‘We’re going in with our lawyers’: Trump admits plan to challenge election result as soon as polls close

President says voters should have got their ballots in already

Donald Trump has claimed he will use “lawyers” to challenge election results as soon as the polls close.

The president threatened to use litigation to secure a second term as he spoke to reporters before he attended a campaign rally in North Carolina.

As soon as polls closed in battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania,  MrTrump said, “we're going in with our lawyers” to stop the counting of ballots.

There is already an appeal pending at the Supreme Court over the counting of absentee ballots in Pennsylvania that are received in the mail in the three days after the election.

The state's top court ordered the extension and the Supreme Court refused to block it, though conservative justices expressed interest in taking up the propriety of the three added days after the election. Those ballots are being kept separate in case the litigation goes forward. The issue could assume enormous importance if the late-arriving ballots could tip the outcome.

“I don’t think it’s fair that we have to wait for a long period of time after the election,” Mr Trump said.

“We’re going in the night of - as soon as the election is over - we’re going in with our lawyers.

“If people wanted to get their ballots in, they should have gotten their ballots in long before that.

“They don’t have to put their ballots in on the same day, they could have put them in a month ago. We think it is ridiculous decision.”

The president called it a “terrible thing” that ballots would be legally counted after election day.

Mr Trump told the press pool that his campaign was “doing well all over” and that he was up in both Ohio and North Carolina.

And he branded a report that he would claim a victory early on election night as “false.”