United President Trump has blamed Democrats for throwing voting shenanigans as the result form Tuesday’s Presidential election hangs in balance. Former VP and Democratic challenger, Biden has called for calm as the contest enters in the nail-biting phase with the outstanding vote counts in five states remaining to be added in the results.
While surviving the scare with slim margin in Nevada and Arizona, Biden battles on to upset the Republican in Georgia and Pennsylvania. The wafer-thin leads and toe to toe competition follows one of the acrimonious campaigns in living memory.
The voter turnout is estimated to be highest since 1900 and Biden who is closing on Donald Trump in tense vote counts has so far pulled in well with 73mn votes, the most ever gained by a presidential candidate. While, Trump has earned 70mn, the second-highest number in history.
What did Trump Say?
Clearing feeling the heat of the cliff-hanger, in his first public remarks since appearing at WH in the early hours of Wednesday, Trump said: “If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.”
Beyond alleging irregularities, the Republican’s camp has not presented any evidence of voter fraud.
On Thursday, peaking from WH, the Trump added: “We were winning in all the key locations, by a lot actually, and then our numbers started getting miraculously whittled away in secret and they wouldn’t allow legally permissible observers.”
Trump’s critics have pointed out his lead is being truncated because he actively discourages his supporters form voting by mail, while Biden urged his voters to make use of mail-in ballots and it is these votes that are now being changing the results in battleground states.
Trump said: “There’s been a lot of shenanigans and we can’t stand for that in our country.”
What’s the response?
Some fellows from GOP who have in past recorded race dissent against the president, implicitly criticized his latest statements. Mitt Romney, the Utah senator who lost as the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, said: “The votes will be counted. If there are irregularities alleged, they will be investigated and ultimately resolved in the courts. Have faith in our democracy, in our Constitution, and in the American people.”
Also, without making the mention of president, Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger said: “If you have legit concerns about fraud present evidence and take it to court. Stop spreading debunked misinformation… This is getting insane.”
Larry Hogan, Maryland Governor took a more square and fair approach, saying: “There is no defense for the President’s comments tonight,” he tweeted, “undermining our Democratic process.”
But just re-elected Georgia Senator David Perdue in his tweet said that President will win another term if “every lawful vote cast” should be counted.
How did Biden React?
The former Obama deputy, speaking from his campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware appealed national for calm. If a brief televised address, Democratic challenger once again expressed his confidence in winning the WH.
“Democracy is sometimes messy,” he said. “It sometimes requires a little patience as well.
“But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years, the system of governance that has been the envy of the world.”
He added: “I asked everyone to stay calm. All people to stay calm. The process is working. The count is being completed. And we’ll know very soon.”
With the final results slowly tickling in, demonstrations have been launched by both camps over the stalled vote count.
The latest numbers form Pennsylvania and Georgia
As elections officials are calling for patience, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar in a press conference said that most ballots would be counted by Friday, but the race was still too tight to file a result.
“It’s very close in Pennsylvania, right, there’s no question,” she said on Thursday. “That means it’s going to take longer to see who the winner is.”
Trump was leading in Pennsylvania by just over 42,000 votes with 95% of ballots counted. In Georgia, Trump was ahead by 2,000 votes with 1% left to be counted.
Gabriel Sterling, a spokesman for Georgia’s Secretary of State, said no evidence of voter fraud has been appeared to him, adding that officials monitoring the election process were doing great job under pressure.
Biden’s lead in steadily eroding in Arizona and was hanging at 46,000 votes with 91% ballots counted. With 96% of votes tallied, Republican had a lead of more than 76,000 against Democratic rival in North Carolina. Meanwhile, in Nevada Biden was leading with more than 11,000 votes. An official overseeing the election said results from more than 51,000 postal ballots would be added on Friday.
