NOVEMBER 3, 2020
Early voting at the Lansing City Clerk’s office on November 02, 2020 in Lansing, Michigan. – Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images
Polls are open throughout the U.S. for voters who didn’t cast their ballots early or by mail. Misleading robocalls have emerged as one Election Day concern. In addition to choosing between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, Americans are casting votes in U.S. House and Senate races and state and local elections.
Other developments:
Vermont’s Republican Governor Breaks Ranks, Votes Biden
Vermont Governor Phil Scott, a Republican who is seeking a third two-year term in an otherwise Democratic-leaning state, says that he voted for Biden. He said Trump “has had four years to unite this country and has failed to do so.”
Scott is one of several prominent Republicans — including Senator Mitt Romney of Utah and Maryland Governor Larry Hogan –who had publicly stated that they wouldn’t back Trump. Unlike Scott, though, Romney hasn’t said who he voted for, and Hogan said he wrote in the name of the late President Ronald Reagan.
”It’s been a bit of a struggle for me, but I ended up voting for Joe Biden,” Scott told reporters. “It’s something that I have never done in my lifetime — I’ve never voted for a Democrat for president.”
He said that after “some soul-searching,” he decided “to put country over party.”
He added that he did vote for the Republican candidate for governor — himself. — Laura Davison
Biden May Not Speak Tonight If Outcome Unclear (4:59 p.m.)
Biden said he might not address supporters Tuesday night if the outcome of the vote remains unclear.
“If there’s something to talk about tonight I’ll talk about it,” Biden said Tuesday at a campaign stop in Wilmington, Delaware. “If not, I’ll wait till the votes are counted the next day.”
Biden spent much of Election Day campaigning in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground that could hold the key to a close election and where there are questions about how long it will take to process an unprecedented flood of mail-in ballots. — Jennifer Epstein
Armed Man Arrested Outside North Carolina Polling Place (4:51 p.m.)
Police in Charlotte, North Carolina, arrested an armed man for trespassing outside the polling place for the largest precinct in Mecklenburg County following complaints about his presence.
The man had voted earlier Tuesday, then lingered outside carrying a legally unconcealed firearm, according to police, who ordered him to leave and banned him from coming back. He was arrested after returning two hours later.
Local news reports said a number of politicians, including Charlotte Mayor Vi Lyles and U.S. Representative Alma Adams were at the precinct when the man, 36-year-old Justin Dunn, was arrested.
The Charlotte Agenda, an online news outlet, posted a photograph it said was of Dunn wearing military gear and combat boots with a holstered pistol on his hip. — Margaret Newkirk
NYPD to Violent Protesters: ‘Don’t Even Try It’ (4:35 p.m.)
The New York Police Department will deploy thousands of officers on street patrol and rapid response teams beginning Tuesday night to dissuade violence, said Chief of Department Terence Monahan.
“Don’t even try it. We know who you are and you will be arrested,” Monahan said during a news conference outside police headquarters. “We’re going to be out there in force with thousands of police officers in the next couple of days, making sure the city is safe.”
Monahan spoke as merchants boarded up shops along Park Place around the corner from City Hall. Luxury stores lining Madison and Fifth avenues have plywood over windows and doors. The chief said he understood why property owners would seek such fortifications after demonstrations in May and June set off by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd caused widespread damage.
He advised peaceful demonstrators to separate themselves from law violators. “Don’t let them steal your message,” he said.
Monahan said police “have not got any information from anyone who is looking to cause any problems.” Yet the possibility of an uncertain election result will require the police to remain on alert for several days, he said. Trump Tower will be guarded by its usual details of police and U.S. Secret Service agents, which could be augmented at a moment’s notice, he said. — Henry Goldman
Arizona Officers Find Stolen Ballots Under a Rock (4:35 p.m.)
Arizona law enforcement officers returned stolen mail-in ballots to voters in Glendale, a suburb of Phoenix, over the weekend, state Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Tuesday.
Someone alerted local police when they found 18 unopened mail-in ballots under a rock on the side of a road, according to a news release. The ballots were stolen from mailboxes, and the envelopes were still sealed, the release said.
Agents returned the ballots to the voters by hand, according to Brnovich’s office. The motive is unknown and the investigation is ongoing. — Brenna Goth
Same-Day Registration Adds 12,500 Voters in Michigan (4:27 p.m.)
Michigan had added more than 12,500 voters to its rolls as of Tuesday afternoon, thanks to a state law that allows people to register on Election Day, according to the office of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Michigan is one of 21 states, including Wisconsin, California and Minnesota, plus the District of Columbia, that allow voters to register on the day of an election.
Also, more than 92% of the absentee ballots requested have been submitted, according to Benson’s office.
Trump won Michigan by 0.21% in 2016, or about 10,700 votes, the narrowest margin of that election. But polls have consistently shown Biden with a lead of at least seven percentage points. — Laura Davison
Voting Hours Extended at Two Polling Places Near Atlanta (3:34 p.m.)
In Georgia’s DeKalb County, a judge signed an order extending voting hours at two polling locations that opened late Tuesday morning, according to the local ABC affiliate.
Polls in the state were scheduled to open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. One DeKalb location has been extended to 7:40 pm, the other to 7:45 pm.
DeKalb includes about 10% of the city of Atlanta and its eastern suburbs. It is one of the most racially diverse counties in Georgia,. About 54.8% of the population is Black, according to Census data. — Brett Pulley and Laura Davison
Instagram’s Cached Notice May Stir Confusion (3:20 p.m.)
Facebook Inc.’s Instagram said some users may still be seeing a notice saying Election Day is tomorrow, not today.
The company said it’s a technical issue having to do with caching, or retaining stored data.
“While we turned off the ‘Tomorrow is Election Day’ notice last night, it was cached for a small group of people if their app hadn’t been restarted. It’s resolving itself as people restart,” Instagram said in a statement. “Today, people will get ‘It’s the Last Day to Vote’ at the top of feed.” — Sarah Frier
Wisconsin Official Reports Smooth Operations (3:20 p.m.)
Wisconsin, one of the three traditionally Democratic Great Lakes states that Trump flipped in 2016 to win the White House, is seeing orderly voting on Tuesday, according to state Elections Commission Administrator Meagan Wolfe.
Kenosha, Wisconsin, saw protests during the unrest that roiled many U.S. cities last summer, following the police shooting of a Black man and the later killing of two protesters in August.
While some polling locations have reported longer lines, some of that may be due to poll workers trying to foster social distancing, Wolfe told reporters on a conference call Tuesday afternoon. Overall, lines are shorter this year due to the surge in absentee voting, she said. As of Tuesday morning, about 2.1 million absentee ballots had been reported issued to Wisconsin voters, according to the commission. That’s more than two-thirds the total of all votes cast in the 2016 presidential election in the state, according to the commission. — Amanda Albright
Florida County Moves Polling Place Over Covid (2:59 p.m.)
Florida’s Indian River County scrambled to move voting equipment early Tuesday after an American Legion Hall that officials had planned to use as a polling place reported that a member had tested positive for Covid-19.
“So we weren’t going to be able to use the facility for the election,” Indian River County Supervisor of Elections Leslie Rossway Swan told WPEC-TV. “We had to kick into high gear.”
Swan’s staffed printed flyers with a new polling location to give to voters, and made arrangements to move all the voting equipment before dawn. — Jennifer Kay
Lines Form Around the U.S. in Heavy Turnout (2:59 p.m.)
Voters around the country are queuing up to cast ballots in an election that has already broken turnout records in many states.
Door-to-Door Canvassing Strong in Nevada, Union Says (2:40 p.m.)
Door-to-door canvassing by labor groups in Nevada, traditionally an Election Day strength for Democrats, faced a dual threat from the pandemic. It made some people wary of face-to-face interactions, and the economic crash it caused hit the state’s unionized hospitality workers particularly hard.
But one powerful union says its operation was stronger this year, not weaker.
Over the last several months, 500 canvassers from Nevada’s UNITE HERE Local 226, the Culinary Workers Union, have knocked on about 470,000 doors — at least 100,000 more than during the 2016 election, when 300 canvassers handled the load, according to Bethany Khan, the union’s director of communications.
“And we have another nine hours left,” Khan said Tuesday morning.
Canvassers were also focused on signature curing, or helping voters correct mailed-in ballots that were filled out incorrectly. — Sarah Holder and Laura Bliss
Houston Area Turnout Tops 60% With Hours to Go (2:27 p.m.)
Voter turnout in Harris County, Texas, has surpassed 60% with almost six hours to go before polls close in the nation’s third-largest county.
Since polls opened in Houston and its suburbs on Tuesday, 107,000 people have cast votes, pushing the cumulative total to 1.54 million, or 62% of those registered, according to the Harris County Clerk’s Office. In 2016, 63.5% of the county’s registered voters cast ballots, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s data.
The largest county in Texas, Harris leans Democratic. In 2018, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke swamped the Republican incumbent, Ted Cruz, there while still losing statewide, and voters who elected the straight-ticket option for Democrats outnumbered those who did for Republicans, 55% to 44%.
Elsewhere in Texas, election and public-health officials in places such as El Paso and Amarillo are dealing with resurgent Covid-19 outbreaks that are complicating voting procedures. In addition, El Paso police began erecting barricades around substations in anticipation of civil unrest, according to El Paso Matters, a nonprofit news website. — Rachel Adams-Heard
North Carolina Extends Voting Times at Four Sites (2:10 p.m.)
Results from North Carolina will come in 45 minutes later than planned.
The State Board of Elections has extended voting times to as late as 8:15 p.m. at four sites – one in Cabarrus County, one in Guilford County and two in Sampson County — after there were delays in opening them Tuesday morning. The board won’t release any voting results until all 2,663 polling places around the state have closed.
About 4.6 million people, or 62% of the state’s registered voters, submitted ballots before Election Day. Those votes have been tabulated and will be released as soon as the last polling place closes.
The state Board of Elections says it expects about 1 million people to vote in person today.
Absent the handful of late poll openings, voting in North Carolina has gone relatively smoothly. “The extension of hours is not unusual in any election,” said Karen Brinson Bell, the State Board of Elections’ executive director. — Andrew Ballard
FBI Investigating Robocalls Telling Voters to Stay Home (1:57 p.m.)
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is looking into reports of misleading robocalls telling voters to stay home because of long lines at the polls, according to officials familiar with the situation.
Residents of Flint, Michigan, have reported getting calls saying they should vote on Wednesday instead. Voters in Dearborn, Michigan, have said they received text messages with misleading information as well.
The calls are a voter intimidation and suppression issue, the officials said. There have been some technical glitches in Ohio, Texas and Nevada, but local election officials have been able to resolve those problems quickly, the officials said. — Alyza Sebenius
Trump Predicts ‘Great Night’ to Campaign Staff (1:34 p.m.)
President Donald Trump said he’s not yet considering either a victory or a concession speech during an afternoon visit to his campaign headquarters, but predicted “some tremendous results” and a “great night” for his re-election bid.
“You never know,” Trump said, while contending that toss-up states including Texas and Arizona were “looking really very strong.”
“Winning is easy,” he added. “Losing is never easy – not for me, it’s not.”
The president said his voice was hoarse from a whirlwind push that saw him hold five campaign rallies Sunday, and he identified Florida and Pennsylvania as the most crucial states as voters cast their ballots. He said he believed his campaign had preformed well with seniors, Blacks, and Latinos, and credited his performance in the second debate — along with his rally schedule — for improving his standing in the polls.
Trump also said it was possible Americans would know the results of the election Tuesday night, despite worry that the sizable early and mail-in vote due to the coronavirus pandemic could delay the reporting of results.
“I think you’ll know possibly tonight depending on the extent of victory,” he said. — Justin Sink and Clare Roth
Courtesy/Source: Bloomberg
