Joe Biden is nearing 270 electoral votes. Six states remain too close to call. President Trump claimed some legitimate tallying efforts should stop and tried to assert victory in the election. Biden urged patience as the votes continued to be counted.
WEB DESK / AGENCIES / WASHINGTON
EVEN after three days, the US presidential election remained undecided Thursday, with Democratic challenger Joe Biden close to an Electoral College majority and President Donald Trump demanding that the vote count be stopped. Republicans are filing lawsuits alleging vote tabulation irregularities.
Trump, without evidence, accused Democrats of engineering massive fraud and irregularities to prevent him from winning reelection as president.
“This is a case where they are trying to steal an election, they’re trying to rig an election, and we can’t let that happen,” said Trump during a news conference.
In contrast, Biden earlier in the day urged patience while states tabulate the record number of votes, more than 150 million, cast in this year’s election.
“Each ballot must be counted. And that’s what we’re going to see going through now. And that’s how it should be. Democracy sometimes is messy,” Biden said during a briefing.
Counting underway
Biden leads in the Electoral College count 253-214, with a majority of 270 needed to claim the presidency for a four-year term. But vote counting is still under way in four states that will decide the election: Georgia and Pennsylvania in the eastern part of the country, and the adjoining Western states of Arizona and Nevada.
Biden: ‘No doubt’ I will defeat Trump
Joe Biden says he has “no doubt” that once the vote count is complete, he’ll defeat President Trump to win the White House.
Speaking to reporters Thursday with his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris at his side, the Democratic presidential nominee told reporters “we continue to feel very good about where things stand. And we have no doubt that when the count is finished, Senator Harris and I will be the winners.”
Biden also emphasized that “each ballot must be counted and that’s what is going on now. And that’s how it should be. Democracy is sometimes messy, so sometimes it requires a little patience.”
Biden spoke a couple of hours before the president – at the White House briefing room – declared that “if you count the legal votes, I easily win,”
Trump accused Democrats of trying “to steal the election from us” and vowed that there will be “a lot of litigation.”