Donald Trump has flagged the prospect of multiple court challenges while again claiming his Democratic rival is attempting to steal the presidential election, as Joe Biden urged Americans to remain calm while counting continues.
At a White House press conference on Thursday night, local time, Mr Trump highlighted alleged vote-counting and voting discrepancies in the key states of Michigan, Georgia and Pennsylvania as potential avenues to challenge election results in court.
With his early leads in several battleground states being "whittled away" by the counting of mail-in votes, Mr Trump said "a tremendous amount of litigation" was being undertaken by his campaign to "allow legally permissible observers" into counting locations.
As he had earlier in the week, Mr Trump suggested he would try to take action in the US Supreme Court, saying "ultimately" judges would have to rule on the election outcome.
"We think there is going to be a lot of litigation as we have so much evidence, so much proof and it is going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land," he said, without directly citing any evidence or proof.
Mr Trump, without evidence, said pollsters got the result of the election "knowingly wrong", baselessly claiming polls predicting Mr Biden to win on the back of a "big blue wave" were designed to supress turn out of Republican voters.
"These were really phony polls, fake polls designed to keep our voters at home, create the illusion of momentum for Mr Biden and diminish Republican's ability to raise funds," he alleged.
"They were what is called suppression polls, everyone knows that now.
"We won by historic numbers and the pollsters got it knowingly wrong."
Mr Trump alleged — again without evidence — that he won the election and it was being stolen from him.
"If you count the legal votes, I easily win," he said.
"If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us.
"If you count the votes that came in late, we're looking into them very strongly. A lot of them have come in late."
There has been no evidence that election officials are counting ballots cast after election day. Several key states are currently counting mail-in ballots deemed valid under state and federal laws.
Claiming that mail-in voting was an inherently "corrupt system", he said it had destroyed the country's voting system.
"People know what is happening and they have seen what is happening.
"A tremendous investigation is going on and this is a case where they are trying to steal an election, to rig an election and we cannot let that happen."
Biden says he has 'no doubt' he will win
Earlier, Mr Biden addressed the nation, saying he had no doubt he would win when counting was completed.
He urged Americans to remain calm.
"We continue to feel very good about where things stand," he said.
"We have no doubt that when the count is finished, [vice-presidential nominee Kamala] Harris and I will be declared the winners.
"I ask everyone to stay calm. All the people to stay calm.
"The process is working. The count is being completed. And we'll know [the result] very soon."
Earlier, Mr Biden called for Americans to have patience with the vote counting process.
"In America the vote is sacred. It's how people of this nation express their will," Mr Biden said.
"It is the will of the voters, no-one else, that chooses the president of the United States of America.
"So, each ballot must be counted and that's what we are going to see, going through now. And that's how it should be.
"Democracy is sometimes messy. It sometimes requires a little patience as well.
"But that patience has been rewarded now for more than 240 years with a system of governance that has been the envy of the world."
Mr Trump had not made a public appearance since his election night statement where he claimed victory and flagged a Supreme Court challenge.
He continued to call for the count to be stopped on Twitter in the days after the election.
Mr Biden also spoke about the coronavirus pandemic in the US, saying the thoughts of he and Senator Harris were with the families of people who had died from the virus.
ABC
