We will use your email address only for sending you newsletters. Please see our Privacy Notice for details of your data protection rights.

Speaking to Sky News, the former deputy assistant attorney general under the Clinton administration, Lisa Graves, said Donald Trump’s attempts to legally challenge a potential victory of Joe Biden in the US election is making him look like a “poor loser”. The President said he would resort to the Supreme Court to challenge mail votes currently being counted in some key states after election day. 

Ms Graves said: “The Republicans and Trump have been trying to stop the ballots from being open early to allow they would be counted on the night of the election.

“So they were playing these games with the process to try to push those ballots aside.

“Those ballots were cast by American citizens who have the right of their vote to be counted.

“And the rules of any specific states are set by the states and by the courts and the legislative states, and those rules need to be followed.

“So what’s happening in Pennsylvania is what happens when people vote via mail during a pandemic and the physical time of opening those envelopes and having them been tallied.

“So he’s just really looking like a poor loser.

“Someone who is not willing to allow the process to go forward and having American votes being counted.”

Democrat Joe Biden moved closer to victory in the US presidential race on Thursday as election officials tallied votes in the handful of states that will determine the outcome and protesters took to the streets.

Incumbent President Donald Trump alleged fraud, filed lawsuits and called for recounts in a race yet to be decided two days after polls closed.

With tensions rising, about 200 of Trump’s supporters, some armed with rifles and handguns, gathered outside an election office in Phoenix, Arizona, following unsubstantiated rumours that votes were not being counted.

Anti-Trump protesters in other cities demanded that vote counting continue. Police arrested anti-Trump protesters in New York City and Portland, Oregon. Over 100 events are planned across the country between Wednesday and Saturday.

The presidential race was coming down to close contests in five states. Biden, 77, held narrow leads in Nevada and Arizona while Trump, 74, was watching his slim advantage fade in must-win states Pennsylvania and Georgia as mail-in and absentee votes were being counted. Trump clung to a narrow lead in North Carolina as well, another must-win for him.

Trump had to win the states where he was still ahead and either Arizona or Nevada to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent US president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.

Edison Research gave Biden a 243 to 213 lead over Trump in Electoral College votes, which are largely based on a state’s population. Other networks said Biden had won Wisconsin, which would give him another 10 votes. The magic number for the winning candidate is 270 votes.

Biden predicted victory on Wednesday and launched a website to begin the transition to a Democratic-controlled White House.

Trump has long sought to undermine the credibility of the voting process if he lost. Since Tuesday, he has falsely declared victory, accused Democrats of trying to steal the election without evidence and vowed to fight states in court.

US election experts say fraud is rare.

DON’T MISS:
Joe Biden 17 Electoral College votes short of victory [DATA]
US Election LIVE: ‘Widespread violence’ as result STILL unknown [LIVE BLOG]
Donald Trump will NOT run for President in 2024, says ex-advisor [VIDEO]

Trump’s campaign fought to keep his chances alive with a call for a Wisconsin recount as well as lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania to stop vote counting. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson called his team’s lawsuit “frivolous.”

His campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia to require that Chatham County, which includes the city of Savannah, separate and secure late-arriving ballots to ensure they are not counted.

It also asked the US Supreme Court to allow Trump to join a pending lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania Republicans over whether the battleground state should be permitted to accept late-arriving ballots.

The manoeuvres amounted to a broad effort to contest the results of a still-undecided election a day after millions of Americans went to the polls during the coronavirus pandemic that has upended daily life.

“They are finding Biden votes all over the place – in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So bad for our Country!” Trump posted on Twitter.

Biden said every vote must be counted. “No one’s going to take our democracy away from us, not now, not ever,” he said.

Source: Read Full Article