counted by today,” she said.
Boockvar was scheduled to give a press conference at 5:15 p.m. (10:15 p.m. GMT).
Trump goes wild
Trump’s campaign has continued to insist the president has a way of winning, citing pockets of Republican support that have yet to be counted in such close races.
But Trump’s overriding goal was to claim, without evidence, that he was a victim of mass fraud.
Trump declared victory prematurely on Wednesday and threatened to seek Supreme Court intervention to stop the vote count, but it continued nonetheless.
Since then, his team has deployed across the battlefield states to challenge the results in court and hold a series of press conferences in which supporters have filed allegations of improprieties.
“STOP THE ACCOUNT!” Trump tweeted Thursday, referring to his claim that mail-in ballots in particular are fraudulent.
STOP THE ACCOUNT!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 5, 2020
But as Trump demanded that the tally be halted in Georgia and Pennsylvania – where he leads – his supporters and his campaign have insisted it continue in Arizona and Nevada, where he lags behind.
The campaign has announced lawsuits in Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Michigan – where it has previously been dismissed – and demanded a recount in Wisconsin, where Biden won by just 20,000 votes.
Bob Bauer, a lawyer for the Biden campaign, dismissed the large number of lawsuits as “without merit.”
“All of this is meant to create a big cloud,” Bauer said. “But it’s not a very thick cloud. We see right through. Courts and election officials too.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
