Donald Trump, 74, yesterday appeared in the White House to falsely claim victory and made unsubstantiated allegations of electoral fraud.
“We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election,” he said, before launching an extraordinary attack on the electoral process by a sitting president. “This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop.”
“It’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare the winner of this election. It’s the voters’ place,” Biden said on Twitter in response to the president. Trump provided no evidence to back up his claim of fraud and did not explain how he would fight the results at the Supreme Court, which does not hear direct challenges. Voting concluded as scheduled on Tuesday night, but many states routinely take days to finish counting ballots.
Meanwhile, Trump Campaign has said Trump will seek a recount in Wisconsin. “Despite ridiculous public polling used as a voter suppression tactic, Wisconsin has been a razor thin race as we always knew that it would be,” Bill Stepien, Trump 2020 campaign manager said in a statement. “There have been reports of irregularities in several Wisconsin counties which raise serious doubts about the validity of the results. The President is well within the threshold to request a recount and we will immediately do so.”
Biden’s hopes of a decisive early victory were dashed on Tuesday evening when Trump won the battlegrounds of Florida, Ohio and Texas. But the former vice president said he was confident he could win by taking the three key Rust Belt states.
“We feel good about where we are,” Biden said in his home state of Delaware. “We believe we’re on track to win this election.” Biden is making his third attempt to win the presidency after a five-decade political career including eight years as vice president under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
During the final days of the campaign, Trump had suggested he would claim victory ahead on election night and seek to halt the count of additional ballots. “The president’s statement tonight about trying to shut down the counting of duly cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect,” Biden’s campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a statement.
Before his White House appearance, Trump slammed his opponent, saying in a tweet, “We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Polls are closed!” Twitter swiftly tagged the tweet as possibly misleading.
It was not clear what Trump meant by saying he would ask the Supreme Court to halt “voting.” The high court does not hear direct challenges but instead reviews cases that have worked their way up from lower courts.
However, legal experts have said the election outcome could get bogged down in state-by-state litigation over a host of issues, including whether states can include late-arriving ballots that were mailed by Election Day.