Donald Trump baselessly claims ‘thousands of illegal votes’ counted in Pennsylvania
President Donald Trump has doubled down on false claims that “illegal” votes have contributed to his poor performance in the US presidential election, as the incumbent lays the ground for further legal challenges to the result.
Trump today took to Twitter to claim mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania were “illegal”, as rival Joe Biden continued to expand his lead in the key battleground state.
“Tens of thousands of votes were illegally received after 8PM on Tuesday, Election Day, totally and easily changing the results in Pennsylvania and certain other razor thin states,” Trump said.
The President claimed the mail-in ballots would alter the result of the election and tip the race in his favour, without offering specific evidence.
Twitter has flagged Trump’s tweets as potentially containing false and harmful information.
Multiple local and international officials have warned there is no evidence of voter fraud in the presidential election.
The head of an international delegation monitoring the US election yesterday said his team has no evidence to support Trump’s claims about alleged fraud involving mail-in absentee ballots.
Michael Georg Link, German political and head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said: “We looked into this. We found no violations of the rules whatsoever.”
It comes as the Trump’s hopes of a path to reelection have been all but wiped out by Biden’s late gains in remaining undeclared states.
The President celebrated an early lead in Pennsylvania after a strong Republican turnout for in-person votes on Election Day.
But Biden has steadily erased Trump’s foothold in the state over the past few days, after hundreds of thousands of mail-in votes counted in cities such as Philadelphia came out overwhelming in favour of the Democrat.
Biden currently has a 29,000-vote lead against Trump in the key battleground state.
Pennsylvania is the biggest state left on the board, with 20 electoral votes up for grabs.
Both Biden and Trump need 270 electoral votes to enter the White House. Biden is currently on 253 votes, against Trump’s 214.
If Biden wins in Pennsylvania, he wins the presidency. The Democrat also maintains leads in three other states that have yet to be declared.
In a last-ditch bid to block Biden’s route to victory, the President’s legal team yesterday challenged the Pennsylvania count in court, after Trump on Thursday night baselessly claimed wide-scale electoral “fraud”.
Republicans are trying to raise at least $60m to fund legal challenges brought by Trump over the US presidential election’s results, after the incumbent hinted he would not agree to a peaceful transfer of power if Biden wins.
Trump’s campaign has already filed lawsuits in several states over Tuesday’s election.
Biden attempted to act the voice of reason yesterday, urging the American public to show a “little patience” as the vote counting in battleground states stretched into its third day.
“Democracy can sometimes be messy,” he said.
However, his campaign team last night warned that Trump may be escorted from the White House if he refuses to admit defeat in the knife-edge election.
“As we said on 19 July, the American people will decide this election. And the United States government is perfectly capable of escorting trespassers out of the White House,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said yesterday.