President Donald Trump claims victory even while ballots are still being counted and a half-dozen battleground states were not yet called.
“A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise [people who voted for me] and we won’t stand for this,” Trump told supporters in the White House before 2:30 in the morning.
Democrat Joe Biden told supporters an hour earlier that he is optimistic about winning the presidential election and called on Americans to be patient.
On the other hand, Trump claims victory: “We were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything, and all of a sudden it was just called off.”
“We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court, we want all voting to stop,” Trump stressed more than an hour following the closing of the final U.S. polls in Alaska. “We don’t want them to find any ballots at 4 o’clock in the morning and add them to the list.”
CNBC states that what Trump meant by “going to the Supreme Court” remains unclear since that the country's highest court is hardly the first judicial authority for a case, but rather, it evaluates lower court rulings.
The Trump campaign was not able to respond to CNBC's query.
“This is a fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country,” Trump stated in his rambling statement.
“It’s a very sad moment to me, a very sad moment, and we are going to win this,” he stressed. “As far as I’m concerned, we already have won this, so I want to thank all of our supporters and I want to thank everybody that worked with us.”
According to CNBC, ever since the coronavirus pandemic compelled Americans to vote by mail, Trump seemingly sowed doubts in the integrity of the process. He claimed that votes cast by mail are rife with “fraud.”
He also mentioned outlandish conspiracies about mail-in ballots being changed somewhere on the path from the voter to the local election board.
The president warned about reports of misplaced or discarded ballots, saying that these anecdotal events could lead to something much bigger than a few votes.
In September, Trump mentioned a report of nine ballots found discarded along a highway in Pennsylvania, saying they were proof of Democrats' attempt to “steal” the election from him.
“They throw them out if they have the name Trump on it, I guess,” Trump said of the ballots, some of which were blank and some of which were filled out for Trump.
In reality, voters in Pennsylvania this year are on track to cast more than 5 million votes, making the fate of just nine ballots statistically insignificant.
Trump campaign rallies
A study by researchers at Stanford suggested that Trump's rallies caused more than 30,000 coronavirus cases.
Researchers investigated 18 Trump rallies that took place between June 20 and Sept. 22 and studied coronavirus data the weeks following each activity. They assessed the counties where the rallies took place to other counties that had a similar trajectory of Covid-19 infections prior to the rally date. Three out of the 18 rallies studied were indoors, according to the research.
The team found that the rallies led to more than 30,000 confirmed infections. They also concluded that the rallies likely caused over 700 deaths, though not necessarily among attendees.
In response to the paper, Trump campaign spokesperson Courtney Parella said, “Americans have the right to gather under the First Amendment to hear from the President of the United States.”
“We take strong precautions for our campaign events, requiring every attendee to have their temperature checked, providing masks they’re instructed to wear, and ensuring access to plenty of hand sanitizer. We also have signs at our events instructing attendees to wear their masks,” she noted.
