talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-02--So Far, Trump’s ‘Army’ Of Poll Watchers Looks More Like a Small Platoon

This story was originally published by ProPublica .
ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom .
Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox .
Donald Trump Jr. looked straight into a camera at the end of September as triumphant music rose in a crescendo .
“ The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father , ” he said .
“ We can not let that happen .
We need every able-bodied man and woman to join the army for Trump ’ s election security operation.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ his father , President Donald Trump , has said in both of his presidential campaigns .
At a September campaign rally in Winston-Salem , North Carolina , the president encouraged his audience to be poll watchers .
“ Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do , ” he said .
“ Because this is important.
” But the poll-watching army that the Trumps have tried to rally hasn ’ t materialized .
Although there ’ s no official data , election officials across the country say that they have seen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voting , and that at times Democratic poll watchers have outnumbered the GOP ’ s .
In Colorado and Nevada , where the Trump campaign was particularly active in recruiting poll watchers , its efforts largely petered out .
Jordan Fuchs , the deputy secretary of state in Georgia , a swing state experiencing a record voter turnout , said both county governments and political parties can supply poll watchers in Georgia .
Most are showing up in Fulton County , whose seat is Atlanta .
“ I am receiving reports of a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of left-leaning groups .
There are very few poll watchers from right-leaning groups , ” she said .
“ The Trump campaign is simply calling for additional poll watchers because they know there is a dearth of right-leaning poll watchers.
” Although Kentucky election law doesn ’ t allow for poll watchers , the parties can have registered “ challengers ” at the polls on Election Day whose only job is to challenge a voter ’ s eligibility .
In Fayette County , home of Lexington , Republicans have submitted only seven names @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Don Blevins Jr. , the clerk in the county , says he doesn ’ t know how many will actually show up on Tuesday .
“ Only in recent years have campaigns thought about doing this , and then rarely followed through , ” he said .
In Williamson County , Texas , a swing county just north of Austin , election administrator Christopher Davis said that the few poll watchers there were mostly sent by a local conservative activist who promotes unfounded claims of voter fraud .
When the county opened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weekend to process mailed ballots , only one poll watcher showed .
The watcher , Davis said , was from the Trump campaign and behaved according to the rules .
“ Maybe we ’ re just lucky in WilCo , ” Davis said .
Several Trump supporters in Arizona said they volunteered to be poll watchers , but there was no follow-up .
“ I actually signed up twice because I never heard from them .
I never was contacted , and I signed up almost two months ago , ” said Lynne @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Hopefully it ’ s because they already have enough people.
” A late October lawsuit by Nevada ’ s Republican Party tacitly acknowledged that the GOP ’ s poll watching operation there was ineffective .
The party sued Clark County , home of Las Vegas , in an effort to stop the counting of mail-in ballots until “ meaningful observation ” was allowed .
The suit alleged that poll watchers were not allowed to be close enough to the counting process to do their jobs .
A state court judge denied the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it was filed .
Despite the small number of official poll watchers , unauthorized Trump supporters at times have shown up and behaved aggressively at polling places and drop boxes , according to tips received by Electionland .
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment .
The paucity of Republican poll watchers doesn ’ t necessarily reflect a lack of enthusiasm for the candidate .
In fact , avid supporters may prefer more vocal or demonstrative ways of expressing their views than watching polls all day .
Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fraud make the poll watcher ’ s role seem far more dramatic and consequential than it actually is .
More than 20 Trump campaign training videos for poll watchers , reviewed by ProPublica , make clear the mundane nature of the task , encouraging volunteers to be on time , to bring a water bottle , to not interact with voters and to be respectful “ even to our Democratic friends !
” Poll watching “ is like watching paint dry , ” said Justin Levitt , a professor at Loyola Law School @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ If you ’ re waiting for the busloads of fraud to arise , and what you get is small American-flag-waving democracy , you begin to go out of your head .
It ’ s like sitting in a field waiting for the UFOs and the UFOs never show up .
And then you ’ re just sitting in a field , which is fine for a couple hours , but polls are open about 15 hours a day.
” Analysts say that the president and his staff may not believe their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but that they may be raising the specter to deter Democratic voters from going to the polls .
The campaigns also want people to sign up to be poll watchers , even if they don ’ t actually follow through , because their contact information helps identify potential donors .
Bob Bauer , the attorney for the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden , said the Trump campaign is betting on scaring voters into staying home to avoid confrontation .
But , he said , that tactic appears to have backfired , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters have flocked to the polls during early voting .
Democrats have their own poll-watching strategy , according to campaign insiders .
They encourage volunteers to watch not only voters but also Republican poll watchers , and to be on the lookout for any GOP effort to intimidate voters or challenge them without justification .
Poll watchers are common in American democracy and have been a fixture of precincts since the 1800s .
In the vast majority of states , the parties or the campaigns are allowed to send trained watchers to each @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , taking notes on anything out of the ordinary to report to the party or campaign attorneys .
Their job is not to intervene but to observe and serve as witnesses for court cases or challenges if they observe something illegal or inappropriate , said Ben Ginsberg , one of the most well-known Republican election attorneys .
Most often , poll watchers report nothing .
This isn ’ t the first Republican campaign with a lot of talk about poll watchers but little action .
In 2016 , Trump adviser Roger Stone mounted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Day while Trump was down in the polls and threatening not to accept the results of the election .
Stone had pledged to recruit 3,000 hand-selected volunteers in a list of cities , but few showed up .
By text , Stone said that his efforts in 2016 were not poll watching but exit polling to ensure the legitimacy of the count and were “ entirely independent of the Trump campaign.
” Litigation lodged by Democratic groups , portraying the effort as a veiled attempt to intimidate voters , hurt his ability to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Unfortunately defending against extensive litigation and our legal victories sapped our resources so that the number of exit polls conducted fell far below what we had hoped to achieve , ” he said .
Federal courts ultimately ruled that the effort did not constitute voter suppression or intimidation .
Stone was convicted and sentenced to prison time in February for lying to Congress and witness tampering during the House investigation into Russian activity in the 2016 election .
In July , the president commuted his sentence and he was released .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Vote , which promotes unfounded allegations of voter fraud , sent hundreds of volunteers to minority neighborhoods around Houston , where the organization is headquartered .
In the 2010 midterms , it pledged to mobilize thousands of people to serve as poll watchers .
Between 2010 and 2012 , True the Vote chapters opened across the country and the organization began preparing a national recruitment effort .
“ Long , sad trombone sound , ” Levitt said .
While a few people showed up , and some counties had a larger presence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ It was nowhere near the all-caps nightmare that it was reportedly supposed to be.
” True the Vote did not respond to a request for comment .
In 1982 , after the New Jersey GOP sent off-duty law enforcement officers to watch voting , the state ’ s Republican Party and the Republican National Committee entered into a consent decree barring them from “ ballot security ” initiatives .
North Carolina ’ s Republican Party was added to the consent decree in 1990 .
All three parties were released from the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the intimidating behavior would start anew .
But so far it hasn ’ t .
Every state has different rules for poll watching , though some form of it is generally allowed .
In general , parties or candidates register watchers with the county .
Volunteers generally must pay their own way to the polling location , and they must be trained and present proof of that training at the polls , where their behavior is intensely restricted .
They generally can not be on their phone , speak to voters or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or they may be removed from the polling location .
The result , poll workers say , is rampant boredom .
“ It was just a really long day , ” said Zachary Brown , who served as a vote challenger — the equivalent of a poll watcher in Michigan — in Pontiac in 2012 for the conservative group Protecting Michigan Taxpayers .
Brown said he saw nothing out of the ordinary .
The determination behind the campaign to fish out fraud when there was none was “ disheartening , ” he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ turn away from the conservative movement .
He hasn ’ t been a poll watcher since and considers himself an independent politically .
“ All I saw were people voting , ” he said .
The Trump campaign ’ s poll-watcher efforts this year were more centralized than normal in Colorado , where state Election Day operations manager Joe Samudio took over the task from county party chairs of appointing poll watchers during early voting and on Election Day .
Samudio seemed successful in recruiting volunteers but then was reassigned to Minnesota , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Colorado sends mail-in ballots to all voters , it also has numerous locations for in-person voting .
Poll watchers also can observe counting of ballots whether they ’ re mailed in or cast in person .
Samudio did not respond to emailed requests for comment .
“ He had all these people and then suddenly he was sent to Minnesota and I didn ’ t hear from anyone else for several days , ” said Peg Perl , the election director for Arapahoe County in Colorado .
She said she did not recall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ watchers during the first week of early voting , while some Democratic poll watchers did show up .
Colorado GOP spokesman Joe Jackson said that the party is currently dispatching watchers in all major counties .
The Trump campaign ’ s frustration over poll watching has boiled over in Nevada .
In an early October poll watcher training in Las Vegas , Jesse Law , the Trump campaign ’ s Election Day operations manager , complained to online and in-person trainees that Democratic poll watchers can “ get away with anything ” but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there not to ensure the integrity of the vote , as his volunteers would be , but to watch Republicans , Law said in a video obtained by ProPublica .
“ The problem with the Democrats being at these locations … is they are sent here to destroy your life , ” he said , saying that they would “ make up that we are suppressing the vote.
” “ They are there to know everything that ’ s on your phone , everything you ’ re writing down , everything about you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the room .
Law did not respond to an email asking for comment .
Law emphasized that trainees should not break the law and give Democrats ammunition to use against Trump ( whom he called “ the boss ” ) in court .
“ If you are over here going ‘ that person isn ’ t legal ’ and that person is completely legal , that ’ s a black eye for us .
Don ’ t do that , ” he said .
“ If you are seeing a problem , document @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , and let ’ s get to the bottom of it — no spectacles please !
”

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
Donald Trump Jr. looked straight into a camera at the end of September as triumphant music rose in a crescendo. “The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father,” he said. “We cannot let that happen. We need every able-bodied man and woman to join the army for Trump’s election security operation.”
It was an echo of what his father, President Donald Trump, has said in both of his presidential campaigns. At a September campaign rally in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the president encouraged his audience to be poll watchers. “Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do,” he said. “Because this is important.”
But the poll-watching army that the Trumps have tried to rally hasn’t materialized. Although there’s no official data, election officials across the country say that they have seen relatively few Republican poll watchers during early voting, and that at times Democratic poll watchers have outnumbered the GOP’s. In Colorado and Nevada, where the Trump campaign was particularly active in recruiting poll watchers, its efforts largely petered out.
Jordan Fuchs, the deputy secretary of state in Georgia, a swing state experiencing a record voter turnout, said both county governments and political parties can supply poll watchers in Georgia. Most are showing up in Fulton County, whose seat is Atlanta.
“I am receiving reports of a few thousand poll watchers from a variety of left-leaning groups. There are very few poll watchers from right-leaning groups,” she said. “The Trump campaign is simply calling for additional poll watchers because they know there is a dearth of right-leaning poll watchers.”
Although Kentucky election law doesn’t allow for poll watchers, the parties can have registered “challengers” at the polls on Election Day whose only job is to challenge a voter’s eligibility. In Fayette County, home of Lexington, Republicans have submitted only seven names of challengers while Democrats have submitted 117. Don Blevins Jr., the clerk in the county, says he doesn’t know how many will actually show up on Tuesday.
“Only in recent years have campaigns thought about doing this, and then rarely followed through,” he said.
In Williamson County, Texas, a swing county just north of Austin, election administrator Christopher Davis said that the few poll watchers there were mostly sent by a local conservative activist who promotes unfounded claims of voter fraud. When the county opened up its central count office this past weekend to process mailed ballots, only one poll watcher showed. The watcher, Davis said, was from the Trump campaign and behaved according to the rules.
“Maybe we’re just lucky in WilCo,” Davis said.
Several Trump supporters in Arizona said they volunteered to be poll watchers, but there was no follow-up. “I actually signed up twice because I never heard from them. I never was contacted, and I signed up almost two months ago,” said Lynne Berreman, who lives in Phoenix. “Hopefully it’s because they already have enough people.”
A late October lawsuit by Nevada’s Republican Party tacitly acknowledged that the GOP’s poll watching operation there was ineffective. The party sued Clark County, home of Las Vegas, in an effort to stop the counting of mail-in ballots until “meaningful observation” was allowed. The suit alleged that poll watchers were not allowed to be close enough to the counting process to do their jobs. A state court judge denied the request for a temporary injunction hours after it was filed.
Despite the small number of official poll watchers, unauthorized Trump supporters at times have shown up and behaved aggressively at polling places and drop boxes, according to tips received by Electionland.
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
The paucity of Republican poll watchers doesn’t necessarily reflect a lack of enthusiasm for the candidate. In fact, avid supporters may prefer more vocal or demonstrative ways of expressing their views than watching polls all day. Trump’s cries for help in the prevention of fraud make the poll watcher’s role seem far more dramatic and consequential than it actually is. More than 20 Trump campaign training videos for poll watchers, reviewed by ProPublica, make clear the mundane nature of the task, encouraging volunteers to be on time, to bring a water bottle, to not interact with voters and to be respectful “even to our Democratic friends!”
Poll watching “is like watching paint dry,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, specializing in elections. “If you’re waiting for the busloads of fraud to arise, and what you get is small American-flag-waving democracy, you begin to go out of your head. It’s like sitting in a field waiting for the UFOs and the UFOs never show up. And then you’re just sitting in a field, which is fine for a couple hours, but polls are open about 15 hours a day.”
Analysts say that the president and his staff may not believe their own predictions of a poll-watching army, but that they may be raising the specter to deter Democratic voters from going to the polls. The campaigns also want people to sign up to be poll watchers, even if they don’t actually follow through, because their contact information helps identify potential donors.
Bob Bauer, the attorney for the campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden, said the Trump campaign is betting on scaring voters into staying home to avoid confrontation. But, he said, that tactic appears to have backfired, as young people and other likely Democratic voters have flocked to the polls during early voting.
Democrats have their own poll-watching strategy, according to campaign insiders. They encourage volunteers to watch not only voters but also Republican poll watchers, and to be on the lookout for any GOP effort to intimidate voters or challenge them without justification.
Poll watchers are common in American democracy and have been a fixture of precincts since the 1800s. In the vast majority of states, the parties or the campaigns are allowed to send trained watchers to each precinct. Poll watchers largely sit silently, taking notes on anything out of the ordinary to report to the party or campaign attorneys. Their job is not to intervene but to observe and serve as witnesses for court cases or challenges if they observe something illegal or inappropriate, said Ben Ginsberg, one of the most well-known Republican election attorneys. Most often, poll watchers report nothing.
This isn’t the first Republican campaign with a lot of talk about poll watchers but little action. In 2016, Trump adviser Roger Stone mounted a last-ditch effort only days before Election Day while Trump was down in the polls and threatening not to accept the results of the election. Stone had pledged to recruit 3,000 hand-selected volunteers in a list of cities, but few showed up.
By text, Stone said that his efforts in 2016 were not poll watching but exit polling to ensure the legitimacy of the count and were “entirely independent of the Trump campaign.” Litigation lodged by Democratic groups, portraying the effort as a veiled attempt to intimidate voters, hurt his ability to recruit in large numbers, he said.
“Unfortunately defending against extensive litigation and our legal victories sapped our resources so that the number of exit polls conducted fell far below what we had hoped to achieve,” he said. Federal courts ultimately ruled that the effort did not constitute voter suppression or intimidation.
Stone was convicted and sentenced to prison time in February for lying to Congress and witness tampering during the House investigation into Russian activity in the 2016 election. In July, the president commuted his sentence and he was released.
In 2008, the conservative group True the Vote, which promotes unfounded allegations of voter fraud, sent hundreds of volunteers to minority neighborhoods around Houston, where the organization is headquartered. In the 2010 midterms, it pledged to mobilize thousands of people to serve as poll watchers. Between 2010 and 2012, True the Vote chapters opened across the country and the organization began preparing a national recruitment effort.
But what happened?
“Long, sad trombone sound,” Levitt said. While a few people showed up, and some counties had a larger presence than others, the campaign largely fizzled. “It was nowhere near the all-caps nightmare that it was reportedly supposed to be.” True the Vote did not respond to a request for comment.
In 1982, after the New Jersey GOP sent off-duty law enforcement officers to watch voting, the state’s Republican Party and the Republican National Committee entered into a consent decree barring them from “ballot security” initiatives. North Carolina’s Republican Party was added to the consent decree in 1990. All three parties were released from the consent decree in 2018, raising concerns that the intimidating behavior would start anew. But so far it hasn’t.
Every state has different rules for poll watching, though some form of it is generally allowed. In general, parties or candidates register watchers with the county. Volunteers generally must pay their own way to the polling location, and they must be trained and present proof of that training at the polls, where their behavior is intensely restricted. They generally cannot be on their phone, speak to voters or engage in any way with the process, or they may be removed from the polling location.
The result, poll workers say, is rampant boredom. “It was just a really long day,” said Zachary Brown, who served as a vote challenger — the equivalent of a poll watcher in Michigan — in Pontiac in 2012 for the conservative group Protecting Michigan Taxpayers. Brown said he saw nothing out of the ordinary. The determination behind the campaign to fish out fraud when there was none was “disheartening,” he said, and it led him to turn away from the conservative movement. He hasn’t been a poll watcher since and considers himself an independent politically. “All I saw were people voting,” he said.
The Trump campaign’s poll-watcher efforts this year were more centralized than normal in Colorado, where state Election Day operations manager Joe Samudio took over the task from county party chairs of appointing poll watchers during early voting and on Election Day. Samudio seemed successful in recruiting volunteers but then was reassigned to Minnesota, leaving the program in limbo. Although Colorado sends mail-in ballots to all voters, it also has numerous locations for in-person voting. Poll watchers also can observe counting of ballots whether they’re mailed in or cast in person. Samudio did not respond to emailed requests for comment.
“He had all these people and then suddenly he was sent to Minnesota and I didn’t hear from anyone else for several days,” said Peg Perl, the election director for Arapahoe County in Colorado. She said she did not recall seeing or hearing of any Republican poll watchers during the first week of early voting, while some Democratic poll watchers did show up.
Colorado GOP spokesman Joe Jackson said that the party is currently dispatching watchers in all major counties.
The Trump campaign’s frustration over poll watching has boiled over in Nevada. In an early October poll watcher training in Las Vegas, Jesse Law, the Trump campaign’s Election Day operations manager, complained to online and in-person trainees that Democratic poll watchers can “get away with anything” but Republicans are heavily watched.
Democrats were there not to ensure the integrity of the vote, as his volunteers would be, but to watch Republicans, Law said in a video obtained by ProPublica. “The problem with the Democrats being at these locations … is they are sent here to destroy your life,” he said, saying that they would “make up that we are suppressing the vote.”
“They are there to know everything that’s on your phone, everything you’re writing down, everything about you,” he said, looking around the room. Law did not respond to an email asking for comment.
Law emphasized that trainees should not break the law and give Democrats ammunition to use against Trump (whom he called “the boss”) in court. “If you are over here going ‘that person isn’t legal’ and that person is completely legal, that’s a black eye for us. Don’t do that,” he said. “If you are seeing a problem, document it, talk to an attorney about it, and let’s get to the bottom of it — no spectacles please!”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-02--The Grand Master Of GOP Election Law Defends Texas Drive-Thru Voting In Court

Ben Ginsberg — the longtime GOP elections law guru who in recent weeks has grown increasingly vocal about his fears about President Trump ’ s anti-democracy rhetoric — took his come-to-Jesus moment to the next level on Sunday .
He , along with the former Republican Texas House speaker , filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging a federal judge not to toss the 126,000-plus Texas ballots that are are currently being challenged by Republicans .
The court filing came on the heels of a Washington Post op-ed Ginsberg published Sunday — at least the fourth op-ed from Ginsberg of the cycle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compliant Republican Party ” that has been “ enlisted ” in a “ shameful ” effort by President Trump to disenfranchise voters .
“ My party is destroying itself on the Altar of Trump .
Republican elected officials , party leaders and voters must recognize how harmful this is to the party ’ s long-term prospects , ” Ginsberg ’ s op-ed said .
In the court filing Ginsberg and Joseph Straus III , who served as the Texas House speaker from 2009-2019 , told the judge that granting what the Republicans are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of thousands of people the right to vote ” while violating federal law .
“ It is hard to imagine a scenario more damaging to the public ’ s confidence in a fair election than a last-minute order from a federal judge throwing out the votes of over 100,000 voters for no reason other than that those voters relied on a state election official ’ s reasonable interpretation of a state election statute , ” their filing said .
The court case is a federal lawsuit Republican activists and candidates filed last week @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the largest county in Texas .
The lawsuit seeks to throw out the 126,912 drive-thru ballots that have been already cast .
Those ballots amount to 10 percent of the total early votes cast in the Democratic-leaning county .
Ginsberg and Strauss ’ friend-of-the-court filing argued that how Harris County is operating the drive-thru option is a reasonable interpretation of the election rules set by the Texas legislature .
Indeed , the Texas Supreme Court , which is dominated by Republicans , has passed on several opportunities to stop drive-thru voting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ court by both the Harris County Republican Party and the group of GOPers that brought the federal lawsuit .
Other prominent Texas politicians have also spoken out against the efforts to disenfranchise the 125,000-plus Harris County residents who have used drive-thru voting so far or who will seek to use it on Election Day .
The challengers in the case are leaning in on a controversial and extreme interpretation of the Constitution that they suggest to mean that federal courts must intervene whenever they believe a state court or local election official is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a legislature .
Some of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court — though , notably , not yet a majority — have signaled their support for such a legal approach .
The efforts to reject ballots on the basis of this legal claim have only gotten bolder since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court last week , though she herself has not weighed in on it publicly .
Ginsberg ’ s brief invoked his time working on George W. Bush ’ s legal team , alongside Barrett , during the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ favor of counting military ballots that arrived after election .
( Rejecting postmarked mail-in ballots that are received by election officials after Election Day has been another goal of multiple recent GOP lawsuits ) .
“ Not so long ago , it was a core tenet of the Republican Party that the vote of every qualified voter should be counted , even if , at times , it did not work in the Party ’ s favor , ” Ginsberg and Strauss ’ brief said .
“ While the Republican plaintiffs might seek @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action , amici respectfully ask this Court to reaffirm it .
”

Ben Ginsberg — the longtime GOP elections law guru who in recent weeks has grown increasingly vocal about his fears about President Trump’s anti-democracy rhetoric — took his come-to-Jesus moment to the next level on Sunday.
He, along with the former Republican Texas House speaker, filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging a federal judge not to toss the 126,000-plus Texas ballots that are are currently being challenged by Republicans.
The court filing came on the heels of a Washington Post op-ed Ginsberg published Sunday — at least the fourth op-ed from Ginsberg of the cycle so far — that decried a “compliant Republican Party” that has been “enlisted” in a “shameful” effort by President Trump to disenfranchise voters.
“My party is destroying itself on the Altar of Trump. Republican elected officials, party leaders and voters must recognize how harmful this is to the party’s long-term prospects,” Ginsberg’s op-ed said.
In the court filing Ginsberg and Joseph Straus III, who served as the Texas House speaker from 2009-2019, told the judge that granting what the Republicans are seeking would “would undoubtedly deny tens of thousands of people the right to vote” while violating federal law.
“It is hard to imagine a scenario more damaging to the public’s confidence in a fair election than a last-minute order from a federal judge throwing out the votes of over 100,000 voters for no reason other than that those voters relied on a state election official’s reasonable interpretation of a state election statute,” their filing said.
The court case is a federal lawsuit Republican activists and candidates filed last week to stop drive-thru voting in Harris County, the largest county in Texas. The lawsuit seeks to throw out the 126,912 drive-thru ballots that have been already cast. Those ballots amount to 10 percent of the total early votes cast in the Democratic-leaning county.
Ginsberg and Strauss’ friend-of-the-court filing argued that how Harris County is operating the drive-thru option is a reasonable interpretation of the election rules set by the Texas legislature.
Indeed, the Texas Supreme Court, which is dominated by Republicans, has passed on several opportunities to stop drive-thru voting, which has been challenged unsuccessfully in state court by both the Harris County Republican Party and the group of GOPers that brought the federal lawsuit.
Other prominent Texas politicians have also spoken out against the efforts to disenfranchise the 125,000-plus Harris County residents who have used drive-thru voting so far or who will seek to use it on Election Day.
The challengers in the case are leaning in on a controversial and extreme interpretation of the Constitution that they suggest to mean that federal courts must intervene whenever they believe a state court or local election official is deviating from the election rules laid out by a legislature. Some of the members of the U.S. Supreme Court — though, notably, not yet a majority — have signaled their support for such a legal approach. The efforts to reject ballots on the basis of this legal claim have only gotten bolder since Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court last week, though she herself has not weighed in on it publicly.
Ginsberg’s brief invoked his time working on George W. Bush’s legal team, alongside Barrett, during the 2000 contest, where he argued in favor of counting military ballots that arrived after election. (Rejecting postmarked mail-in ballots that are received by election officials after Election Day has been another goal of multiple recent GOP lawsuits).
“Not so long ago, it was a core tenet of the Republican Party that the vote of every qualified voter should be counted, even if, at times, it did not work in the Party’s favor,” Ginsberg and Strauss’ brief said. “While the Republican plaintiffs might seek to disavow that principle by bringing this action, amici respectfully ask this Court to reaffirm it.”
Read it below:


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-02--Trump Complains About FBI Probe Into His Supporters Mobbing Biden Camp Bus

President Donald Trump griped on Sunday night about the FBI opening an investigation into an incident last week in which a throng of his supporters ambushed one of Democratic candidate Joe Biden ’ s campaign buses on a highway in Texas .
After the FBI announced earlier on Sunday that its San Antonio branch “ is aware of the incident and investigating , ” Trump leapt to his supporters ’ defense .
“ In my opinion , these patriots did nothing wrong , ” Trump tweeted .
“ Instead , the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people !
” The President echoed the same complaint on Monday morning and baselessly claimed the allegations of harassment were made up somehow .
“ This story is FALSE .
They did nothing wrong , ” he tweeted .
“ But the ANTIFA Anarchists , Rioters and Looters , who have caused so much harm and destruction in Democrat run cities , are being seriously looked at !
” The President had applauded the debacle on Saturday prior to the FBI @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was forced to cancel multiple events on Friday in response to a crowd of trucks bearing pro-Trump flags swarming around a campaign bus ( Biden himself was not present during the incident ) .
The skirmish led to a mild collision between an SUV and a truck , according to the Guardian .
Trump has routinely downplayed violence and intimidation tactics from his supporters and/or right-wing extremists , deflecting instead to “ antifa ” ( short for the anti-fascist movement ) and claiming extremism from the left poses the “ real ” threat @

President Donald Trump griped on Sunday night about the FBI opening an investigation into an incident last week in which a throng of his supporters ambushed one of Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign buses on a highway in Texas.
After the FBI announced earlier on Sunday that its San Antonio branch “is aware of the incident and investigating,” Trump leapt to his supporters’ defense.
“In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” Trump tweeted. “Instead, the FBI & Justice should be investigating the terrorists, anarchists, and agitators of ANTIFA, who run around burning down our Democrat run cities and hurting our people!”
The President echoed the same complaint on Monday morning and baselessly claimed the allegations of harassment were made up somehow.
“This story is FALSE. They did nothing wrong,” he tweeted. “But the ANTIFA Anarchists, Rioters and Looters, who have caused so much harm and destruction in Democrat run cities, are being seriously looked at!”
The President had applauded the debacle on Saturday prior to the FBI’s announcement.
The Biden campaign was forced to cancel multiple events on Friday in response to a crowd of trucks bearing pro-Trump flags swarming around a campaign bus (Biden himself was not present during the incident). The skirmish led to a mild collision between an SUV and a truck, according to the Guardian.
Trump has routinely downplayed violence and intimidation tactics from his supporters and/or right-wing extremists, deflecting instead to “antifa” (short for the anti-fascist movement) and claiming extremism from the left poses the “real” threat.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-02--Biden Camp Gearing Up For Post-Election Legal Battle With Trump Over Race Results

Democratic candidate Joe Biden ’ s campaign is gathering donation funds in preparation for a court battle with President Donald Trump over the outcome of Tuesday ’ s election .
Politico reported on Monday that campaign staffers recently told donors on the Biden ’ s Lawyers Committee in a call that Biden needed funds specifically aimed at fighting the legal challenge that Trump has vowed to bring on immediately after Election Day .
One of the lawyers who participated in the call , Joe Cotchett , emphasized in an interview with Politico that potential post-election suits “ are going to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is pro bono legal work , ” he said .
“ But there are the filing fees , the service fees .
You need money for all of that.
” There was another call last week in which lawyers helping the former vice president ’ s campaign told donors that the expected court battle would need “ a fundraising apparatus like never before , ” according to Politico .
Biden campaign press secretary TJ Ducklo said that “ we can leave no doubt on Tuesday that Joe Biden will be the 46th President @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans continue to show up in overwhelming numbers to make their voices heard.
” “ We have also assembled the largest voter protection team in presidential campaign history to ensure every vote is counted , ” he said in a statement .
“ We are prepared for all scenarios , and part of being prepared means having the resources necessary to continue the fight.
” On Sunday , Trump baldly admitted that he and his legal team would contest the election results as soon as Tuesday night .
“ We ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as soon as that election is over , we ’ re going in with our lawyers , ” he said .

Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s campaign is gathering donation funds in preparation for a court battle with President Donald Trump over the outcome of Tuesday’s election.
Politico reported on Monday that campaign staffers recently told donors on the Biden’s Lawyers Committee in a call that Biden needed funds specifically aimed at fighting the legal challenge that Trump has vowed to bring on immediately after Election Day.
One of the lawyers who participated in the call, Joe Cotchett, emphasized in an interview with Politico that potential post-election suits “are going to cost money.”
“Some of it is pro bono legal work,” he said. “But there are the filing fees, the service fees. You need money for all of that.”
There was another call last week in which lawyers helping the former vice president’s campaign told donors that the expected court battle would need “a fundraising apparatus like never before,” according to Politico.
Biden campaign press secretary TJ Ducklo said that “we can leave no doubt on Tuesday that Joe Biden will be the 46th President of the United States” if “Americans continue to show up in overwhelming numbers to make their voices heard.”
“We have also assembled the largest voter protection team in presidential campaign history to ensure every vote is counted,” he said in a statement. “We are prepared for all scenarios, and part of being prepared means having the resources necessary to continue the fight.”
On Sunday, Trump baldly admitted that he and his legal team would contest the election results as soon as Tuesday night.
“We’re going to go in the night of, as soon as that election is over, we’re going in with our lawyers,” he said.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-02--Trump Hints At Firing Fauci After Election Day

President Donald Trump suggested early Monday morning that Dr. Anthony Fauci , a prominent member of the White House ’ s COVID-19 task force , will be on the chopping block after Election Day on Tuesday .
During Trump ’ s campaign rally in Opa-Locka , Florida , his supporters began chanting “ Fire Fauci !
” after the President complained for the umpteenth time about the media covering the pandemic .
Trump allowed the chants to continue for over 10 seconds before they petered out .
“ Don ’ t tell anybody , but let me wait til a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he said .
“ I appreciate the advice.
” The comment was met with loud cheers from the crowd .
Over the past several weeks , Trump has been ramping up his attacks against Fauci as the doctor pushes back against the President ’ s falsely optimistic portrayal of the coronavirus .
Fauci also drew Trump ’ s ire after the former criticized how the President ’ s campaign had used soundbites from the health official out of context and without his permission .
A resentful Trump called Fauci a “ disaster ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ two weeks ago , and he has also publicly attacked the doctor via Twitter .
And on Sunday , White House spokesperson Judd Deere torched Fauci for stating that Democratic candidate Joe Biden was “ taking [ COVID-19 ] seriously from a public health perspective ” while Trump was “ looking at it from a different perspective.
” “ It ’ s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci , a senior member of the President ’ s Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump ’ s actions throughout @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before an election to play politics , ” Deere said in a fiery statement .
“ As a member of the Task Force , Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy , but he ’ s not done that , instead choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the president ’ s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp , ” the White House official added .

President Donald Trump suggested early Monday morning that Dr. Anthony Fauci, a prominent member of the White House’s COVID-19 task force, will be on the chopping block after Election Day on Tuesday.
During Trump’s campaign rally in Opa-Locka, Florida, his supporters began chanting “Fire Fauci!” after the President complained for the umpteenth time about the media covering the pandemic.
Trump allowed the chants to continue for over 10 seconds before they petered out.
“Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait til a little bit after the election,” he said. “I appreciate the advice.”
The comment was met with loud cheers from the crowd.
Over the past several weeks, Trump has been ramping up his attacks against Fauci as the doctor pushes back against the President’s falsely optimistic portrayal of the coronavirus. Fauci also drew Trump’s ire after the former criticized how the President’s campaign had used soundbites from the health official out of context and without his permission.
A resentful Trump called Fauci a “disaster” during a call with his campaign aides two weeks ago, and he has also publicly attacked the doctor via Twitter.
And on Sunday, White House spokesperson Judd Deere torched Fauci for stating that Democratic candidate Joe Biden was “taking [COVID-19] seriously from a public health perspective” while Trump was “looking at it from a different perspective.”
“It’s unacceptable and breaking with all norms for Dr. Fauci, a senior member of the President’s Coronavirus Taskforce and someone who has praised President Trump’s actions throughout this pandemic, to choose three days before an election to play politics,” Deere said in a fiery statement.
“As a member of the Task Force, Dr. Fauci has a duty to express concerns or push for a change in strategy, but he’s not done that, instead choosing to criticize the president in the media and make his political leanings known by praising the president’s opponent — exactly what the American people have come to expect from The Swamp,” the White House official added.
Watch Trump below:


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-03--Biden Has Plans To Address The Nation Immediately If He Is Declared Winner

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has plans to address the nation as its new president-elect if news networks declare him winner , even if President Donald Trump continues to battle the results in court , Axios reported on Tuesday .
Advisers told Axios that if Biden was declared the winner he will quickly begin forming his government and appearing presidential regardless of Trump ’ s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election ’ s results .
Trump is likely to make a lot of noise about the results if it appears he is losing , but Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nonsense .
Biden would likely begin with senior staff appointments so that officials in each agency are quickly able to begin work , Axios reported .
Biden also has detailed plans for executive orders , including efforts to reverse Trump actions advisers told Axios .
One Biden ally told the publication that Biden hopes to strike “ a healing tone , ” and spring into battle against the coronavirus by embracing science in a sharp departure from President Trump who threatened to fire leading infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after Election Day on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s plans to immediately step up if he is declared victor comes as President Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would be armed with lawyers as soon as the election concluded .
“ We ’ re going in the night of — as soon as the election is over — we ’ re going in with our lawyers , ” Trump said .
Biden campaign manager Jen O ’ Malley Dillon said during a public briefing on Monday that “ under no scenario will Donald Trump be declared a victor on election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the day , we believe we ’ re going to win this race , ” she said .
“ We believe we ’ re going to be able to do that with our pathways to victory regardless of what Donald Trump says.
” Per Axios , O ’ Malley Dillon told reporters on Monday that on election night the campaign would “ use our data , our understanding of where this is headed , and make sure that the vice president is addressing the American people.
” Biden would likely be delivering those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ he is expected to be spending election night .
After cancelling an appearance at an election night party at his Washington hotel , President Trump has plans to watch results roll in from the White House .
President Trump has waged a months-long battle to play up an election marred by fraud .
During a campaign rally on Monday night he railed anew saying “ bad things will happen ” after last week ’ s Supreme Court decisions that allow battleground North Carolina and Pennsylvania to accept absentee ballots for several days after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s home state of Pennsylvania could be decisive in determining who will be president .
“ Tomorrow ’ s the beginning of a new day , ” Biden told supporters at a drive-in rally in the state on Monday night .
“ The power to change this country is in your hands .
”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has plans to address the nation as its new president-elect if news networks declare him winner, even if President Donald Trump continues to battle the results in court, Axios reported on Tuesday.
Advisers told Axios that if Biden was declared the winner he will quickly begin forming his government and appearing presidential regardless of Trump’s efforts to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election’s results.
Trump is likely to make a lot of noise about the results if it appears he is losing, but Biden plans to sidestep the President’s nonsense.
Biden would likely begin with senior staff appointments so that officials in each agency are quickly able to begin work, Axios reported.
Biden also has detailed plans for executive orders, including efforts to reverse Trump actions advisers told Axios.
One Biden ally told the publication that Biden hopes to strike “a healing tone,” and spring into battle against the coronavirus by embracing science in a sharp departure from President Trump who threatened to fire leading infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci after Election Day on Sunday.
The news of Biden’s plans to immediately step up if he is declared victor comes as President Trump told reporters on Sunday that he would be armed with lawyers as soon as the election concluded.
“We’re going in the night of — as soon as the election is over — we’re going in with our lawyers,” Trump said.
Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said during a briefing on Monday that “under no scenario will Donald Trump be declared a victor on election night.”
“At the end of the day, we believe we’re going to win this race,” she said. “We believe we’re going to be able to do that with our pathways to victory regardless of what Donald Trump says.”
Per Axios, O’Malley Dillon told reporters on Monday that on election night the campaign would “use our data, our understanding of where this is headed, and make sure that the vice president is addressing the American people.”
Biden would likely be delivering those remarks from Wilmington, Delaware, where he is expected to be spending election night. After cancelling an appearance at an election night party at his Washington hotel, President Trump has plans to watch results roll in from the White House.
President Trump has waged a months-long battle to play up an election marred by fraud. During a campaign rally on Monday night he railed anew saying “bad things will happen” after last week’s Supreme Court decisions that allow battleground North Carolina and Pennsylvania to accept absentee ballots for several days after Election Day. Experts have predicted Biden’s home state of Pennsylvania could be decisive in determining who will be president.
“Tomorrow’s the beginning of a new day,” Biden told supporters at a drive-in rally in the state on Monday night. “The power to change this country is in your hands.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-03--In Closing Message, Trump Tees Up Challenge To PA Election Results

President Trump spent the eve of Election Day hinting that he and his lawyers are ready to aggressively challenge the election if he loses to Democratic rival Joe Biden , or if the results on Tuesday night are inconclusive , as they may well be .
The President took aim in particular at the Supreme Court ’ s decision last week allowing absentee ballots in Pennsylvania to be counted after Election Day so long as they are postmarked before , which he baselessly argued will lead to voter fraud .
Although the Court dealt a setback to Republicans in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an Election Day-deadline for absentee ballots to be received , the order only indicated that the court won ’ t review the case before the election , and left open the possibility of later action by the court .
It ’ s “ a horrible thing , ” the President said of the decision during an Election Eve campaign rally in Fayetteville , North Carolina .
He then , without evidence , claimed that the SCOTUS decision on Pennsylvania heightens the risk of voter fraud .
“ You know that puts our country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can happen during that long period of time , Pennsylvania ?
Do you know what can happen ?
” Trump told Fayetteville rally-goers .
“ Number one : cheating can happen like you ’ ve never seen .
This is their dream .
They are known for it .
The Philadelphia area is known for it.
” Trump then warned the crowd in North Carolina that “ what can happen during that long period of time is a disgrace , ” before urging them to get their ballots in before Nov. 3 so @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
( States often take days to count ballots , and allow mail-in ballots that reach officials in the days after Election Day to be tallied so long as they were postmarked by Nov 3 . )
The refrain has become a theme for Trump and his allies in the closing days of the campaign .
On Sunday , Trump adviser Jason Miller suggested on ABC This Week that Trump would be the winner on election night , but that Democrats would try to “ steal ” the election in the days after @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declare himself winner on election night , and Trump informed reporters that his lawyers were ready to go in “ as soon as the election is over.
” Upon arriving in Wisconsin on Monday ahead of his rally in Kenosha , Trump continued to gripe about the Supreme Court ruling in Pennsylvania , telling reporters that he hopes the Supreme Court “ has the wisdom ” to change its decision to allow ballot counts in Pennsylvania after Election Day .
The President warned reporters that “ bad things will happen ” if the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in place , referring again to his baseless claim that the order will lead to voter fraud .
Moments later , he amped up the fear-mongering with an incendiary tweet predicting violence as a dire consequence of the SCOTUS order in the battleground state .
That prediction landed him a Twitter warning label , which prevents users from retweeting his misleading message .
During his rally in Kenosha , the self-proclaimed president of “ law and order ” told attendees that there will be “ peace and order ” on the condition that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his gripes from earlier Monday .
“ The whole world is waiting to find out and there ’ s great danger in that .
Number one : there ’ s danger that there ’ s a lot of shenanigans that go on from that time forth .
There ’ s a lot of shenanigans , ” Trump told the Wisconsinites .
“ And then there ’ s a lot of bad things that can happen with the streets .
You ’ re going to have a population that ’ s going to be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t do that .
That is such a dangerous decision .
That is such a disappointment .
”

President Trump spent the eve of Election Day hinting that he and his lawyers are ready to aggressively challenge the election if he loses to Democratic rival Joe Biden, or if the results on Tuesday night are inconclusive, as they may well be.
The President took aim in particular at the Supreme Court’s decision last week allowing absentee ballots in Pennsylvania to be counted after Election Day so long as they are postmarked before, which he baselessly argued will lead to voter fraud.
Although the Court dealt a setback to Republicans in the state who requested that the justices reinstate an Election Day-deadline for absentee ballots to be received, the order only indicated that the court won’t review the case before the election, and left open the possibility of later action by the court.
It’s “a horrible thing,” the President said of the decision during an Election Eve campaign rally in Fayetteville, North Carolina. He then, without evidence, claimed that the SCOTUS decision on Pennsylvania heightens the risk of voter fraud.
“You know that puts our country in danger. Do you know what can happen during that long period of time, Pennsylvania? Do you know what can happen?” Trump told Fayetteville rally-goers. “Number one: cheating can happen like you’ve never seen. This is their dream. They are known for it. The Philadelphia area is known for it.”
Trump then warned the crowd in North Carolina that “what can happen during that long period of time is a disgrace,” before urging them to get their ballots in before Nov. 3 so that they can be counted before then. (States often take days to count ballots, and allow mail-in ballots that reach officials in the days after Election Day to be tallied so long as they were postmarked by Nov 3.)
The refrain has become a theme for Trump and his allies in the closing days of the campaign. On Sunday, Trump adviser Jason Miller suggested on ABC This Week that Trump would be the winner on election night, but that Democrats would try to “steal” the election in the days after. Axios reported that Trump planned to declare himself winner on election night, and Trump informed reporters that his lawyers were ready to go in “as soon as the election is over.”
Upon arriving in Wisconsin on Monday ahead of his rally in Kenosha, Trump continued to gripe about the Supreme Court ruling in Pennsylvania, telling reporters that he hopes the Supreme Court “has the wisdom” to change its decision to allow ballot counts in Pennsylvania after Election Day.
The President warned reporters that “bad things will happen” if the Supreme Court ruling on Pennsylvania ballots stays in place, referring again to his baseless claim that the order will lead to voter fraud. Moments later, he amped up the fear-mongering with an incendiary tweet predicting violence as a dire consequence of the SCOTUS order in the battleground state.
That prediction landed him a Twitter warning label, which prevents users from retweeting his misleading message.
The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 3, 2020
During his rally in Kenosha, the self-proclaimed president of “law and order” told attendees that there will be “peace and order” on the condition that he wins re-election. He then recycled his gripes from earlier Monday.
“The whole world is waiting to find out and there’s great danger in that. Number one: there’s danger that there’s a lot of shenanigans that go on from that time forth. There’s a lot of shenanigans,” Trump told the Wisconsinites. “And then there’s a lot of bad things that can happen with the streets. You’re going to have a population that’s going to be very angry and you just can’t do that. That is such a dangerous decision. That is such a disappointment.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-03--In Closing Pitch To Voters, Biden Proposes Human Decency

At the top of his remarks at a get-out-the-vote event in Pittsburgh Monday evening , former Vice President Joe Biden told a nearly 50-year-old story that he said characterized his campaign for the presidency .
At the start of his Senate tenure , Biden ’ s wife and daughter were killed in a car crash that also injured his sons Beau and Hunter .
Biden recalled how football players on the Pittsburgh Steelers — including Franco Harris , who introduced him at Monday ’ s event — visited the hospital and cheered up his sons with signed footballs .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do any press , didn ’ t let anybody know .
They spent 45 minutes with my boys , they got on a plane and went home , ” Biden said .
“ That ’ s who we are as a country !
That ’ s something the President doesn ’ t understand — looking out for each other.
” The messaging — a return to decency and normalcy , Biden ’ s inverse of the bellicose “ Make America Great Again ” — has marked the former vice president ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ any single policy item .
“ My message is simple : The power to change this country is in your hands , ” he told his audience in Pittsburgh .
And he ’ s likely right : Pennsylvania , a key part of the northern “ Blue Wall ” that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016 , is seen as a key to a potential Biden victory on Tuesday .
But while the state has trended blue in recent surveys , voters ’ stated preferences as told to pollsters aren ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Biden ’ s event Monday focused specifically on turning out Black Americans to polling places .
And in Pennsylvania , that electorate ’ s participation rate could determine the country ’ s next president .
Biden played the campaign trail hits in Pittsburgh : He ’ d pass a national $ 15 minimum wage , free tuition at public colleges and a $ 15,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers .
Under a Biden administration , he said , the super wealthy and corporations would “ pay their fair share.
” “ Why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump ?
” he asked , to a chorus of honks from the drive-in rally , referring to a New York Times report on Trump ’ s minimal federal income tax payment in 2017 .
But perhaps most of all , Biden highlighted COVID-19 and the disproportionately deadly impact it ’ s had on American communities of color , calling it a “ mass casualty ” event for Black Americans .
“ This president knew in January this virus was deadly , but he hid it from the American people , ” Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bob Woodward early on .
The Biden campaign hammered that message home all day , as it has for weeks : Shortly after Trump threatened to fire Anthony Fauci , the nation ’ s top infectious disease expert , on Monday morning , Biden offered a modest counteroffer — listening to the public health authority .
“ The first step to beating this virus is beating Donald Trump !
” Biden bellowed at another speech later on Monday .
Hours away in Miami on Monday night , Biden ’ s most prominent surrogate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the vote in Florida — in part by highlighting Trump ’ s attempt to sue Obamacare into oblivion before the Supreme Court , thereby eliminating legal protections the law created for Americans with preexisting conditions .
“ Don ’ t boo , vote !
” former President Barack Obama implored the crowd , repeatedly punctuating his speech with a line that echoed one he deployed for Hillary Clinton in 2016 .
Florida is a tougher prize for Biden than Pennsylvania , if polls are to be believed , but a win in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hopes a lot more quickly : Unlike Pennsylvania , Florida elections officials are allowed to process mailed-in ballots ahead of Election Day , increasing the likelihood that the state will be able to deliver results without a days-long counting process .
Obama , like Biden a few minutes before , dinged Trump on job creation : In recent days Trump has bragged of 33 % annualized GDP growth , a misleadingly massive number that the Washington Post noted “ isn ’ t relevant in a crisis as unusual as this one ” given @ @ @ @ @ @ @ past one , annualized GDP dropped at a 31.4 % annualized rate .
The former President got back to basics : “ Donald Trump likes to claim he built this economy , ” Obama exclaimed .
“ America created 1.5 million more jobs in the last three years of the Obama-Biden administration than in the first three years of his.
” Obama and Biden , speaking several states apart from one another , both noted that Trump would be the first president since the Great Depression to leave office with negative net job @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his former vice president , the priority was turnout : He referenced Trump ’ s reported idea of claiming victory before all of the election ’ s results are tallied and said it recalled “ two-bit dictators ” that residents of Miami ’ s Little Havana and Little Haiti neighborhoods had fled to escape .
But if the vote in Florida was lopsided enough , Obama said , Trump would have no choice but to accept the results .
“ The reason why I ’ m back here , South Florida , is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not voted yet , ” he said .
“ And it ’ s not because you think the guy in office is doing a good job .
”

At the top of his remarks at a get-out-the-vote event in Pittsburgh Monday evening, former Vice President Joe Biden told a nearly 50-year-old story that he said characterized his campaign for the presidency.
At the start of his Senate tenure, Biden’s wife and daughter were killed in a car crash that also injured his sons Beau and Hunter. Biden recalled how football players on the Pittsburgh Steelers — including Franco Harris, who introduced him at Monday’s event — visited the hospital and cheered up his sons with signed footballs.
“No publicity, they didn’t do any press, didn’t let anybody know. They spent 45 minutes with my boys, they got on a plane and went home,” Biden said. “That’s who we are as a country! That’s something the President doesn’t understand — looking out for each other.”
The messaging — a return to decency and normalcy, Biden’s inverse of the bellicose “Make America Great Again” — has marked the former vice president’s campaign for the White House as much as any single policy item.
“My message is simple: The power to change this country is in your hands,” he told his audience in Pittsburgh.
And he’s likely right: Pennsylvania, a key part of the northern “Blue Wall” that Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016, is seen as a key to a potential Biden victory on Tuesday. But while the state has trended blue in recent surveys, voters’ stated preferences as told to pollsters aren’t as important as their votes. Biden’s event Monday focused specifically on turning out Black Americans to polling places. And in Pennsylvania, that electorate’s participation rate could determine the country’s next president.
Biden played the campaign trail hits in Pittsburgh: He’d pass a national $15 minimum wage, free tuition at public colleges and a $15,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers. Under a Biden administration, he said, the super wealthy and corporations would “pay their fair share.”
“Why should you pay more taxes than Donald Trump?” he asked, to a chorus of honks from the drive-in rally, referring to a New York Times report on Trump’s minimal federal income tax payment in 2017.
But perhaps most of all, Biden highlighted COVID-19 and the disproportionately deadly impact it’s had on American communities of color, calling it a “mass casualty” event for Black Americans.
“This president knew in January this virus was deadly, but he hid it from the American people,” Biden said, referencing an interview Trump gave Bob Woodward early on.
The Biden campaign hammered that message home all day, as it has for weeks: Shortly after Trump threatened to fire Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, on Monday morning, Biden offered a modest counteroffer — listening to the public health authority.
We need a president who actually listens to experts like Dr. Fauci. — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) November 2, 2020
“The first step to beating this virus is beating Donald Trump!” Biden bellowed at another speech later on Monday.
Hours away in Miami on Monday night, Biden’s most prominent surrogate tried a last-minute attempt at turning out the vote in Florida — in part by highlighting Trump’s attempt to sue Obamacare into oblivion before the Supreme Court, thereby eliminating legal protections the law created for Americans with preexisting conditions.
“Don’t boo, vote!” former President Barack Obama implored the crowd, repeatedly punctuating his speech with a line that echoed one he deployed for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Florida is a tougher prize for Biden than Pennsylvania, if polls are to be believed, but a win in the delegate-rich state could end Trump’s hopes a lot more quickly: Unlike Pennsylvania, Florida elections officials are allowed to process mailed-in ballots ahead of Election Day, increasing the likelihood that the state will be able to deliver results without a days-long counting process.
Obama, like Biden a few minutes before, dinged Trump on job creation: In recent days Trump has bragged of 33% annualized GDP growth, a misleadingly massive number that the Washington Post noted “isn’t relevant in a crisis as unusual as this one” given the context — the quarter before this past one, annualized GDP dropped at a 31.4% annualized rate.
The former President got back to basics: “Donald Trump likes to claim he built this economy,” Obama exclaimed. “America created 1.5 million more jobs in the last three years of the Obama-Biden administration than in the first three years of his.”
Obama and Biden, speaking several states apart from one another, both noted that Trump would be the first president since the Great Depression to leave office with negative net job growth.
But for Obama, like his former vice president, the priority was turnout: He referenced Trump’s reported idea of claiming victory before all of the election’s results are tallied and said it recalled “two-bit dictators” that residents of Miami’s Little Havana and Little Haiti neighborhoods had fled to escape. But if the vote in Florida was lopsided enough, Obama said, Trump would have no choice but to accept the results.
“The reason why I’m back here, South Florida, is because I know some of you have not voted yet,” he said. “And it’s not because you think the guy in office is doing a good job.”


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-04--If Trump Tries To Sue His Way to Election Victory, Here’s What Happens

This piece was originally published in ProPublica , a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom .
Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox .
A hearing on Wednesday in an election case captured in miniature the challenge for the Trump campaign as it gears up for what could become an all-out legal assault on presidential election results in key swing states : It ’ s easy enough to file a lawsuit claiming improprieties — in this case , that Pennsylvania had violated the law by allowing voters whose mail-in ballots were defective to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to provide evidence of wrongdoing or a convincing legal argument .
“ I don ’ t understand how the integrity of the election was affected , ” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage , something he repeated several times during the hearing .
( However the judge rules , the case is unlikely to have a significant effect ; only 93 ballots are at issue , a county election official said . )
“ A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee @ @ @ @ @ @ @ professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles .
Levitt said judges by and large have ignored the noise of the race and the bluster of President Donald Trump ’ s Twitter feed .
“ They ’ ve actually demanded facts and haven ’ t been ruling on all-caps claims of fraud or suppression , ” Levitt said .
“ They haven ’ t confused public relations with the predicate for litigation , and I would expect that to continue.
” If Levitt is right , that may augur poorly for the legal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ way , the number of cases is starting to rapidly increase .
But lawsuits will do little good unless , as in the 2000 presidential election , the race winds up being so close that it comes down to a very thin margin of votes in one or more must-win states .
One of the few certainties is that we will not see the instant Bush v. Gore replay that Trump seems to have in mind .
A few hours after voting ended , in a 2 a.m. speech that drew bipartisan condemnation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he had won the election , Trump baselessly described the ongoing ballot count as “ a fraud on the American public.
” “ We ’ ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court , ” he told his supporters .
“ We want all voting to stop.
” Trump is famously litigious , but he ’ s not a lawyer , and he seemed not to understand that apart from a small class of cases ( largely territorial disputes between states ) , lawsuits don ’ t originate at the Supreme Court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ file suit in a state or federal court and eventually appeal an adverse decision to the high court .
Along the way , as the Pennsylvania court anecdote suggests , the Trump campaign would need to show evidence to back up his claim , and so far there ’ s no evidence of fraud in the ongoing ballot counts , which often run beyond election night .
Tallying legitimate votes is not , despite the president ’ s tweeted claims , a form of fraud .
Once there ’ s a clearer picture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in key states like Pennsylvania , one party or the other may file lawsuits in state court challenging the legality of certain ballots or asking for a recount , a process described in ProPublica ’ s guide to election laws and lawsuits .
Trump campaign officials told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that they believed they ’ re “ in recount territory ” in Wisconsin and Michigan , according to a report in The Washington Post .
In a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday , Trump ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign planned to request a recount in Wisconsin “ immediately.
” On Wednesday afternoon , the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan state court asking that elections officials be ordered to stop opening mail-in ballots and tabulating votes until campaign officials are granted “ meaningful access ” to observe the process .
The campaign ’ s statement about the suit did not explain in what way election officials had limited their access or why the campaign believes those limitations violate state law .
The campaign also demanded “ to review those ballots @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did not have meaningful access ” — a possible prelude to a hunt for technicalities that might allow the Trump team to challenge ballots cast for Democrats .
The campaign made a similar request Wednesday in Pennsylvania state court .
Similar lawsuits filed by Republicans in Nevada and elsewhere have met with little success .
In those lawsuits , the campaign has asked for essentially unfettered access to ballot canvassing locations .
A judge who dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada observed that Trump campaign officials “ seem to request unlimited access to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and observation of all information involved in the ballot counting process.
” That was more than state law required , he wrote , and granting the request would slow the ballot count and impede social-distancing protocols .
State election codes generally permit campaign officials to observe ballot canvassing , but not without reasonable limitations .
Trump campaign officials also said their legal team had or would challenge ballots in North Carolina and Georgia , traditional red states that remain too close to call .
It ’ s not likely the recount requests or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wake of close elections , will make a difference in the outcome .
“ Recounts rarely change the vote totals very much , ” said University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas , and the same is true of challenges to the validity of ballots .
That fact certainly won ’ t impede the filing of suits .
As of this moment , keeping in mind that the situation is developing by the hour , here are the other active lawsuits that could affect the election .
Most of them are left @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lawsuits filed before the election in 45 states , Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia , according to a database maintained by the Healthy Elections Project , a joint project of researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology .
The election could come down to Pennsylvania , a crucial swing state where the outcome may not be known until the end of this week , and five lawsuits challenging the state ’ s election administration are currently pending in state and federal court .
In September , the Supreme @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to accept mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days late , so long as they were either postmarked by Election Day or lacked a legible postmark .
As in other states , the goal was to prevent mail delays from disenfranchising the historic number of Americans who , on account of the coronavirus pandemic , planned to vote by mail .
Republicans appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court , which last week declined to rush a decision before the election .
Before the election , Trump derided the high court @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ terrible decision.
” “ We ’ re going to go in the night of — as soon as that election ’ s over — we ’ re going in with our lawyers , ” he told reporters gathered on a tarmac on Sunday ahead of a campaign rally in Hickory , North Carolina .
The president ’ s prediction was off by a day or so , but on Wednesday afternoon , his campaign asked to be allowed to intervene in the litigation ( which was filed by Pennsylvania ’ s Republican @ @ @ @ @ @ @ up to the justices , who are still mulling whether to hear the case at all .
Three justices — Samuel Alito , Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — indicated last week that the court might still take the case and void late ballots after the election , and Pennsylvania election officials have agreed to store late-arriving ballots separately , in case the high court orders them thrown out .
The case ’ s fate may hinge on the views of the newest justice , Amy Coney Barrett , who didn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
As noted , Republicans have sued Pennsylvania ( there are actually two cases , one each in state and federal court ) , targeting efforts by state election officials to alert voters who submitted defective mail-in ballots — like failing to include a “ secrecy envelope , ” a requirement voting-rights advocates have worried could invalidate an unusually high volume of ballots — so they could either fix their error or submit a provisional ballot .
Election officials have defended their practices as in line with state law .
In the federal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ expressed skepticism about the claim .
An initial conference will be held Wednesday afternoon in the other case , which targets this practice statewide .
Also Wednesday , the Trump campaign said it was filing a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania over a decision it said election officials had made to extend the deadline for first-time voters to provide proof of identification .
In Nevada , late on Tuesday , the state ’ s Supreme Court rebuffed a last-minute effort by Republicans to temporarily block certain aspects of mail-in ballot processing in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters that is home to Las Vegas .
That included the use of machines to speed the process of checking voter signatures against state records .
The court agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis , with a decision possible as early as next week .
But its ruling expressed doubts about the lawsuit ’ s core claims .
The plaintiffs “ have not demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of success , ” the state ’ s highest court wrote .
The lower court had found their “ allegations lacked evidentiary support @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this court is not supported by affidavit or record materials supporting many of the factual statements made therein.
” The order went on to observe that the plaintiffs had also failed to identify “ any mandatory statutory duty ” that election officials “ appear to have ignored , ” and that they had failed to counter certain key conclusions of the district court .
In Minnesota , former Vice President Joe Biden has a sizable lead , but should that lead narrow , a ruling last week from a federal appeals court could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state ’ s presidential vote .
The court , in a 2-1 ruling along ideological lines , ordered state election officials to separate late-arriving ballots and indicated that it was likely to invalidate them when it ruled on the legality of a post-Election Day buffer period agreed to by state officials in light of the large number of mail-in ballots expected amid the coronavirus pandemic .
Texas , comfortably in Trump ’ s column , is the inverse of Minnesota .
But a late effort by Republicans to throw out ballots cast via @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Houston and a large chunk of the state ’ s Democratic electorate — remains live .
A district court judge ruled against the plaintiffs , and on Monday a federal appeals court declined to block drive-thru voting on Election Day .
The Republicans , however , have not ruled out seeking review by the full appeals court or taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court .
( The Texas Supreme Court , in a separate case , declined to block drive-thru voting . )
Nevertheless , Harris County officials closed nine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to minimize the risk that large numbers of votes would get tossed if the plaintiffs ultimately prevailed .
Finally , North Carolina is not viewed as likely to decide the presidential election , but a tight Senate race there has major implications for control of the chamber come January .
Last week , the Supreme Court declined to temporarily block a buffer period for late-arriving ballots , but the case is still working its way through the lower federal courts and could return to the high court .
The three justices who expressed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ raised similar questions about the legality of North Carolina ’ s .

This piece was originally published in ProPublica, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox.
A hearing on Wednesday in an election case captured in miniature the challenge for the Trump campaign as it gears up for what could become an all-out legal assault on presidential election results in key swing states: It’s easy enough to file a lawsuit claiming improprieties — in this case, that Pennsylvania had violated the law by allowing voters whose mail-in ballots were defective to correct them — but a lot harder to provide evidence of wrongdoing or a convincing legal argument. “I don’t understand how the integrity of the election was affected,” said U.S. District Judge Timothy Savage, something he repeated several times during the hearing. (However the judge rules, the case is unlikely to have a significant effect; only 93 ballots are at issue, a county election official said.)
“A lawsuit without provable facts showing a statutory or constitutional violation is just a tweet with a filing fee,” said Justin Levitt, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.
Levitt said judges by and large have ignored the noise of the race and the bluster of President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed. “They’ve actually demanded facts and haven’t been ruling on all-caps claims of fraud or suppression,” Levitt said. “They haven’t confused public relations with the predicate for litigation, and I would expect that to continue.”
If Levitt is right, that may augur poorly for the legal challenges to the presidential election. Either way, the number of cases is starting to rapidly increase. But lawsuits will do little good unless, as in the 2000 presidential election, the race winds up being so close that it comes down to a very thin margin of votes in one or more must-win states.
One of the few certainties is that we will not see the instant Bush v. Gore replay that Trump seems to have in mind. A few hours after voting ended, in a 2 a.m. speech that drew bipartisan condemnation for the president’s premature declaration that he had won the election, Trump baselessly described the ongoing ballot count as “a fraud on the American public.” “We’ll be going to the U.S. Supreme Court,” he told his supporters. “We want all voting to stop.” Trump is famously litigious, but he’s not a lawyer, and he seemed not to understand that apart from a small class of cases (largely territorial disputes between states), lawsuits don’t originate at the Supreme Court. The Trump campaign would have to file suit in a state or federal court and eventually appeal an adverse decision to the high court. Along the way, as the Pennsylvania court anecdote suggests, the Trump campaign would need to show evidence to back up his claim, and so far there’s no evidence of fraud in the ongoing ballot counts, which often run beyond election night. Tallying legitimate votes is not, despite the president’s tweeted claims, a form of fraud.
Once there’s a clearer picture of the outcome of the presidential election in key states like Pennsylvania, one party or the other may file lawsuits in state court challenging the legality of certain ballots or asking for a recount, a process described in ProPublica’s guide to election laws and lawsuits. Trump campaign officials told supporters on a conference call Wednesday that they believed they’re “in recount territory” in Wisconsin and Michigan, according to a report in The Washington Post. In a statement to The New York Times on Wednesday, Trump’s campaign manager, Bill Stepien, said the campaign planned to request a recount in Wisconsin “immediately.”
On Wednesday afternoon, the Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Michigan state court asking that elections officials be ordered to stop opening mail-in ballots and tabulating votes until campaign officials are granted “meaningful access” to observe the process. The campaign’s statement about the suit did not explain in what way election officials had limited their access or why the campaign believes those limitations violate state law. The campaign also demanded “to review those ballots which were opened and counted while we did not have meaningful access” — a possible prelude to a hunt for technicalities that might allow the Trump team to challenge ballots cast for Democrats. The campaign made a similar request Wednesday in Pennsylvania state court.
Similar lawsuits filed by Republicans in Nevada and elsewhere have met with little success. In those lawsuits, the campaign has asked for essentially unfettered access to ballot canvassing locations. A judge who dismissed a similar lawsuit in Nevada observed that Trump campaign officials “seem to request unlimited access to all areas of the ballot counting area and observation of all information involved in the ballot counting process.” That was more than state law required, he wrote, and granting the request would slow the ballot count and impede social-distancing protocols. State election codes generally permit campaign officials to observe ballot canvassing, but not without reasonable limitations.
Trump campaign officials also said their legal team had or would challenge ballots in North Carolina and Georgia, traditional red states that remain too close to call.
It’s not likely the recount requests or ballot challenges, which are common in the wake of close elections, will make a difference in the outcome. “Recounts rarely change the vote totals very much,” said University of Kentucky law professor Joshua Douglas, and the same is true of challenges to the validity of ballots. That fact certainly won’t impede the filing of suits.
As of this moment, keeping in mind that the situation is developing by the hour, here are the other active lawsuits that could affect the election. Most of them are left over from among the more than 300 lawsuits filed before the election in 45 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, according to a database maintained by the Healthy Elections Project, a joint project of researchers at Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The election could come down to Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state where the outcome may not be known until the end of this week, and five lawsuits challenging the state’s election administration are currently pending in state and federal court.
In September, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ordered state election officials to accept mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days late, so long as they were either postmarked by Election Day or lacked a legible postmark. As in other states, the goal was to prevent mail delays from disenfranchising the historic number of Americans who, on account of the coronavirus pandemic, planned to vote by mail. Republicans appealed the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which last week declined to rush a decision before the election.
Before the election, Trump derided the high court’s refusal to intervene as a “terrible decision.” “We’re going to go in the night of — as soon as that election’s over — we’re going in with our lawyers,” he told reporters gathered on a tarmac on Sunday ahead of a campaign rally in Hickory, North Carolina.
The president’s prediction was off by a day or so, but on Wednesday afternoon, his campaign asked to be allowed to intervene in the litigation (which was filed by Pennsylvania’s Republican party). The next move is up to the justices, who are still mulling whether to hear the case at all. Three justices — Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas — indicated last week that the court might still take the case and void late ballots after the election, and Pennsylvania election officials have agreed to store late-arriving ballots separately, in case the high court orders them thrown out. The case’s fate may hinge on the views of the newest justice, Amy Coney Barrett, who didn’t participate in last week’s decision.
As noted, Republicans have sued Pennsylvania (there are actually two cases, one each in state and federal court), targeting efforts by state election officials to alert voters who submitted defective mail-in ballots — like failing to include a “secrecy envelope,” a requirement voting-rights advocates have worried could invalidate an unusually high volume of ballots — so they could either fix their error or submit a provisional ballot. Election officials have defended their practices as in line with state law. In the federal case, as noted, the judge expressed skepticism about the claim. An initial conference will be held Wednesday afternoon in the other case, which targets this practice statewide. Also Wednesday, the Trump campaign said it was filing a lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania over a decision it said election officials had made to extend the deadline for first-time voters to provide proof of identification.
In Nevada, late on Tuesday, the state’s Supreme Court rebuffed a last-minute effort by Republicans to temporarily block certain aspects of mail-in ballot processing in Clark County, a bastion of Democratic voters that is home to Las Vegas. That included the use of machines to speed the process of checking voter signatures against state records.
The court agreed to hear the case on an expedited basis, with a decision possible as early as next week. But its ruling expressed doubts about the lawsuit’s core claims. The plaintiffs “have not demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of success,” the state’s highest court wrote. The lower court had found their “allegations lacked evidentiary support, and their request for relief to this court is not supported by affidavit or record materials supporting many of the factual statements made therein.” The order went on to observe that the plaintiffs had also failed to identify “any mandatory statutory duty” that election officials “appear to have ignored,” and that they had failed to counter certain key conclusions of the district court.
In Minnesota, former Vice President Joe Biden has a sizable lead, but should that lead narrow, a ruling last week from a federal appeals court could have implications for the outcome in that state’s presidential vote. The court, in a 2-1 ruling along ideological lines, ordered state election officials to separate late-arriving ballots and indicated that it was likely to invalidate them when it ruled on the legality of a post-Election Day buffer period agreed to by state officials in light of the large number of mail-in ballots expected amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Texas, comfortably in Trump’s column, is the inverse of Minnesota. But a late effort by Republicans to throw out ballots cast via drive-thru voting in Harris County — home to Houston and a large chunk of the state’s Democratic electorate — remains live. A district court judge ruled against the plaintiffs, and on Monday a federal appeals court declined to block drive-thru voting on Election Day. The Republicans, however, have not ruled out seeking review by the full appeals court or taking their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. (The Texas Supreme Court, in a separate case, declined to block drive-thru voting.) Nevertheless, Harris County officials closed nine of 10 drive-thru polling locations on Tuesday to minimize the risk that large numbers of votes would get tossed if the plaintiffs ultimately prevailed.
Finally, North Carolina is not viewed as likely to decide the presidential election, but a tight Senate race there has major implications for control of the chamber come January. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to temporarily block a buffer period for late-arriving ballots, but the case is still working its way through the lower federal courts and could return to the high court. The three justices who expressed skepticism about Pennsylvania’s buffer period raised similar questions about the legality of North Carolina’s.


talkingpointsmemo--2020-11-04--Trump Surrogates Rage Against Fading Pennsylvania Hopes

In a parking lot by a warehouse next to the Philadelphia airport , the Trump campaign made its last stand for Pennsylvania on Wednesday .
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani , Eric Trump , former 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski , and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi all gathered to declare the state for Trump and rage against those in the media and political worlds who have been conspiring against them .
“ We are going to file suit in Pennsylvania , ” fumed Eric Trump , referring to a Supreme Court bid that the Trump campaign filed to try @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after Nov. 4 .
“ This is rampant corruption , and it can ’ t happen , ” he yelled at a staccato pace , before adding that his dad would win the state .
Giuliani , playing with his glasses as he spoke , argued that Pennsylvania has “ a reputation for dead people voting.
” “ We ’ re going to go look at just how many dead people voted here , ” he said , before making a vague threat about filing a “ national legal challenge.
” But as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a steeper and steeper climb for President Trump .
Joe Biden has narrowed the margin between the two to 300,000 votes , according to an AP tally , with an estimated 86 percent of the vote counted .
The outstanding votes are from areas that tend to favor the Democratic party , fueling the hopes of Biden advisers who see a victory in the state .
Of course , a Biden victory in a combination of other as-yet-uncalled states — Michigan among them — would render Pennsylvania unnecessary .
Giuliani continued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the army of dead voters , of having voted 5,000 times in the Keystone State .
And so halfway through Giuliani ’ s remarks at the hastily convened event , Fox News interrupted with an update : it was calling Michigan for Biden .
“ We are continuing to monitor Rudy Giuliani , ” said Neil Cavuto .
“ You might have noticed that something happened for Joe Biden .
Our decision desk has taken a look at Michigan and concluded Joe Biden has won Michigan and gets the 16 electoral votes.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which has already placed Arizona in Biden ’ s column , that leaves the former vice president with only six electoral votes outstanding to win , raising the question of why Giuliani and company found themselves in a parking lot outside of Philadelphia to begin with .

In a parking lot by a warehouse next to the Philadelphia airport, the Trump campaign made its last stand for Pennsylvania on Wednesday.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani, Eric Trump, former 2016 campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi all gathered to declare the state for Trump and rage against those in the media and political worlds who have been conspiring against them.
“We are going to file suit in Pennsylvania,” fumed Eric Trump, referring to a Supreme Court bid that the Trump campaign filed to try to invalidate ballots arriving in the state after Nov. 4. “This is rampant corruption, and it can’t happen,” he yelled at a staccato pace, before adding that his dad would win the state.
Giuliani, playing with his glasses as he spoke, argued that Pennsylvania has “a reputation for dead people voting.”
“We’re going to go look at just how many dead people voted here,” he said, before making a vague threat about filing a “national legal challenge.”
But as Wednesday wears on, securing Pennsylvania looks to be a steeper and steeper climb for President Trump. Joe Biden has narrowed the margin between the two to 300,000 votes, according to an AP tally, with an estimated 86 percent of the vote counted. The outstanding votes are from areas that tend to favor the Democratic party, fueling the hopes of Biden advisers who see a victory in the state.
Of course, a Biden victory in a combination of other as-yet-uncalled states — Michigan among them — would render Pennsylvania unnecessary.
Giuliani continued, accusing Biden, not a member of the army of dead voters, of having voted 5,000 times in the Keystone State. And so halfway through Giuliani’s remarks at the hastily convened event, Fox News interrupted with an update: it was calling Michigan for Biden.
“We are continuing to monitor Rudy Giuliani,” said Neil Cavuto. “You might have noticed that something happened for Joe Biden. Our decision desk has taken a look at Michigan and concluded Joe Biden has won Michigan and gets the 16 electoral votes.”
Per Fox News’s count, which has already placed Arizona in Biden’s column, that leaves the former vice president with only six electoral votes outstanding to win, raising the question of why Giuliani and company found themselves in a parking lot outside of Philadelphia to begin with.