Shortly after The Associated Press and multiple networks called the presidential election for former Vice President Joe Biden, President Trump released a statement claiming the election was “far from over,” falsely accusing President-elect Biden of attempting to undermine the electoral process and vowing to take the election to the courts.
Trump was at his golf course in Virginia when a slew of networks announced Biden had won the presidency.
The AP and networks only call a race when they determine the trailing candidate has no possible path to victory, even factoring in the votes that remain to be counted.
Hours later, the president issued an all-caps tweet falsely declaring himself the winner and incorrectly claiming that election observers were not allowed into counting rooms.
In fact, vote counting was observed as normal and, in many cases, livestreamed as well.
There have been some disputes over how close observers could stand or how many were permitted in rooms, but nothing close to the violation of election laws that Trump alleges.
He tacitly acknowledged the lack of evidence for his campaign’s unsupported claims of widespread fraud, saying “BAD THINGS HAPPENED WHICH OUR OBSERVERS WERE NOT ALLOWED TO SEE.”
He also noted he had received more votes than any sitting president had ever received before, which is true; Biden, however, received millions more votes, setting the new record for most votes ever received in a presidential election.
(Read more at: https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-2020-election-results/2020/11/07/932062684/far-from-over-trump-refuses-to-concede-as-ap-others-call-election-for-biden)
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