Author: PolitCens

Election polls closed Tuesday night across the eastern half of the U.S. as Republican President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, waited for the official vote count in their highly contested race for a four-year term in the White House.Polls closed first in the Midwestern state of Indiana, where Trump won as expected, and in neighboring Kentucky, where Trump won as well. Both candidates claimed wins in other states as expected, but the outcome in decisive battleground states and nationally was far from certain.  The vote count in numerous states was in the early stage, while voting continued throughout Western time zones in the U.S. Latest Developments* There often were long lines of voters across the country and some reports of polling stations opening late. Voting equipment issues were reported in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.  * The FBI said it was investigating reports of robocalls discouraging people from voting in some states. But there were no signs of large-scale conflict at polls as some had feared. The U.S. Postal Service said there were delays in delivering 300,000 ballots to election officials in Michigan and parts of North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The ballots must be delivered by Election Day in Michigan and must be postmarked by Election Day in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to count  Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf told reporters Tuesday there is “no indication” that a “foreign actor” has successfully interfered in the election. */

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Large turnoutTens of millions of people stood in lines across the country throughout the day to cast their ballots on Election Day. More than 101 million other people voted early in recent weeks, partly to avoid coming face to face with others amid the unchecked coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. The early vote count focus was on three Atlantic coastal states — Florida, Trump’s adopted home state, Georgia to the immediate north and North Carolina. Trump won all three states in his 2016 upset victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, but recent national polls showed Trump and Biden locked in tight contests in all three.  Voters line up at a polling station on Election Day in Charlotte, North Carolina, Nov. 3, 2020.Analysts say Trump likely needs to win all three states if he is to claim a second term and avoid becoming the third U.S. president in the last four decades to lose a bid for re-election.  A victory for Biden, a political fixture in Washington for nearly a half century, in any of the three states would significantly increase his chances of winning the presidency on his third try. He lost bids for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. Florida, with 29 electoral votes, Georgia, with 16, and North Carolina, with 15, play an important role in the U.S. indirect form of democracy that decides its presidential elections, rather than the national popular vote. The outcome is effectively decided in state-by-state elections throughout the 50-state country and the national capital city, Washington, D.C.  The winner needs a 270 majority in the 538-member Electoral College.Record early voting  The early vote in the waning weeks of the 2020 election amounted to more than two-thirds of the entire vote count of nearly 139 million in the 2016 election when Trump upset Democrat Hillary Clinton to win the White House.   With the heavy early voting, the total 2020 vote count, by some estimates, could reach a U.S. record of 150 million or more. But with state-by-state laws controlling how soon the absentee votes can be counted — not until Tuesday night or later in some states — the outcome of the election may not be known for days, depending on how close the contest turns out.     The presidential election is coming after a rancorous and combative campaign, with both Trump and Biden lobbing taunts, claiming the other is unfit to lead the country and would take it to ruination.  Facing Unprecedented Challenges, Americans Answer Democracy’s Call at PollsMillions of Americans are casting ballots in unfamiliar ways during the global pandemic Over last weekend, tensions mounted as thousands of Trump campaign supporters rallied and demonstrated throughout the country; in one case a caravan of vehicles with Trump flags in Texas forced a Biden campaign bus off a highway.   Authorities and merchants in some cities, including New York, Detroit and Washington near the White House, have boarded up storefronts to prevent potential damage and looting in the event election-related violence erupts.   Many of the early voters — two-thirds of whom mailed in ballots while the rest cast votes in person — said they wanted to avoid coming face to face Tuesday with other people in long lines at polling stations, as the U.S. on some recent days has recorded more than 90,000 new coronavirus cases.   Some Democrats said they wanted to be among the first to vote against Trump, while many Republicans said they planned to vote in person on the official presidential Election Day — the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November — as has been the norm in U.S. elections every four years since the mid-1800s.   Voters are choosing between two septuagenarians, both of them older than the vast majority of the country’s 328 million citizens. Biden will be 78 by Inauguration Day on January 20, while Trump is 74. Whoever wins will be the oldest U.S. leader ever.   In addition, voters are choosing all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate.Control of US Senate at Stake on Election DayJust a few close races will determine if Republicans maintain their Senate majority Trump campaigningThe president, in the waning days of the campaign, called the election “a choice between the American Dream and a socialist nightmare. … A choice between a Trump super-recovery and a Biden depression.”Trump has claimed that Biden, if elected, would be beholden to the policy proposals of more progressive Democrats who are pushing for a government takeover of U.S. health care and a Green New Deal to control climate change, both of which the moderate Biden says he opposes.   Trump has repeatedly contended that the U.S., with a world-leading coronavirus death toll of more than 231,000 people and 9.2 million infections, according to Johns Hopkins University, is “rounding the corner” in dealing with the pandemic, and promises that within weeks, the U.S. will have a vaccine against the coronavirus.   “I watched Joe Biden speak yesterday,” Trump said Saturday. “All he talks about is COVID, COVID. He’s got nothing else to say. COVID, COVID.”   Good Chance Neither Trump nor Biden Will Concede Presidential Election Concession speeches from defeated political rivals have traditionally played a key role in the peaceful transfer of power in American democracy. But as VOA’s Brian Padden reports, this year the presidential candidates may not concede on election night or soon after if the results are close.   
Produced by: Brian PaddenBiden’s rhetoric Biden has often assailed Trump’s handling of the virus, mocking him for suggesting months ago it could be treated by ingesting bleach.    Biden told one rally, “Millions of people out there are out of work, on the edge” because of the pandemic. “Can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, and Donald Trump has given up. Donald Trump has waved the white flag, abandoned our families and surrendered to the virus.”   Biden said he would “choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. Science over fiction. And yes, we choose truth over lies.”     “I don’t care how hard Donald Trump tries. There’s nothing — let me say that again — there’s nothing that he can do to stop the people of this nation from voting in overwhelming numbers and taking back this democracy,” Biden said at a rally in Flint, Michigan.   According to Polls, Who’s Likelier to Win, Trump or Biden? Biden wants the election to be a referendum on Trump’s handling of the pandemic. Are there other issues shaping the race?Electoral voting   National polls have for weeks shown Biden leading Trump nationally by about 7 or 8 percentage points, but only by about half that margin or less in key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome.   Even two lightly populated states — Maine in the Northeast with four electoral votes and Nebraska in the Midwest with five — could play a role in the national outcome if the election is close. The two states award their electors by the vote count in individual congressional districts and the overall statewide vote, which could be a factor in an extremely close election.   
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Efforts to secure U.S. voting infrastructure and to hunt down potential cyber threats appear to be paying off as millions of Americans cast ballots for president and local and state officials.U.S. election security officials continue to express confidence, hours after the first polling centers opened their doors to voters on Tuesday, the last day for citizens to cast a ballot.A senior official with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), briefing reporters only on the condition of anonymity, described the threat to the country’s election infrastructure as “much quieter” than in 2016, when Russian hackers targeted systems in all 50 states.“At this point, this just looks like any other election day and even just another Tuesday,” the official added, noting technical issues had caused some problems across the United States, though many of them had been resolved.Some polling places across the country reported long lines, which officials have mostly attributed to the high volume of Americans wanting to vote in the hotly contested presidential election.Voters wait in a long line to cast their ballots at Church of the Servant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Nov. 3, 2020.But officials said the stress on the country’s election infrastructure has also been eased by the more than 100 million Americans who have already voted by mail or at early voting centers.“We have no indications that a foreign adversary has succeeded in compromising or affecting the actual votes cast in this election,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said at a briefing just hours after the first polling sites opened their doors Tuesday.“Our election infrastructure is resilient,” he said, adding, “We do remain on high alert.”U.S. officials have already acknowledged at least two attempts to penetrate systems seen as critical to elections in recent weeks, one by Iran and one by Russia.In both cases, hackers were able to steal information related to voter registration databases, with Iranian hackers managing to infiltrate one state’s database and use that information as part of a disinformation campaign.US Confirms Iran Hacked Voter Registration Data in 1 StateOfficials describe the hack as part of broad Iranian campaign, warning that while Tuesday’s election remains safe, more attacks are comingOfficials ‘confident’ in election securityStill, officials said Tuesday that those attacks were shut down quickly and would have no bearing on the outcome of the election.“No voter data was altered,” the senior CISA official said. “We remain confident in the security of the vote, the vote count and the certification process.”Officials also credited U.S. Cyber Command’s “hunt forward” approach with potentially helping to shut down or block attacks against the U.S. election before they had the chance to do damage.US Cyber Forces Go Hunting for Election Trouble Officials warn adversaries — especially Russia and China — that US forces are waging a preemptive campaign to protect the November presidential vote CYBERCOM also said it remained ready to respond if necessary.”We’ve got defensive cyber elements that are sitting in war rooms, waiting on a call,” a CYBERCOM spokesperson told VOA. “If there is something that happens that DHS needs help with, we are trained, and we have collaborated in the past, and we’re ready.”FBI investigating robocallsStill, federal and state officials have voiced concerns about some attempts to intimidate U.S. voters, including a series of robocalls to voters in at least six states, urging them to stay home.NOW: Here’s the full audio of the “time to stay home” robocall landing across the US. Did you get a call today? Let me know. Please RT! pic.twitter.com/XmWJyJ6sar
— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) November 3, 2020The senior CISA official said the FBI is investigating the calls, but cautioned, “robocalls of this nature happen every election.”FBI officials declined to comment but urged U.S. voters to go directly to local election officials for information.While the origins of the calls remain unclear, it appears the messaging itself is not new.“We had been receiving complaints about these robocalls throughout the season,” said Kristen Clarke, the president and CEO of The Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.Clarke, though, said it appears to be number of calls has spiked in connection with Tuesday’s election.Warning voters on foreign meddlingU.S. election security officials are also warning Americans to remain vigilant, cautioning that U.S. adversaries like Russia, China and Iran may be waiting until the polls close to launch more serious attacks.“We’re not out of the woods yet,” said CISA Director Christopher Krebs on Tuesday.”Today in some sense is halftime. There may be other events or activities or efforts to interfere and undermine confidence in the election,” he said. “So, I ask all Americans to be patient, to treat all sensational claims with skepticism.”Counterintelligence officials have been especially concerned about ongoing influence operations, warning that Russia, China and Iran in particular, have been actively targeting Americans, trying to play up existing political divisions and foster distrust in the election process.Officials also charge all three countries with trying to impact the outcome of the U.S. presidential race, trying to boost or harm the candidacies of President Donald Trump or former Vice President Joe Biden.Official: US Adversaries Taking Sides, Wielding Influence Ahead of Election  US counterintelligence officials, splitting with President Trump, warn Russian-linked actors are pulling for his reelection as China and Iran aim to put Democrat Joe Biden in the White HouseBut they also say as many as 30 countries have sought to influence the election, a list that includes U.S. allies like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, and adversaries like Cuba and Venezuela.US Bracing for Attacks Before and After Election Day Counterintelligence and security officials warn voters attempts to meddle will come in various shapes, forms and will not end once polls closeAs of early Tuesday, officials said they were aware of at least one disinformation campaign targeting Chinese-American voters and were working with other government agencies and social media companies to address it.According to the nonprofit investigative website ProPublica, at least two dozen groups on the Chinese-owned social media app WeChat were trying to intimidate voters by spreading rumors that U.S. officials were going to mobilize troops to put down impending riots.Officials have also expressed concern about state-backed media, which has been producing what one official described as, “this steady drumbeat of disinformation.One Russian-backed media outer Tuesday, RT, spent part of Tuesday promoting an election day interview with Rudy Giuliani, President Trump’s personal lawyer and the former mayor of New York City.This past Sunday, Trump’s top adviser on the coronavirus, Dr. Scott Atlas, apologized on Twitter after giving RT an interview from the White House, saying he was “unaware they are a registered foreign agent.”The U.S. intelligence community has called RT a propaganda arm of the Russian government.(VOA’s Masood Farivar contributed to this story.)
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Millennial and Generation Z voters are expected to turn out in record numbers for the Nov. 3 presidential election, experts say, continuing a trend of increased participation since the midterm elections in 2018.  “A lot of students are back in their hometowns, so they are more likely to be able to vote easily,” said Josh Kutner, a senior at the George Washington University and chairman of GW College Republicans. Josh Kutner (courtesy photo)“Campaigns are really looking to young people to be leaders and help fight for their values and their visions for their community, so I think that’s been a pretty big role in getting young voters engaged all across the country this year.”
Among the nearly 240 million eligible voters in the United States today, about 20% are 18- to 29-year-olds who are Jordan Harzynski (courtesy photo)“We’re also seeing that the pandemic has helped many young people, almost 45 percent, say that the decisions made by elected officials impact their everyday life, and that’s a lesson that they’ve learned over the past several months while we’ve been going through this,” said Kiesa.   Social media have been key to galvanizing younger voters, stated Ben Kelley, a young voter from Illinois.  President Donald Trump “is really the first president to be constantly engaged with social media and to use it to communicate his inner thoughts and policy proposals,” stated Kelley, and “that is where young voters are.”According to Twitter, Trump has 87.4 million followers and has tweeted more than 58,100 times. Former President Barack Obama has 124.6 million followers and tweeted more than 16,000 times.  Jordan Harzynski, a freshman at George Mason University in Virginia, runs the “youngvoters4joe” Instagram account, which has more than 1,100 followers and promotes young voter turnout for Democratic candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden.   “We can’t keep tweeting and posting on Instagram; we have to do the real work,” said Harzynski. “I’ve seen that as a problem with my group, people like to watch the debates but they don’t like to make phone calls. We have to make phone calls; we have to put in the work to win this election.” 
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President Donald Trump and his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, spent the final day of the campaign trying to earn every last vote in a few key states. VOA’s Brian Padden reports. 
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In his final day of campaigning, U.S. President Donald Trump warned of post-election violence due to a Supreme Court decision to allow extended ballot counting in what may be the pivotal state of Pennsylvania.     Polls show former Vice President Joe Biden with a slight lead in the state where mail-in ballots, expected to favor the Democrats, might not be tabulated for days following Tuesday’s election.  In between his Monday rallies in Traverse City, Michigan, and Kenosha, Wisconsin, Trump tweeted that extended counting of such ballots in Pennsylvania “will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!”  The Supreme Court decision on voting in Pennsylvania is a VERY dangerous one. It will allow rampant and unchecked cheating and will undermine our entire systems of laws. It will also induce violence in the streets. Something must be done!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Former President Barack Obama speaks at a rally as he campaigns for Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, Nov. 2, 2020, in Miami.Biden said of Trump at a midday drive-in rally in Cleveland, Ohio. “The character of America is literally on the ballot.”   Discussion of issues during the campaign has been largely overshadowed by the two candidate’s personal attacks on each other and the coronavirus pandemic.  The president, earlier on Monday in North Carolina, emphasized an economic recovery amid the pandemic, promising “we will mass distribute the vaccine within a few short weeks.”       Health officials, including those in Trump’s administration, predict most Americans are unlikely to be inoculated against COVID-19 before early or mid-2021.    Trump, at the first of Monday’s five rallies in four states, said his challenger, if elected, “will turn America into a prison state” through lockdowns to combat the virus.    Biden said in Cleveland that “the first step to beating the virus is beating Donald Trump.”Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden waves after speaking at a rally at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport, Nov. 2, 2020, in Cleveland.Obama characterized the president as a COVID-19 “super-spreader” for holding packed campaign rallies and White House events.      The pandemic has overshadowed other issues in the presidential campaign with COVID-19 cases spiking in recent weeks in many of the U.S. states expected to decide the presidential election.       The coronavirus has killed more than 231,000 people and infected nearly 9.3 million in the United States, the most of any country in the world, according to Johns Hopkins University.    National polls show the former vice president with about an eight-point lead, but the race is significantly tighter in the swing states that will decide the victor.        The common stop on the Monday itineraries of both Biden and Trump was Pennsylvania, the eastern U.S. state that Trump won in 2016.  The winner of Pennsylvania earns 20 of the 270 electoral votes a candidate needs to earn a four-year term in the White House. Trump on Monday held a rally at the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport, while Biden addressed supporters at three socially distanced drive-in events in the state.  Biden campaign events in Pennsylvania also featured remarks and performances by entertainers Lady Gaga, Patti LaBelle, John Legend and Common.   “We all know that this could come down to Pennsylvania. … Vote like your life depends on it. Vote like your children’s lives depend on it, because they do,” Lady Gaga said in Pittsburgh before taking a seat at the piano and singing several songs interspersed with appeals for Pennsylvanians to vote for Biden.   Trump ended his campaigning with midnight hour rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a replay of his 2016 finale in a state Hillary Clinton was expected to win.     “We can’t let the sneaky guy fool us because he happens to be a corrupt politician,” said Trump early Tuesday, getting in a final verbal jab at Biden.  As the president spoke the first official Election Day votes were cast in two villages in New Hampshire. All 5 ballots in Dixville Notch were for Biden; in Millsfield, the tally was 16 votes for Trump and 5 for Biden.  National results will not be official until weeks later. The deadlines vary by state, with a few reporting within a week but many not requiring final results to be reported until late November or early December.            Most years, the winner is clear before the official results with media organizations making projections based on tabulations from individual voting precincts.     This year a record number of people have cast early ballots — nearly 99 million— and with many of those coming by way of mail-in ballots due to concerns about the coronavirus, the counting in some states could be slower than usual.     
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A federal judge on Monday rejected a Republican effort to invalidate nearly 127,000 votes in Houston because the ballots were cast at drive-thru polling centers established during the pandemic.  The lawsuit was brought by conservative Texas activists who have railed against expanded voting access in Harris County, where a record 1.4 million early votes have already been cast. The county is the nation’s third largest and a crucial battleground in Texas, where President Donald Trump and Republicans are bracing for the closest election in decades on Tuesday.  U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s decision to hear arguments on the brink of Election Day drew concern from voting rights activists and came after the Texas Supreme Court rejected a nearly identical challenge over the weekend.  The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by conservative GOP activists who have filed a battery of court challenges over moves to expand voting options during the COVID-19 pandemic. The challenges have not involved Trump’s campaign. Another 20,000 or more voters were expected to use drive-thru polling locations Tuesday, said Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins, the county’s top elections official. Several voters who already used the drive-thru centers rushed to join mounting opposition to the lawsuit, including a Houston attorney whose wife was 35 weeks pregnant when she cast her ballot. She gave birth to twins Friday. “My vote counts,” David Hobbs said. “My wife’s vote counts.” FILE – A line of cars drive in for an event encouraging community members to vote in the upcoming presidential election at an early voting site in Houston, Texas, October 25, 2020.Trump won Texas by nine points in 2016, but polls have shown Democrat Joe Biden still within reach in America’s biggest red state. Democrats also need to flip only nine seats to reclaim a majority in the Texas House for the first time in 20 years and have aggressively targeted several races in Harris County.  Harris County offered 10 drive-thru locations as an option for its nearly 5 million residents amid worries of spreading the coronavirus. Jared Woodfill, a former chairman of the Harris County GOP, argued that Texas election law makes no explicit allowances for drive-thru voting and framed it is as an unlawful expansion of curbside voting, which is legal in Texas but limited to people who are unable to enter polling places because of their health.  Portions of the hearing were consumed by debate over what exactly qualified as a legal structure for a polling place under Texas law.  “You have a fundamental right to vote in a car?” Hanen tersely asked an attorney for the ACLU.  Woodfill’s lawsuit noted that all but one of the drive-thru centers were set up “in Democrat areas of the county.” More than 40% of Harris County residents are Latino, and about one in five residents are Black.Demonstrators stand across the street from the federal courthouse in Houston, Texas, November 2, 2020, before a hearing in federal court involving drive-thru ballots cast in Harris County.The lawsuit drew objections even from Republicans, include former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus. Republican Sen. John Cornyn, who is facing the toughest reelection battle of his career Tuesday against Democrat MJ Hegar, also said during a weekend campaign stop that the Texas Supreme Court made the right decision earlier in rejecting an identical challenge. The Texas Supreme Court, which is controlled entirely by Republicans, rejected an identical lawsuit last month and on Sunday refused to invalidate the votes already cast. The state’s highest court did not explain its decision. Hollins had asked Republican Gov. Greg Abbott to affirm that the drive-thru locations are legal but received no response.  Texas is one of just five states that did not allow for widespread mail-in voting this year during the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 18,000 people statewide. Abbott instead expanded early voting by one week, and that extra time helped Texas already surpass 2016’s total votes even before Tuesday’s election.  More than 9.7 million people have cast early ballots in Texas, where turnout typically ranks among the lowest in the country. Some elections experts predict that total turnout in Texas could surpass 12 million, and Harris County officials have taken more steps than most to expand voting access. The county tripled the number of polling places and last week had eight locations that stayed open for 24 hours.  
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Governments across the world are anxiously watching the race for the White House, as they prepare for either Republican Donald Trump securing a second term as U.S. president or for an electoral win by his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden.  Who will be the international winners and losers from Tuesday’s U.S. election?  “The last four years have confirmed that the choices the U.S. makes are highly consequential for international politics,” according to a commentary by Britain’s leading foreign policy research group, Chatham House.  Chatham House added, “The next president will determine how America’s diplomatic, economic and military resources are invested, and, especially, what value the U.S. will attach to existing alliances and multilateral institutions. Whoever sits in the White House will shape the trajectory of the U.S.–China relationship and the global economy, with significant implications for America’s partners.” And implications for U.S. adversaries. Although some profess to claim the impact might not be as great as some might think. In RussiaRussian experts say they expect little improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington, regardless of who wins.  “Putin and people around him might like Trump because he fits very nicely with their view of the world,” according to Andrey Kortunov of the Russian International Affairs Council, a research group based in Moscow, in referencing Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kortunov points to Trump’s skepticism about the importance of multilateral institutions and his more transactional approach to diplomacy. FILE – An activist of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia holds a placard during a demonstration ahead of the U.S. presidential election, in front of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, Russia, Oct. 31, 2020.But Kortunov says he does not expect Moscow to shift its foreign policy in the coming months, regardless of who is in the White House. Antagonism, he says, will continue.  “Russia’s leaders have long been convinced that any unilateral steps or shifts in Moscow’s foreign policy will be perceived in the West as a sign of weakness, and thus an invitation to crank up the pressure on Russia,” he said. “Russians don’t back down. This principle has remained at the core of Russia’s foreign policy throughout the years.”Former Russian officials over the past few months have also told VOA they expect relations to remain antagonistic with the United States and Europe, blaming what they see as a U.S.-led conspiracy to curb Russian influence.  “Some people in the Kremlin hoped it would be different with Donald Trump. But I wasn’t holding my breath,” a former senior Kremlin aide told VOA, describing debates among Russian officials in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. election. Much of the same is happening now, say other former officials. Global interestDespite apparent Russian nonchalance about the result, few in Moscow or elsewhere in the world doubt the enormous global ramifications of Tuesday’s election. A reporter for Britain’s Sky News suggested on air that the world should have a vote in the election because of the international repercussions of the result. This is not just a national election, but a global one, he said. Hundreds of millions around the globe will likely stay up for overnight election watch parties. Others say they will interrupt their work day to keep an eye on the results as they start to unfold. Some cities are planning to broadcast election coverage on billboard-sized televisions.  Aside from the fascination with U.S. politics, foreign governments often view the election through the prism of their strategic interests.  “Although the U.S. presidency is not as all powerful as many people think, it is certainly, both inside and outside of the U.S., the most powerful elected position in the world. Right now, the world is looking at the U.S. with great anxiety and expectation,” according to Cas Mudde, professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia, writing in Britain’s The Guardian newspaper. Leaders guardedAnxiety is shared by governments at this stage — whether they prefer Trump or Biden. With opinion polls getting their predictions wrong in 2016, no overseas leader can be sure how this election will turn out.  FILE – Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stands with U.S. President Donald Trump after signing the Abraham Accords, on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Sept. 15, 2020.Most foreign leaders have been guarded in expressing who they would prefer to see win. Analysts say national leaders most closely associated with Trump, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, have been cautious in their praise of him, fearing if he loses, their full-throated support of Trump would adversely affect relations with a potential Biden administration.  Hungary’s firebrand populist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has been one of the few European leaders to speak out in support of Trump as he was in 2016, announcing in an article in a Hungarian newspaper in September that he’s “rooting for another victory for Donald Trump because we are very familiar with the foreign policy of U.S. Democratic administrations, built as it is on moral imperialism. We have tasted it — albeit under duress. We didn’t like it and we don’t want a second helping.” Other conservative nationalist leaders in central Europe have been quieter, despite sharing Trump’s antipathy toward the European Union and his populist ideology. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and senior officials of the country’s Law and Justice Party, or PiS, have avoided replying when asked who they prefer.  Throughout his term in office, Trump has polled badly in Europe generally, but more so in the west of the continent. Only 13% percent of Germans, 18% of Swedes, and 20% of the French have confidence in him to do the right thing in world affairs, according to a survey at the start of the year by the Pew Research Center. Those percentages are much lower than for Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, during his last year in office. Public opinion becomes a little more mixed moving west to east, largely due to approval of Trump by supporters of populist nationalist parties, which are stronger in central Europe and who see the Republican president as an ideological ally, especially when it comes to migration. The Pew poll found a majority of Poles, 51%, had confidence in Trump doing the right thing in world affairs. In Western EuropeThe western European public and governments, by contrast, are eager for a reset from the Trump years, and a return to more predictable and traditional transatlantic relations, analysts say. “Biden has always been a staunch trans-atlanticist — and, over the course of his decades-long political career, he has forged close relationships with key European leaders, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel,” noted Alex Soros in commentary for the European Council on Foreign Relations, an international research institution partly funded by his father, philanthropist George Soros. FILE – German Chancellor Angela Merkel, right, walks with then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden for a meeting at the chancellery in Berlin, Germany, Feb. 1, 2013.Western European officials say they expect relations would go smoother and more predictably with Biden than with Trump. Biden is a known quantity, having served 34 years in the U.S. Senate and eight as Obama’s vice president. They say they expect him to work as he always has, building up alliances and working on the international front as a multilateralist. His foreign policy would highlight common liberal values with western Europeans, they say. But they do not expect a total restoration of how things were before Trump’s “America First” policy.  “Winners” outside Europe in the event Trump secures a second term include Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, also a conservative nationalist. Bolsonaro aides say they would fear a change in Washington, adding that Brazil’s leader would be much more isolated internationally if Trump loses. They would expect confrontations with a Biden administration over human rights issues and climate change. In the Middle East, Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah El-Sissi clashed badly with the Obama administration over his government’s human rights record and officials in Cairo say they expect a repeat, if Biden is elected. Likewise, the Gulf monarchies have forged close ties with the Trump administration and were relieved when Trump told Arab leaders during a visit to the Saudi capital of Riyadh in 2017 that, “We are not here to lecture.” 
 
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Social media giant Twitter said Monday it will put warning labels on tweets from U.S. election candidates that claim victory ahead of official results.  In a blog post Monday, the company said an election win must be “authoritatively called” before tweets without warning labels will be allowed by candidates or campaigns.  To determine election results, Twitter said it would require an announcement from state election officials or a “public projection from at least two authoritative national news outlets that make independent election calls,” citing examples that included ABC News, The Associated Press, CNN and Fox News. Tuesday’s U.S. election has a record number of early votes, which election officials say could slow down the vote count in some states. Because of this, it is possible that a winner in the presidential race, along with some state and local races, will not be known on election night.  Twitter said candidates’ tweets that include premature claims of an election victory would be subject to warning labels such as, “Official sources called this election differently,” or “Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted.” The company said U.S.-based accounts with over 100,000 followers and a significant engagement that post premature claims will also be considered for labeling. In addition, Twitter said any tweets “meant to incite interference” with the election process or with the implementation of election results, including through violent action, will be removed.  
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Since the 2016 presidential election, more than 15 million people have turned 18, making young people a critical voter bloc for the 2020 presidential elections this November. Like their elders, the youth vote is not a monolith or a unified voting bloc that aligns on all issues and demographics. Gender, like race, will impact youth voting in its own way.  Among millennial voters, born between 1981-1996, women were more likely to identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, according to the Pew Research Center. Pew reported that 60% of millennial women associated with the Democratic Party while 31% associated with the Republican, or GOP. For millennial men, the gap was much smaller, with 48% associating with the Democratic Party and 44% associating with the GOP.  “Gender issues have been a big consideration for me, specifically just in regard to communicating with people of another gender,” said Christian Lohrenz, a senior at Minnesota State University at Mankato.    “LGBTQ rights, equality, those are big deal to me,” Lohrenz said. “You look at the ban on transgender people being in the military, those are certainly things that I disagreed with and I was cognizant of when I was picking my candidate.”    Lohrenz said he will be voting for Biden because he agrees with the ideas the Biden campaign put forth for education, criminal justice reform, and climate change.  For young women ages 18-29, 60% polled say they intend to vote for Joe Biden, according to data from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.CIRCLE’s 2020 pre-election youth poll also shows that young women of color support Joe Biden, with 77% of young Asian women, 71% of young Black women and 61% of young Latinas intending to vote for Biden.  However, this does not mean they approve of the Democratic presidential nominee, as the polling asks. Only 30% of young women of color approve or strongly approve of Biden.  On the other hand, 81% of young women disapprove of President Donald Trump. Among young women of color, the percentage is higher, with 94% of young Asian women, 88% of young Latinas, and 85% of young Black women. “I’m voting for Joe Biden because I don’t agree with Trump at all with some of his policies and the way he treats people,” said Jenna Peterson, a junior at Minnesota State University at Mankato. “Is Biden perfect? No. But he is the better option, and he wants to fight for the policies that I believe in such as reproductive health, women’s rights and climate change.”  Kaylee Corvin, a sophomore at the University of Virginia, says that while she doesn’t always agree with Trump as a person, she will be voting for him because he aligns best with her political views. “Being able to defend yourself with a firearm: I think that this goes down to really be able to protect yourself and stand up for yourself than rely on the government. I think that’s a huge thing for women empowerment,” she said.  “For reproductive issues, I stand a bit more on the pro-life side. But it’s definitely more pro-birth control, pro-access to sexual education, and better access to adoption and funding programs to support mothers,” Corvin added.  Grace Leto, a junior at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, said she, too, favors the Trump/Pence ticket.  “I voted for [Trump] because I strongly believe that he is the best candidate. He has strengthened our economy so much these past four years, is bold in his actions, and treasures/respects the mission of the military,” she said.  “Trump is not the best with words. He has said some comments before that are pretty sexist and I really don’t know what he has done in depth for women’s rights. I do know the recent appointment of the new Supreme Court justice is female, and he especially wanted to keep a woman in the Supreme Court,” Leto said.  The recent confirmation of Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the United States Supreme Court, eight days before the presidential elections, has also highlighted gender issues in the minds of many young voters.  “With Amy Coney Barrett becoming the new Supreme Court Justice, I’m definitely concerned about my health care and my rights. She’s had a history of not being for abortion and the Affordable Care Act, and she’s Trump-appointed,” said Shruti Nallappa, a master’s student at George Washington University. Nallappa said she will vote for Joe Biden. Barrett is on record as disagreeing with abortion, as well as the Affordable Care Act. But some view it as a success for women’s representation.  “Honestly, I’m a little confused from where all the hate comes from. A lot of times people talk about empowering women and this is an example of an extremely successful, strong woman,” said Trevor McDowell, a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona.This Voter Group Could Sway 2020 ElectionWhile youth vote is predicted to have a significant impact, young white males may play an outsized role in determining the outcomeMcDowell says he will vote for Trump because of his strong support of the Second Amendment, Trump’s economic policies, and because he believes there is a “much deeper corruption” in career politicians.  Overall, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has more support from women than men with 56% of women and 50% of men leaning Biden, according to the Pew Research Center. President Trump sees more support from men than women with 48% of men and 42% of women supporting Trump or leaning Trump. 
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The FBI said on Sunday it was investigating an incident in which a convoy of vehicles flying flags in support of President Donald Trump’s reelection bid surrounded a bus carrying campaign staff for Democratic challenger Joe Biden on a Texas highway. Friday’s incident — captured on video that was retweeted by Trump on Saturday with the message, “I LOVE TEXAS!” — prompted the Biden campaign to cancel at least two of its Texas events as Democrats accused the president of encouraging supporters to engage in acts of intimidation. Video footage showed a swarm of pickups and SUVs bearing pro-Trump flags surrounding the Biden campaign bus as it traveled north along Interstate 35 between San Antonio and Austin. The Biden campaign said the Trump caravan tried to force the bus to slow down and to run it off the road. One video clip aired on CNN showed a Trump-flagged pickup swerve into the side of another vehicle traveling with the bus. The Texas Tribune newspaper reported that the sideswiped vehicle was being driven by a Biden campaign staffer. According to the Biden campaign, staff aboard the bus called emergency-911 to report the incident, and local law enforcement responded to the calls and assisted the bus in reaching its destination. “FBI San Antonio is aware of the incident and investigating,” special agent Michelle Lee, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Antonio, told Reuters in an email. “No further information is available at this time.” On Twitter Sunday night, Trump criticized the FBI investigation of his supporters, writing: “In my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong.” During a campaign stop in Michigan earlier in the day, Trump said: “Did you see our people yesterday? They were protecting his bus.” Speaking about the incident on the campaign trail Sunday in Philadelphia, Biden said: “We’ve never had anything like this. At least we’ve never had a president who thinks it’s a good thing.” Neither Biden nor his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, was aboard the bus. The Texas Tribune reported that its passengers included Democratic U.S. House of Representatives candidate and former Texas state Senator Wendy Davis. The highway confrontation came as polls showed an unexpectedly tight race between Biden and Trump in Texas, which has long been a Republican stronghold. “Rather than engage in productive conversation about the drastically different visions that Joe Biden and Donald Trump have for our country, Trump supporters in Texas instead decided to put our staff, surrogates, supporters and others in harm’s way,” Biden’s Texas campaign spokesman, Tariq Thowfeek, said in a statement. “We’ll see you on November 3rd.” Texas Republican Party Chairman Allen West, in a statement, dismissed media reports of the incident as “more fake news and propaganda,” adding: “Prepare to lose … stop bothering me.” Texas was not the only place where “Trump trains” of supporters forming vehicle convoys have caused consternation. Video footage on social media on Sunday showed vehicles flying pro-Trump flags blocking traffic on the Whitestone Bridge over the East River in New York City’s Bronx borough. Local media reported similar Sunday traffic blockades on the express lanes of the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey and the Tappan Zee Bridge over the Hudson River linking New York’s Westchester and Rockland counties. 
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With just two days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, will once again visit battleground states.Trump will hold rallies in the hotly contested states of Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.Biden will deliver remarks at a “Souls to the Polls” event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at a drive-in event there later.Saturday, Trump and Biden focused on two battleground states, with the president visiting Pennsylvania while the former vice president in Michigan. Trump held four rallies in cities across Pennsylvania, where he narrowly won in 2016 and where polls currently show Biden with a slight advantage.Trump’s first rally was in Newtown, where he criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing a Republican Party effort to block a three-day extension for Pennsylvania election officials to receive absentee ballots, meaning the court would not intercede in the state’s vote count.On the final rally in Montoursville, Trump confirmed that he had signed an executive order that called on the Energy Department to lead a study on the effects of restricting fracking for natural gas, which is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Trump has accused Biden of planning to ban fracking if elected, something Biden denies.Trump also thanked U.S. Special Forces for an operation carried out in northern Nigeria on Saturday to rescue an American citizen, who was kidnapped earlier in the week and was being held by armed men.Trump won Pennsylvania by a narrow margin in 2016, but polls show Biden ahead of Trump there.Biden attended events alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign season. The two visited the cities of Flint and Detroit the first of two days the campaign will spend in Michigan to garner voter support.In Flint, Michigan, Biden focused on Trump’s handling of the pandemic. “We’re gonna beat this virus and get it under control and the first step to doing that is beating Donald Trump,” Biden said.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and former President Barack Obama greet supporters at a rally at Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan, Oct. 31, 2020.National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  More than 92 million people had voted as of Saturday, well above half the overall 2016 vote count of 138.8 million, according to the U.S. Elections Project. 
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With just two days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, will once again visit battleground states.Trump will hold rallies in the hotly contested states of Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.Biden will deliver remarks at a “Souls to the Polls” event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and at a drive-in event there later.Saturday, Trump and Biden focused on two battleground states, with the president visiting Pennsylvania while the former vice president in Michigan. Trump held four rallies in cities across Pennsylvania, where he narrowly won in 2016 and where polls currently show Biden with a slight advantage.Trump’s first rally was in Newtown, where he criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing a Republican Party effort to block a three-day extension for Pennsylvania election officials to receive absentee ballots, meaning the court would not intercede in the state’s vote count.On the final rally in Montoursville, Trump confirmed that he had signed an executive order that called on the Energy Department to lead a study on the effects of restricting fracking for natural gas, which is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Trump has accused Biden of planning to ban fracking if elected, something Biden denies.Trump also thanked U.S. Special Forces for an operation carried out in northern Nigeria on Saturday to rescue an American citizen, who was kidnapped earlier in the week and was being held by armed men.Trump won Pennsylvania by a narrow margin in 2016, but polls show Biden ahead of Trump there.Biden attended events alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign season. The two visited the cities of Flint and Detroit the first of two days the campaign will spend in Michigan to garner voter support.In Flint, Michigan, Biden focused on Trump’s handling of the pandemic. “We’re gonna beat this virus and get it under control and the first step to doing that is beating Donald Trump,” Biden said.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, right, and former President Barack Obama greet supporters at a rally at Northwestern High School in Flint, Michigan, Oct. 31, 2020.National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.  More than 92 million people had voted as of Saturday, well above half the overall 2016 vote count of 138.8 million, according to the U.S. Elections Project. 
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The Alex Conant, Republican strategist: ‘Anyone who’s considering running [for political office] should run.’ (Skype/VOA)Republicans likely will “try even harder in the future,” Conant said. “We’re a big, diverse country. If you’re going to win elections, it helps to come from communities or represent communities that are casting the votes. … And that includes recruiting more Black candidates.”But how do aspiring politicians of color — especially those who are relative newcomers to America — get onto a ballot?Candidate training is essential, says Naquetta Ricks, who is among at least a score of first- and second-generation Americans from Africa seeking elective offices — from local boards and city councils to the U.S. Senate.Ricks is running for a seat in Colorado’s House of Representatives. She received guidance from several organizations, including Naquetta Ricks, a Liberia native seeking office in Colorado, says candidate training taught her skills such as fundraising. (Skype/VOA)Ricks was a girl when she and her family fled a violent military coup in Liberia. A small-business owner, single mother and immigrant, she wants to amplify voices from her district, which includes the Denver suburb of Aurora.“It is a very diverse community,” she said. “One out of every five persons will say that they are from another country, whether you are from China or Burma or South America or Africa. We’re from everywhere.”Campaign workers need guidance, too, says Davisha Johnson. Four years ago, she opened a boutique consulting agency near Atlanta, Georgia. It’s in Gwinnett County, where the populations of Blacks and immigrants — including of Africans — have surged since the 1990s.“So I realized I needed to create a pipeline for them to be able to get trained, educated,” she said of prospective candidates.To learn how to run a campaign, Johnson signed up for “a lot of different political training. … And then I got a lot of first-hand experience.” She has helped boost a handful of candidates into public offices, from county commission to the Georgia Superior Court to statehouses in Georgia and Tennessee.’It can be done’Candidates who are relatively new to the U.S. face extra hurdles in campaigning.“You have to be able to raise a lot of money,” said Conant, the Republican strategist. “And I think first-generation immigrants might not have a network of donors that somebody who is more established might have.“Similarly, they might just not be as well known. They haven’t lived in the U.S. as long” and might not be as well connected as their competitors, he said.“However, we do see a lot of first-generation immigrants running for office and winning office,” Conant said. “… So definitely it can be done, even if it is a bit of an uphill fight.”Candidates with ties to the African continent can tap into the diaspora, Johnson says.“One of the huge strengths of Africans is they have people power,” she said. “The No. 1 thing, outside of money, is that you have to have support. People back home are saying, ‘Hey, I have a cousin in Maryland. I have people in Texas.’ Now you have people for these phone banks. You have people to do text message banks. You have people to get out to the polls on Election Day.”Yet significant obstacles remain.The coronavirus pandemic has curtailed campaigning for all candidates, a challenge especially for first-time contenders trying to introduce themselves to prospective voters.Also, across the country, candidates of color “are still battling lingering effects of systemic racism — including skewed perceptions of ‘viability,’ tougher fundraising and some hesitation from the party establishment,” Politico reported in July.But this election cycle also has brought heightened awareness of racial inequality, which Kojo Asamoa-Caesar says has benefited his campaign to unseat Republican incumbent Kevin Hern as one of Oklahoma’s representatives in Congress.’People rallied behind us’Widespread demonstrations following the death of George Floyd, a Black man fatally injured during a police arrest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in May, “coincided with a lot of energy in our campaign … coming mostly from white women. And so those people rallied behind us, and we were able to win the primary.”Asamoa-Caesar, an educator born in the United States to parents from Ghana, is the first Black Democrat and Ghanaian American to be nominated from his district. It includes the city of Tulsa, which is re-examining its history of a 1921 massacre of African American residents.No matter what happens this Election Day, the experience of seeking office can be instructive for any future campaign.“Look,” strategist Conant said, “anyone who’s considering running should run. The only way you get better at being a candidate is by running.”VOA Africa Division contributors include Ayen Bior, James Butty, Peter Clottey, Esther Githui Ewart, Carol Guensburg, Sahra Eidle Nur and Venuste Nshimiyimana. 
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Saturday, with just three days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden focused on battleground states, with Trump visiting Pennsylvania while the former vice president traveled to Michigan.Trump held four rallies Saturday in cities across Pennsylvania, where he narrowly won in 2016 and where polls currently show Biden with a slight advantage.Trump’s first rally was in Newtown, where he criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing a Republican Party effort to block a three-day extension for Pennsylvania election officials to receive absentee ballots, meaning the court would not intercede in the state’s vote count.Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a campaign drive-in mobilization event in Flint, Mich., Oct. 31, 2020.“This is a horrible thing that the United States Supreme Court has done to our country,” he said. “We have to know who won.”On the final rally in Montoursville, Trump confirmed that he had signed an executive order that called on the Energy Department to lead a study on the effects of restricting fracking. Fracking for natural gas is a major source of jobs in western Pennsylvania. Trump has accused Biden of planning to ban fracking if elected, something Biden denies.Trump also thanked U.S. Special Forces for an operation carried out in northern Nigeria on Saturday to rescue an American citizen being held by armed men.The Pentagon did not identify the person, but the Reuters news agency cited an unnamed U.S. official as saying that he was 27-year-old Philip Walton, who was kidnapped earlier in the week.Trump won Pennsylvania by a narrow margin in 2016. Reuters/Ipsos polls show Trump trailing Biden by 5 percentage points in the state.President Donald Trump applauds during a campaign rally at Keith House-Washington’s Headquarters in Newtown, Pa., Oct. 31, 2020.Biden attended events alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign season. The two visited the cities of Flint and Detroit the first of two days the campaign will spend in Michigan to garner voter support.In Flint, Michigan, Biden focused on Trump’s handling of the pandemic.  “We’re gonna beat this virus and get it under control and the first step to doing that is beating Donald Trump,” Biden said.Biden’s campaign issued a statement later Saturday in reaction to estimates by Stanford University that from June to September, President Trump’s rallies led to an additional 30,000 COVID-19 infections and as many as 700 deaths. The paper is based on a statistical model, not an investigation and is not peer reviewed.”Trump doesn’t even care about the very lives of his strongest supporters,” Biden campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.Politico reported that the White House called the study “flawed,” describing it as a politicized attempt to shame Trump supporters.National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump, although the margin is about half that in several key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome in the Electoral College.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.Americans are voting early for Tuesday’s presidential election in unprecedented numbers, a product of strong feelings for or against the two main candidates and a desire to avoid large Election Day crowds at polling stations during the pandemic.More than 92 million people had voted as of Saturday, well above half the overall 2016 vote count of 138.8 million, according to the U.S. Elections Project. 
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With only three days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden were focusing Saturday on battleground states, with Trump visiting Pennsylvania while the former vice president traveled to Michigan.Biden attended events alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign season. The two were visiting the cities of Flint and Detroit on Saturday, the first of two days the campaign will spend in Michigan to garner voter support.Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden speaks at a campaign drive-in mobilization event in Flint, Mich., Oct. 31, 2020.Musician Stevie Wonder was to join Biden and Obama in Detroit to perform at a drive-in rally. Wonder has previously performed at several Democratic events, including for Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012 as well as for Hillary Clinton in 2016.Trump planned four rallies Saturday in cities across Pennsylvania, where he narrowly won in 2016 and where recent polls showed Biden with a slight advantage.Court criticismTrump’s first rally was in Newtown, where he criticized the U.S. Supreme Court for refusing a Republican Party effort to block a three-day extension for Pennsylvania election officials to receive absentee ballots, meaning the court would not intercede in the state’s vote count.“This is a horrible thing that the United States Supreme Court has done to our country,” he said. “We have to know who won.” President Donald Trump applauds during a campaign rally at Keith House-Washington’s Headquarters in Newtown, Pa., Oct. 31, 2020.Trump told reporters Friday that he was undecided about his election night plans. The New York Times had reported that he canceled plans to appear at an event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.“We haven’t made a determination,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his whereabouts on election night. Trump said coronavirus restrictions imposed by the local government in Washington, including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, would be a factor in the decision.“You know, Washington, D.C., is shut down. The mayor has shut it down,” he said. “So we have a hotel. I don’t know if it’s shut — if you’re allowed to use it or not — but I know the mayor has shut down Washington, D.C. And if that’s the case, we’ll probably stay here [the White House] or pick another location.”On Friday, Trump and Biden campaigned in the Midwest, with Trump traveling to Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while Biden held events in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.Fight against virus criticizedBiden told supporters at a drive-in rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines on Friday that the state had hit daily record numbers of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations this week, and he argued that Trump “has given up” on fighting the virus.National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump, although the margin is about half that in several key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome in the Electoral College.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.Americans are voting early for Tuesday’s presidential election in unprecedented numbers, a product of strong feelings for or against the two main candidates and a desire to avoid large Election Day crowds at polling stations during the pandemic.More than 90 million people had already voted as of midday Saturday, well above half the overall 2016 vote count of 138.8 million, according to the U.S. Elections Project.
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With only three days of campaigning left before Election Day in the United States, both top candidates travel to battleground states Saturday, with Republican President Donald Trump focusing on Pennsylvania while Democratic candidate former Vice President Joe Biden plans events in Michigan.Biden will be campaigning alongside former President Barack Obama for the first time during the campaign. The two will travel to Flint and Detroit on Saturday, part of two days of campaigning to get out the vote in Michigan.In Detroit, they will be joined by singer Stevie Wonder, who will perform at a drive-in rally. Wonder has previously performed at several Democratic events, including for Obama’s campaigns in 2008 and 2012 as well as for Hillary Clinton in 2016.Trump plans to hold four rallies in cities across Pennsylvania on Saturday. The president narrowly won the state in 2016 and is seeking to repeat his performance there. Polls currently show Biden with a slight advantage.Trump told reporters Friday that he is undecided about his election night plans after The New York Times reported he canceled plans to appear at an event at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.“We haven’t made a determination,” Trump said in response to a reporter’s question about his whereabouts on election night. Trump said coronavirus restrictions imposed by the local government in Washington, including a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people, would be a factor in the decision.“You know, Washington, D.C., is shut down. The mayor has shut it down. So we have a hotel; I don’t know if it’s shut — if you’re allowed to use it or not, but I know the mayor has shut down Washington, D.C. And if that’s the case, we’ll probably stay here or pick another location,” Trump added.On Friday, Trump and Biden both campaigned in the Midwest with Trump traveling to Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, while Biden held events in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa.Michigan has 16 electoral votes, Minnesota and Wisconsin have 10 each, and Iowa has six.Biden told supporters at a drive-in rally at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines Friday that the state hit a daily record number of coronavirus cases and hospitalizations this week and argued that Trump “has given up” on fighting the virus.Trump told supporters at an outdoor rally in Waterford Township, Michigan, that Biden has predicted a dark winter ahead because of the coronavirus pandemic.“Just what our country needs is a long dark winter and a leader who talks about it,” Trump said.The president said a safe vaccine would be delivered to Americans in a matter of weeks, adding that it will be free because “this wasn’t your fault. This wasn’t anyone’s fault. This was China’s fault.”National polls typically show Biden with a lead of 7 or 8 percentage points over Trump, although the margin is about half that in several key battleground states that are likely to determine the outcome in the Electoral College.According to an average of major polls compiled by the website Real Clear Politics, Biden and Trump are virtually tied in the battleground states of Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina, while the president trails the former vice president in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.Americans are voting early for Tuesday’s presidential election in unprecedented numbers, a product of strong feelings for or against the two main candidates and a desire to avoid large Election Day crowds at polling stations during the pandemic.More than 82 million people had already voted as of Friday, well above half of the overall 2016 vote count, which was 138.8 million.     
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In response to increased social media messages on how, where and when to vote in the U.S. general election, voters are posting proof that they cast their ballots.Whether it is a photo of the ballot showing who someone voted for, or a selfie of the voter, an increase in mail-in and early voting amid the pandemic means more voters are posting their ballot selfies the week ahead of the election.Whether these photos are legally allowed differs by state.According to data from Ballotpedia, as of September, 25 states and the District of Columbia allow ballot selfies — photos of a completed ballot or a picture of a voter inside the polling place.Because the popularity of ballot selfies rose in the past decade, most state laws govern whether photos can be taken inside polling places. But there are no clear rules on whether an absentee ballot can be photographed.In West Virginia, Texas, Tennessee, Delaware and Arizona, photography and/or cellphones are banned at polling places. In 2016, pop star Justin Timberlake deleted a photo of himself casting his vote in Tennessee after learning it was prohibited by a 2015 state law.In Maryland and Iowa, rules banning photography in polling places specifically state that photos of mail-in ballots are allowed.But many states argue that photography of a ballot or in a voting place violates the promise of a “secret ballot.”The secret ballot has long been perceived as an integral part of the U.S. democratic system, protecting voters from criticism or peer pressure and allowing them to fulfill their democratic privilege in private.Additionally, some states have argued that documentation of ballots could promote an uptick in voter fraud and buying votes — allowing companies or individuals to force paid voters to give confirmation that they completed their vote.In 2014, New Hampshire banned photos of ballots, citing the potential of vote-buying or influence. But the Supreme Court upheld a decision by a lower court in 2017 that the law violated free speech laws. Today, New Hampshire is one of the 25 states in which no laws govern how you document your voting process.Proponents of documenting the voting process have said it encourages fellow citizens to exercise their right to vote. In response to this, several states have encouraged alternate ways for citizens to share their voting process.The state of Georgia has promoted a “Post the Peach” campaign, encouraging citizens to post photos of their “I Voted” stickers, which in Georgia feature the state’s signature fruit. A similar #GoVoteTN initiative in Tennessee encourages voters to pose next to an “I Voted” sign.Celebrities such as Lady Gaga and Lizzo have posted videos of themselves dropping their completed ballots in a designated drop box, without revealing the ballot itself.Category: Ballot Drop Off Realness pic.twitter.com/3cYeStflOH— Lady Gaga (@ladygaga) October 27, 2020
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