Trump claims election win in new tweet

Donald Trump has furiously continued to tweet about the results of the US election, today falsely claiming on Twitter that he “won”.

“I WON THE ELECTION!” Mr Trump tweeted just before midnight local time.

The tweet was quickly slapped with a warning label, saying that “official sources” have called the election differently to Mr Trump’s claim. The warning links to a page with articles projecting President Elect Joe Biden as the winner of the Presidential race.

The US Presidential election for 2020 was called for Democratic candidate Mr Biden more than a week ago. However Mr Trump has failed to acknowledge his campaign’s loss and has blocked the new administration from beginning their transition into the White House.

Mr Trump has been pushing a series of unsubstantiated claims online, including that the election was “rigged”, that poll watchers were removed from counting rooms, and that counting machines were hacked.

Trump’s campaign team have also launched a flurry of legal challenges across numerous states in an attempt to delay the certification of election results. Nine of these cases in key states were dropped or dropped on Friday.

The President’s tweet quickly went viral, with people mocking the statement.

“It’s not like calling shotgun,” one man wrote on Twitter.

On Thursday, a coalition of top US government and industry officials rejected Mr Trump’s claims about the election, calling it “the most secure in American history”.

"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history,” a joint statement from the Department of Homeland Security’s Election Infrastructure Government Co-ordinating Council, and the Election Infrastructure Sector Co-ordinating Executive Committees said.

“Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result.”

The statement added that when states the results are close, states will often recount ballots, and that every state keeps a paper record of votes cast, “allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary”.

“This is an added benefit for security and resilience,” the statement said.

“There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”