'A terrible thing is happening': Trump goes on Twitter spree against legitimate process of vote counting

President continues baseless attack on election process

Donald Trump has continued his Twitter spree against the legitimate process of vote counting while protesting Michigan’s Senate race.

The president, who has spent much of 4 November on a baseless tirade against the election process,  suggested that Michigan had “found ballots” during their count, calling it “terrible”.

“Wow! It looks like Michigan has now found the ballots necessary to keep a wonderful young man, John James, out of the US Senate. What a terrible thing is happening!,” Mr Trump tweeted on Wednesday afternoon.

With the 2020 presidential election hanging on a knife's edge, the end outcome largely rests on the final count of ballots in a number of key swing states across the US.

Battleground states: Michigan and Pennsylvania, which Mr Trump previously stole from Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, have yet to declare their official count.

Delays in the rust belt states are largely due to a high volume of mail in ballots due to the coronavirus pandemic, as the areas are not accustomed to dealing with such high numbers of absentee voting.  

In the wake of the delays, president Mr Trump and his allies have become increasingly frustrated, with the president falsely declaring victory and saying he is poised to ask the Supreme Court to halt all vote-counting.

In turn, the president has spent much of the day hitting out on social media about the election process, with many of his tweets being flagged by the platform as potentially “misleading about an election or other civic process.”

“They are working hard to make up 500,000 vote advantage in Pennsylvania disappear — ASAP. Likewise, Michigan and others!,” Mr Trump tweeted in another attack on vote counting.

The president has continually suggested that officials in the election process are “finding” votes and ballots in states that have not yet counted 100 per cent of their vote total.

“They are finding Biden votes all over the place — in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. So bad for our Country!,” he said in another post.

Mr Trump also falsely accused Democrats of trying to “steal” the election, attacking the ability of states to count votes past the election day polling deadline.

“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!,” he tweeted.

Vote counts routinely continue beyond election day and states largely set their rules for when the count has to end.

The president also prematurely declared victory in his fight for a second term against Mr Biden, saying he was poised to ask the Supreme Court to halt all vote-counting even as ballots remain untallied.  

“Millions of people voted for us tonight. A very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people,” the president said from the East Room of the White House. “And we won’t stand for it.”