President Trump has attacked vote-counting efforts in remarks from the White House, alleging a “major fraud on our nation,” adding, “we’ll be going to the US Supreme Court.”
“Millions and millions of people voted for us,” Trump said. “A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people.”
He insisted that states where vote tallies currently show him leading should be called in his favour, despite significant outstanding votes yet to be counted also revealing that he was preparing to declare victory.
“We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything. And all of a sudden it was just called off,” he said.
The President then claimed a fraud was being committed.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country,” Trump claimed.
“Frankly we did win this election,” he said, despite millions of votes still outstanding.
Declaring he would go to the US Supreme Court, President Trump said he wanted “all voting to stop.”
Speaking earlier in Wilmington, Delaware, Democratic nominee Joe Biden projected confidence, saying he was “feeling good,” but urged patience as the votes continued to be counted in several key states across the country.
“We feel good about where we are, we really do,” he said. “I’m here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.”
The former vice president then suggested he had not expected an early result, and asked his supporters to wait patiently as states continue to count and report their votes.
“We knew, because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote, it was gonna take a while,” Biden continued. “We’re going to have to be patient until… the hard work of tallying votes is finished, and it ain’t over until every vote is counted, everybody ballot is counted.”
Joe Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon also issued a strongly worded statement following President Trump’s White House speech, calling it “outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect.”
“The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect. It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens,” she said in the statement.
O’Malley Dillon went on to say that “the counting will not stop.”
Based on current projections from election experts and statisticians, Joe Biden has 224 electoral votes while Donald Trump has 213 electoral votes.
To be elected president, a candidate must win at least 270 votes in what is termed the Electoral College. Each US state gets a certain number of votes partly based on its population and there are a total of 538 to be competed for.
