Biden takes lead as Trump campaign intensifies legal fights
Friday, November 06, 2020

Democrat Joe Biden on Thursday (US time zone) continued to pile up votes in key battleground states of Pennsylvania and Georgia as President Donald Trump campaign intensified legal suits in several American states.

Biden is currently leading Trump with 264 electoral votes to Trump’s 214 electoral votes, according to the races called by the Associated Press. The outlet has not called races in Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia and Alaska.

Pennsylvania remains a key state for the two candidates. There are 20 electoral votes at stake in Pennsylvania. President Trump cannot be reelected if he doesn't win there, no matter how many other states he wins.

Biden currently leads Trump in Nevada by 0.9 per cent margin, and Georgia by a few votes.

Trump, on the other hand, leads his challenger in North Carolina by 1.4-margin and trailing Biden in Pennsylvania by only 3 percentage points.

Ballots are still being counted in several states even as Trump continued to push states to "STOP THE COUNT” using his Twitter account.

Trump claimed in remarks at the White House on Thursday that "If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us. If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking at them very strongly.”

His campaign has reportedly been filing multiple lawsuits in different states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada, and Georgia, mainly alleging voter fraud and irregularities, among other claims.

Wall Street Journal reported that Trump suffered a setback Thursday in Michigan when a judge denied his campaign’s effort to halt the counting of absentee ballots there, in part because the lawsuit was brought against the wrong government officials and was filed too late.

In Georgia, a state judge dismissed a Trump campaign lawsuit that questioned whether late-arriving absentee ballots in Chatham County were being included in the vote count. 

The judge said there was no evidence that invalid ballots were counted or that local elections officials had failed to comply with the law.

In Nevada, Trump’s campaign announced plans Thursday morning to file a new lawsuit alleging that the rise of mail-in ballots cast this year led to votes being illegally counted from people who are dead or don’t meet residency requirements.