Trump brands US election process ‘a major fraud’ and calls for voting to stop
President Donald Trump speaks in the East Room of the White House. Picture: AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Donald Trump has said that his voters are being “disenfranchised” while also claiming there was a “massive fraud” in the election as the Biden campaign called the President's comments "outrageous" and "incorrect".
The President vowed to drag the US election into the courts as he falsely claimed he beat Joe Biden to win the presidency while the knife-edge vote is still too close to call.
Speaking at the White House Mr Trump said: “Millions and millions of people voted for us tonight.
“A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people and we won’t stand for it. We will not stand for it.”
Mr Trump claimed he had won the election despite many votes still being counted.
He said he would go to the US Supreme Court over what he claimed was a “massive fraud” in the election.
The president said: “This is a fraud on the American public, this is an embarrassment to our country.
“We were getting ready to win this election – frankly we did win this election.
“So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment.
“We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we will be going to the US Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop.
“We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4am and add them to the list.”
However, there is no evidence of foul play in the cliffhanger and it is unclear exactly what legal action Mr Trump might try to pursue.
Several states allow postal votes to be accepted after polling day, as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday. That includes Pennsylvania, where ballots postmarked by November 3 can be accepted if they arrive up to three days after the election.
Mr Trump said “we had such a big night”, adding: “And we have all these announcers saying what happened, and then they said oh, because you know what happened?
“They knew they couldn’t win, so they said let’s go to court.
“And did I predict this… did I say this? I’ve been saying this from the day I heard they were going to send out tens of millions of ballots.
“I said exactly, because either they were going to win or if they didn’t win they’ll take us to court.”
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The president has also claimed that he would win a number of states where votes are still being counted
He said “it’s also clear that we have won Georgia”, adding: “We’re up by 2.5% or 117,000 votes with only 7% left – they’re never going to catch us, they can’t catch us.”
He said he has “clearly won” North Carolina and claimed there is “a lot of life” left in the Arizona race but conceded it is possible he may not win the typically Republican-backing state.
Mr Trump said he was ready to celebrate when it was “just called off”.
In a White House statement, he said: “We were getting ready for a big celebration tonight, we were winning everything and all of a sudden it was just called off.
“We were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good, such a vote, such a success.
“The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers, this is a record, there’s never been anything like it, to support our incredible movement.”
The Biden campaign said Mr Trump’s statement about “trying to shut down the counting of adult cast ballots was outrageous, unprecedented, and incorrect”.
It added: “It was outrageous because it is a naked effort to take away the democratic rights of American citizens.
“It was unprecedented because never before in our history has a president of the United States sought to strip Americans of their voice in a national election. Having encouraged Republican efforts in multiple states to prevent the legal counting of these ballots before Election Day, now Donald Trump is saying these ballots can’t be counted after Election Day either.
“And it was incorrect because it will not happen. The counting will not stop. It will continue until every duly cast vote is counted. Because that is what our laws — the laws that protect every Americans’ constitutional right to vote — require.
“We repeat what the Vice President said tonight: Donald Trump does not decide the outcome of this election. Joe Biden does not decide the outcome of this election. The American people decide the outcome of this election. And the democratic process must and will continue until its conclusion.
“Nearly 100 million people cast their ballot before Election Day in the belief - and with the assurances from their state election officials - that their ballot would be counted. Now Donald Trump is trying to invalidate the ballot of every voter who relied on these assurances.
"If the president makes good on his threat to go to court to try to prevent the proper tabulation of votes, we have legal teams standing by ready to deploy to resist that effort. And they will prevail."
Prominent Democratic opponents condemned Mr Trump’s claim of victory.
New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted: “Donald Trump’s premature claims of victory are illegitimate, dangerous, and authoritarian. Count the votes. Respect the results.”
And Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted: “The irony of worrying about people turning America into Somalia, while allowing Trump to do literally what Somali dictators used to do.
“Wake up, he is destroying everything that sets us apart. We send election observers into other countries, we shouldn’t need ours monitored.”
Earlier, while addressing a crowd in Delaware, Mr Biden said they were "on track" to win.
“Good evening, your patience is commendable," he said.
“We knew this was going to go on but who knew it was going to go into maybe tomorrow morning, maybe even longer.
“But look, we feel good about where we are. We really do. I am here to tell you tonight we believe we’re on track to win this election.”
After addressing his supporters, Mr Biden tweeted: “Keep the faith, guys. We’re gonna win this.”
Early results in several key battleground states were in flux as election officials processed a historically large number of postal votes. Democrats typically outperform Republicans in postal voting, while the Republicans looks to make up ground in polling day turnout. That means the early margins between the candidates could be influenced by which type of votes – early or election day – were being reported by the states.
Mr Biden won several states where Mr Trump sought to compete, including New Hampshire and Minnesota. But Florida was the biggest, fiercely contested battleground on the map, with both campaigns battling over the 29 electoral college votes that went to Mr Trump.
The president adopted Florida as his new home state, wooed its Latino community, particularly Cuban-Americans, and held rallies there incessantly. For his part, Mr Biden deployed his top surrogate – former president Barack Obama – there twice in the campaign’s closing days and benefited from a 100 million US dollar pledge in the state from Michael Bloomberg.
Control of the Senate is at stake, too. Democrats need to net three seats if Mr Biden captures the White House to gain control of all of Washington for the first time in a decade. But Republicans maintained several seats that were considered vulnerable, including in Iowa, Texas and Kansas.
The parties traded a pair of seats in other results. Democratic former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper defeated incumbent senator Cory Gardner, and in Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville beat senator Doug Jones. The House is expected to remain under Democratic control.
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