Biden calls for patience as vote count drags on in key states
Joe Biden continued to lead US President Donald Trump in the US presidential race on Saturday and was closing in on the 270 Electoral College votes that would win him the White House. The Trump campaign has mounted legal challenges even as votes are still being counted. Follow events as they unfold on our live blog below.
- According to an AP tally, which has predicted Arizona will go to Biden, the Democratic candidate has reached 264 but other US media outlets have yet to call Arizona for either candidate, leaving Biden at 253.
- Among the states that remain undecided, Biden leads in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Georgia while Trump is ahead in North Carolina and Alaska.
- Trump is suing to stop vote counting in Pennsylvania and his campaign filed an injunction to bar votes from being counted in Philadelphia unless a Republican observer is present. He also filed a lawsuit to halt the vote count in Michigan, which a judge rejected, and is seeking a recount in Wisconsin. Authorities in Georgia said they would launch a recount as the race remains “too close to call”.
- Trump has claimed – without evidence – that Democrats are trying to “steal” the election.
- Biden has called for patience, saying he is on track to win the White House if all votes are counted. “We’re going to win this race,” he said in remarks late Friday, but he stopped short of declaring victory.
- America is set for its highest voter turnout in a century, with more than 100 million votes cast even before Election Day. But results have been slowed, in part, by the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots this year due to the coronavirus.
- Congressional race results are also trickling in, with Democrats set to retain their majority in the House, albeit with a slimmer margin. Republicans appear poised to hold on to their majority in the Senate but January run-offs could further shift the balance.
- The head of a monitoring mission from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe said his team saw no evidence of fraud involving mail-in ballots, describing the claims as “baseless” and Trump’s calls for an end to vote counting a “gross abuse of office”. The OSCE monitors major elections in all of its member countries.
