In the early hours of Wednesday morning, US President Donald Trump took to a podium at the White House to accuse rivals of fraud.
The Republican incumbent said he would seek the US Supreme Court to stop the vote count for early ballots in key states where he led the race.
With votes for he and Democrat challenger Joe Biden and neck and neck, he appeared to suggest that some of the more than 64 million postal votes cast should not be counted.
And he reiterated unsubstantiated claims that the Democrats were attempting to steal the election through fraud.
Joe Biden's campaign called the suggestion the vote could be halted "outrageous and unprecedented".
Here is the president's speech in full:
"Thank you very much. Please sit thank you. This is without question the latest news conference I've ever had. Thanks. I appreciate it very much.
"And I want to thank the American people for their tremendous support … millions and millions of people voted for us tonight.
"And a very sad group of people is trying to disenfranchise that group of people. And we won't stand for it, we will not stand for it.
"I want to thank the First Lady, my entire family and Vice President, Mr Pence, Mrs Pence for being with us all through this. And we were getting ready for a big celebration. We were winning everything. And all of a sudden, it was just called off.
"The results tonight have been phenomenal. And we are getting ready. I mean, literally, we were just all set to get outside and just celebrate something that was so beautiful, so good. Such a vote, such a success.
"The citizens of this country have come out in record numbers, this is a record. There's never been anything like it to support our incredible movement. We won states that we weren't expected to win – Florida, we didn't win it, we won it by a lot.
"We won the great state of Ohio. We won Texas, we won Texas. We won Texas by 700,000 votes, and they don't even include it in the tabulations.
"It's also clear that we have won Georgia – we're up by 2.5 per cent or 117,000 votes with only 7 per cent left, they're never gonna catch us. They can't catch us.
'Good areas where they happen to like your president'
"Likewise, we've clearly won North Carolina. Where we're up 1.4 per cent or 77,000 votes with only approximately 5 per cent left – they can't catch us.
"We also, if you look and you see, Arizona, we have a lot of life in that. And somebody said ... somebody declared that it was a victory for us. And maybe it will be, I mean, that's possible.
"But certainly there were a lot of votes out there that we could get because we're now just coming into what they call Trump territory.
"I don't know what you call it. But these were friendly Trump voters. And that could be overturned. The gentleman that called it, and I watched tonight, he said, 'Well, we think it's fairly unlikely that he could catch … well 'fairly unlikely' – and we don't even need it.
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US President Donald Trump speaks during election night in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP -
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a drive-in election night event as Dr. Jill Biden looks on at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. AFP -
Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden watch election results outside the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. AFP -
US Vice President Mike Pence speaks flanked by US President Donald Trump during election night in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC. AFP -
Supporters pose with U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, center, following his victory speech after winning another term in office, in Columbia, S.C. AP Photo -
Biden supporter Lala Walker reacts to early election results in Houston, Texas. REUTERS -
President Donald Trump supporter Loretta Oakes reacts while watching returns in favor of Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, at a Republican election-night watch party, in Las Vegas. AP Photo -
People gather to watch results in the presidential election on a screen in Times Square in New York, New York. EPA -
Claire Woodall-Vogg, executive director of the Milwaukee election commission is escorted by police from the central count location where absentee ballots were being counted carrying the final count in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. AFP -
Election officials count absentee ballots in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. AFP -
Los Angeles Police Department officers form a line in front of demonstrators during the 2020 Presidential election in Los Angeles, California. Bloomberg -
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks during a news conference at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C. Bloomberg -
A woman poses for a photo during an election night watch party organized by a group called "Villagers for Trump" in The Villages, Florida. AFP -
People celebrate a win for incumbent candidate Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) at Graham's election night watch party in Columbia, South Carolina. AFP -
Supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden worry as they watch the election results unfold on a giant screen in a square near the White House in Washington, DC. AFP -
People react as they watch early results on T.V as they gather at Black Lives Matter Plaza near the White House during Election Day in Washington. Reuters -
Martina Brown celebrates after being the last voter to cast her ballot at a polling station inside Knapp Elementary School on Election Day in Racine, Racine County, Wisconsin. Reuters -
A Code Enforcement officer asks to a supporter to stop placing US President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence campaign signs in the limits of a polling station during the 2020 US presidential election in Palm Beach, Florida. Reuters -
Democratic congressional candidate Ilhan Omar speaks at the DFL election night watch party in St. Paul, Minnesota. Reuters -
Republican US Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is joined by his wife Elaine Chao as he speaks at a press conference following his projected senate race victory at the Omni Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky, USA. EPA -
Cairo Messenger newspaper publisher and editor Randy Fine, center, calls out election results as Steve Reagan writes them on the board on the front wall of the newspaper for the voters gathered in the street in Cairo, Georgia. AFP -
Electoral workers at curbside voting in St. Charles County for voters who have coronavirus disease during Election Day in Missouri. Reuters -
A election worker collects mail-in ballots at the Clark County election office in Las Vegas, Nevada. EPA -
A woman wears a mask depicting US President Donald Trump at Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, DC. EPA -
Biden supporters face off a Trump supporter outside of a polling site, on Election Day in Houston, Texas. Reuters -
Florida election results are displayed on a screen in Black Lives Matter Plaza during the 2020 Presidential election in Washington, DC. Bloomberg -
First timer voter Jessica Henderson shows her "I Voted!" sticker after casting her ballot in-person on Election Day outside the Ruben F. Salazar Park recreation center, an official vote centre in East Los Angeles. AP Photo -
Carolyn Fieles, left, Suzy Meredith-Orr, Frieda Wallison, and Judy Dunn open ballots in the Pitkin County Administration Building on Election Day in Aspen, Colorado. AP -
Election workers organise ballots at the Multnomah County Elections Division Tuesday in Portland, Oregon. AP Photo -
A supporter for Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) looks on during an Election Night party at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta In Buckhead in Atlanta, Georgia. AFP -
Volunteers gather at Detroit Branch NAACP Tuesday evening before polls closed in Detroit, Michigan. EPA -
People gather in Times Square as they await election results in New York City. AFP -
A woman helps an elderly voter put on headphone to follow directions as she casts her ballot at the Salazar Park polling location in Los Angeles, California. EPA
"We don't need that that was just a state that if we would have gotten it, it would have been nice, Arizona.
"But there's a possibility, maybe even a good possibility, in fact, since I saw that, originally, it's been changed. And the numbers have substantially come down just in a small amount of votes. So we want that, obviously, to stay in play. But most importantly, we're winning Pennsylvania by a tremendous amount of votes.
"Think of this, think of this, we're up 690,000 votes in Pennsylvania – 690,000. These aren't even close. It's not like 'Oh, it's close'. With 64 per cent of the vote in it's going to be almost impossible to catch. And we're coming into good Pennsylvania areas where they happen to like your president. So we'll probably expand that.
'We want all voting to stop'
"We're winning Michigan, but I'll tell you, I looked at the numbers. I said woah. I looked, I said wow, that's a lot by almost 300,000 votes, and 65 per cent of the vote is in.
"And we're winning Wisconsin. So we're winning. We don't need all of them. We need ... because when you add Texas in, which wasn't added – I spoke with the really wonderful governor of Texas just a little while ago, Greg Abbott. He said, congratulations, he called me to congratulate me on winning Texas. I believe we won Texas.
"I don't think they finished quite the tabulation. But there's no way. And it was almost complete. But he congratulated me. And he said, by the way, what's going on? I've never seen anything like this. Can I tell you what? Nobody has.
"So we won by 107,000 votes with 81 per cent of the vote. That's Michigan. So when you take those three states in particular, and you take all of the others, I mean, we have, we have so many we had such a big night.
"You just take a look at all of these states that we've won tonight. And then you take a look at the kind of margins that we've won by.
"And all of a sudden, it's not like we're up 12 votes, and we have 60 per cent left. We won states and all of a sudden, I said what happened to the election? It's off. And we have all these announcers saying, what happened?
"And then they said, oh, because you know what happened?
As far as I'm concerned, we already have won it
"They knew they couldn't win. So they said, let's go to court. And did I predict this, huh? Did I say this, I've been saying this from the day I heard they were gonna send out tens of millions of ballots, I said exactly.
"Because either they were going to win or if they didn't win, they'll take us to court. So Florida was a tremendous victory … 377,000. Texas, as we said. Ohio, think of this, Ohio, a tremendous state, a big state, I love Ohio, we won by 8.1 per cent – 460,000, almost 500,000 votes.
"North Carolina, big victory with North Carolina. And so we won there, we lead by 76,000 votes with almost nothing left. And all of a sudden, everything just stopped. This is a fraud on the American public.
"This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly, we did win this election.
"So our goal now is to ensure the integrity for the good of this nation. This is a very big moment. This is a major fraud in our nation. We want the law to be used in a proper manner. So we'll be going to the US Supreme Court.
"We want all voting to stop. We don't want them to find any ballots at four o'clock in the morning and add them to the list.
"OK. It's, it's very sad, it's a very sad moment. To me, there's a very sad moment. And we will win this.
"And as far as I'm concerned, we already have won it. So I just want to thank you and I want to thank all of our support. I want to thank all of the people that worked with us."
