Donald Trump speaks on election night at the White House
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US 2020 election
Donald Trump’s campaign launched a string of lawsuits focusing on a number of key battleground states as the US president fell behind Joe Biden in the hotly contested election race.
As the Democratic nominee edged closer to the all-important 270 electoral votes mark on Wednesday, Mr Trump’s legal team made a flurry of moves contesting elements of the race.
On election results night, Mr Trump had prematurely declared himself the winner and vowed to take his claim to the Supreme Court.
In Michigan and Pennsylvania, two Rust Belt states, the Trump campaign said it would attempt to halt vote counting, claiming that some of its officials were not allowed to watch the process.
It also sought to join litigation concerning Pennsylvania pending before the Supreme Court, specifically over whether postal ballots that arrive up to three days after election day can be counted.
In Georgia, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Chatham County to check absentee ballot rules were being adhered to amid claims of a mix-up with a small number of votes.
More legal challenges are expected, including in Nevada.
With many election results looking to be on a knife edge, recounts also loom. The Trump campaign said it would seek a fresh tally in Wisconsin, a state called for Mr Biden with a lead of less than 1 per cent.
The aggressive tactics reflect a pre-planned legal strategy that Mr Trump did little to hide before the election, repeatedly raising concerns about the increased use of mail-in ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic and predicting a Supreme Court battle.
It is likely the Trump campaign in the coming days will focus on whether scores of mail-in ballots, which lean heavily to Mr Biden, should be discounted for a variety of reasons.
Bob Bauer, a top attorney for the Biden campaign, expressed confidence over any legal challenges during a briefing call on Wednesday morning.
“We’re winning the election, we’ve won the election, and we’re going to defend that election,” said Mr Bauer. “So we don’t have to do anything but protect the rights of voters and stand up for the democratic process.”
Geographical US election map
Trump campaign figures increasingly talk about weeding out "illegally" submitted votes to counter criticism that they are simply seeking to disqualify ballots unhelpful to them.
Jason Miller, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said on Wednesday: “We want to make sure all legally cast ballots are counted. We also want to make sure illegally cast ballots are not counted."
With the race much closer than expected, the margins of victory in the critical battleground states are slim. Just how slim will not be clear until all votes have been counted.
As of Thursday morning ET, the margin in key races was at most tens of thousands of votes, far from the hundreds it had been in most states during the contested 2000 US presidential election between George W Bush and Al Gore.
Eventually, the focus was on Florida, where around 500 votes ultimately separated the two candidates.
After more than a month of legal wrangling and with the result hanging in the balance, the Supreme Court stopped the recount there, effectively handing Mr Bush victory.
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