Trump wages legal battle as states count ballots

Trump wages legal battle as states count ballots

[NFA] Democrat Joe Biden edged closer to victory over Republican Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency on Thursday as election officials tallied votes in the handful of states that will decide the outcome and while the Trump campaign pursued litigation.

This report produced by Jillian Kitchener.

Democrat Joe Biden edged closer to victory over Donald Trump for the U.S. presidency on Thursday as election officials continued to tally votes in the handful of states that will decide the outcome.

President Trump, who during the long and rancorous campaign attacked the integrity of the U.S. voting system and alleged voting fraud without providing evidence, filed lawsuits and called for at least one state recount.

Some legal experts called the challenges a long shot unlikely to affect the eventual outcome of the election.

Biden was leading in Nevada and Arizona and closing in on Trump in Pennsylvania and Georgia.

Georgia's Voting System Implementation Manager, Gabriel Sterling, on Thursday said there were still some 60,000 ballots left to be counted and they were being tallied with accuracy: "These are 159 election directors and employees who are here to do the job of protecting democracy... these are people not involved in voter fraud, these people are not involved in voter suppression.

I'm telling you they are doing their jobs every day, it is hard, and we are thankful to them for it and we are going to work with them to make sure every legal lawful ballot is counted." Trump has to win the states where he is still ahead, including North Carolina, plus either Arizona or Nevada to triumph and avoid becoming the first incumbent U.S. president to lose a re-election bid since fellow Republican George H.W.

Bush in 1992.

The counting and court challenges set the stage for days if not weeks of uncertainty before Dec.

8, the deadline to resolve election disputes.