US Election Update | Trump claims there is "deception" ... and Biden calls for calm
Washington - (BBC):
US President Donald Trump accused Democrats, without providing evidence, of "deceiving" in the vote to steal Tuesday's US elections while the result has not yet been decided.
And his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, had earlier appealed to voters to remain calm as the vote count continued in five states.
The current elections are described as one of the fiercest presidential races in the memory of modern history.
What did Trump say?
"If you count the legal votes, I will easily win," the president said, in his first public statement since his appearance in the early hours of Wednesday.
He added, "If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the elections from us."
2020 US election results: why don't we know the winner yet?
Trump and Biden
Beyond the allegations of wrongdoing, the Trump campaign did not present any evidence of electoral fraud.
In a speech from the White House on Thursday, Trump said: "We had won in all the major sites, many in fact, and then our numbers began to dwindle miraculously in secret and they did not allow legally authorized observers."
Trump's critics indicated that his progress was diminishing because he actively urged his supporters not to vote by mail, while Biden urged his voters to use postal ballots, and it is these votes that are now being counted in major states.
The president added, "There was a lot of manipulation, and we cannot tolerate that in our country."
What is the reaction?
Trump's fellow Republicans, who in the past were voices opposing the president, implicitly criticized his recent remarks.
"Votes will be counted. If there are alleged irregularities, they will be investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts," said Mitt Romney, a senator from Utah and a former presidential candidate in 2012.
He added, "We have confidence in our democracy, our constitution, and the American people."
"If you have legitimate concerns about fraud, submit the evidence and take it to court. Stop spreading false false information ... It's crazy," said Adam Kinzinger, a Congressman from Illinois, without naming the president.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, who has previously criticized Trump, has been the most outspoken of his criticisms.
"There is no defense of the president's statements tonight that undermine our democratic process," he wrote on Twitter.
However, David Purdue, the recently re-elected Georgia state senator, wrote on Twitter that "every legal vote counts once," and then the president wins.
What did Biden say?
Earlier on Thursday, Biden, speaking from his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, called for calm across the country.
The democratic competitor once again expressed his confidence in announcing the winner in the elections, in a short interview broadcast on television stations.
"Democracy is sometimes messy, so it requires a little patience as well," he said.
He added, "This patience was rewarded for more than 240 years with a regime that was the envy of the world."
He added, "I asked everyone to remain calm, from all people to remain calm. The process is continuing, and the count is complete, and we will know very soon."
With the results gradually emerging, protests were held on the vote count, in which both sides participated in major cities.
What is the current status of the race?
Tuesday's presidential election saw a dramatic ending in the states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina.
Biden was declared the winner in Michigan, and possibly also in Wisconsin, while a swinging vote counting minuscule differences kept America in a tense watch in the other five states.
Biden has so far obtained 253 votes in the electoral college, which gives him a major advance in the race to win the 270 votes needed to win the White House under the US election system, while Trump got 214 votes.
A win in just Pennsylvania or two of the remaining four states would suffice to secure Biden the presidency, barring any long-standing legal challenge.
Trump needs to win Pennsylvania and three of the remaining four states: Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Nevada.
A senior Trump administration official told CBS News, BBC America's partner, that Trump had no intention of conceding if Biden finally declared victory.
The official, who was not named, pledged that the legal battle would continue, adding, "In free and fair elections, the president will win."
Trump's team has raised millions of dollars for a legal battle.
Meanwhile, Meade Mulvaney, the former White House chief of staff, predicted in a webinar hosted by a think tank earlier on Thursday that Trump would run for president again "almost certainly" in four years if he lost to Biden.
What is the latest news of the vote count?
Election officials have also called for patience, as they dismiss the Trump campaign's claims about voting irregularities.
Most of the votes will be counted by Friday, Pennsylvania State Secretary Cathy Bukfar told a news conference, but the race was still too hot to be announced.
She added on Thursday: "It is very close to Pennsylvania, right, there is no doubt, and that means it will take longer to find out the winner."
Trump led Pennsylvania with more than 50,000 votes, with 95 percent of the vote counted.
And in Georgia state, Trump is leading with less than 3,500 votes, with 1 percent remaining to be counted.
Georgia State Secretary Gabriel Sterling said he had seen no evidence of voter fraud, adding that election officials were "doing a very good job" under pressure.
In Arizona, Biden achieved a lead with less than 57,000 votes 88 percent of the vote.
CBS classified this as a "possible" victory for the Democratic candidate, and supporters of Trump gathered Thursday outside a vote counting center in Maricopa County.
An election official said the results of more than 51,000 mailed ballot papers would be updated on Friday.
What legal measures did the president take?
The Republican president filed a number of lawsuits to challenge the vote count, alleging irregularities and a lack of transparency.
The president called for a recount in the state of Wisconsin, as is the right of any candidate with a one percent difference from his opponent in the total vote.
Biden, however, leads with 20,000 votes in Wisconsin, and election analysts say previous state recounts typically yielded differences of a few hundred votes.
On Thursday, courts dismissed the Trump campaign's lawsuits in Michigan and Georgia.
But Trump's campaign won a legal victory in Pennsylvania when a state appeals court judge said Republican observers should be allowed to take a hard look at the voting procedures.
The president's team also pledged to file a lawsuit alleging voting irregularities in Nevada, without providing evidence.
"We believe that there are dead voters in the counting process," Adam Laxalt, a former Nevada attorney general who is an ally of the Trump campaign, told a news conference in Las Vegas.
Biden's attorney, Bob Bauer, said the lawsuits were "legally unfounded" and were aimed at "sending misleading messages about what is happening in the electoral process."
