Outcome of US elections still ‘too close to call’24

WASHINGTON: The hectic presidential election battle between the Republican nominee Donald Trump and the Democrat Kamala Harris is a race to an unknown outcome as millions went to polls to cast their votes to decide between two poles apart worldviews for the nation.

The first votes that were cast on Tuesday were equally provincialised in their distribution across the country. Overnight, six registered voters from the village, Dixville Notch in New Hampshire, voted equal portion for Harris and Trump by voting past midnight.

Trump has voted in the Florida election after he got to the voting place in Palm Beach with his wife, Melania.

In an interview with reporters after voting, the current president of the United States said he is ‘very confident’ that he will secure the presidency again and that the process ‘won’t even be close.’ Nevertheless, Trump complained that it could take longer to determine the outcome.

However, he insisted that he would accept the result after Tuesday’s voting “if it’s a fair election” but he again raised the issue of electronic voting machines.

And if an election is held for one reason or another and I lose it, as it has been mentioned as a fair contest, I would be the first one to accept the defeat. So far I think it’s been fair,” Trump, who has often used the disclaimer while campaigning, said to reporters after casting his vote in Florida.

Trump has suggested he might declare himself the winner of the election on November 3, even though millions of votes remain to be counted as he did four years ago.

The former president has continually remarked that any loss could only be due to fraud, as he did of course during the 2020 election.

Opinion polls show the candidates running neck and neck in each of the seven states likely to determine the winner: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

According to the Reuters/Ipsos polling, Harris leads among women 12 percentage points while Trump leads among men 7 percentage points.

Control of both chambers of Congress is also uncertain. In the Senate, Republicans are in a better position because Democrats have several seats to defend in states that lean Republican when it comes to the House of Represe­ntatives, however, predicting that party’s performance is difficult.

Bomb Threats in Election

As tensions rise between the coronavirus pandemic and protest-related chaos, the National Guard has been activated or will be in 19 states to assist in quelling violence. Most of the observable steps can be observed in the swing states, including Nevada where Trump supporters protested the 2020 election results.

A poll worker in Georgia was arrested on Monday to answer charges that he mailed a letter threatening to bomb election workers that looked like it was written by a voter in the presidential election state most closely contested.

Federal officials reported that Nicholas Wimbish, 25, had been working at the Jones County Elections Office in Gray, Georgia, on Oct. 16 when a voter engaged him in a verbal disagreement.

However, the FBI advised Americans about two new, fake videos purporting to contain terror threats and denial of vote –part of a continuing misinformation stream expected to rise as Election Day draws near.

The bureau also stated that actual threats to bomb polling locations had been faked in numerous states, many of which seem to emanate from Russian email domains. “None of the threats have been deemed credible till date,” they said in a particular statement.

Those projected victories give Harris a total of 24 electoral votes from the ten projected from Minnesota, the home state of the vice presidential nominee Tim Walz, and the 14 projected from New Jersey.

These wins were projected at the time Trump announced his early victory to his fans in Florida.

Neither he nor Harris has reached the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency while the Republican presidential nominee is heading toward victory after winning projections in Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania