Trump sues to stop count in Pennsylvania and declares victory in the state

Poll workers in Pennsylvania count the ballots on Wednesday (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

Donald Trump’s campaign unilaterally declared victory in Pennsylvania before counting has finished, a highly unusual move that has no legal basis or precedent.

Campaign manager Bill Stepien said on Wednesday that he was “declaring victory in Pennsylvania” with less than 80 per cent of the vote being counted.  

That was followed by a similar announcement from White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Eric Trump, in what appeared to be a coordinated attempt to disrupt the counting of legitimate ballots in the state where the president’s lead was narrowing dramatically.

The campaign also announced that it was suing to temporarily stop the vote count in Pennsylvania, citing a lack of “transparency” in the count process.  

Follow live: US election 2020 results, updates and analysis

Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said the campaign is “suing to stop Democrat election officials from hiding the ballot counting and processing from our Republican poll observers.”

He said the campaign wants “to temporarily halt counting until there is meaningful transparency and Republicans can ensure all counting is done above board and by the law.”

Mr Trump’s personal lawyer was scheduled to hold a press conference outside of the Pennsylvania Convention Centre in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon, writing on Twitter that there was “massive cheating,” without providing any evidence. “[Donald Trump] up by 550,000 with 75% counted. Will not let Philly Democrat hacks steal it!” he added.

Joe Biden’s campaign said it expects the final count to give the former vice president a lead of 80,000 to 100,000 votes.

A small crowd gathered outside the centre ahead of the press conference, before it was abruptly cancelled 10 minutes before it was due to start.The attempts to undermine the count in Pennsylvania follow months of attacks on mail-in ballots by the Trump campaign and the president himself, who have claimed without evidence that they are vulnerable to fraud.

Mr Trump currently holds a lead in the state, but the remaining votes to be counted are absentee ballots from urban areas that have heavily favoured Democrats.

The Supreme Court previously ruled that Pennsylvania was allowed to count the votes received by mail three days after the polls closed.

Kathy Boockvar, the Pennsylvania secretary of state, said at a press conference on Wednesday held shortly before midday that the state has counted nearly 50 per cent of its mail-in ballots, with millions more to go.

Ms Bookvar said that more than 3 million mail-in ballots were cast – a 10-fold increase over previous elections. 

“Really could not have gone more smoothly in the middle of a pandemic,” she said. “We're exactly where we said we would be.”

She said they were determined to “accurately count every single ballot”, saying that military and overseas ballots are still left to be counted.  

In September, the state's supreme court granted a three-day extension period after election day for mail-in ballots to be returned.  The Pennsylvania department of state ruled that all ballots received in that three-day window will be counted, but kept separate.

The Supreme Court rejected a request from the state Republican party to block state court’s decision, but left open the door to a review of the segregated ballots after the election.