Trump says the election has been stolen. What are the facts?

In a White House press conference on Saturday, Trump just made a series of claims. The key claim was:

Using “illegal votes”, the election was being stolen by Joe Biden’s campaign.

Fact: There is no evidence that Biden’s campaign has defrauded the U.S. election in any way. The ballots Trump cites as “illegal votes”, mail-in ballots, are legal: key states are counting them later because they were submitted in unprecedented numbers due to the pandemic.

The Biden campaign urged Democrats to vote early if they could, to avoid spreading COVID-19 and to boost voter turnout. They did this a lot more than Trump’s campaign - that’s why, in most states, the votes being counted later are much more likely to be for Biden. They’re being counted later.

CAN TRUMP WIN THE ELECTION BY LITIGATING THE VOTE, AND WINNING IN COURT?

Hypothetically, yes. Courts would have to vote in Trump's favour in the majority of lawsuits - so far, Trump has lost two cases in Georgia and Michigan, and won one in Pennsylvania. The Trump campaign has filed lawsuits in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia and Nevada. The President ended his briefing by saying both he and Biden can call the states "but ultimately I feel that judges will have to rule".

The Trump legal team is throwing everything at their last-ditch effort to use the courts to freeze the voting count in states where President Trump was ahead (but keep counting in key places where he appeared behind). Let’s take Nevada for example - The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit late Thursday, and includes one voter's allegation that she attempted to vote in person, but was told she had already cast a ballot by mail. Biden is ahead in Arizona by about 20,000 votes, with 97% of votes counted. 

Here’s why it matters: None of the legal actions will, in reality, change the outcome, but the effort could delegitimize the 2020 election in the eyes of millions of Trump supporters even if the final math based on legitimate counts show Joe Biden the winner. 

We have to remember that over 70 million people voted for Trump - for America to truly be the United States, it’s going to be important the massive chunk of Trump supporters trust their voting system, courts and democracy.