US President Donald Trump’s spokeswoman has vowed the legal battle to contest Joe Biden’s White House election victory is only just beginning.
“This election is not over,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told a news conference. “Far from it.”
She made a flurry of allegations of election corruption, although no evidence of systemic fraud that might have influenced the result has emerged.
Mr Trump, a Republican, has not conceded the race.
What are Biden and Trump up to?
Since media projected on Saturday that Mr Biden had won the critical state of Pennsylvania, accumulating enough votes to claim the White House, the president-elect has forged ahead with his plans to take reins of the power.
Mr Trump took to Twitter on Monday to again dispute the outcome, making unsubstantiated claims of “unthinkable and illegal” activity in the vote.
The General Services Administration, which manages federal agencies, has held off on allowing Biden aides to formally begin the transition, saying no “ascertainment” on an election winner had yet been made.
CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, says the Biden team is considering their legal options if the Trump administration continues to stall the handover.
White House reporters have been saying that despite his objections Mr Trump is expected to begrudgingly leave office in January and is already talking about running for the White House again in 2024.
What is the Trump campaign alleging?
At Monday’s news conference, the president’s spokeswoman and a Republican bigwig cited allegations of electoral corruption, while urging reporters to help investigate the unverified claims.
Fox News, formerly the president’s favourite news channel, cut away from the event, citing the lack of evidence.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said presenter Neil Cavuto. “Unless she [Ms McEnany] has more details to back that up, I can’t in good countenance continue to show you this.”
Ms McEnany told reporters: “We have only begun the process of obtaining an accurate, honest vote count.”
She claimed Republican poll watchers had not been granted adequate access to vote counts in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, both Republican and Democratic election monitors were kept from 13ft to 100ft (4m to 30m) away from tables where votes were being tallied in the city, and local election officials cited coronavirus prevention needs for the distancing.