Tag: 2020 election

Biden flips Michigan, Wisconsin as Trump files legal challenges

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Democratic nominee Joe Biden is projected by Edison Research to win Michigan, picking up another state flipped by Donald Trump in 2016 and putting the former vice president 17 electoral votes from a victory in the electoral college. Alaska, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, and Nevada remain uncalled.

The projection comes as President Trump’s reelection campaign attempted to halt vote-counting in Pennsylvania and Michigan, sought a recount in Wisconsin and challenged the handling of ballots in Georgia. View the post here.

Lawsuit over Pennsylvania vote handling faces skeptical federal judge

Republicans point to Bush v. Gore as precedent

A federal judge in Pennsylvania expressed skepticism about a Republican challenge to the handling of mail-in votes Wednesday, as multiple lawsuits hang over ongoing counting efforts in the key swing state.

Kathy Barnette, the Republican challenger to Democratic Rep. Madeleine Dean, argued election officials in suburban Montgomery County violated election law by opening some ballots early and letting voters correct any deficiencies. 

The Associated Press has called the race in Dean’s favor, by some 40,000 votes. Continue reading.

The work will continue after Nov. 3. Here’s how you can stay involved

Welcome to Ballot Barriers, Mic’s weekly voting column for the 2020 election. Each week we’ll explore the challenge of voting in an election year that’s unlike any other.

The white nationalist takeover of U.S. politics didn’t begin on Nov. 8, 2016. It didn’t even begin when Trump won the Republican nomination the summer of 2016, nor when he first announced his candidacy in 2015. It began much earlier, when the first European settlers set foot on Indigenous land, and when they kidnapped and enslaved Africans.

We have lived in a hostile nation for more than four hundred years, not four years, but it took this presidency for many of us to notice. Continue reading.

A history of contested presidential elections, from Samuel Tilden to Al Gore

As states continue to count their ballots in the 2020 election, it seems possible that Democrats and Republicans will end up in court over whether President Trump will win a second term in the White House.

President Trump has said he’s going to contest the election results – going so far as to say that he believes the election will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has a team of lawyers lined up for a legal battle. 

Unprecedented changes in voting procedures due to the coronavirus pandemic have created openings for candidates to cry foul. Republicans argued earlier this year that extending deadlines to receive and count ballots will lead to confusion and fraud, while Democrats believe Republicans are actively working to disenfranchise voters. Continue reading.

Trump has attacked democracy’s institutions, but never so blatantly as he did overnight

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For four years, President Trump has sought to undermine the institutions of a democratic society, but never so blatantly as in the early morning hours of Wednesday. His attempt to falsely claim victory and to subvert the election itself by calling for a halt to vote-counting represents the gravest of threats to the stability of the country.

Millions of votes remain to be counted, votes cast legally under the laws of the states. Until they are all counted, the outcome of the election remains in doubt. Either he or former vice president Joe Biden could win an electoral college majority, but neither has yet done so, no matter what he says. Those are the facts, for which the president shows no respect.

A president who respected the Constitution would let things play out. But Trump has shown once again he cares not about the Constitution or the stability and well-being of the country or anything like that. He cares only about himself and retaining the powers he now holds. And so he cries “fraud” when there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing. Continue reading.

FBI Investigates Election Day Robocalls That Threatened 800,000 Voters

More than 800,000 people with phone numbers tied to six presidential swing states have been targeted with automated phone calls on Tuesday suggesting they remain at home on Election Day, a tactic that has alarmed voters and has drawn the attention of the FBI, documents and interviews show.

All told, more than 3 million calls were made to people across the country on Tuesday, instructing them to “stay safe and stay home,” according to data and call recordings provided by the firm TelTech, which owns the RoboKiller smartphone app. One message, only a few seconds long, delivers the message in a monotone, robotic voice.

Government officials and voters interpreted the messages as potential voter suppression, though it’s not clear what the intent was since the messages apparently began last December, before the coronavirus pandemic. It is also not known who was behind the cryptic messaging campaign or whether it targeted people with particular party registrations or political leanings. Nor was it clear whether the calls had any effect on voters’ willingness to go to the polls. In many states, significant numbers of people have already voted by mail, making the apparent veiled threats irrelevant. Continue reading.

Election cliffhanger captivates world, prompting fears over fate of U.S. democracy

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The world watched with a mixture of apprehension, dismay and fear on Wednesday as the United States struggled to extricate itself from a divisive presidential election and appeared to face a protracted legal battle.

President Trump’s premature victory claim late Tuesday night and false allegations of voter fraud were met with expressions of shock over the state of U.S. democracy, along with disparagement on the part of U.S. adversaries.

Here are the latest developments:

  • International election observers found that the vote was “competitive and well-managed” but also “tarnished by legal uncertainty,” in initial assessmentreleased Wednesday. The statement condemned Trump’s claims of voter fraud, calling them “baseless allegations.”

We still don’t know much about this election — except that the media and pollsters blew it again

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By early morning Wednesday, there was a lot that millions of anxious Americans didn’t know.

Mainly, they didn’t know who the president-elect is. That, in itself, wasn’t unexpected, nor is it terrible.

But after consuming hours of news on Tuesday night, and observing the election results thus far, there are a few things that we can be certain of. Continue reading.

As America Awaits a Winner, Trump Falsely Claims He Prevailed

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The president made his unfounded claim even though no news organizations declared a winner between him and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count.

With no winner declared in the 2020 presidential race, President Trump appeared in the White House just after 2 a.m. on Wednesday to brazenly claim he had already won the election — and to insist that votes stop being counted even though the ballots of millions of Americans had yet to be tallied. 

Speaking with a mix of defiance, anger and wonder that the election had not yet been called in his favor, the president recounted his standing in an array of battleground states before falsely declaring: “Frankly, we did win this election.”

No news organizations declared a winner between Mr. Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., and a number of closely contested states still had millions of mail-in ballots to count, in part because state and local Republican officials had insisted that they not be counted until Election Day. Continue reading.

USPS data shows thousands of mailed ballots missed Election Day deadlines

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The Postal Service ignored a federal judge’s order to sweep processing plants on Tuesday after more than 300,000 scanned ballots could not be traced.

Nearly 7 percent of ballots in U.S. Postal Service sorting facilities on Tuesday were not processed on time for submission to election officials, according to data the agency filed Wednesday in federal court, potentially leaving tens of thousands of ballots caught in the mail system during an especially tight presidential race.

The Postal Service reported the timely processing — which includes most mail-handling steps outside of pickup and delivery — of 93.3 percent of ballots on Election Day, its best processing score in several days, but still well below the 97-percent target that postal and voting experts say the agency should hit.

The Postal Service processed 115,630 ballots on Tuesday, a volume much lower than in recent days after weeks of warnings about chronic mail delays. Of that number, close to 8,000 ballots were not processed on time, a small proportion but one that could factor heavily in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin, which do not accept ballots after Election Day and could be decided by a few thousand votes. Continue reading.