Trump criticizes late ballot counting as Biden urges unity

Donald Trump has thrown into question the integrity of the US presidential election again, saying it would not be appropriate to take extra time to count the tens of millions of ballots cast by mail.

“It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don’t believe that that’s by our laws,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday. “We’ll see what happens.”

He made the remarks while so far more than 70 million Americans have cast ballots over half the total turnout of the 2016 election with one week to go until Election Day, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

The Republican president, who trails his Democratic rival Joe Biden in national opinion polls, cast doubt on mail-in votes, while Biden has offered a message of unity.

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Trump has repeatedly suggested that a rise in mail voting would result in an increase in fraud without offering any evidence. Election experts, however, argue that is a rare incident in US elections as mail voting is a long-standing feature of elections in the US.

The president is scheduled to hold two campaign rallies on Wednesday in the battleground state of Arizona, where polls already show him narrowly trailing Biden.

He won the state by 3.5 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, however, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken from Oct. 14-21, Biden has a 3-point edge on him, within the survey’s credibility interval.

If Biden wins Arizona, which has 11 electoral votes, it would be the first for a Democratic candidate in the state since Bill Clinton carried it in 1996.

The former vice president is due to deliver a speech near his home in Delaware on his plans to combat the coronavirus pandemic, his campaign said.

Biden, who has repeatedly criticized Trump over his mishandling of the virus crisis, will receive a briefing from public health experts on the matter in the same day.

He has attacked Trump for playing down the threat, failing to listen to his health experts, and never developing a plan to contain it.

Polls show Americans trust Biden more than Trump to stem the infection.

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Meanwhile, Biden, who visited Georgia on Tuesday, attempted to go on the political offensive in the state, which has not backed a Democrat for the White House since 1992, pledging to be a president for all Americans regardless of party. 

“Has the heart of this nation turned to stone? I don’t think so,” Biden said. “I refuse to believe it.”

Trump campaign website defaced in cyber attack

Meanwhile, Trump’s election campaign says its official website was defaced earlier on Tuesday in what seemed to be a cyberattack.

The campaign said in a statement it was working with law enforcement to investigate the incident, but the FBI declined to comment.

"Earlier this evening, the Trump campaign website was defaced and we are working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack. There was no exposure to sensitive data because none of it is actually stored on the site. The website has been restored," campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement.

The author or authors of the altered page claimed in their message to have dirt on Trump without providing any evidence, posting details of a cryptocurrency account people could transfer funds to if they wanted to see the information disclosed publicly.

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