Donald Trump has dramatically tweeted that US election officials should ‘STOP THE COUNT,’ despite his own armed supporters calling for it to continue.
The President of the United States made the dramatic interjection Thursday morning, as Joe Biden pulled ahead of him in the race for the White House. He has no power to stop any votes being counted.
It is unclear which states Trump wanted to stop counting, with six – Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Georgia – still to declare their results.
Dozens of the president’s supporters – some carrying guns – descended on a vote counting center in Marciopa County, Arizona, on Wednesday night demanding that workers there count every vote.
The Associated Press and Fox News have already called the state for Joe Biden, but a mail-in ballot count on Wednesday evening narrowed Biden’s lead over Trump, with the president’s supporters hopeful he could somehow claw back its 11 electoral college votes.
Team Trump – and the president himself – are said to have been outraged by those early calls, with Trump even allegedly ringing Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch to try and complain.
Trump’s campaign team is expected to file a lawsuit in Nevada on Thursday morning, having claimed at least 10,000 people who live outside the state voted in its election, a breach of rules.
Lawsuits have also been mounted in Michigan and Pennsylvania, with Team Trump further demanding a recount in Wisconsin after Joe Biden won there.
Donald Trump sent this furious tweet on Thursday morning, amid multiple lawsuits claiming ongoing US election counts have been rigged against him Democratic politicians have pleaded with Twitter to suspend President Trump’s account after he declared victory for himself in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina before voting had finished.
Twitter has so far moved to censor the president’s false tweets – including a declaration that he had won the presidential election in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
AP’s live election count has Joe Biden on 264 Electoral College votes, with Trump on 214. Whoever gets to 270 Electoral College votes – more than half of the 538 available across all states – will win the White House.
Joe Biden could reach that number as early as noon EST if Nevada, which has six Electoral College votes, declares for him.
