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US election day: Trump's low blows will live long in memory

This article is more than 12 months old

This and several other below-the-belt election day tactics will live long in people's memories

WASHINGTON: The dust will soon settle in the aftermath of America's bare-knuckled presidential political brawl but the below-the-belt punches that US President Donald Trump made on election day will live long in the memory of those who lived through these historically low times.

"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 Polls are closed!" US President Donald Trump said on Twitter yesterday as the votes were being counted.

Twitter swiftly tagged the tweet as possibly misleading.

Shortly after, Mr Trump appeared at the White House to declare victory and said his lawyers would be taking his case to the US Supreme Court, without specifying what they would claim.

"We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election," Mr Trump said.

"This is a major fraud on our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court. We want all voting to stop."

Mr Biden responded on Twitter. "It's not my place or Donald Trump's place to declare the winner of this election. It's the voters' place," Mr Biden said.

CNN's Stephen Collinson said Mr Trump's remarks "essentially amounted to a demand for the legally cast votes of American citizens not to be recorded in a historic act of disenfranchisement".

TWEET

Mr Trump also took a swipe at mail-in votes yesterday and cast aspersions on the vote count.

He tweeted: "Last night I was leading, often solidly, in many key states, in almost all instances Democrat run & controlled. Then, one by one, they started to magically disappear as surprise ballot dumps were counted.

"VERY STRANGE, and the 'pollsters' got it completely & historically wrong!

"How come every time they count Mail-In ballot dumps they are so devastating in their percentage and power of destruction?"

Mr Trump did not offer any evidence for his allegation of "ballot dumps" and there have been no reports of any irregularities, AFP reported.

False or exaggerated reports about voting fraud and delays at the polls, including in battleground states such as Pennsylvania, circulated on social media on election day, in some cases helped along by official Republican accounts and online publications, Reuters reported.

Yesterday, high-profile social media accounts echoed Mr Trump's false victory claim and his unfounded allegations of fraud.

Republican businesswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who was projected to win her seat in Congress and who has expressed support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, sent multiple tweets on pushing the narrative that Democrats were "stealing" the election.

Mr Trump's eldest son Donald Trump Jr also shared tweets with unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud.

The President's false victory claim was also livestreamed on both Twitter and Facebook yesterday, with millions of votes still uncounted.

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