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US election: Georgia to recount votes

The US state of Georgia said Friday it will recount votes from the election in which Joe Biden has eked out a razor-thin lead over President Donald Trump.

“With a margin that small, there will be a recount in Georgia,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger told reporters in Atlanta.

Raffensperger, the top elected official overseeing elections, said that the presidential contest in the state “remains too close to call.”

Almost complete results as of Friday morning showed Biden leading by just over 1,500 votes in Georgia, where changing demographics and strong turnout from African-Americans have put in play a Southern state once seen as reliably backing Trump’s Republicans.

Georgia is equally critical as it is the only state holding elections for both its Senate seats this year, meaning it will determine which party is in control.

Under Georgia’s system, Senate races go to a runoff if no candidate receives 50 percent in the first round.

“The final tally in Georgia at this point has huge implications for the entire country,” Raffensperger said.

“The stakes are high and emotions are high on all sides. We will not let those debates distract us from our work. We’ll get it right and we’ll defend the integrity of our elections.”

He said that Georgia was letting observers from both campaigns watch the counting after Trump, with no evidence, alleged widespread fraud nationwide.

November 6, 2020
US Election: Secret Service increases Biden’s security ahead of possible victory

The US Secret Service has increased security around the candidate of the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, with his chances of becoming the next president increasing, the Washington Post reports.

An extra team of agents have been sent to Biden’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware.

Biden is widely expected to be declared winner ahead of incumbent President, Donald Trump.

The Secret Service, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security, is in charge or protecting the White House and senior government officials, visiting high officials, and others.

It had already assigned some agents to protect Biden around early July, after he won the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries.

As a former vice president, Biden could have requested Secret Service protection before then, but reportedly did not.

If Biden becomes president-elect, Secret Service protection is expected to ramp up to a higher level.

November 6, 2020
US Election: President Trump gives reasons as he rejects election results

President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected the presidential election result still being counted in some states.

The US general elections were concluded on Tuesday and counting has continued since then.

Trump said there has been a lot of shenanigans, insisting that he was winning in all the key locations but suddenly his lead started getting miraculously whittled away.

While the incumbent is angry that mail-in votes are still being counted, some critics have claimed that Trump lost ground in some of the states because he actively discouraged his supporters from voting by mail, while Democrat Joe Biden urged his voters to use postal ballots.

It is the postal votes that are now being tallied in the key states.

Speaking from the White House on Thursday, Trump, who had on Wednesday said he has won the election, added, “We were winning in all the key locations, by a lot actually, and then our numbers started getting miraculously whittled away in secret and they wouldn’t allow legally permissible observers.

“There’s been a lot of shenanigans and we can’t stand for that in our country.”

November 6, 2020
US networks pull the plug on Trump’s live address over ‘false claim’

Several US TV networks late on Thursday halted live coverage of Donald Trump’s first public appearance since election night after concluding that the president was spreading disinformation.

Trump unleashed a flood of incendiary and unsubstantiated claims in a 17-minute address, insisting that Democrats were using “illegal votes” to “steal the election from us.

Trump began his remarks by claiming that Democrats were committing “fraud” and trying to “steal” the election. He opened his Thursday speech with referencing ballots counted after Tuesday November 3, which have moved challenger Joe Biden close to victory, as illegal.

MSNBC moved fastest, with anchor Brian Williams cutting in just 35 seconds into Trump’s remarks to fact-check. The cable news network did not return to the president’s comments in the White House pressroom.

On the broadcast side, all three networks carried Trump’s speech, with it running during East Coast evening news broadcasts in much of the country, starting just after 6:45 EST. ABC cut away before CBS and NBC, with ABC News anchor David Muir breaking in to correct the record after the president alleged illegal votes were being counted and that opponents were attempting to steal the election.

Explaining the decision of cutting off the President later on an ABC News primetime election special, Munir said;

“(President Trump) knew exactly what he was doing, this large audience across the broadcast networks, in coming on in the middle of our newscasts tonight. We knew when we heard that – ‘if you count legal votes, I easily win, if you count illegal votes, they could try to steal the election’ – that it was time to pull out of that and fact-check it in real time.
“We’re not witnessing anyone stealing anything tonight. This is democracy and we asked the American people to be patient.”

NBC and CBS also eventually interrupted, with anchors and correspondents correcting the president’s statements.

Explaining the reason for cutting off President Trump, MSNBC’s Williams said;

“OK, here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States, but correcting the president of the United States. There are no illegal votes that we know of. There has been no Trump victory that we know of.”

On CNBC, former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith explained he was taking an unprecedented step in cutting off the president because what he was saying “in large part, was absolutely untrue.”

Smith told viewers;

“Never in my 30-year career have I ever interrupted a president of the United States. We’ve held back from doing so over and over and over while others have. But if any other human being were using our platform of influence to lie to our viewers, we would stop them. And frankly, enough’s enough”

November 6, 2020
US Election: Trump’s defence secretary Mark Esper “prepares his resignation letter” before final election results

Donald Trump’s defence secretary, Mark Esper has reportedly prepared his letter of resignation as America awaits the results of its presidential elections.

NBC News reports that Esper prepared the letter “because he is one of the Cabinet officials long expected to be pushed out after the election.”

The defense secretary has long been at odds with President Donald Trump over several issues including over Trump’s use of the National Guard to quell protests this summer.

The report said Esper was currently helping members of Congress draft legislation to remove the names of Confederate leaders from military bases.

According to the officials, this week, Esper provided a written framework to Pentagon leaders for renaming installations and possibly even ships and street names on bases that honor Confederate generals or leaders.

The move could put Esper further at odds with the president, the report said.

NBC cited multiple current and former officials who confirmed the development, but a spokesman for Mr. Esper told the network he is not resigning.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman called the NBC News report “inaccurate and misleading in many ways,” saying Esper is not planning to resign and was not asked to submit a resignation letter.

“He continues to serve the nation as the Secretary of Defense at the pleasure of the President and is working on the irreversible implementation of the National Defense Strategy,” Hoffman said on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Americans are still waiting for the results of elections that will decide who will become the country’s 46th president.

November 6, 2020
US Election: Facebook bans Pro-Trump group for threats of violence

Facebook has officially shut down a fast-growing pro-Trump “Stop the Steal,” for promoting election misinformation regarding ongoing vote counts and calling for violence.

The Facebook group, which gathered more than 350,000 members and nearly 7,000 posts in two days, was reportedly used to organize protests and spreading false information that Democratic challenger Joe Biden was trying to steal the election.

“In line with the exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension, we have removed the Group ‘Stop the Steal,’ which was creating real-world events,” Facebook said in a statement.

“The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group.”

The group, which appeared to be linked to the pro-Trump organization Women for America First was created in the wake of President Donald Trump falsely claiming that he had defeated Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden during a speech on Wednesday November 4.

November 6, 2020
US Election: Trump’s campaign files suit to stop vote counting in Michigan

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign has filed suit in Michigan’s Court of Claims seeking a halt of ballot counting in Michigan “until meaningful access has been granted” to observe the ballot counting process, but Democratic officials in Michigan are countering the claims.

“We also demand to review those ballots which are opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access,” the campaign said in a statement.

The campaign said it had been denied access to “numerous counting locations” to observe the process “as guaranteed by Michigan law.”

“As votes in Michigan continue to be counted, the presidential race in the state remains extremely tight as we always knew it would be,” said Bill Stepien, campaign manager for Trump’s 2020 campaign.

The campaign’s statement did not list the locations where it claimed to have been denied access, and a copy of the lawsuit was not immediately available.

Attorney General Dana Nessel’s office had not been served a copy of the suit as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the attorney general’s office.

“Michigan’s elections have been conducted transparently, with access provided for both political parties and the public, and using a robust system of checks and balances to ensure that all ballots are counted fairly and accurately,” said Ryan Jarvi, a spokesman for Nessel’s office.

The lawsuit is “as frivolous a lawsuit as it gets,” said Mark Brewer, former chairman for the Michigan Democratic Party and a lawyer.

Brewer has been at the TCF Center in Detroit, where absentee ballots are being counted, throughout Wednesday and worked with others who have been present there Monday and Tuesday. Absentee vote tally discrepancies in Detroit marred the August primary and prompted Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office to form a partnership with Detroit Clerk Janice Winfrey to correct the problems.

“I am at TCF, and there have been hundreds of GOP challengers here these past few days,” Brewer said, while noting they were “ill-trained” and “rude.”

“Nobody is being denied access,” he said.

November 4, 2020
US Election: Prophet T.B Joshua reveals what God said to him about the Election

Nigerian ‘Prophet’ TB Joshua has predicted that there will be a new President in America as the US go into its presidential election on Tuesday.

The prophet shared the ‘prophetic revelation’ regarding the contentious elections scheduled for today, November 3, 2020.

Joshua suggested that President Trump had destroyed his opportunities to return to power with his mouth, adding that Christians would love him to win a second term but that God has another plan.

The cleric said he will reserve what he is seeing “Until the new President is inaugurated.”

“What is happening in the American election is as a result of the power in the tongue,” Joshua stated in his message posted on Facebook.

“The word we speak determines the life we enjoy. The tongue can either work for us or against us – death and life lie in the tongue.

“We Christians would have loved it [the election] to go the way we wanted. But the Bible says it is never proper to base our faith on our improvement after prayer.”

The prophet said, however, that believers “should not worry” but rather derive joy “that the new [US] Supreme Court Judge, Amy Coney Barrett, will be an instrument of check.”

“There is likely going to be pockets of resistance here and there but nothing will change.

“Let me reserve what I am seeing until the inauguration of the new president,” he parabolically concluded, leading to a flurry of comments from viewers as to the precise meaning of his prophetic words.

November 4, 2020
US Election: Biden wins more votes than any candidate in US history

Former US Vice President and Democratic challenger in the US 2020 presidential election, Joe Biden has made history as he has now received more votes for a president compared to any other candidate in US election history.

He officially surpassed numbers of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 popular vote at around 8 am US time on Wednesday November 4.

With a number of states still to be counted fully, Biden has a running total of 69,629,972, according to the Associated Press. Trump has also surpassed the tally he achieved in 2016 against Hillary Clinton.

Former President Barack Obama won in 2008 with 69,498,516, which was the highest ever recorded.

A late burst of votes in Michigan and Wisconsin has given Biden a small lead in those states.

November 4, 2020
US Election: Trump’s campaign files lawsuit to temporarily halt vote counting in Pennsylvania

Trump’s campaign has said it’s suing to temporarily stop the vote count in Pennsylvania, claiming lack of “transparency”.

Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said in a statement Wednesday that the campaign is “suing to stop Democrat election officials from hiding the ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers”.

He said the campaign wants “to temporarily halt counting until there is meaningful transparency and Republicans can ensure all counting is done above board and by the law”.

Clark also said the campaign would seek to intervene in an ongoing Supreme Court case involving the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots. There have been no reports by law enforcement of fraud or any type of ballot concerns out of Pennsylvania.

November 4, 2020