Trump attempts an electoral and political coup, and reaches out for judicial approval

WASHINGTON: The US Presidential election is turning into a chaotic farce worthy of a banana republic after President Donald Trump claimed he has won before a full counting of votes and said he would approach the country's Supreme Court to stop a "fraud" on the American people.

In a nightmare scenario some commentators had anticipated based on Trump's own pronouncements over weeks, the US President threw a wrench into an already shambolic election process, accused Democrats of trying to steal the election, and demanded all counting votes be stopped after 4 a.m.

"We will win this. As far as we are concerned we have already won it," Trump told cheering supporters in a 2.30 a.m meeting in the White House, trying to force an end to the election process in which he is performing much better than pundits and pollsters had projected, and could even win the Presidency fair and square if and when the full counting of ballots is completed.

There is nothing in the law that calls for the results on election night or even the day after, and the counting process is largely the domain of states. It is not clear if Trump is serious about approaching the Supreme Court and if he does, on what basis it would stop counting of votes. In at least two cases, the US Supreme Court has deferred to the states.



Trump claimed victories in

Pennsylvania

,

Michigan

, Wisconsin, Georgia, and

North Carolina

, all states where counting is still going on, claiming his leads were too big for the Democratic ticket to catch up. While Biden managed to pull things back in

Wisconsin

and had established a narrow 11,000-vote lead, Trump is ahead in other states.

Democrats, demanding a full and complete counting, maintained the final score would be reversed because in most instances mail-in ballots, which favor Democrats, are yet to be counted. In some states, votes from heavily Democratic cities are also yet to be counted, Democratic operatives said.

Trump is ahead by a slim 1.4 per cent in Michigan with more than a million votes yet to be counted; he is ahead by 2 per cent in Georgia with 92 per cent votes counted; and he is ahead in Pennsylvania by 12 per cent with more than a million votes to be counted. Biden has narrow less than one percent lead in Wisconsin and Nevada.

Democratic operatives says if votes from Detroit area in Michigan and Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, both cities with large black population is counted, Biden will overtake Trump’s vote count and win the states electoral votes in the winner-take-all system.

As things stand, Biden has 227 confirmed electoral votes and needs 43 more to win the Presidency. Trump has 213 confirmed electoral votes needs 57 more to win.

Eight states are yet to be called: Alaska (3 electoral votes), Arizona (11), Georgia (16), Michigan (16), Nevada (6), North Carolina (15), Pennsylvania (20), Wisconsin (10) and Maine’s Second Congressional District (1).

Except for Pennsylvania and Nevada, where slow counting could extend to Thursday and beyond, others are expected to finish counting on Wednesday to offer a firm projection of who won the state and its electoral votes.

Shortly before his attempt at an electoral and political coup for which he is invoking the Supreme Court's intervention and approval, Trump tweeted: "We are up BIG, but they are trying to STEAL the Election. We will never let them do it. Votes cannot be cast after the Poles are closed!"

"Millions of people voted for us...some sad people are trying to disenfranchise them. We were ready to celebrate and all of a sudden it was called off," Trump told his supporters.

While there were no accounts of votes being cast after polls (which the President misspelled), voters are allowed to cast votes as long as they are in line before poll closing deadline. Nor were there unauthorised stoppage of counting than for equipment malfunction in some places.

In fact, counting continued even after Trump spoke at 230 a.m. In some states like Wisconsin, state officials are mandated to finish counting of votes in one stretch, no matter how long it takes. In states such as Pennsylvania and Nevada, counting can resume after a break, as per state laws.

It is entirely possible that Trump may still win after a full counting of ballots is completed in the states he is leading in, so it was not clear why he would seek to stop the counting -- unless he fears a loss. There were no accounts of large-scale fraud or late casting of votes to help Trump make his case.

As much as Trump's attempted coup is audacious, the US President has been fairly transparent about it, warning for weeks that he is against counting of unsolicited mail-in ballots and wants the results declared election night, even though there is no legal or constitutional requirement to do so.

In fact, what has long been regarded as "results" on election night or the morning after are actually projections made by the media, mainly Associated Press and TV networks. The formal results are declared by the Secretary of State in each state several days after the election, only after all votes have been tabulated.

Perhaps anticipating Trump's move, Democratic candidate Joe Biden called meeting about an hour before to demand a full counting of votes while declaring, "It is not my place or Trump's place to claim a win. It is up to the American people."

Biden did not claim a win," and adding, "It ain't over till every ballot is counted."

An hour later Trump claimed he has won the election, even though millions of votes remain to be counted and formal results are yet to be declared, throwing the world’s leading democracy into a chaos typically seen in developing countries.