Trump and Biden neck and neck, vote-counting may take days

Defence Redefined

Published on 04/11/2020 at 17:30

For the first time since 2000, Americans woke up today without knowing the name of their next president after record-breaking voting and even though counting continues in seven key states, it did not stop Donald Trump from claiming to defeat Democrat Joe Biden.

The election sparked the largest turnout since women won the right to vote: 160 million Americans voted, an estimated 66.9%, compared to 59.2% in 2016, according to the US Elections Project.

Many states have been overwhelmed by the plethora of mail-to-mail votes. It may take days in some cities to open the envelopes and scan these ballots.

“If everything goes on at this pace, we will have the full results within the next two days,” Al Smith, Philadelphia City, a major Democrat in the key state of Pennsylvania, told CNN this morning. 

The two candidates gave short speeches during the night. At around 2:20 a.m., President Trump made a confusing statement from the White House, threatening to go to the Supreme Court to stop vote-counting, implying that he would do so in the states where he leads the results. 

“Honestly, we won the election,” the Republican president said, referring to “fraud” without elaborating. “We will appeal to the Supreme Court, we want all the voting to stop.”

Camp Biden denounced the presidential statements as “scandalous” and “unprecedented”. 

“It’s a deliberate attempt to deprive American citizens of their democratic rights,” the Democratic presidential campaign group said, adding that it was ready to “fight” for justice if Donald Trump appealed to the Supreme Court.

“This argument has no basis,” said Republican Chris Christie, a former federal prosecutor and governor who had given advice to Donald Trump as he prepared for the presidential debate. 

Joe Biden, 77, said he was “optimistic” he was on his way to winning the election, and called on Americans to be patient. 

The specter of uncertainty and legal battles now haunts the world’s greatest power, which has already been shaken by widespread crises in health, the economy and society.

The name of the president to be sworn in on January 20 depends on the results of some states.

This is a more complicated scenario than in 2000, when the election depended only on Florida. The Supreme Court finally intervened a month after the vote to end the vote-counting process and give victory to Republican George W. Bush. 

What is certain, however, is that the democratic wave that some in Camp Biden, who dreamed of historic victories in Georgia and Texas, had hoped for, did not materialize. 

The outgoing president retained Florida, disproving numerous polls, as well as Texas, a conservative stronghold that seemed to be under threat, and Ohio, which have been won by all presidential candidates since 1964. 

But the road to a second term remains narrow: he still has to beat most of the other key states that contributed to his unexpected victory in 2016. 

Joe Biden also has scenarios at his disposal that allow him to win. Some media had announced that he had won in the critical state of Arizona, which Trump had won in 2016, although the counting there is not over yet. It seems to have good prospects in Nevada as well. 

If this is confirmed, he will now have to win at least two or three of the states of industrial north (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin) and east (Georgia, North Carolina). Four years ago, all of these states were won by Donald Trump. 

However, in these states the counting continued today very slowly. 

In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, analysts believe that the ballot papers that remain to be counted will be in their majority in favor of Biden. 

In Pennsylvania, Trump was ahead today with a total of 700,000 votes, but there were still 1.4 million ballots sent by mail. And Joe Biden’s name is on 78% of the ballots counted at this stage. 

This is where Trump would like the Supreme Court to step in and stop the counting. Pennsylvania Republicans have asked judges to block the counting of ballots posted before Tuesday night, but will be received three days after election day. 

The top US court had refused to rule as urgently as it had been asked, but if the result is neck and neck, it would have to consider the substance of the matter and decide whether or not to cancel the ballots received from today until Friday.

Source: ANA MPA

Also read: US Elections | Biden is optimistic, Trump speaks of a great victory – VIDEO