President Trump on Friday said that he would continue to pursue a legal challenge to the vote count, asserting “all legal ballots must be counted” as the race moves to favor Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
Trump’s vow comes even as he has lost purchase with some Republican officials as he alleges rampant fraud and calls to halt vote counts across the country.
“We believe the American people deserve to have full transparency into all vote counting and election certification, and that this is no longer about any single election. This is about the integrity of our entire election process,” Trump said in a statement issued by his reelection campaign. “From the beginning, we have said that all legal ballots must be counted and all illegal ballots should not be counted, yet we have met resistance to this basic principle by Democrats at every turn.”
He continued, “We will pursue this process through every aspect of the law to guarantee that the American people have confidence in our government. I will never give up fighting for you and our nation.”
Biden is expected to deliver an address to the nation on Friday.
The Trump campaign has filed a slew of lawsuits in battleground states where the vote count is tightly contested. Friday is the last day that absentee and mail-in ballots in Georgia may be counted, but other states have until Thursday.
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Senior campaign officials told reporters on Thursday that the fight to count all “legal” ballots was still on. A citizen “hotline” to report allegations of vote fraud or abuse was relaunched, along with a website.
In a tweet, Eric Trump, the president’s son, called on witnesses to document their claims.
“HELP STOP VOTER SUPPRESSION, IRREGULARITIES AND FRAUD,” read a graphic shared in a midday tweet by Eric Trump. “TELL US WHAT YOU ARE SEEING.”
An earlier tweet, that has since been deleted, shared a phone number that played Trump campaign speeches on a continuous loop, the New York Post reported.
“The only one who can stop this corrupt machine is you,” the recording said, after discussing at length Hillary Clinton’s emails.
Republican and Trump campaign officials and the older Trump’s children are making the case that voting irregularities in key counties may have cost the president reelection.
Thousands of ballots remain to be counted in Philadelphia, Nevada, Georgia, and other states with tightly contested counts.
