US election officials dismiss ‘unfounded claims’ about result – live updates

9.56am EST 09:56

The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports from Washington:

President-elect Joe Biden’s team is pressing forward with preparations to take over the federal government when his term starts despite virtually no help from Donald Trump’s outgoing administration.

Biden faces choices that will either please or anger the bickering wings of his party as leftists and centrists vie to set the direction of the incoming Democratic administration. The process also sends a clear message to the Republican party and Trump: Biden won and will be sitting in the White House come January.

Can Joe Biden and Kamala Harris unite America after Trump? – video explainer

“The truth is the Trump administration can file whatever it wants to the federal register, can do whatever executive orders it wants until noon on January 20th, and at that moment they can no longer do it and the Biden people get to stop whatever they had in the pipeline and put whatever they want in their own pipeline,” said Tevi Troy, who helped run the transition to the second Bush-Cheney term in 2004. Troy also authored Fight House: Rivalries in the White House from Truman to Trump.

The Biden team, Troy added, “know the things they want to stop from happening and they’re just going to go do it”.

On Wednesday night Biden took his most significant step yet, naming Ron Klain, a longtime aide, as his chief of staff. The move underscored that even as Biden vows to fill out his administration with figures spanning all wings of the Democratic party, he also plans to include hands familiar with the conventional levers of Washington DC.

9.38am EST 09:38

Some of Donald Trump’s advisers are under the (false) impression that the presidential election has not yet been called.

Speaking to Fox Business this morning, trade adviser Peter Navarro said, “We are moving forward here at the White House under the assumption that there will be a second Trump term.”

Navarro described reports of Joe Biden’s victory as an “immaculate deception”, adding, “We think he won that election, and any speculation about what Joe Biden might do I think is moot at this point.”

In case you missed it for the past six days: Biden has been declared the winner of the presidential election by every major news outlet.

States have already started certifying their results, and Biden will be officially named the winner of the election when the electoral college convenes next month. Biden will be inaugurated in January, and Trump will be a one-term president.

Anyone who says otherwise is denying reality.

Updated at 9.39am EST

9.19am EST 09:19

US sets another single-day record with 153,496 cases

The number of coronavirus cases continues to surge across the US, with the country setting another single-day record for new cases yesterday.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US confirmed 153,496 new cases yesterday, and 919 Americans died of coronavirus.

The alarming news comes as health experts warn the upcoming holiday season could intensify the spread of the virus, if Americans do not stay home.

This is what one health policy professor at Harvard had to say about the surge:

9.06am EST 09:06

Major law firm withdraws from Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania lawsuit

Tom McCarthy

A major law firm withdrew overnight from a Trump campaign case in Pennsylvania seeking to have mail-in ballots thrown out, in the latest blow to the president’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election result in court.

The Ohio-based Porter Wright Morris & Arthur firm, which brought a suit on Monday alleging that the use of mail-in ballots had created “an illegal two-tiered voting system” in the state, abruptly withdrew from that case in a memo to the court.

“Plaintiffs and Porter Wright have reached a mutual agreement that plaintiffs will be best served if Porter Wright withdraws,” the memo said. The lead lawyer in the case, the Pittsburgh-based Ronald L Hicks, Jr, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The news was first reported by the New York Times.

Unlike most lawsuits brought by the Trump campaign, which targeted small pools of votes whose exclusion would not change the election result, the Porter Wright suit challenged nearly 2.65m votes that were cast by mail, the majority by Democrats.

It accused the secretary of the commonwealth, Kathy Boockvar, of “arbitrary and illegal actions” and sought an emergency order prohibiting the certification of the Pennsylvania election result.

With that lawsuit stalled, certification in Pennsylvania – and the formal election of Joe Biden as president – drew a step closer. By law the state’s result must be certified by 23 November.

8.55am EST 08:55

Officials praise security of US election as Trump lawsuits fizzle

Good morning, live blog readers.

Election security officials are praising the handling of last week’s US election, even as Donald Trump continues to peddle baseless claims of fraud.

In a statement released last night, a coalition of federal, state and local election officials praised the November 3 election as “the most secure in American history.

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too,” the statement says. “When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”

The statement comes as the Trump campaign’s lawsuits in battleground states continue to fizzle. Several of the lawsuits have already been dismissed, and counties in key states have already started certifying their results.

All of this raises the same question: when will Trump finally admit that Joe Biden has won the presidential election?

Today could provide some clues on that front, so stay tuned.