WASHINGTON - The U.S. presidential election remained unsettled Thursday, with Democratic challenger Joe Biden nearing an Electoral College majority and President Donald Trump demanding that the vote count be stopped. Republicans are filing lawsuits alleging vote tabulation irregularities.
Biden leads in the Electoral College count 253-214, with a majority of 270 needed to claim the presidency for a new 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.
Where things stand
On Thursday afternoon, Biden made a brief appearance in Wilmington, Delaware, saying, “each ballot must be counted.”
“It’s how the people of this nation express their will,” he said. “And it is the will of the voters, no one — and not anything else — that chooses the President of the United States.”
He added that “democracy is sometimes messy, so sometimes it requires a little patience.”
He said he and his vice presidential running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, 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,” he said.
Trump is ahead in Georgia and Pennsylvania, and Biden is leading in the other two, with both of their leads indecisive.
In the U.S. Electoral College system, the popular vote winner in each state — with two exceptions, Maine and Nebraska — receives all of that state's electoral votes, which are allocated on the basis of population.
If Biden can hold his vote leads in Arizona, with its 11 electors, and Nevada with six, he will reach the 270 Electoral College majority and become the country’s 46th president at his inauguration in January, no matter the outcome in Georgia and Pennsylvania.
Trump needs to hold all the states he is leading in and pick up either Nevada or Arizona, where Biden currently holds the lead.
The vote count is close in all four states. In Georgia, with 16 electoral votes at stake, Trump holds a 13,000-vote lead with more than 50,000 ballots yet to be counted, many of those from Biden-leading counties.
In Pennsylvania, Trump leads by 108,000 votes, but a much bigger total remains to be counted. Twenty electoral votes are at stake there. Trump has more comfortable leads in two other states that have not yet been called: Alaska and North Carolina.
Biden now leads by 11,000 votes in Nevada, which has six electors, and by 68,000 in Arizona, which has 11 electors. Many more votes are yet to be counted in both states.
Demonstrators gather during the "Count the Votes! Rally for Fair Elections in the USA" rally organized by Young Democrats.
Biden leads the national popular vote 71.8 million to 68.1 million, but it is the Electoral College that will determine the winner after a contentious, months-long campaign.
On Twitter, Trump demanded that the vote count be stopped. But if the vote count were frozen in its late Thursday morning state, Trump would lose, becoming the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose reelection after a single term.
Lara Trump during a news conference at Atlantic Aviation PHL private air terminal in Philadelphia, Penn, Nov. 4, 2020.
Lawsuits
Lawyers representing Trump and Republicans filed lawsuits alleging vote counting irregularities and demanding that the counting of mail-in ballots be halted in Pennsylvania, where Trump’s lead was dwindling as more mail-in ballots were counted.
The vote count across the U.S. has been slowed by the vast number of mail-in ballots — about two-thirds of the more than 101 million ballots cast before Tuesday’s official Election Day — and which are taking longer to count. Many people who voted by mail said they wanted to avoid long lines at polling stations on Tuesday and coming face to face with others amid the country’s unchecked coronavirus pandemic.
Biden’s campaign urged voting by mail, and the result is that his vote count has swelled in numerous states as those ballots are tallied. Trump mostly urged Election Day in-person voting by Republicans, claiming without evidence that mail-in voting would lead to an election rigged against him. Those ballots were generally counted earlier.
Trump lawyers also called for a recount in the Midwestern state of Wisconsin, where Biden was projected the winner of the state’s 10 electors on Wednesday. They contended there were irregularities at some voting stations.
(COMBO) This combination of pictures created on October 30, 2020 shows Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice…
This combination of pictures shows Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden on Oct. 23, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware, On the right is U.S. President Donald Trump in Gastonia, North Carolina, Oct. 21, 2020.
Trump, Biden react to results so far
Trump claimed victory in the early hours of Wednesday, but Biden has stopped short of saying he has won.
“I’m not here to declare that we've won,” Biden said Wednesday. “But I am here to report that when the count is finished, we believe we will be the winners.”
(VOA)