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Russia Poses Greater Election Threat Than Iran, Many U.S. Officials Say

Russia's hackers appeared to be preparing to sow chaos amid any uncertainty around election results, officials said.

By Julian E. Barnes, Nicole Perlroth and David E. Sanger
Oct. 23, 2020
NY Times

WASHINGTON - While senior Trump administration officials said this week that Iran has been actively interfering in the presidential election, many intelligence officials said they remained far more concerned about Russia, which in recent days has hacked into state and local computer networks in breaches that could allow Moscow broader access to American voting infrastructure.

The discovery of the hacks came as American intelligence agencies, infiltrating Russian networks themselves, have pieced together details of what they believe are Russia's plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election on Nov. 3. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help President Trump, potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race is too close to call.

F.B.I. and Homeland Security officials also announced on Thursday that Russia's state hackers had targeted dozens of state and local governments and aviation networks starting in September. They stole data from the computer servers of at least two unidentified targets and continued to crawl through some of the affected networks, the agencies said. Other officials said that the targets included some voting-related systems, and that they may have been collateral damage in the attacks.

So far, there is no evidence that the Russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information, officials said. They added that the Russian-backed hackers had penetrated the computer networks without taking further action, as they did in 2016.

But American officials expect that if the presidential race is not called on election night, Russian groups could use their knowledge of the local computer systems to deface websites, release nonpublic information or take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results, according to officials briefed on the intelligence. Such steps could fuel Mr. Trump's unsubstantiated claims that the vote is "rigged" and that he can be defeated only if his opponents cheat.

Some U.S. intelligence officials view Russia's intentions as more significant than the announcement on Wednesday night by the director of national intelligence, John Ratcliffe, that Iran has been involved in the spread of faked, threatening emails, which were made to appear as if they came from the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group.

The Treasury Department on Thursday announced sanctions against Iraj Masjedi, a former general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and the country's ambassador to Iraq. The department said General Masjedi had overseen training of pro-Iranian militia groups in Iraq and directed groups responsible for killing American forces there.

Officials briefed on the intelligence said that Mr. Ratcliffe had accurately summarized the preliminary conclusion about Iran. But Tehran's hackers may have accomplished that mission simply by assembling public information and then routing the threatening emails through Estonia, Saudi Arabia and other countries to hide their tracks. One official compared the Iranian action to playing single A baseball, while the Russians are major leaguers.

Nonetheless, the Iranian and the Russian activity could pave the way for so-called perception hacks, which are intended to leave the impression that foreign powers have greater access to the voting system than they really do. Federal officials have warned for months that small breaches could be exaggerated to prompt inaccurate charges of widespread voter fraud.

Officials say Russia's ability to change vote tallies nationwide would be difficult, given how disparate American elections are. The graver concern is the potential effect of any attack on a few key precincts in battleground states.

Russian hackers recently obtained access "in a couple limited cases, to election jurisdiction, an election-related network," Christopher C. Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said on Thursday. But he was careful to note that the breaches had "nothing to do with the casting and counting" of votes.

The hackers, believed to be operating at the behest of Russia's Federal Security Service, the F.S.B. - the successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B. - infiltrated dozens of state and local computer networks in recent weeks, according to officials and researchers. But Mr. Krebs said the attacks appeared to be "opportunistic" in nature, a scattershot break-in of vulnerable systems rather than an attempt to zero in on key battleground states.

But officials were alarmed by the combination of the targets, the timing - the attacks began less than two months ago - and the adversary, which is known for burrowing inside the supply chain of critical infrastructure that Russia may want to take down in the future.

The officials fear that Russia could change, delete or freeze voter registration or pollbook data, making it harder for voters to cast ballots, invalidating mail-in ballots or creating enough uncertainty to undermine results.

"It's reasonable to assume any attempt at the election systems could be for the same purpose," said John Hultquist, the director of threat analysis at FireEye, a security firm that has been tracking the Russian group's foray into state and local systems. "This could be the reconnaissance for disruptive activity."

Mr. Krebs said so far Russia was not as active as Iran, and its targeting was imprecise. "They're broadly looking to scan for vulnerabilities, and they're working opportunistically," he said.

Current and former officials said there was little doubt that Russia remained a greater threat and questioned why the focus was on Iran on Wednesday night, though they acknowledged that Tehran's interference was real and troubling.

Administration officials said the news conference reflected the urgency of the intelligence about Iran. But some saw politics at play: Mr. Ratcliffe's focus on Iran would potentially benefit Mr. Trump politically.

"It is concerning to me that the administration is willing to talk about what the Iranians are doing - supposedly to hurt Trump - than what the Russians are likely doing to help him," said Jeh C. Johnson, a former secretary of homeland security in the Obama administration. "If the Russians have in fact breached voter registration data, then the American people deserve to know from their government what it believes the Russians are doing with that data."

A senior official briefed on the intelligence said American spy agencies had been tracking the Iranian group responsible for the spoofed emails for some time. As a result, the government was able to quickly debunk the falsified Proud Boys emails and identify Iran as the culprit.

Iran's hackers appear to have scanned or penetrated some state and local networks, government officials said on Thursday. But security experts said the Proud Boys email campaign that the government attributed to Iran did not appear to be based on hacked materials and instead relied on publicly available information that Florida officials regularly distribute.

"This was an email sent from a nonexistent domain using publicly available information," said Kevin O'Brien, the chief executive of GreatHorn, a cybersecurity firm. "There was no hack here. Your name, your party affiliation, your address and email address are all, generally speaking, public information."

Mr. O'Brien said the information presented publicly had not persuaded him that Iran was culpable.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi also voiced skepticism of Mr. Ratcliffe's announcement. "Russia is the villain here," she said before a briefing from intelligence officials. "From what we have seen in the public domain, Iran is a bad actor, but in no way equivalent."

So far, the F.S.B.'s hackers have not focused on swing states, where a hack that affects digital disenfranchisement could have maximum effect; they have taken a scattershot approach instead, hitting systems in multiple states, including some battlegrounds. Experts said they might be just testing to see where they could get in, like a thief trying every doorknob in the neighborhood.

"My concern is not that they are pinpointing individual races but are gaining access where they can for some disruption down the road," Mr. Hultquist said.

The threat is similar to the one that officials have highlighted from ransomware attacks, which hold data hostage until victims pay to have access restored. Likewise, officials and researchers believe the Russian attacks would not necessarily change vote tallies but could make voter data inaccessible, or delete or change voters' registration data, to disenfranchise voters or cause the kind of confusion and delays that would undermine American confidence in the election.

In recent years, Homeland Security officials have made a concerted effort to secure voter registration systems and to ensure that election officials have paper copies of voter information in case of disruptions.

But they have further to go. In Gainesville, Ga., this week, a ransomware attack held city systems hostage, including an online map with polling locations and the database used to verify voters' signatures on mail-in ballots.

Officials and experts believe the greatest defense against a coordinated cyberattack on the election is not so much how secure these voting system are but how disparate.

"You can't just "˜hit the election'," said Eric Chien, a cybersecurity director at Symantec, now part of Broadcom, which was among the first to detail the Stuxnet attacks by the United States and Israel on Iran's nuclear program a decade ago. "The soft targets are really the state and local election committees, local websites that provide information about polling places and hold voter registration data."

Alan Rappeport and Zolan Kanno-Youngs contributed reporting.

US 2020 election could have the highest rate of voter turnout since 1908

Data from the US Elections Project predicts a record 150m ballots, representing 65% of eligible voters, for this election

Joan E Greve , Maanvi Singh and agencies
Guardian
Sat 24 Oct 2020 01.51 BST

More than 50 million Americans have cast ballots in the US presidential election with 11 days to go in the campaign, a pace that could lead to the highest voter turnout in over a century, according to data from the US Elections Project on Friday.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Republican Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, as well as Americans' desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the United States.

Many states have expanded in-person early voting and mail-in ballots ahead of election day on 3 November, as a safer way to vote during the coronavirus pandemic.

The high level of early voting has led Michael McDonald, the University of Florida professor who administers the US Elections Project, to predict a record turnout of about 150 million, representing 65% of eligible voters, the highest rate since 1908.

In Texas, the level of voting has already surpassed 70% of the total turnout in 2016. In Georgia, some have waited in line for more than 10 hours to cast their ballots. And Wisconsin has seen a record number of early votes, with 1.1 million people having returned their ballots as of this week. Voters in Virginia, Ohio and Georgia have also seen long lines at early voting sites.

The pandemic has upended campaign traditions and its effects are still being felt. Americans may find themselves waiting days or weeks to know who won as election officials count tens of millions of mail-in votes. Democrats are encouraging supporters to vote early - either in person or by mail - amid fears that the United States Postal Service (USPS) may not have the capacity to deliver mail-in ballots to election officials on time.

Ongoing Republican efforts to restrict which votes are counted and how have also worried voting rights advocates. This week, the supreme court allowed Alabama officials to ban curbside voting. The Iowa supreme court also upheld a Republican-backed law that could prevent election officials from sending thousands of mail-in ballots, by making it more difficult for auditors to correct voter applications with omitted information.

Michael Herron, a government professor at Dartmouth and Daniel A Smith, a political scientist at University of Florida, calculated that thousands of ballots in the swing states of Florida and North Carolina have been flagged for potential rejection due to signature defects. "Racial minorities and Democrats are disproportionately more likely to have cast mail ballots this election that face rejection," they wrote in the media outlet the Conversation.

Trump and Biden met on Thursday night for a final debate ahead of election day, with Snap polls taken afterwards showing a majority of viewers believed Biden had the better showing.

Lagging in national polls, the president has been keeping a busy schedule of rallies, although with many voters having cast their ballots already, it's unclear what effect the push will have.

On Friday, the president held events in the battleground state of Florida, where opinion polls show a tight race and over 4 million votes have already been cast, approaching half the total four years ago.

When Trump asked the crowd how many had voted, "nearly every hand" went up, reported NBC's Shannon Pettypiece, who was at the event.

Next week Trump will head to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and, somewhat surprisingly, Nebraska. He won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by less than 1 point in 2016, and recent polls show Biden pulling several points ahead in the battleground states.

Biden, meanwhile, delivered a speech in his home state of Delaware on his plans for leading a recovery from the pandemic. Biden's speech comes as the US has hit its highest single-day coronavirus case count since late July, reporting 71,671 new cases yesterday.

"This president still doesn't have a plan," Biden said. "He's given up. He's quit on you. He's quit on America."

Echoing his comments during Thursday night's debate, Biden said he would not shut down the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"I'm not going to shut down the country. I'm not going to shut down the economy. I'm going to shut down the virus," Biden said in Wilmington.

*************

California "˜shattering prior election returns' with 6m ballots already cast

With voters homebound and receiving ballots in the mail due to the pandemic, elections officials are seeing a surge in early returns

Sat 24 Oct 2020 11.00 BST
Guardian

An election worker collects mail-in ballots and guides voters at the entrance of the Registrar of Voters building in San Diego, California.

On 22 October, almost three weeks before one of the most consequential presidential election days in recent American history, more than 6 million Californians had already voted.

The number was several times that of people who had cast their ballot at the same point in 2016. The pandemic, the massive wildfires and the ongoing fight against police brutality have galvanized voters in America's most populous state to cast their vote early.

"We knew the Covid-19 pandemic would pose significant challenges, but elections officials have prepared and voters have responded," Alex Padilla, the secretary of state, said in a recent statement.

California has sent mail-in ballots to 22 million registered voters, and the flood of votes that have been returned so far make up about 25%. It's still unclear whether voter turnout in the state overall will be higher this year than in previous years. But the early turnout is "shattering prior election returns", said Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc, a bipartisan voter data firm based in California.

"We've been tracking this kind of stuff for over a decade, and there's just nothing that compares to how quickly voters have been returning their ballots this election cycle," he said.

That more people are now homebound due to the pandemic, and all voters have been mailed ballots this year is probably part of the reason so many are voting early, Mitchell said. Fears that their votes won't be counted, and ballots getting stuck in the mail as the postal service is under duress are accelerating returns, he added.

And then there's the incumbent. For the liberal and progressive voters who constitute the majority in this deep-blue Democratic state, Donald Trump's attacks on science, the environment, the immigration system and healthcare have been motivating, particularly in a year marked by historic wildfires and a global pandemic. Just last week, the president drew ire for tweeting, "California is going to hell. Vote Trump!" and vacillating on whether to approve major disaster relief for several regions wrecked by the wildfires. Since Trump took office, California has filed dozens of lawsuits against the administration in legal battles over its policies.

"There's six months of Californians being in their houses, coupled with essential workers risking their lives on the frontlines. There's the cruelty and apathy from the highest levels of government and the lack of trust that people have in this administration to protect people and protect democracy," said Aimee Allison, the founder and president of She the People, a non-profit that aims to elevate the political power of women of color. "We here in California have been waiting for this moment," she said.

The inclusion on the ticket of Kamala Harris, a Californian and the first Black and Asian American woman to be nominated for national office by a major political party, was helping, too, Allison added. But personally, she said she had been motivated by frustration this election cycle. "I woke up very angry. I'm pissed. And I know I'm not the only Black woman who must feel this way."

In Oakland, Jackie Hammonds, 73, admitted, "I would put Winnie-the-Pooh in office over Trump. You know - he's the United Nations' ambassador of friendship." Though Hammonds said Biden and Harris weren't her top choice in the Democratic primaries, "They'll do," she said.

Whether Californians vote early or late, the outcome of the presidential race here is almost guaranteed for Biden. Republicans make up 24% of registered voters in the state. But down the ballot, Democrats are hoping this rush of enthusiasm will trickle down to boost the party's congressional candidates in the state's rare swing districts.

In the Los Angeles region, Republican Mike Garcia and Democrat Christy Smith are having a rematch after Garcia narrowly won the congressional seat vacated by Democrat Katie Hill, who resigned amid allegations of an inappropriate affair with a staffer. In Orange county, Republican Young Kim is challenging incumbent Democrat Gil Ciseneros for a seat the latter narrowly won two years ago.

As the party makes a final pitch to voters in the region, Democrats also hope that a full-force showing of liberal voters will send a bigger message: "As California goes, so goes the country. For a lot of people, around the county, we can be that shiny, blue beacon of hope," said Drexel Heard, director of the Los Angeles County Democratic party.

Meanwhile, many Republicans running in local races are seeking to distance themselves from the president, said Bill Whalen, a Republican political consultant in California and a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institute. "Since Ronald Reagan, Republicans have been looking for a national figure that relates to Californians," he said. "And that figure has not emerged."

More than the national or congressional elections, how the state votes on a host of progressive ballot proposals, including ones seeking to reinstate affirmative action and allowing people on parole to vote, will be a true indication of whether the California electorate is shifting further to the left - or whether voters are simply repelled by Trumpism, Whalen said.

Trump's far-right ideology doesn't tend to appeal to fiscally conservative, business-minded conservatives in the Golden State. He agrees with Heard that, "California is where you'll see previews of national coming attractions." Post election, Republicans will have to "adapt to changing sensibilities".

So far, Democrats have been returning ballots at slightly higher rates than Republicans, per data that Mitchell has been tracking. He suspects that older Republicans - who have traditionally voted early and by mail in past elections - may wait to vote in person, as Trump told his supporters to do. It's impossible to predict how turnout overall and electoral trends will shift based on early voting data, he noted.

On an unseasonably hot afternoon in Oakland, 26-year-old Tobi Akomolede sought a sliver of shade while waiting at an early voting station. "I didn't want to miss my chance to vote," he said, adding that he wanted to cast his ballot in person to ease worries about postal service delays.

"Why is it important to vote? Because everything," he said.

************

Wisconsin sees record number of early voters as Covid cases climb in state

After pressing forward with in-person voting back in April despite the pandemic, election officials expect a smoother process now

Mario Koran
Guardian
24 Oct 2020 19.07 BST

Wisconsin, a state notoriously divided by politics, bucked national trends in April when it pressed forward with in-person midterm elections during the pandemic, despite objections of the Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Faced with a sudden exodus of volunteer poll workers, Milwaukee consolidated 180 polling locations in five, resulting in hours-long wait times.

Having had six months to prepare for fall elections - stocking up on PPE, creating plans for cleaning, and finding enough volunteers to work the polls - experts and election officials expect a smoother process on 3 November. But the wave of coronavirus outbreaks that first walloped the nation's coastal areas has now crashed on the midwest. Wisconsin cities made up seven out of 10 areas with the highest share of Covid cases relative to their populations, according to a New York Times analysis.

This week, when early voting stations opened for residents to submit absentee ballots in person, officials put their preparations to the test. According to the Wisconsin election commission, 1.1 million people had returned their ballots by mail or in person as of Thursday - a record number of early votes for the state. (Wisconsin calls in-person early voting ballots absentee.)

By 6.30am Tuesday, when an early voting location opened at Bay View library in Milwaukee, the parking had filled with cars and a line snaked around the corner of the building. It moved swiftly, and spirits seemed high, with cheers and fist-pumps from voters who left the library happy to have submitted their ballots in person.

"I didn't want to wait in line on election day," said Stephen Gribble, 46. "Without getting too political, I wanted to make sure I did my part to get a certain someone out of office. And I wanted to come in person to make sure it was done right."

The desire to have ballots properly counted, coupled with concerns over postal service delays, was echoed by a number of voters, including Craig Nickels, who delivered his ballot in person later that day. "There has been reporting by credible news outlets that even with concerns over Covid, I just felt more comfortable handing in my ballot at an official location," Nickels said.

   I just felt more comfortable handing in my ballot at an official location
   Craig Nickels

In Wausau, a city of 38,000 in north central Wisconsin, officials of the region's hospital system have implored residents to wear masks and avoid crowds in light of the region's alarming case numbers - the nation's sixth highest per capita. In response, Leslie Kremer, city clerk, said Wausau had installed sneeze guards at polling stations, assigned workers to clean and disinfect stations between voters, and will appoint monitors to make sure voters are following physical distance guidelines.

Still, she said some poll workers have expressed concern over voters who come in without masks - something for which voters can't be turned away. "We'd like to see everyone wearing masks, but the law tells us we can't enforce that," Kremer said.

In Shawano, a city of 9,000 north-west of Green Bay that was forced to close city buildings amid surging case numbers, the city will turn to curbside voting, allowing people to cast ballots from their vehicles. In between, workers will sanitize pens and clipboards.

"So far everybody has loved it," said the city clerk, Lesley Nemetz. "They don't have to get out of their cars, which is good because it's kind of chilly out."

Due in part to voter mobilization campaigns, Wisconsin has seen an explosion of absentee ballots, exceeding that of years past and accounting for more than a third of the total votes counted in Wisconsin in 2016. The mail-in boom, part of a national trend this year, means that some Wisconsin communities have already exceeded half the total turnout they saw in 2016.

But less than two weeks before election day, a crucial deadline remains in flux. This month, a federal appeals court handed Republicans a victory when it blocked an extension to the deadline for receiving absentee ballots, which could lead to fewer ballots being counted in a state that went to Trump by a razor-thin margin of 23,000 votes in 2016. Democratic groups have appealed the decision to the supreme court and a decision is pending.

Now city clerks must prepare for last-minute changes to when ballots must be received in order to count. "It definitely doesn't make running an election any easier, but as long as you're paying attention, and have a plan in your back pocket for what to do if things change, you'll be OK," Nemetz said.

But some experts say it won't hinder most voters. "This year it looks likely that the majority of votes in Wisconsin could be submitted before election day - that's a huge change and it's significant," said Barry Burden, political science professor at University of Wisconsin - Madison and director of the Elections Research Center.

Burden attributes the trends to a response to the pandemic, with voters wanting to avoid exposure to Covid-19 while waiting in line to vote, but also to an unprecedented enthusiasm for early voting. And while voters in larger metropolitan areas and more affluent suburbs have so far submitted absentee ballots both in-person and through mail at higher rates, clerks in smaller and mid-sized cities say they have noticed similar trends.

In the city of Antigo, population 7,800, Kaye Matucheski, city clerk, said she had been surprised by the number of absentee ballots they had received. "This is my seventh presidential election, and we have had more absentees by double than I've ever had," she said.

In Antigo and the surrounding Langlade county, where the seven-day average of Covid cases is one of the state's highest, Matucheski suspects the pandemic accounts for some of the increase in absentee ballots. The rest, she chalks up to political interest.

"It's the pandemic, but it's also politics and the state of the world that has more people interested in voting. We've had people that lived here for years and years and have never voted, and this election is drawing them out," Matucheski said.

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Texas' massive early voting numbers have persisted, leading to predictions of overall turnout unseen in years

on October 24, 2020
By Texas Tribune

The unusually large voter turnout in Texas has persisted through the first 10 days of the early voting period, leading experts to predict that the state could reach overall turnout levels unseen so far this century.

According to the latest data from the Texas secretary of state, 6.4 million Texans - 37.6% of registered voters - had already cast their ballots through Thursday. Nearly 90% of those have been cast in person. With a full week left, that's surpassing the total percentage turnout for early voting in 2012, though still a couple of percentage points short of 2016's early voting turnout. Early voting in 2012 and 2016 had about one less week.

As of Friday morning, more than half of Texas' counties have already seen a third or more of their registered voters participate. Out of Texas' largest counties, suburban counties like Collin, Denton, and Williamson are reporting some of the highest turnout rates, surpassing 45%.

At Gov. Greg Abbott's order, Texas voters have an extra six days of early voting in hopes that the polls will be less crowded during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The added time, coupled with a push from leaders in both parties for Texans to cast their ballots early, could be a reason for a boost in turnout so far, experts say.

"It's a very different election this year because of COVID, concerns with vote-by-mail and other potential shenanigans," said Michael Li, senior counsel at New York University's Brennan Center for Justice. "I think a lot of people are being encouraged to vote early, so it remains to be seen whether we're just moving some votes from Election Day to the early voting period or whether it's a huge overall turnout increase."

Texans' voting habits have been evolving over time. Since the 2008 election, more Texans have voted early than on Election Day.

In 2016, 59.2% of registered Texans cast a ballot. Since 1992, when 72.9% of Texans voted, the state hasn't seen turnout above 60%. In 1992, there were only 8.4 million registered voters, and today there are 16.9 million.

Decision Desk HQ, a company that processes election and early voting results and the provider of The Texas Tribune's election results data, estimated turnout this year will be anywhere from 10 million to 12 million - the latter of which would be "record breaking" for Texas, according to a spokesperson for the group.

Li, meanwhile, predicted between 11.4 and 11.5 million Texans would cast their ballots by the end of Election Day - about 67% of registered voters. And Derek Ryan, a Republican voter data expert, predicted this week that the number will surpass 12 million.

The turnout appears to be strong among supporters of both political parties. In his popular daily recap of early vote totals Thursday, Ryan reported that voters who in the past have voted in Republican primaries but not Democratic primaries make up 31.3% of the early vote, compared with 26.1% for Democratic primary voters. But because 39% of early voters have no primary voting history, it's impossible to tell which party is leading in early vote turnout. Texans don't have the option to align with a particular party when they register to vote.

Still, Democrats have been hailing the numbers as an optimistic sign for their party.

"Texans are casting their ballots and having their voice heard," said Manny Garcia, the executive director for the Texas Democratic Party. "If every eligible Texan votes, we will win this election."

But in counties that supported President Donald Trump by more than 20 percentage points in 2016, at least 37% of people already cast their ballots. In counties that went for Democrat Hillary Clinton by similar margins, meanwhile, at least 36% of people already voted as of Friday afternoon.

"This is pretty unprecedented," Li said. "The real winner, of course, is Texas democracy. Texas has always been a nonvoting state. So regardless of who the winners of these races are, the real winner is Texas itself."

Early voting runs through Oct. 30. Election Day is Nov. 3.

Disclosure: The Texas secretary of state has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism.

"˜Another victory for voters' as Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules mail-in ballot signatures don't need to match registration rolls

on October 24, 2020
By Common Dreams

In a blow to President Donald Trump's reelection campaign and the Republican National Committee in a crucial swing state, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled unanimously on Friday that counties cannot reject mail-in ballots because voters' signatures do not resemble the way they signed when registering to vote.

The court's two Republican justices joined their five Democratic colleagues in the ruling (pdf), which came in response to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar's request for clarification of the state's vote-by-mail rules.

    🚨BREAKING: Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules that election officials are PROHIBITED from rejecting mail-in ballots based on signature comparison. Nor may a party "challenge based on signature analysis and comparisons."https://t.co/pBa0vyA9h3

    - Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) October 23, 2020

NEW! Help us launch the Raw Story Podcast. Click to learn more.

"We hold that county boards of elections are prohibited from rejecting absentee or mail-in ballots based on signature comparison conducted by county election officials or employees, or as the result of third-party challenges based on signature analysis and comparisons," the decision stated. "We conclude that the Election Code does not authorize or require county election boards to reject absentee or mail-in ballots during the canvassing process based on an analysis of a voter's signature."

Boockvar's office issued guidance (pdf) last month prohibiting election officials from discarding ballots due to signature inconsistency alone.

"If the voter's declaration on the return envelope is signed and the county board is satisfied that the declaration is sufficient, the mail-in or absentee ballot should be approved for canvassing unless challenged in accordance with the Pennsylvania Election Code," the guidance stated. "The Pennsylvania Election Code does not authorize the county board of elections to set aside returned absentee or mail-in ballots based solely on signature analysis by the county board of elections."

    Huge victory for free and fair elections in Pennsylvania! And on my birthday no less! #vote #justice #readytovote2020 #TrustedInfo2020 @PAStateDept https://t.co/q9j51urkq0

    - Kathy Boockvar (@KathyBoockvar) October 23, 2020

Trump and Republicans had argued that matching signatures on mail-in ballots to those on voter registration rolls is necessary to prevent fraud.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, hailed the ruling as "another win for voters."

"Voters who use a mail-in ballot have their identity verified in the initial application, often using a driver's license number," Shapiro said in a statement. "Pennsylvania's voter identification system is safe and secure. We are protecting every eligible vote and ensuring each is counted. Make your plan to vote and we will keep doing our work to make sure your voice is heard."

    Trump and his cronies are just trying to cause chaos. ⬇️ ⬇️ Don't listen to their noise. Cast your ballots, and they will be:
    ➡️ secure
    ➡️ protected
    ➡️ countedhttps://t.co/ybWxlNekOd

    - Josh Shapiro (@JoshShapiroPA) October 23, 2020


Friday's decision was the second triumph this week for Democrats and voting rights advocates in the Keystone State, which Trump won by 44,292 votes, or 0.73%, in 2016. According to the latest RealClearPolitics average of 11 national polls, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden enjoys just over a 5% lead over Trump.

On Monday, a deadlocked U.S. Supreme Court let stand a Pennsylvania court ruling permitting the battleground state's election officials to count mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after November 3.

Biden gains as suburban women and elderly voters look to dump Trump

Nine days out from election day, polling shows the Democratic nominee with big leads in key demographics

David Smith in Washington
Guardian
Sun 25 Oct 2020 06.00 GMT

Joe Biden's hopes of reaching the White House could rest on two crucial demographic groups that appear to be deserting Donald Trump: elderly people and suburban women.

They would join a broad coalition that includes strong support among African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community and young people. With the gender gap potentially bigger than ever, the president appears more reliant than ever on white men.

Little more than a week before election day, Biden enjoys a double-digit lead in almost every national poll and is ahead in the crucial battleground states. More than 52 million people have already voted, according to the US Elections Project.

In the past four presidential elections, Republicans have led among the elderly by around 10 points. But about four in five Americans killed by the coronavirus were older than 65 and a majority of Americans say Trump has mishandled the pandemic.

The president trails among elderly voters by more than 20 points, according to recent CNN and Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls. This swing could prove critical in states such as Arizona and Florida, which have a high number of retirees.

    Suburban women, will you please like me? Remember? Hey, please, I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?
    Donald Trump

"In terms of voting blocs, there are two that are absolutely dooming Donald Trump," said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.

"He won the senior vote by seven points in 2016; that was very important in Florida and a few other states. He's now losing that bloc and the polls differ about how much, but the fact that he no longer has an advantage among seniors is really crippling for him.

"And then he has so alienated suburban women that it's put a whole number of states in play, including states you wouldn't expect, like Georgia. This kind of macho presidency has gotten the ringing rejection by women, particularly educated women who are so tired of the 1950s."

The suburban revolt against Trump's bigotry, hardline agenda and chaotic leadership was manifest in the 2018 midterm elections when Democrats gained 41 seats in the House of Representatives, the biggest such shift since the post-Watergate 1974 elections, and won the popular vote by 8.6%.

Trump's campaign to win back this constituency, variously known as "soccer moms", "security moms" and "hockey moms", has been anything but subtle. He has tried to tap racist fears of suburbs overrun by crime, violence and low-income housing. In one tweet, he promised to protect "the Suburban Housewives of America". At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, he pleaded: "Suburban women, will you please like me? Remember? Hey, please, I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?"

Polls suggest the plea is falling on deaf ears. Biden leads by 23 points among suburban women in swing states, according to the New York Times and Siena College, and by 19 points among suburban women overall, according to Pew Research. Pew also found that Hispanic women prefer Biden by 44 points and Black women go for the Democrat by a staggering 85 points.

Andrea Moore, 45, a stay-at-home mom in suburban Wayne county, Michigan, voted for Trump in 2016 because she was tired of career politicians.

"He was an unknown quantity, but now we know," she told the Associated Press, explaining that she will not vote for the president again because of "a million little things" including his divisiveness, fearmongering and failed Covid-19 response.

The trends were underlined this week by a national survey of 2,538 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) that showed Trump haemorrhaging support among the elderly and suburban women as well as another, less expected group: white Catholics.

Only 38% of people aged 65 or older approve of Trump's handling of the pandemic while 61% say they disapprove, the PRRI found. Among white college-educated women, seven in 10 disapprove of Trump's handling of the pandemic, seven in 10 disapprove of his response to racial justice protests and a similar share believe he has encouraged white supremacists.

There are also signs of erosion among religious conservatives, a bulwark of Trump's base. PRRI found that while three in four (76%) white evangelical Protestants still approve of the job Trump is doing, only 52% of white mainline Protestants and 49% of white Catholics agree. Biden would be only the second Catholic president.

Robert P Jones, chief executive and founder of PRRI, said: "White Catholics are a group that particularly in those swing rust belt states - Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio - are really on the president's must-win list. They're also important in a place like Arizona. They are as big or bigger than white evangelicals in those states, so in terms of religious groups they are quite an important constituency.

    We're very proud of the president's efforts to turn out Latino voters
    Jason Miller

"White Catholics in 2016 were basically evenly divided between Trump and Hillary Clinton at this stage in the race. We have them at 54% Biden, 41% Trump, so that's a sea change. This group is going to play an outsized role in Trump's path to the electoral college and he's not doing well with them at all."

Clinton was beaten in the electoral college after suffering heavy losses among non-college-educated white voters - a majority of the population in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin - and failing to turn out African Americans at levels Barack Obama achieved. Current polling suggests Biden will do better on both accounts.

Whereas Clinton lost whites without a college degree by more than 20 points, Biden is trailing by just 12 in UCLA Nationscape's polling, according to an analysis by the FiveThirtyEight website. This appears to vindicate strategists' view that Biden, a 77-year-old white male from humble origins in Scranton, Pennsylvania, would resonate more with this demographic than the New York-based wife of a former president.

But, FiveThirtyEight added, Trump is performing slightly better than four years ago among college-educated white voters, and has made modest gains among voters of colour. The president's support among Black voters aged 18 to 44 rose from around 10% in 2016 to 21% in UCLA Nationscape polling. He is also at 35% among Hispanic voters under age 45, up from the 22% in 2016 - and potentially significant in Florida.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told reporters on Friday: "We're very proud of the president's efforts to turn out Latino voters "¦ There's a lot of enthusiasm for the president, not just for everything that he's done so far but also because people are really scared about Joe Biden's appeasing the regimes from Cuba and Venezuela."

Older voters of colour remain overwhelmingly Democratic, however. Biden is also dominant among all people under 35 even in Republican strongholds, with leads in Texas (59% to 40%), Georgia (60% to 39%) and South Carolina (56% to 43%), according to Axios and SurveyMonkey.

Georgia's legacy of voter suppression is driving historic Black turnout

Changing demographics in the Atlanta suburbs and an explosion of civic engagement among first-time voters could turn the state blue for the first time in decades.

By MAYA KING
Politico
10/26/2020 04:30 AM EDT

ATLANTA - Almost every Black Georgia voter queuing up at the polls has a story about 2018.

Most waited for hours in lines that wrapped around their voting locations. Some were removed from the voter rolls arbitrarily, forcing them to fill out confusing provisional ballots on Election Day. Others stayed home altogether and - after watching Democrat Stacey Abrams lose the gubernatorial race by fewer than 60,000 votes - regretted that decision.

Now, voter enthusiasm among all races is at an all-time high in one of the most consequential battleground states in the country. So is voter anxiety.

In the shadows of billboards along I-85 and I-20 encouraging Atlantans to "VOTE EARLY," barriers to that act loom large. There were reminders of this again during June's egregious primary election: In populous, rapidly diversifying metro Atlanta counties like Fulton and Cobb, wait times extended up to six hours after polling locations were consolidated during the pandemic. The state's new electronic voting machines also frequently malfunctioned, further slowing the ballot casting process.

Voters interviewed by POLITICO said anger over perceived voter suppression tactics is fueling their eagerness to cast early ballots. And indeed, Georgians are voting in numbers never seen before in the state's history. Since Oct. 12, the first day of early voting, a staggering 2.7 million voters have cast a ballot - a nearly 110 percent increase from 2016. Beyond that, Democrats are organizing caravans, volunteering as election workers and serving as poll watchers. This level of enthusiasm is also a reflection of apprehension about the election: Voters here are turning out in waves.

Georgia "has been a solid red state," said LaTosha Brown, a Georgia native and co-founder of Black Voters Matter, which has mobilized African American voters across the South. But now, she said, "It's a purple state. You're seeing a rapid shift in the demographics. So this isn't about just partisanship. This is about power."

"˜Y'all need some help'

Aurelia Gray, a lifelong Georgia voter, signed up to be an election volunteer for the first time following her experience at the polls in her suburban Stonewall Tell community, located in Fulton County, during the June primary. After waiting four hours in line to vote, she said, she was inspired to act.

"I said, "˜If I don't do nothing else, I'm going to sign up to work the polls,'" said Gray, who is African American. She told poll workers in her neighborhood, "It seems like y'all need some help."

Gray wasn't the only one moved to volunteer. So many people signed up to help at Gray's troubled polling place she was assigned to a different location. The precinct where she works now has wait times under an hour since the second week of early voting, thanks to a lower volume of voters and slew of young poll workers hired in Fulton County in response to June's debacle.

"You can't sit and complain. You've got to do something to help and assist. And that's what I did," she said. "I just made up my mind to do something,"

Still, even with reinforcements, in the first week of early voting in the general election, Georgians waited as long as 11 hours to vote in some precincts. Others were in and out in 10 minutes.

Election officials scurried to fix the disparities. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, recruited 10,000 voters to work the polls. The state also commissioned buses stocked with voting machines, which allowed for drive-up voting around Fulton County and opened the 680,000-square-foot State Farm Arena with an additional 300 machines.

And now, as the state begins its last week of early voting, lines at the polls are moving much faster.

In Fulton County, which includes both the city of Atlanta and its surrounding suburbs, wait times rarely exceeded 30 minutes since the first day of early voting - a far cry from the primary, where some voters did not leave precincts until the early hours of the following day. Suburban Cobb County is showing similar signs of improvement.

"You know, so far, we haven't had issues this week," said Janine Eveler, the county's director of elections and voter registration, on Thursday. "I'm hopeful that whenever [state officials] did to improve the system will continue to hold the increased demand."

Troubles at the ballot box are propelling engagement, particularly among Black voters. An analysis from ProPublica's Electionland found that predominantly Black precincts in the state were more likely to have the longest wait times, despite a surge in voter registrations there.

At the same time, participation even among Democrats' most loyal voting bloc has soared ahead of the general election. More than 737,000 African Americans have already voted in Georgia. Black voting is on track to eclipse its 2008 record, when turnout increased by 8 percentage points among Black Georgians hyped to vote for Barack Obama.

"The thing is, this is the largest turnout, I think, statewide that I have ever seen," said former U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young, noting a similar pattern nationwide. "And that's usually a very good sign. It's a good sign for democracy. Whoever they voted for."

The former congressman, now 88, was recently named to a statewide elections improvement task force formed by Raffensperger. And, thanks to voter enthusiasm, he's optimistic about Democrats' chances.

"The candidates now have more confidence, and more money, and more organization," Young said. "And some of the best commercials I have ever seen in my life."
"˜The stakes feel extraordinarily high'

The high level of Black voter engagement is the result of years of grassroots organizing, with a particular focus on mobilizing new voters - and protecting the vote. The New Georgia Project, which is marshaling young people of color across the state, averages a half-million calls and texts to millennial and Gen Z voters per week, according to its CEO, Nse Ufot.

"People are understanding that they are doing what they have to do, that the stakes feel extraordinarily high," Ufot said.

Georgia Democrats are building their hopes for a blue Georgia on record early voting numbers and turnout. Early voting among Georgians under 40 is more than three times what it was in 2016, as nearly 600,000 young voters in the state have cast a ballot, according to the New Georgia Project, a nonpartisan group that registers new voters.

And while Black voters are setting records, Asian American and Latino voters in particular will make the difference in the racially diverse Atlanta suburbs. According to data from APIAVote, which mobilizes Asian American voters, the number of AAPI voters in Georgia grew by 43 percent between 2010 and 2016. The Latino population in the state is one of the fastest-growing in the nation, swelling by 118 percent over the last two decades, according to an analysis by the Atlanta Regional Commission.

Despite partisan gerrymandering that contributed to leaving more than 80 percent of Georgia's state legislative races uncontested in 2016, demographic shifts are turning those suburban Atlanta counties increasingly Democratic.

Johns Creek, an affluent suburb just north of Atlanta and one-time Republican stronghold, which is now nearly a quarter Asian, voted blue in 2018. Gun control activist Lucy McBath, a Democrat and the mother of murdered Black teen Jordan Davis, defeated the Republican incumbent for the 6th Congressional District seat, which includes Johns Creek and other Atlanta suburbs.

"They're really doing the work," said Abigail Collazo, a Georgia-based Democratic strategist and former Stacey Abrams spokesperson, of Asian American voters. "They're not automatically Biden's supporters. So you're talking like, not just, "˜Oh, let's just turn out the AAPI vote. It's persuasion. It's mobilization, its representation - and Kamala [Harris].'"

Still, President Donald Trump maintains a hold on his base in rural Georgia counties and whiter Atlanta suburbs, where voter skepticism has also driven an uptick in early votes by absentee ballot. A New York Times/Siena College poll out earlier this month shows Trump and Biden locked in a tie among Georgia voters, as did a CBS News Battleground Tracker poll released Sunday.

It's led state Rep. Matthew Gambill, a Republican whose district includes Cartersville, a northern city in metro Atlanta, to doubt reports of a Democratic sweep next month.

"I think in my area that [voting] has gone very well," he said, noting improvements in the state's electronic voting system. "I still don't see Georgia as a blue state, as some are saying that it is. I'm not 100 percent sure about that. I do still think that Georgia is more of a red state."
"˜A form of voter suppression'

Still, some problems persist - and threaten to make a compound difference in the outcome of the election. The online reporting software that allows voters to view wait times at their nearest polling location have proven faulty, with fast-moving lines falsely showing wait times above 60 and 90 minutes. And despite the state's mandate to send absentee ballots to all Georgia voters who request them, some at the polls said they haven't received theirs yet.

Jonie Blount, a Cobb County voter, said she received her absentee ballot in the mail but was wary of mailing it in due to Trump's attacks on the U.S. Postal Service. But due to an injury, she was unable to wait in line so decided to drop off her ballot in person. She's still concerned about the safety of her vote. In June, she learned her mail-in ballot for the Democratic primary was not accepted because it didn't reach her assigned precinct in time.

"I hope that the ballot boxes are secure and there's no way that anyone can get in and tamper or take out [my ballot]," said Blount, who is Black.

And while lines are faster moving, state officials have yet to designate the adequate amount of voting locations in keeping with state regulations. While Georgia law mandates that voting locations cap the number of people served at 2,000, counties serve well above 3,000 daily in some places, according to data from independent data analyst Ryan Anderson.

"It is a form of voter suppression to massively underfund and understaff and [under]prepare for the turnout that we have. After what we saw in June no one should have been caught off guard that we were going to have a massive, massive early vote turnout," said state Rep. Erick Allen, one of a handful of Democratic legislators representing Smyrna, an Atlanta suburb. His district saw some of the longest wait times at the polls one week into early voting.

"Either it's voter suppression or complete incompetence on the planning," Allen said.

"˜It's bananas!' MSNBC's John Heilemann says Republicans are "˜freaking out' over Texas

Raw Story
on October 26, 2020

MSNBC's John Heilemann said Republicans are "freaking out" over the staggering turnout in early voting this month - which could cost them both the White House and the Senate.

The "Morning Joe" contributor pointed to polls showing that both Georgia and Texas are in play, and he said that showed how much better Democrats had gotten at mobilizing their coalition.

"It's bananas," Heilemann said. "You know, all the statistics we have seen, and there have been some staggering statistics in terms of the early vote. The total now is right around 55 million, 56 million votes that are already in the bank, which is itself also bananas."

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) has seemingly distanced himself from President Donald Trump in the final days before the vote, and Heilemann said that's clear evidence of the threat early voting poses to Republicans.

"The moment that John Cornyn turned against Donald Trump and came out and distanced himself from Trump, something he had not done in four years, it's like a canary in the coal mine," Heilemann said. "Like an electrocuted eagle in the coal mine, howling, and that's John Cornyn saying, "˜I could lose this race,' and a world where Cornyn can lose in Texas is a world where you could have a plausible conversation about the Democratic landslide, 1980s-style landslide in the Senate and a giant win for Joe Biden. I think everyone understands that Texas is fully in play."

"They're in the closing days genuine battleground states and, again, Texas Republicans all the way up to Cornyn freaking out over the kind of early vote numbers we have seen, and over the possibility that this could be the election that Texas goes blue," he added.

Watch: https://youtu.be/KPbh1MByyDE

Wisconsin can't count mail-in ballots received after election day, supreme court rules

Court sided with Republicans in 5-3 ruling, awarding party a victory in crusade against expanding voting rights and access

Maanvi Singh and Sam Levine
Guardian
Tue 27 Oct 2020 02.08 GMT

The US supreme court has sided with Republicans to prevent Wisconsin from counting mail-in ballots that are received after election day.

In a 5-3 ruling, the justices on Monday refused to reinstate a lower court order that called for mailed ballots to be counted if they are received up to six days after the 3 November election. A federal appeals court had already put that order on hold.

The ruling awards a victory for Republicans in their crusade against expanding voting rights and access. It also came just moments before the Republican-controlled Senate voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett, a victory for the right that locks in a conservative majority on the nation's highest court for years to come.

The three liberal justices dissented. John Roberts, the chief justice, last week joined the liberals to preserve a Pennsylvania state court order extending the absentee ballot deadline but voted the other way in the Wisconsin case, which has moved through federal courts.

"Different bodies of law and different precedents govern these two situations and require, in these particular circumstances, that we allow the modification of election rules in Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin," Roberts wrote.

"As the Covid pandemic rages, the court has failed to adequately protect the nation's voters," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a dissent that noted the state allowed the six-day extension for primary voting in April and that roughly 80,000 ballots were received after the day of the primary election.

Democrats argued that the flood of absentee ballots and other challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic makes it necessary to extend the period in which ballots can be counted. Wisconsin, a swing state, is also one of the nation's hotspots for Covid-19, with hospitals treating a record high number of patients with the disease. The supreme court allowed a similar extension to go into effect for Wisconsin's April election, a decision that led to nearly 80,000 additional votes getting counted in the contest (Trump carried the state in 2016 by just under 23,000 votes).

Republicans opposed the extension, saying that voters have plenty of opportunities to cast their ballots by the close of polls on election day and that the rules should not be changed so close to the election.

The justices often say nothing, or very little, about the reasons for their votes in these emergency cases, but on Monday, four justices wrote opinions totaling 35 pages to lay out their competing rationales.

Justice Neil Gorsuch acknowledged the complications the pandemic adds to voting, but defended the court's action.

"No one doubts that conducting a national election amid a pandemic poses serious challenges. But none of that means individual judges may improvise with their own election rules in place of those the people's representatives have adopted," Gorsuch wrote.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, meanwhile, echoed Trump in writing that states should announce results on election night.

States "want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter", he wrote. "Moreover, particularly in a presidential election, counting all the votes quickly can help the state promptly resolve any disputes, address any need for recounts, and begin the process of canvassing and certifying the election results in an expeditious manner." He also wrote states had an interest in avoiding "the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election."

That comment earned a sharp rebuke from Kagan, who said "there are no results to "˜flip' until all valid votes are counted".

She noted that the bigger threat to election "integrity" was valid votes going uncounted. "nothing could be more "˜suspicio[us]' or "improp[er]' than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on election night. To suggest otherwise, especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process," she wrote.

Kavanaugh cited Vermont as an example of a state that "decided not to make changes to their ordinary election rules" due to the pandemic, even though, in fact, the state authorized the secretary of state to automatically mail a ballot to all registered voters this year, in order to make it easier for everyone to vote absentee.

In a significant footnote, Kavanaugh also wrote that state courts do not have a "blank check" to step in on state laws governing federal elections, endorsing conservative justices' rationale in deciding the election in 2000 between George W Bush and Al Gore.

Two decades ago, in Bush v Gore, the supreme court decided - effectively - that Bush would be the US president after settling a recount dispute in the swing state of Florida. Back then, three conservative justices - William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas - said that the Florida supreme court "impermissibly distorted" the state's election code by ordering a recount of a close election, during which voting machines were found to have issues correctly counting the votes.

In Monday's ruling, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch - both Trump appointees - endorsed that view expressed in the Bush v Gore case, a move that could foretell how the court, which now has a 6-3 conservative majority, would rule if the results of the presidential election are contested.

Justices Thomas, Samuel Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh recently voted to block a deadline extension to count ballots in Pennsylvania. However, with only eight justice on the court at the time, and the conservative justice John Roberts siding with liberals - at tied court ultimately upheld the deadline extension.

But Pennsylvania Republicans, sensing an ally in Barrett, have asked for a re-do. In making their case, they are arguing that the state supreme court overstepped by ordering officials to count mail-in ballots that are sent by election day but arrive up to three days later.

    Agencies contributed to this report

**************

One of Trump's justices just suggested blocking state courts from protecting voting rights: analysis

Raw Story
10/27/2020

On Monday, the Republican-appointed justices on the Supreme Court rejected a push to expand Wisconsin's ballot processing deadline so that votes received after Election Day will count, as long as they are postmarked by the proper day.

But according to Slate legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern, Justice Brett Kavanaugh signaled he would have been willing to go even further - and embrace a legal theory saying that not only should federal judges be blocked from expansion of voting rights ahead of elections, but state judges should be as well.

Such a theory, Stern noted, was suggested by right-wing former Chief Justice William Rehnquist in the Bush v. Gore ruling that decided the 2000 presidential election - but not even all the other conservative justices agreed with it.

    Holy shit-Brett Kavanaugh just endorsed Rehnquist's concurrence in Bush v. Gore, which was too extreme for Kennedy or O'Connor.

    This is a red alert. I can't believe he put it in a footnote. This is terrifying. https://t.co/BebQghfqBb pic.twitter.com/Naxo692xLl

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 26, 2020

    The headline news here is that, by a 5-3 vote, SCOTUS made it harder for Wisconsin residents to cast a ballot and make sure it's counted.

    But arguably the bigger news is that Brett Kavanaugh endorsed a theory so radical that the court refused to adopt it in Bush v. Gore. My God.

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 26, 2020

    This is VERY BAD NEWS for voting rights. Appallingly bad. Brett Kavanaugh used a footnote to throw his support behind an extreme theory that would severely limit state courts' ability to protect voting rights. It's the revenge of Bush. v. Gore. Actually, it's much worse.

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 26, 2020

    How radical is Kavanaugh's theory? John Roberts felt compelled to reject it in a separate opinion, correctly noting that federal courts should keep their noses out of a state court's interpretation of its own state's election laws.

    Roberts is now the moderate on voting rights. pic.twitter.com/XHJLTE1uSQ

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 26, 2020

    Gorsuch also endorsed Rehnquist's position in Bush v. Gore. And Kavanaugh joined his opinion. Both want to prevent governors, state courts, and state agencies from expanding voting rights-and have federal courts decide what how the legislature *really* wanted elections to be run. pic.twitter.com/tVIuu7P7z2

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 26, 2020

    As fate would have it, I wrote about this exact issue in an article that published minutes before SCOTUS handed down this order. I urge you to read it, because this is the next fight. It's already here. We're staring down the barrel of Bush v. Gore II. https://t.co/RGErc9w1xy

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 27, 2020

***************

Texas GOP Governor Abbott to deploy 1000 National Guard troops for election

Raw Story
10/27/2020

In a disturbing and possibly unprecedented move Republican Governor Greg Abbott will deploy 1000 National Guard troops into Texas cities for the presidential election next week.

"The Texas Army National Guard said Monday it had been ordered to dispatch 1,000 troops to five major cities around the state in conjunction with the Nov. 3 election," MySanAntonio.com reports.

"The guard in recent weeks had told the San Antonio Express-News that its commander, Maj. Gen. Tracy Norris, had been asked to draft contingency plans in case of trouble at polling places in major cities around the state."

Express-News reports Democratic "strongholds" will be receiving the Guard units, including San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Fort Worth.

"We have not been asked to go to any polling locations as of yet. Now that could change, leading up to the election or after the election," a Texas Army National Guard spokesperson says.

Abbott has not released any information on this plan which some see as authoritarian voter intimidation.

The Texas governor is already under fire after reducing ballot boxes to just one per county.

Joe Biden makes bold push to be the first Democrat to win Georgia in decades: Washington Post

Raw Story
10/27/2020

As the final leg of his presidential campaign crescendos, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is hoping to pull off what hasn't been done in decades; Biden will aim to be the first Democrat to win Georgia since former President Bill Clinton managed the feat in 1992.

In 1968, Georgia voted for Independent George Wallace in an election that marked the last time a third-party candidate received any electoral votes.

Georgia has 16 electoral votes up for grabs in the 2020 election - and Biden is not wasting any time.

"Biden understands the vitality of the Sun Belt and the importance of not just winning this election, but setting the table for success for the Senate and for the country," said former gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams. "Georgia has been ground zero for many of these conversations."

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll released Monday showed a tight race in Georgia with Biden winning 47 percent of likely voters and Trump taking 46 percent. Strategists say a Democratic advantage is possible, but that Republicans can potentially close the gap on Election Day by voting in-person. According to the secretary of state's office, 128,590 Georgia residents cast ballots in person on Monday, a more than 40 percent increase from the previous record first day of in-person voting, ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

"One distinct advantage for Biden in the early numbers is the share of the votes cast by Black voters, which by Sunday was about 31 percent of the total mail-in vote - roughly the same as the Black share of the overall electorate in 2016. Polls show that more Black voters plan to vote in person than by mail, meaning that turnout rate could grow on Election Day," The Washington Post reported.

"Atlanta is a tale of the country, as far as what the suburbs do," said Robinson, who lives in the northern part of DeKalb County, outside Atlanta. "More than ever, what the suburbs here will determine is, do enough white people who live around me vote for Biden? Or do they stick to where they've been most of their lives and vote Republican? The entire country should be watching this."

What could go wrong with voting: plenty

on October 27, 2020
By Roger Sollenberger, Salon
- Commentary

A year ago, Trump campaign senior adviser Justin Clark told a roomful of Republican lawyers in a closed-door meeting in Wisconsin that they had a "huge, huge, huge, huge" opportunity for what he characterized as the campaign's "Election Day Operations" for 2020 - one that had not been available to them for decades: "The consent decree's gone."

This article first appeared in Salon.

Clark was referencing a recently lapsed decades-old court order that had barred GOP operatives from a number of voter-intimidation activities after a 1981 lawsuit, when the Republican National Committee was reprimanded for hiring off-duty law enforcement to intimidate voters at polling places in minority communities. As part of that decision, Republicans had to obtain advance approval for any further "ballot security" measures at the polls.

But a federal judge let the rule, called the "consent decree," expire in 2018. The reasoning: There was no proof that Republicans had recently violated it - a conclusion that some have argued proves that the rule had been working as intended.

The decision set up Election Day in 2020 to be the first in nearly four decades when the RNC will not need to have poll security measures cleared in advance.

President Trump has in recent months repeatedly told supporters to watch the polls "very carefully," a directive that, when combined with the images of militia groups gathered at state capitols this spring, has invoked fears that the president is greenlighting or even encouraging election violence.

"We're going to have everything," Trump said in August, in remarks widely observed as illegal. "We're going to have sheriffs, and we're going to have law enforcement. And we're going to have hopefully U.S. attorneys, and we're going to have everybody and attorney generals."

This was Clark's "huge deal," which the Trump campaign has spun into a not-so-subtle attempt at a show of force intended to deter Democratic turnout ahead of an election where the president's chances appear increasingly dim. Experts and officials have repeated that point in conversations with Salon: The risk is not violence itself, but the fear of it.

A few months after Clark's backroom meeting, the campaign launched "Army for Trump," an official website where supporters can register to pitch in with voting operations, including on Election Day.

Drawing heavily on military language and iconography - alternate URL: "defendyourballot.com" - the site calls on supporters of the commander-in-chief to "fight with the president" and "enlist" in a number of election activities, working alongside "battle tested Team Trump operatives" on the "frontlines" of the campaign.

Trump promoted the site in a Sept. 29 tweet, after the first debate, inviting supporters to become "a Trump Election Poll Watcher." The president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., also recently stumped for the project with a selfie video asking "every able-bodied man and woman" to join the "army for Trump's election security operation."

A Trump campaign email from June read: "You've been identified as one of President Trump's fiercest and most loyal defenders, and according to your donor file, you'd make an excellent addition to the Trump Army."  The email offered donors "exclusive" camouflage hats as something of a campaign uniform.

"The President wants YOU and every other member of our exclusive Trump Army to have something to identify yourselves with, and to let everyone know that you are the President's first line of defense when to come to fighting off the Liberal MOB," it said.

Last month, Forbes reported that the #ArmyForTrump Twitter hashtag featured "a large number of posts promoting violence against the president's opposition, in some cases specifically naming Biden and other leading Democrats as enemies." The hashtag, Forbes said, was used in posts attacking "a wide range of targets, including Jewish financier and philanthropist George Soros, Black Lives Matter leaders, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and others."

This week the president tweeted the URL again.

With a number of recent reports detailing plots to capture and kill Democratic officials, the rhetoric raises questions about cause and effect. Still, some experts say fears of Election Day violence are likely overblown. The intended effect, they believe, is simple suppression - to scare people from showing up to begin with.

Corey Goldstone, spokesperson for the Campaign Legal Center, a group that advocates for fair elections, told Salon that chances of Election Day violence, a rarity, are still low this year.

"Five states - Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Oregon - have the highest risk of seeing increased militia activity around the elections: everything from demonstrations to violence," Goldstone said, referencing conclusions from a new report from the crisis mapping project ACLED and MilitiaWatch researchers.

He does, however, see a threat to turnout - a typical election-year hurdle, in an atypical year.

"There are strict limits on what the military, law enforcement and poll watchers can do at the polls," said Goldstone. "Voting rights advocates have dealt with these types of thinly veiled efforts to disenfranchise communities, especially Black and brown communities, for decades. Democracy will prevail. It's important that people aren't silenced by the threat of intimidation and that everyone makes a voting plan now."

Turnout has long been a target of Republican operatives, as data shows that when more people vote, the electorate skews Democratic. Trump himself acknowledged this open secret in March, when he said that if voting were expanded, "you'd never have a Republican elected in this country again."

It's the chief reason that Trump and his allies have been pushing misinformation about election fraud for months, especially regarding mail-in ballots, which Republicans fear will boost an already supercharged 2020 turnout. lection law expert Rick Hasen finds the decision baffling.

"It is simply astounding to me that so many people are working so hard to make it more difficult to vote during a pandemic," he told Salon.

Hasen points to heavily Republican South Carolina's post-primary rule change as a particularly maddening example.

"Elected officials and the [state] Republican party didn't mind when a federal court got rid of the signature requirement for absentee voting in the primaries, but they got the Supreme Court to kill it in the general," he said, adding that any rules that increase voting burdens during this public health crisis "are just disingenuous."

"Others are sincere but elevate other, lesser values over the right to vote. It's wrong," he concluded, "and especially during a pandemic."

But Goldstone argues that the majority of states have been trying to make it easier to vote during the pandemic. "Many secretaries of state are recognizing that they should be doing all they can to ensure that citizens can vote safely and securely," he added, while agreeing that some states are going in the opposite direction.

"In Texas for example, Gov. Greg Abbott has gone to extreme lengths to suppress voting, canceling the plans of its most populous counties to offer convenient drop boxes for voters to return their ballots," Goldstone said, referring to Abbott's controversial rule currently working its way through the courts. "Rather than letting the counties go through with their plans, the governor has insisted on only one dropbox per county. This is voter suppression in its simplest form. That's why Campaign Legal Center sued the state, so that Texas voters could fight back."

"Obviously there's historically been suppression and barriers to voting long in place in Texas," Austin Mayor Steve Adler, a Democrat, told Salon, adding that Abbott's abrupt crackdown on the drop-off sites offered a particularly sinister and novel example.

Like Goldstone, Adler believes the rumblings of violence have compounded the threat, but made clear that, in his official position, he had seen no evidence of any real and immediate risks.

"In our city we need to be prepared and wary in the event that there is voter intimidation at polling places, but I haven't seen any indications that this is actually going to happen," he said. "But the fear it's designed to create, the suggestion that there will be problems - those are real concerns."

Adler believes that this year, however, voters simply might not be intimidated.

"I'm not sure it will work this time," he said. "People have had four years of frustration, of waiting for this moment, and at this point they're willing to crawl across broken glass to cast their ballot."

That argument seems to apply to Georgia, another state where Republicans have deployed notorious tactics, particularly in the Black community, which saw intense suppressive efforts when Democrat Stacey Abrams, a Black woman, lost the 2018 gubernatorial race by 60,000 votes. That plan appears to be backfiring this year, inspiring a historic turnout.

"The thing is, this is the largest turnout, I think, statewide that I have ever seen. And that's usually a very good sign. It's a good sign for democracy," former UN ambassador Andrew Young recently told Politico. "Whoever they voted for."

Adler, the Austin mayor, also sees hope in the backlash.

"A lot of people want you to think your vote won't count," he said, "but the amount of energy they're putting into those efforts is an indication of how much it does count."

Voters in Battleground States Are Driving Record Early Turnout

By Denise Lu and Karen Yourish
Oct. 27, 2020
NY Times

A week before Election Day, more than 64 million Americans have already voted - and about half of them are in the dozen or so competitive states that will ultimately decide who wins the Electoral College.

Click here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/27/us/politics/election-voter-turnout.html

"We're Watching an Incumbent Self-Destruct": Polling Guru Who Predicted Trump's 2016 Win Is Betting On Biden

The polls have been more stable than four years ago and the president is underperforming, says Dave Wasserman. Though the race may tighten in the coming week-and nothing is certain-Trump's path looks increasingly difficult.

By Mark McKinnon
Vanity Fair
October 26, 2020

With just over a week to go before Election Day, everyone is freaking out under an avalanche of polling. Most polls show Joe Biden with a substantial advantage nationally and a comfortable lead in key swing states. But of course Donald Trump's campaign and its supporters are defiant. They insist: "Well, that's what everyone said in 2016." Meanwhile, the Biden campaign and its supporters are nervous. They, too, caution: "Well, that's what everyone said in 2016."

In many ways 2020 is haunted by 2016. So in an effort to tune into a clear, crisp radio signal through all the white noise, I interviewed the ultimate expert: Dave Wasserman. He's one of the very few political seers who predicted-in mid-September of 2016, no less-that Trump might very well lose the popular vote and yet win the electoral college.

Wasserman covers congressional races for the nonpartisan and widely respected Cook Political Report. He has a microscopic understanding of what is happening around the country politically. And I sat down with him for Sunday night's episode of Showtime's The Circus, a weekly assessment of the campaign shitshow. Some of our conversation appeared on air; some was left on the cutting-room floor.

After talking with him I came away with the sense that Trump is not just toast, but burnt toast. To use a poker metaphor: In the last election, Trump won by pulling an inside straight. This time he'll need nothing short of a royal flush-by pulling an ace from his sleeve.

Wasserman's prognostications, of course, have to be weighed against opposing viewpoints. This weekend The Hill, for instance, pointed out five ways that Trump could actually pull off another historic upset: The president could benefit from a better ground game than Biden's; there may be legions of "shy" Trump voters who'd rather not tell pollsters their intentions; Trump may gain from shifts in Black-voter turnout; the Latino vote is a wild card, especially in delegate-rich Florida; and GOP registration has surpassed its Democratic counterpart in some key states. (Unmentioned here are other pesky wild cards, such as ballot box hanky-panky by nefarious forces, foreign or domestic; unseen events that erode public confidence in the election itself; and eleventh hour court cases that could delay a timely outcome.)

Wasserman, however, is sort of the acknowledged electoral clairvoyant. So I asked him to help identify the bumps and byways on the road map to November 3. What makes this pandemic-era election so special? How should we interpret strong Republican-registration numbers? And what does massive early voting mean?

Vanity Fair: So how is 2020 different than 2016?

Dave Wasserman: There are a couple of important differences. First of all, at the district level, the polling that we're seeing is pretty consistent; it's in line with the national polls that suggest that Donald Trump is underperforming his 2016 margins [by] anywhere from 8 to 10 points, with few exceptions. Now, there are a couple of exceptions: One is in really heavily Hispanic districts. [These] are places where Donald Trump is approaching or even exceeding his 2016 performance. But we also are seeing in really wealthy suburbs or highly white-collar, professional suburbs-even in traditionally conservative metro areas-that Joe Biden is doing 10 or more points better than Hillary Clinton did.

And you know, it's astonishing. Collin County, Texas, voted for Mitt Romney by 30 points [in 2012]. It's one of the most professional, white-collar suburbs of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It has attracted scores of corporate relocations in recent years. We're seeing district-level polls that suggest Joe Biden could carry that county in 2020.

So you say that Trump is underperforming [when compared to his 2016 turnout], and he doesn't have a lot of margin for error, given that he won by 77,000 votes in three counties in three states. But according to RealClearPolitics polling averages, looking at key states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, and North Carolina, on this date in 2016, Hillary Clinton was outperforming Biden in all those states. How does that square?

There are two other very important differences between four years ago and now. The first is that Biden has had a much more stable lead than Hillary Clinton had. You know, if you go back to the poll chart in 2016, it looks like an EKG; it was jumping around all over the place. Every time Donald Trump stepped in it, his vote share went way down. Every time the spotlight was back on Hillary Clinton and her emails, the race tightened back up. This time around Joe Biden has never been behind; he's had a fairly stable lead that's ebbed around the margins.

But in October his lead has actually gone up as President Trump's handling of COVID-and his own illness-has come under skepticism from seniors. And we've seen the 65-plus vote, in particular, blow wide open. Joe Biden had been ahead by five among seniors for much of the year. Now his lead is more like nine. Keep in mind, Donald Trump carried seniors by five in 2016.

In 2016 the poll averages were jumping all over the place because the race was very volatile. Joe Biden's lead this year is pretty stable. But the second important difference is that there are far fewer undecided voters heading into the homestretch. You know, in 2016, the final polling average showed that Hillary Clinton was ahead about 46 to 42, whether you went to RealClearPolitics or FiveThirtyEight, all the major poll aggregators.

Well, guess what? She won the popular vote by 2.1 [percent], so that was only about a point-and-a-half polling error, which was in line with historical norms. But it may not have even been a polling error because what we know is that "late deciders" broke in favor of Donald Trump, who was the candidate of change running against the status quo.

One of the ways Republicans are pushing back is they're citing voter-registration numbers in places like Florida, where they have out-registered Democrats by more than 100,000 votes. And in a tight race, that can make a difference, right?

It could-if the race does tighten. And look: Voter registration is a feather in Trump's cap, but it's also critical to put [it] in context. Over the past couple of decades, we've seen a lot of registered Democrats, who have voted Republican at the federal level for president for years, formally switching their voter registration from D to R. For example, there is a county in North Florida: Lafayette County, which is basically-it used to be a Dixiecrat bastion.

In 2016, Democrats had a voter-registration advantage in that county of 59 to 34%. The county voted 82 to 15 for Donald Trump. And over the last four years, we've seen that county completely flip, and now Republicans have a voter-registration advantage of 62 to 27. That's a 64-point swing in voter ID in four years. It doesn't mean that Trump is gaining new voters; those are existing Trump votes. So keep that in mind. That's one of the reasons we're seeing Republican gains in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Florida.

The other thing that's happening is that Democrats are winning a disproportionate share of young voters, and a lot of them are registering as unaffiliated or independent. But it is true that just in the past six months or so, since the presidential primaries, Republicans have done a better job of hitting the pavement because Democrats have been unwilling to knock on doors in the pandemic. And it's an understandable decision. But we are also seeing that the past success Democrats have had both knocking on doors and registering young people on college campuses-that's been way down during the pandemic, and that has helped Republicans to this lead.

So keep in mind that in the past six months, Republicans have added a net 344,000 registered voters in Florida, and Democrats, 197,000. In 2016, Democrats were the ones with that registration advantage, but there are gonna be over 10 million votes cast in Florida. And so it might be worth a percent on the margins. And a percent's a lot in Florida, don't get me wrong, but if you're talking about the same kind of trend line in the other states-Wisconsin, Pennsylvania-would you rather be the candidate with [a] half-of-1% registration advantage? Or would you rather be the candidate who's ahead seven points in polls? I'd rather be the Democrat.

So early-voting numbers are way up. What does that mean?

I would take everything you hear about the early-voting numbers as an indication that we're headed for massive turnout in this election but nothing more than that.

Because what we know is that Democrats are amped up about voting early, voting by mail. The Pew Research Center just put out a study of 10,000 voters that found that among voters who were planning on voting early in person, Biden was leading 55 to 40. Biden was leading 69 [to] 27 among voters who plan to cast ballots by mail. But among voters waiting till Election Day, Trump was leading 63 to 31.

And Trump supporters are following the president's direction to vote the old-fashioned way on Election Day. And so it is entirely expected that Democrats have built a lead with these early ballots, and it's entirely expected that Republicans are gonna turn out in really strong numbers on Election Day. The concern I have for Republicans is that by banking so many early votes, Democrats have relieved a lot of the pressure on Election Day polling place lines in heavily Democratic areas. With this historic turnout, we're talking potentially 150 to 160 million votes cast, which would shatter records. We could see backlogs and long lines of Republicans in Election Day precincts.

I've heard nobody say that before. You're saying that all this early voting by Democrats relieves the lines on Election Day and it exacerbates the problem for Republicans?

If you're a casual voter who would vote for Trump and you're being kind of cajoled by a friend-who's a real MAGA person on Facebook-to come to the polls, are you gonna really wait for three or four hours in line to vote? You might. But you also might take a pass. Maybe you're working a couple of jobs. There are an awful lot of white voters in the Midwest who fit that description, potentially.

What about the pollsters? Are they making the same mistakes in 2020?

What happened [in 2016] is the polls chronically undersampled Trump's base of support, and that led a lot of the media astray. I don't think pollsters have completely solved the problem. We're not looking at perfect polls today. And in fact, there's a lot of disagreement between online polls and live-interview polls, [although] they'll both show Biden in the lead for the most part. But when we are talking about polling errors, you know, it's a pretty clear pattern what we've seen in 2016 and 2018: Polling has underestimated Democratic support in the Southwest; it's overestimated Democratic support in the Midwest. And this was true in both 2016 and 2018.

So we can't be entirely sure that pollsters have solved their undersampling problems with regards to Trump's base. We could still see a polling error in Trump's favor this time around. The problem is that it would have to be a lot larger than the one we saw in 2016. Because in that Upper Midwestern band, we're seeing Joe Biden with leads on average of between six and seven points in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania.

Is that enough?

If the polls were off by the same amount they were in 2016, it would be barely enough. But we have reason to believe that pollsters have addressed some of the methodological issues that led to the huge "misses" we saw in 2016.

So you have greater confidence generally this time in the polling"¦?

...Because of the lower undecided share [this time] and the consistency we're seeing at the district level. And I think that's the biggest tell of all. Keep in mind, in 2016, there was massive Democratic denial about district-level polls that were showing Trump breaking through in small-town and rural Midwestern settings. But in 2020 we're seeing massive Democratic paranoia about polls that are fairly consistently showing Joe Biden overperforming with seniors, with blue-collar women in rural Midwestern districts, in suburban Midwestern and Sun Belt districts.

And this coming week?

I wouldn't be surprised if we saw just a natural tightening of the race"¦just because Trump did go through such a terrible phase in early October between the debate, his hospitalization, and ripping off the mask on the White House steps, and all of that. It could be that the race gets closer to where it was in September, which was when Biden had an average lead of more like 7 or 8 points than 10.

Bottom line?

Trump would need to win all of the states that are really close in the polls right now: Florida, Georgia, Texas, Ohio, Iowa, North Carolina. Those are prerequisites for a Trump victory. And then he's gotta break through in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, or Arizona to have a pathway to replicating his success in 2016. And right now that's just very hard to see. I could actually see Biden doing better in Arizona than in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania.

"¦Keep in mind also that the piece of turf that, in my view, is most likely to flip from Trump 2016 to Biden 2020 is in Omaha, Nebraska: Nebraska's Second Congressional District, where the district-level polling shows Joe Biden ahead in some cases by double digits.

And then there's COVID. Additionally problematic for the president?

This is a bad time for the president for COVID to be spiking. And it's clear that it's coming back into the news with a vengeance"¦. When we see the president go to Iowa or Wisconsin and hold rallies in COVID hotspots with minimal social distancing and a large share of attendees not wearing masks, we're watching a presidential candidate, an incumbent, self-destruct.

Democrats urge voters to hand-deliver ballots to beat court deadline

Scramble after supreme court sides with Wisconsin Republicans to bar late ballots despite postal delay

Peter Beaumont, Ed Pilkington in New York and Maanvi Singh in Oakland
Guardian
Wed 28 Oct 2020 02.44 GMT

Democratic campaigners were scrambling to convince American voters to deliver absentee ballots by hand rather than rely on the US postal service, after the supreme court sided with Republicans in Wisconsin in refusing to allow a count of votes arriving after election day.

Democrats argued that the flood of absentee ballots, and other challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic, made it necessary to extend the posting deadline. The court is due to hear similar cases from two pivotal battleground states, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, before 3 November.

With the bench now packed with a 6-3 conservative majority after the swearing in on Tuesday of the new Donald Trump-picked justice, Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court has become the object of intense scrutiny.

Barrett, 48, was formally sworn in by the US chief justice, John Roberts, in a private ceremony on Tuesday, fuelling anxiety among Democrats over what her presence in the court might mean for other election-related cases, including any challenge to the result.

The Wisconsin decision triggered a rush by Democratic party campaign workers to track more than 360,000 so far unreturned mail-in ballots in the state. They urged voters to deliver their ballots by hand by 3 November rather than rely on a postal service that has been hamstrung by delays, some reportedly politically inspired.

"We're phone banking. We're text banking. We're friend banking. We're drawing chalk murals, driving sound trucks through neighbourhoods & flying banners over Milwaukee. We're running ads in every conceivable medium," Ben Wikler, the party's chairman in Wisconsin, tweeted after the supreme court decision.

With Barrett formally joining the court on Tuesday concern has grown over how she might rule in any election related case, not least in the event of a contested election.

In a century and a half no justice has been sworn in so close to an election; and Trump has said he expects the court to decide the outcome of the US election campaign - in which the Democrat Joe Biden currently enjoys a national nine-point lead.

The supreme court has only once decided the outcome of a US presidential election; that was the disputed contest in 2000 which ultimately was awarded to the Republican George W Bush over his Democrat rival, Al Gore.

The supreme court is also weighing a plea from Trump to prevent the Manhattan district attorney from acquiring his tax returns. Focus on the US president's partisan effort to stack the court comes with justices also due to hear a series of high-profile cases including over Obamacare and LGBTQ rights.

While it is not certain Barrett will take part in any of these issues, it is up to her to make the decision whether or not to recuse herself. Barrett, the most open opponent of abortion rights to join the court in decades, could also be called upon to weigh in on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban.

Trump has said he wants Barrett to be confirmed before election day so she could cast a decisive vote in any election-related dispute, potentially in his favour.

The Wisconsin ruling on vote counts comes as the two candidates for president entered the final week of campaigning. Amid a historic wave of early voting, more than 70 million Americans having already cast their ballots, the Biden campaign released two new "closing argument" ads emphasising that the election represented both a test of "character" and a "battle for the soul of the nation" (without mentioning Trump by name).

Significantly about half of those who have already voted early have done so in a dozen or so of the battleground states that will likely decide the presidency.

With Trump staging rallies in Michigan, Wisconsin and Nebraska on Tuesday, Biden was scheduled to hold two events in Georgia, a state not won by Democrats in a presidential election since 1996.

In the midst of the continuing campaigning, and with national polls showing Biden maintaining a substantial lead, the moves around the supreme court have assumed an outsized significance even as Barrett vowed it was the "job of a judge to resist her policy preferences".

The last week of the campaign will take place against the backdrop of a record seven-day stretch of new coronavirus cases reaching above 71,000 daily.

Focus on the court has intensified with the Wisconsin ruling, which was seen as an indication of how Barrett's appointment could affect such cases. The conservative majority, even before her appointment, generally sided with state officials opposing court-imposed changes to election procedures to make it easier to vote during the pandemic. The ruling on Monday prevents Wisconsin from counting mailed ballots that are received after election day.

In his ruling Justice Brett Kavanaugh, another Trump pick, appeared to give support to the president's argument that results counted after election day could be fraudulent. He said results should be announced on election night to avoid "the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election".

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"˜I don't believe that's by our laws,' Trump says of counting all the votes in an election

on October 28, 2020
By Jake Johnson, Common Dreams

Repeating his desire for a winner to be declared on the night of November 3, President Donald Trump told reporters Tuesday that he doesn't "believe" tallying votes for weeks after Election Day is lawful, a remark observers interpreted as yet another open signal of the president's intention to challenge the counting of legally submitted ballots.

"Donald Trump is planning to everything he can to make sure your vote doesn't count."

-Indivisible
"It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that that's by our laws," Trump said before departing the White House for a campaign rally in Lansing, Michigan. "I don't believe that. So we'll see what happens."

It is, in fact, perfectly legal for states to count ballots for weeks after the election; some states allow mail-in ballots to arrive up to two weeks after November 3 as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Due to the unprecedented surge in mail-in voting sparked by the pandemic, the process of tallying ballots and determining the election winner is expected to take longer than usual.

"He wants to throw out legal votes. That's what he's saying here," tweeted Garance Franke-Ruta, executive editor of GEN magazine.

Watch Trump's comments:

    "It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that's by our laws." - Trump (In fact tallying all the ballots is consistent with the law.) pic.twitter.com/Dlj7DCiCT1

    - Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 27, 2020

Progressive critics and election analysts have long been warning of a "nightmare scenario" in which Trump falsely declares himself the winner on November 3 based on an early lead in in-person votes and proceeds to declare all votes counted after Election Day illegitimate. The president's comments Tuesday bolstered those fears.

"Donald Trump is planning to everything he can to make sure your vote doesn't count," progressive advocacy group Indivisible-part of a coalition planning mass protests should Trump attempt to steal the election-said in response to the president's remarks Tuesday, which came hours after the conservative-dominated U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the battleground state of Wisconsin cannot extend its Election Day deadline for the arrival of mail-in ballots.

In his concurring opinion in the case, Trump-nominated Justice Brett Kavanaugh parroted the president's attack on the common state practice of counting ballots that arrive after Election Day-a possible indication that Kavanaugh is, as Slate's Mark Joseph Stern put it, "open to stealing the election for Trump."

The implications of Kavanaugh's reason could reach beyond Wisconsin. As Stern pointed out on Twitter, North Carolina Republicans are already citing Kavanaugh's argument to justify their own push for the Supreme Court to limit the state's absentee ballot deadline.

"Brett Kavanaugh's stunning opinion last night should be a huge story today," said Stern. "It cast aspersions on mail ballots. It's riddled with errors. It endorses a theory too radical for the Bush v. Gore majority. It's a preemptive attack on our election's integrity.

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A right-wing powder keg: How conservative media is convincing Trump fans that he's winning bigly

By Joshua Holland
Raw Story
10/28/2020

Over the weekend, NPR interviewed some anxious voters. One, a Trump-supporter, said that his biggest worry was that Trump needed to win in a landslide to keep the left from claiming that the election was stolen. That Trump would win wasn't in doubt.

For those who get their news from the conservative media, there is ample evidence that Trump is cruising to victory. In a National Review piece pushing back on such reports, Kevin Williamson writes that "many conservative media figures are predicting . . . a Trump landslide. This wish-casting is based on increasingly imaginative reading of the political terrain: Comedian Jimmy Failla of Fox News, for example, called a Trump "lawnslide" based on - hold your breath, now - an informal poll of truckers who were giving their estimates of the ratio of Trump yard signs to Joe Biden yard signs." Boat parades, truck caravans, how many people believe their neighbors are supporting Trump and other quicky metrics have all been the basis of arguments that the "liberal media" is lying about Trump's bleak position in the race.

On a press call earlier this month, Trump campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski told reporters that based on the campaign's internal polling, as well as grassroots enthusiasm within Trump's base, it was quickly becoming "mathematically impossible for Joe Biden to win this campaign." Pro-Trump media outlets ran with it.

Serious election observers agree that it's always best to focus on the polling averages rather than individual surveys because the former aren't as noisy or prone to sampling errors. But throughout October, The Washington Examiner columnist Paul Bedard has written a series of posts painting a picture of Trump surging from behind to take a clear lead in carefully cherry-picked polls conducted by firms that are known for their strong pro-GOP "house effect," or lean. Most of them are write-ups of the latest Rasmussen polls. Rasmussen currently has Trump's approval rating at 51 percent, a very different picture than his 42.5 percent approval rate in FiveThirtyEight's polling average or the 44 percent in RealClearPolitics'. On Monday, when Rasmussen's tracking poll gave Trump a narrow lead nationally and pegged Trump's approval at 52 percent, Bedard noted that being over 50 percent is "a key factor to winning reelection. Former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama were both at 50% when they edged out reelection victories."

Trump could win this election-his chances are probably better than the 12 percent likelihood FiveThirtyEight's forecast model gives him due to issues with mail ballots and potentially adverse rulings by partisan courts-but it's hard to overstate how unmoored from reality the view that he's presently leading in the race really is. Trump is the first president in the modern polling era whose disapproval rating exceeded his approval rating in his first month in office and he has remained under water in that metric for his entire presidency, usually by around ten points. The presidential race has been historically stable, with Joe Biden leading Trump nationally by an average of 6 points all of last year, and expanding that lead to around 9 percentage points at present. Biden's also been ahead in the top battleground states for every day of the race.

The shared goal of the Trump campaign and its sprawling propaganda network in presenting an alternate reality of the race is to keep donors writing checks and the Republican base engaged. Amid a raging pandemic, it's not hard to imagine some voters who support a candidate trailing by a large margin deciding they'll sit this one out, especially if they face long lines at the polls to cast a vote.

But in doing so, they're creating a powder keg. The narrative that Trump is poised to win a second term is being pushed by the same politicians and media outlets that have spent years advancing a big, consequential lie that voter fraud is widespread in the United States. Taken together, they are telling millions of perpetually angry Trump supporters that he can only lose as a result of foul play.

This reckless effort to keep their voters engaged is coming at a time when experts are sounding alarms over the potential for violence surrounding this election. In this case, their habitual dishonesty is incredibly dangerous.

***********

Judge imposes sweeping order to ensure ballots are delivered on time despite Trump's USPS slowdown: report

By Bob Brigham
Raw Story
10/28/2020

The politics surround the United States Postal Service during the COVID-19 pandemic continued on Tuesday.

"United States Postal Service leadership received a sweeping set of orders from a federal judge on Tuesday, laying out ways the Postal Service must make sure ballots are delivered quickly because of the ongoing election and absentee voting deadlines," CNN reported Tuesday. "One week ahead of Election Day, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District Court told the Postal Service to inform its employees that late delivery trips are allowed and the delivery of ballots by state elections deadlines is important."

"The order is some of the most aggressive oversight USPS has faced yet in its handling of election mail. It adds to several directives the Post Office has weathered in court in recent months, after state governments won injunctions that would prevent policy changes put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that could have disrupted the quick delivery of mailed ballots to election officials," CNN explained.

DeJoy has been highly controversial for slowing down the delivery of mail during the pandemic.

"The Postal Service also must provide daily updates to the court on mail delivery data and will appear daily before the judge," CNN noted.

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Elections expert explains why a polling error might actually be devastating for Trump

on October 28, 2020
By Alex Henderson, AlterNet

Many supporters of President Donald Trump have argued that his reelection campaign is in much better shape than polls have been indicating, noting that he outperformed expectations when he defeated Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. But reporter David Wasserman, in an article published on NBC News' website this week, examines another possibility - that former Vice President Joe Biden is the one being underrepresented in polls.

"As Election Day approaches and President Donald Trump continues to trail Joe Biden by high single digits both nationally and in key states, their respective bases are buzzing with either hope or dread that "˜the polls could be wrong again,'" Wasserman notes. "In truth, public opinion polls are imperfect instruments, and there's always bound to be some degree of error."

Pollsters have received a great deal of criticism following Trump's victory in 2016. But truth be told, the polls weren't as misleading as those critics say. The polls showed Clinton with a national lead; she won the popular vote. And some polls, in late October 2016, showed that swing states like Pennsylvania and Florida were close; Trump narrowly won those states.

"It's important to remember that in 2016, the final pre-election average showed Hillary Clinton leading Trump 46.8% to 43.6 % nationally, according to leading polling aggregator RealClearPolitics," Wasserman explains. "That wasn't too far off the mark: she went on to win the popular vote 48.2% to 46.1%, not exactly strong evidence that hordes of "˜shy Trump voters' refused to tell pollsters their true intentions."

Stressing that polls have a margin of error, Wasserman notes that "in the Southwest, polls undershot Democrats' final margin in 17 of 19 cases, including by an average of 1.4 points in 2016 and 4.2 points in 2018. The Southeast was a mixed bag. In Florida, polls underestimated the GOP margin by an average of 2.4 points in 2016 and 3.3 points in 2018 - a polling error similar to that in the Midwest."

Bearing these things in mind, Wasserman writes, it is possible that polls are underestimating Trump - but it is also possible that Biden is the one being underestimated.

"In the end, the only certainty in the polling world is some degree of error," Wasserman emphasizes. "There's no guarantee 2020's errors will boost Trump again or adhere to the Southwest/Midwest patterns we observed in 2016 and 2018. But in light of recent evidence, it wouldn't be all that surprising if Biden defies polls by winning a higher share of the vote in Arizona than Wisconsin - or breaks through in Texas more than he does in Ohio."

Trump and GOP "˜obviously' rushed Amy Coney Barrett onto Supreme Court to "˜steal this election: Morning Joe

on October 28, 2020
Raw Story
By Travis Gettys

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough called on newly confirmed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from any election-related cases.

The "Morning Joe" host agreed with panelist John Heilemann, who said President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have made clear they're willing to lie, cheat and steal to maintain their hold on the White House and the U.S. Senate.

"I think in these closing days it's easy for us all to forget that they would start to treat this like a normal campaign with a normal president who treats the process with respect," Heilemann said. "This is a president who has telegraphed his desire to try to steal this election for the last six months, and now as we're starting to see these long lines, these various questions about the Supreme Court intervening in the Wisconsin case, the court fights happening, particularly in those three Great Lakes, Midwest states."

Heilemann said Joe Biden's polling position in those swing states appears strong, but he said the president's strategy is focused on the days after the election.

"The president's strategy for how to win in those states extends beyond Election Day, and extends in realms that are legal and sometimes extralegal," he said. "I think no one in the Democratic Party should rest on what the sense of security about anything that they're seeing in any of these closing days' polls. This could be a knife fight that goes on well after Election Day."

Scarborough agreed the GOP strategy seemed to be focused on limiting the number of votes that would be cast or counted, and he said that was why Barrett was rushed onto the court before Election Day.

"The president's team has said they just want to keep the states close enough so they can have legal challenges and they can take to the Supreme Court," Scarborough said, "and now, of course, Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court, and Donald Trump bragged to his crowds even before he named her that he was going rush through a pick so he could have somebody that would help him win his election fights - which, of course, if she doesn't remove herself from those cases, then, of course, that would forever tarnish her legacy at the Supreme Court."

"Let me say that again," he added. "When the president and [Sen.] Ted Cruz both say we need to get somebody on the Supreme Court to rule in our favor for any election challenges and then that person is output on the Supreme Court, select and put on the Supreme Court, after that, obviously you volunteer to remove yourself from consideration of that case or you undermine your credibility."

Watch: https://youtu.be/t9yg14myRpc

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How Far Might Trump Go?

No one is quite sure.

By Thomas B. Edsall
Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C. on politics, demographics and inequality.
Oct. 28, 2020
NY Times


On election night and the days that follow, the country may be in for a roller-coaster ride, with ups and downs that raise and dash expectations, provoking anger and frustration.

Here is a scenario, sketched out by Edward B. Foley, a professor of constitutional law at Ohio State, in his 2019 paper "Preparing for a Disputed Presidential Election: An Exercise in Election Risk Assessment and Management."

Foley presents a hypothetical widely discussed by election experts - with an outcome that hangs on the willingness of Republican-controlled legislatures to support Trump in the event that he loses the popular vote and refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, as he has frequently threatened.

"The president might attempt to defy even a landslide in the popular vote in battleground states," Foley writes:

    The risk of a seriously disputed election depends in part on the preliminary returns available on election night, as well as the willingness of gerrymandered state legislatures to consider repudiating the popular vote, and the degree to which there develop genuine problems to fight over in court, or the ability to generate perceived problems that would give state legislatures cover for taking matters into their own hands.

Foley outlined a set of possible worst-case developments that could lead to not only bitter legislative and court fights, but also to protests by whichever side emerges as the loser:

    This time it is all eyes on Pennsylvania, as whoever wins the Keystone State will win an Electoral College majority. Trump is ahead in the state by 20,000 votes, and he is tweeting "The race is over. Another four years to keep Making America Great Again."

In Foley's speculative account, The Associated Press and the networks do not call the election on Nov. 3, fully aware that there are still thousands of votes to be counted. The next morning, in this version of reality,

    new numbers show Trump's lead starting to slip. Trump holds a press conference, however, to announce "I've won re-election. The results last night showed that I won'" and warns that "I'm not going to let machine politicians in Philadelphia steal my re-election victory from me - or from my voters!"

The vote counting, in this scenario, continues as Trump's lead slowly evaporates.

Foley, imagining what comes next, continues:

    Trump insists, by tweet and microphone, "THIS THEFT WILL NOT STAND!!!" "WE ARE TAKING BACK OUR VICTORY."

If events were in fact to unfold this way, and if Trump were to get the backing of the Pennsylvania State Senate and House, both currently controlled by Republicans, the stage could indeed be set for what Foley and other legal experts have described as a battle with few precedents.

Barton Gellman, in a long essay in The Atlantic, "The Election That Could Break America" makes extensive use of Foley's conjecture. "Trump's crusade against voting by mail is a strategically sound expression of his plan for the Interregnum," the period from Election Day until the inauguration of Jan. 20. Trump, Gellman continues,

    is preparing the ground for post - election night plans to contest the results. It is the strategy of a man who expects to be outvoted and means to hobble the count.

Lawrence Tabas, the Pennsylvania Republican Party chairman, told Gellman that he has discussed the possibility of the legislature rejecting some or all mailed-in ballots, and subsequently choosing a slate of pro-Trump electors to cast the state's 20 Electoral College votes for the incumbent. "I just don't think this is the right time for me to be discussing those strategies and approaches," Tabas told Gellman, but direct appointment of electors "is one of the options. It is one of the available legal options set forth in the Constitution."

If two sets of electors were sent to Washington, the U.S. House and Senate would determine whether to accept electors from Pennsylvania chosen by the Republican legislature, or electors certified by Pennsylvania's Democratic governor, Tom Wolf.

Working in the same vein as Foley, Larry Diamond, a political scientist and senior fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, described by email what he called "by far the most dangerous scenario":

    Trump is leading when the in-person votes are counted on election night. If you just stopped counting at midnight on election night, Trump would be the winner, even though many millions of mail-in ballots in key swing states are still to be counted.

When the "blue wave comes in," Diamond continues,

    and gives Biden a victory in states with more than 270 electoral votes, Trump cries foul and demands that the Republican legislators in states like Pennsylvania, maybe Florida, give him their electoral votes, even though he didn't win according to the vote count.

In a Sept. 8 Atlantic essay, Diamond and Foley, writing together, warn of the possibility that

    Jan. 20 could arrive with Vice President Pence, in his role as Senate president, insisting that President Trump has been re-elected to a second term - while at the same time, Speaker Pelosi insists that there is no president-elect, because the process remains deadlocked, and hence she will assume the role of acting president until the counting of electoral votes from the states resumes with the disputed state resolved.

Richard Hasen, a professor of law and political science at the University of California-Irvine, emailed his version of a worst-case situation: "If it turns out to be really close and it comes down to Pennsylvania, God help the United States of America."

Hasen warns that Pennsylvania is expected to be one of the last states to complete the tabulation of votes, and, in that case, Pennsylvania's 20 Electoral College votes could determine the winner. If that is the case, Hasen says,

    It will be trench warfare over ballots and a president seeking to cast major doubt over the legitimacy of the election even without evidence of major problems. It would be much worse than Bush v. Gore because of Trump's rhetoric, because we are more polarized and many see this election in existential terms, and because internal and external forces can use social media to spread disinformation and fan the flames of hate.

Barry Burden, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, shared Hasen's worries, outlining in an email what he views as "the most likely scenario":

    President Trump falsely condemns the election as fraudulent and illegal. He will build on his allegations that millions of noncitizens voted illegally in 2016 to claim that millions of absentee ballots were submitted in duplicate or by foreign governments, neither of which will be true. He will intensify his rants against the supposed fraud as Biden's lead in the popular vote grows in the days following the election.

A flood of lawsuits "on postal delays, questions over the matching of voter signatures on absentee ballots, and lines at the polls" will likely "cause suspicious voters to think something is afoot," Burden wrote:

    This suspicion along with the possibility of a longer vote count this year will make it even more tempting for Trump and other politicians to begin making false allegations on election night.

Richard Pildes, a law professor at N.Y.U., pointed out in an email that policymakers who support extended vote processing deadlines "face a trade-off. The longer the permitted time, the more ballots will be valid. But the longer that time, the longer it will take for the final result to be known."

In more normal elections, Pildes continued,

    that would not pose any risk, but in our climate of existential politics, partisans all-too-prepared to believe (or charge) that elections are being manipulated, and a social-media environment poised to heap fuel onto the fire, the longer after Election Day any significant changes in vote totals takes place, the greater the risk that the side that loses will cry that the election has been stolen.

Going back to Nov. 3rd, if Trump fears he is headed for defeat, the critical period during which he would have to throw the first of many monkey wrenches into the process could be the late hours after polls close and through the early hours of the 4th - at the height of what election experts call "the red mirage" - the period of time in which those votes cast in person, who are disproportionately Republican, outnumber those not-yet-counted votes cast by mail or at off-site ballot boxes, disproportionately Democratic - a period of time known as "the blue shift."

If, as many of these experts expect, a "red mirage" emerges as the polls shut on Election Day, Trump could, at that moment, have the opportunity to declare victory and set in motion the workings of the federal government, especially the Department of Justice under Attorney General William Barr.

Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford. described this period to Politico Magazine as "the fog of war in the 24 hours after the polls close" when "there's going to be a competition to explain what's taking place by the candidates, the news media, perhaps even foreign actors."

Barr has in fact already begun setting the stage to challenge the results, to foster distrust of the outcome and to dispute votes cast by mail.

Last month, Barr told CNN that mailed-in balloting "is very open to fraud and coercion. It's reckless and dangerous, and people are playing with fire."

At a news conference in Phoenix on Sept. 10, Barr sowed further confusion, contending that since many "ballots are mailed out profligately" and many are misdirected "because of inaccuracy of voting lists. There are going to be ballots floating around."

Any drive to seriously contest the election would have to be conducted during what Gellman described as the Interregnum, the 79 days between the Nov 3 election and January 20, Inauguration Day.

During this period, there are four key dates: Dec. 14, when the electors meet in each state to cast their ballots; Jan. 3, when the new House and Senate are sworn in; Jan. 6, when the two branches meet to certify the vote of the Electoral College and Jan. 20 when the president is sworn in.

What follows is based on Foley's description in an email of how Trump could attempt to manipulate the outcome during the interregnum.

States with Republican legislatures and Democratic governors - like Pennsylvania, Michigan or Wisconsin - could end up submitting two slates of electors to Congress, one chosen by the Republican legislatures that reject enough mailed-in ballots to give Trump the win, the other by the Democratic governors of these states, who would certify slates backing Biden.

Insofar as such challenges could end up before the Supreme Court, Trump would have the advantage of a six-member conservative majority - with the swearing in this week of Amy Coney Barrett - a majority that could survive the possible defection of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

I asked Persily about Barrett's role in future litigation.

"This is both the most important question and the one most impossible to answer," Persily replied, adding that "the Republicans clearly think their chances with her on the court are better than without her."

If any of this come to pass, Barrett's role in election litigation could quickly become apparent in the way the Supreme Court approaches a renewed attempt by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to overturn a state Supreme Court ruling. The ruling requires election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked on Election Day or before but received as late as Nov. 6. These ballots would likely favor Democrats.

In an earlier 4-4 decision, with Roberts joining the three liberal Justices, the court let the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling stand.

On Oct. 23, the Pennsylvania state Republican Party asked the Supreme Court to take up the case again on its merits. If the court does so - back at full membership with Barrett potentially positioned to cast the tiebreaking vote - it raises the possibility that the outcome could once again be in the hands of the Supreme Court, just as it was in Bush v. Gore in 2000. The election would have to be close for this scenario to develop, but it is not impossible.

An eventuality along these lines would play out against a background of grass roots mobilization on both the right and left that heightens the prospect of civic disruption. If Trump were to take advantage of chaos on Election Day and in its aftermath to claim victory, there is the near certain prospect of protests that would make this past summer's Black Lives Matter demonstrations look mild in comparison.

The radical right is currently the greatest focus of a potential for disruption.

The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a liberal nonprofit group, issued a report earlier this month, "STANDING BY: Right-Wing Militia Groups & the US Election," that "maps a subset of the most active right-wing militias" including the Three Percenters, the Oath Keepers, the Light Foot Militia, the Civilian Defense Force, and the"street movements that are highly active in brawls," including the Proud Boys and Patriot Prayer.

The Armed Conflict Location Group report warns:

    Militia groups and other armed nonstate actors pose a serious threat to the safety and security of American voters. Throughout the summer and leading up to the general election, these groups have become more assertive, with activities ranging from intervening in protests to organizing kidnapping plots targeting elected officials.

The group's report noted that both the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Bureau of Investigation

    have specifically identified extreme far right-wing and racist movements as a primary risk factor heading into November, describing the election as a potential "˜flash point' for reactionary violence.

At the same time, liberal groups have not been sitting on their hands.

A relatively moderate entity called Holdtheline has issued "A Guide to Defending Democracy" by Hardy Merriman, Ankur Asthana, Marium Navid and Kifah Shah, all active in leftist advocacy groups. The guide warns that "we are witnessing ongoing actions that destroy our democracy bit by bit."

The guide pointedly stresses nonviolence and describes two categories of protest, "acts of commission" including engaging in demonstrations, marches, or nonviolent blockades," and "acts of omission," including

    strikes of all kinds; deliberate work slowdowns; boycotts of all kinds; divestment; refusing to pay certain fees, bills, taxes, or other costs; or refusal to observe certain expected social norms or behaviors.

A second liberal group, Choosing Democracy, is preparing for nonviolent protest in the event of "an undemocratic power grab - a coup." The group asks supporters to take the following pledge:

    We will vote.

    We will refuse to accept election results until all the votes are counted.

    We will nonviolently take to the streets if a coup is attempted.

    If we need to, we will shut down this country to protect the integrity of the democratic process.

As the Black Lives Matter protests in Portland, Seattle, New York and other cities demonstrated last summer, in large scale protests it can be difficult to enforce a commitment to nonviolence.

Not only that, but the federal indictment of Ivan Harrison Hunter, a member of the Boogaloo Bois, on charges that he "discharged 13 rounds from an AK-47 style semiautomatic rifle into the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct building" suggests that in the event of protests from the left, right-wing groups will attempt to foster and encourage violence.

Police department across the nation are gearing up to deal with violence on Election Day and in its aftermath.

"It's fair to say the police are preparing in ways they never would have had to for Election Day," Chuck Wexler, director of the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington-based think tank, told Time magazine. Andrew Walsh, a deputy chief of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, told The Washington Post, "I don't think we've seen anything like this in modern times."

All of this - the political and legal battles, the possibility of civic strife - raises the question: Why have politics and elections become such sources of volatility?

In an essay in The Washington Post on Oct. 23, Foley sought to explain why an unprecedented Trump-Republican refusal to accept the outcome of the 2020 election is within the bounds of possibility:

    The notion of a state's elected politicians acting to subvert the will of their own citizens should be unthinkable. But that's, in effect, what gerrymandering is. Elections are supposed to be held for the benefit of voters so that the public obtains the officeholders it wants. Gerrymandering is premised on the contrary approach: letting incumbent politicians manipulate the electoral system to defy the popular will for partisan advantage.

In state after state, the Republican Party has used gerrymandering to stay in power, winning majorities with fewer votes than cast for Democrats.

"Soon," Foley wrote, "the country may be forced to confront the question of whether this anti-democracy attitude has so taken hold that it could actually undo a presidential election."

A large part of the answer to Foley's question lies in what the Republican Party has become over the past two decades, as the once ascendant conservative coalition has struggled to remain viable.

The reality is that in order to remain competitive, the party has been forced to adopt policies and strategies designed to restrict and constrain the majority electorate: voter suppression, gerrymandering, dependence on an Electoral College that favors small, rural states, and legislation designed to weaken and defund the labor movement.

In this context, it's not a surprise that Trump and his partisan allies would be guided by an "anti-democracy attitude" that "has so taken hold that it could actually undo a presidential election." What is more surprising is that it possibly could succeed.

"˜Nothing short of evil': Trump campaign's latest voting lawsuit torched by veteran Nevada journalist

on October 28, 2020
Raw Story
By Brad Reed

Journalist Jon Ralston, who has won broad acclaim for his in-depth knowledge of politics in his home state of Nevada, has delivered a fiery denunciation of the latest voting-related lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump's campaign.

In his daily email he sent out to readers, he explained the significance of the lawsuit and accused the Trump campaign of trying to undermine citizens' faith in Nevada's vote-counting process.

"What they are doing, with no cause, is to use the court system to cast doubt on the election and specifically to raise questions about mail ballots," he wrote. "Not only is there no evidence of fraud or a conspiracy to commit fraud, but they also know it would be almost impossible to carry this out."

Ralston argues that Trump and the GOP are trying to put a stop to counting mail-in ballots because those ballots are disproportionately benefiting Democrats.

"The Republicans have done this because they know they are getting killed in mail ballots, and they want to stop the count or suppress the total," he claimed. "That's it. Period. And they are willing to smear good public servants, from poll workers to election officials, in service to a pathological liar who has denigrated this state at every turn."

Commenting on Twitter about the lawsuit, Ralston ads that it is "nothing short of evil."

    The Trump campaign filed another lawsuit last night and is in court in a few minutes on another one, trying to undermine faith in NV elections. They have no evidence, but they are raising smoke to pretend there is a fire. It is nothing short of evil. Yes, evil. I wrote about it. pic.twitter.com/KPqlbxSL98

    - Jon Ralston (@RalstonReports) October 28, 2020

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WATCH: Trump says he hopes courts will stop states from counting ballots past election day

on October 28, 2020
By David Badash, The New Civil Rights Movement

President Donald Trump has just announced he will use the federal courts - which he and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have packed with hundreds of far right wing extremist judges over the past four years - to block states from counting ballots past Election Day.

On Tuesday, Trump hinted as he often does, his intention - suggesting, falsely, that counting ballots after Election Day is illegal.

    "It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on Nov. 3, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate, and I don't believe that's by our laws." - Trump (In fact tallying all the ballots is consistent with the law.) pic.twitter.com/Dlj7DCiCT1

    - Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 27, 2020

Vox journalist Aaron Rupar at the time noted, "I don't know whether he'll succeed, but it's very clear that Trump is going to try to prevent states from tallying votes after Election Day.

He just made clear he will.

"We'll see what happens at the end of the day," on Election Day, Trump said Wednesday afternoon, according to CQ Roll Call's Niels Lesniewski. "Hopefully it won't go longer than that. Hopefully the few states remaining that want to take a lot of time after November 3rd to count ballots, that won't be allowed by the various courts."

Heres the video:

    Pres. Trump says "hopefully" states counting ballots after Nov. 3 "won't be allowed by the various courts"¦Hopefully that won't be happening."

    Due to expected record amount of mail-in voting, election night could be more like election week, experts say: https://t.co/1sJALABWUc pic.twitter.com/DxoZBjqRih

    - ABC News (@ABC) October 28, 2020

The "various courts," include the U.S. Supreme Court, which weeks ago Trump made clear had to have nine Justices so it could decide the election in his favor. He got his wish in record time, with Justice Barrett's Monday night confirmation and swearing in.

    President Trump says he thinks it's important to have nine Supreme Court justices because he thinks the 2020 election will end up at the court https://t.co/1XnDs2TDyS pic.twitter.com/im49FesK9n

    - Reuters (@Reuters) September 24, 2020

Supreme Court denies GOP demand to shorten mail-in ballot deadline in North Carolina

on October 29, 2020
Raw Story
By Matthew Chapman

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court rejected GOP efforts to reduce the ballot receipt deadline for mail-in voters in North Carolina from nine days to three.

The decision came shortly after the justices also declined to grant a stay blocking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's order extending the deadline in that state.

As in the Pennsylvania ruling, newly minted Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate, and Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh crossed over to deny the GOP's request - although, as legal journalist Mark Joseph Stern noted, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas made clear they wanted the Court to intervene against voting rights.

    BREAKING: By a 5-3 vote, the Supreme Court REJECTS an effort to shorten North Carolina's mail ballot deadline from nine to three days. Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas dissent.

    Read it: https://t.co/YT1vNZ2XCU

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 28, 2020

    I can't stress enough how messed up it is that Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas keep second-guessing state courts' interpretation of state law. It's an egregious infringement on state sovereignty. And Gorsuch basically accuses the NC state court of colluding with Democrats! pic.twitter.com/ZoX2P3R73p

    - Mark Joseph Stern (@mjs_DC) October 28, 2020