US election news you missed overnight: Incendiary texts about ‘stolen’ election traced to Trump aide’s company

With Joe Biden nearing the 270 electoral college votes he needs to become president-elect, Donald Trump and some of his supporters continue to make false claims about illegal and fraudulent voting in key battleground states.

Senior election officials from both political parties in these states say Mr Trump’s suggestions are unsubstantiated, as there is no evidence to back up his assertions.

The count is simply slow because of an unprecedented amount of mail-in ballots sent in this year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Although the Democratic challenger has not been officially declared the winner of the race, he is confident of victory, as he leads the incumbent president in four of the five states where votes are still being counted, including Arizona and Pennsylvania.

"The numbers tell us ... it's a clear and convincing story: We're going to win this race,” Mr Biden said in a televised address late on Friday.

Here’s some of the US election news you may have missed overnight:

Biden transition team at work amid limbo:

Joe Biden’s transition team has started work to ensure that the former vice president can form a government, ahead of official confirmation of his victory in the 2020 election.

Ted Kaufman, a senior Biden aide, is leading the transition efforts. Although Biden’s campaign has not commented on the process, his advisers say the key priorities include announcing a White House chief of staff and preparing a response to the coronavirus crisis.

Clay Johnson, who led George W. Bush’s transition team, said Biden’s staff “can’t wait to be sure that the president-elect really is the president-elect. They have to hurry up and move forward.”

Incendiary texts traced to company run by Trump aide

Anonymous, targeted texts were sent to thousands of people on Thursday encouraging them to rally at a vote-counting centre in Philadelphia under the false claim that the election was being stolen by the Democrats.

The message railed against “Radical Liberals and Dems” trying to “steal” the election, before telling recipients to show their “support” by heading to a street near the Philadelphia Convention Center in Pennsylvania.

The company responsible for the messages is Opn Sesame, a platform whose CEO is Gary Coby, the Trump campaign’s digital director, according to the Associated Press.

“This kind of message is playing with fire, and we are very lucky that it does not seem to have driven more conflict,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior University of Toronto researcher, who was among those who discovered the source of the texts.

Trump chief of staff tests positive for Covid-19 after election party , say reports

Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday, hours after attending an election night party at the White House, according to reports.

The aide spent time inside the White House and also mingled with guests at an event where few people wore masks.

Jennifer Jacobs, Bloomberg’s White House correspondent, has alleged that officials tried to keep the diagnosis secret.

Another Trump aide, Nick Trainer, has also contracted the virus, according to Bloomberg.