United States Postal Service leadership received a sweeping set of orders from a federal judge on Tuesday, laying out ways the Postal Service must make sure ballots are delivered quickly because of the ongoing election and absentee voting deadlines.
One week ahead of Election Day, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the DC District Court told the Postal Service to inform its employees that late delivery trips are allowed and the delivery of ballots by state elections deadlines is important.
The order is some of the most aggressive oversight USPS has faced yet in its handling of election mail. It adds to several directives the Post Office has weathered in court in recent months, after state governments won injunctions that would prevent policy changes put in place by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy that could have disrupted the quick delivery of mailed ballots to election officials.
Sullivan’s order largely follows a proposed plan agreed upon by the USPS and by those suing the Postal Service, which includes the NAACP and the group Vote Forward.
States and other groups had sought for courts to monitor and enforce the injunctions they won, which Sullivan agreed to do in the USPS cases he oversees.
The Postal Service also must provide daily updates to the court on mail delivery data and will appear daily before the judge.
The Postal Service declined to comment on the order other than to say that delivering ballots remains its top priority.
CNN’s Paul P. Murphy contributed to this report.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf echoed other administration officials in an interview Tuesday, urging voters to “stay patient” when it comes to election results. His remarks are in sharp contrast with President Trump who has said he wants immediate results.
Pressed on Trump’s desire for a Nov. 3 result, Wolf said, “I think the vast majority of Americans would like that result come election night … but we do know that certain states will continue to count some of their mail-in ballots for a couple of days after.”
Wolf also said voters should be confident when casting their vote.
He touted the relationships that DHS has built with state and local election officials over the past few years, saying the change since 2016 has been “night and day.”
Wolf told CBS News that the department anticipates a potential spike in foreign election interference in the week leading up to the election, according to CBS’ Catherine Herridge, who interviewed Wolf.
“We understand what they’re doing. We’ve called them out on that,” Wolf said when asked about the threat from Iran and Russia. “We remain on high alert. So will that—is that to say that they won’t try anything else? Absolutely not. We are anticipating that they might.”
Delivering remarks at a drive-in rally in Atlanta Tuesday, Joe Biden emphasized that his presence in Georgia one week until the election means that Democrats believe the state is in play.
“You know, there aren’t a lot of pundits who would have guessed four years ago that a Democratic candidate for president in 2020 would be campaigning in Georgia on the final week of the election or that we’d have such competitive Senate races in Georgia. But we do. Because something’s happening here in Georgia and across America,” he said.
Biden went on to say that people of all races and ages are coming together to “transcend the old divides” in the battle for the soul of America.
On Monday, the Democratic nominee told reporters he believes his campaign has a “fighting chance” in the state.
While he mostly stuck to delivering his standard stump speech, hitting the President on his handling of the pandemic and lack of a health care plan, Biden did express optimism at several points throughout his speech about winning the state of Georgia.
“It’s time to stand up and take back our democracy. And any place we can do it, here in Georgia — we win Georgia, we win everything,” he said to end his remarks.
“Folks, I think we are going to surprise the living devil out of everybody this year,” he said at the beginning of his speech. He argued for the importance of flipping the US Senate, adding, “There’s no state more consequential than Georgia in that fight. You have two competitive races here at stake.”
He criticized Georgia Sen. David Perdue for pretending like he couldn’t pronounce Sen. Kamala Harris’ name. “Let’s give the people of Georgia two new senators who will fight for your interests, not for Donald Trump’s interests,” Biden began. “And not continue, as Perdue and others have, to make fun of my running mate.”
Biden made a call for decency as he provided an example of the kind of character that’s on the ballot in the state. “I love how these guys try to degrade everything and everybody,” he said. “It’s got to stop and it’s going to stop with us. Folks, it’s go time. There’s one week left.”
The Democratic nominee said in Atlanta that if he is elected, he will commit to have a section of the White House outreach office dedicated to the Divine Nine, a group of nine historically black fraternities and sororities.
First lady Melania Trump focused on the Covid-19 pandemic in her first solo campaign event of 2020 and blasted Democrats for allegedly politicizing the pandemic.
She directly attacked Biden on Covid-19 saying, “Now he suggests that he could have done a better job. Well, the American people can look at Joe Biden’s 36 years in Congress and eight years in the vice presidency and determine whether they think he’ll finally be able to get something done for the American people.”
The first lady also spoke about her own family’s struggle with the virus and demonstrated compassion for those suffering the virus — something rarely done by President Trump in rallies.
At one point, the first lady also addressed impeachment and tied it to the Democrats’ response to coronavirus saying, “No one should be promoting fear of real solutions for purely political ends…The Democrats have chosen to put their own agendas over the American people’s well-being. Instead, they attempt to create a divide. A divide in something that should be non-partisan and non-controversial. A divide that causes confusion and fear instead of hope and security. That is not the leadership.”
“Let us also not forget what the Democrats chose to focus on when Covid-19 first came into our country. While the President was taking decisive action to keep the American people safe, the Democrats were wasting American taxpayer dollars in a sham impeachment,” she said.
Trump also made mention of her husband’s presence on social media saying, “For the first time in history, the citizens of this country get to hear directly and instantly from their president every single day through social media.”
She then quipped: “I do not always agree what the way he says things, but it is important to him that he speaks directly to the people he serves.”
Joe Biden tested negative for Covid-19 today ahead of his swing through Georgia.
“Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected,” his campaign said.
First lady Melania Trump is taking the stage for her first solo campaign appearance this campaign cycle, just one week before the presidential election.
The event in Atglen, Pennsylvania, is being held indoors and there is limited social distancing measures being implemented.
Participants are standing less than six feet apart but almost everyone is wearing a mask.
Former counselor to President Trump, Kellyanne Conway, introduced the first lady.
Conway discussed winning Pennsylvania in 2016 and the first lady’s event in the commonwealth five days before the last election, referring to the event as “essential.”
President Trump took the stage in Lansing, Michigan, at 3:06 p.m. ET under a light drizzle.
The crowd heard “God Bless the USA” twice as the motorcade made its way over from Air Force One, and the President then walked to the stage.
Trump has two more rallies later today, at 5 p.m. ET in West Salem, Wisconsin, and at 8:30 p.m. ET in Omaha, Nebraska.
Democratic presidential Joe Biden delivered his closing pitch to Americans one week out to Election Day in Warm Springs, Georgia, the location of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s “Little White House,” promising to deliver unity and healing to a nation faced with multiple historic crises.
“Anger and suspicion are growing, and our wounds are getting deeper,” Biden warned.
Biden has frequently cited Roosevelt as an inspiration, and he shared recently in an interview on Pod Save America that he’s reading “The Defining Moment,” a book by Jonathan Alter about Roosevelt’s first 100 days.
Biden said that Warm Springs is a “good place” to talk about healing, as Roosevelt was reported to visit to use the therapeutic waters after suffering paralysis following a polio diagnosis.
The Democratic nominee also laid out the current state of affairs in his speech.
“These are historic painful crises: the insidious virus, the economic anguish, the systematic discrimination. Any one of them could have rocked the nation, yet we’ve been hit by all three all at once,” Biden said.
He sharply criticized President Trump for his handling of the pandemic but did not mention him by name.
He once again condemned White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ comments to CNN’s Jake Tapper on State of the Union, who said “we’re not going to control the pandemic,” by saying, “It’s capitulation, it’s a waving of a white flag. It’s a window into the shocking truth about this White House that they’ve never really tried.”
The Democratic nominee struck an optimistic tone as he delivered a message of hope.
Biden added that people often ask him how he is so confident about the future of the nation, and responded to his rhetorical question by citing a line he often uses to close his speeches: “We are the United States of America. There’s nothing, nothing the American people can’t do and have been unable to do when we put our minds to it.”
At the end of his remarks, Biden leaned into a heavily religious message, citing a recent encyclical by Pope Francis that warns against “phony populism” and arguing that “God and history” have called the country to this moment.
More than 3 million Georgians have cast ballots early, both in-person at early voting locations, and by absentee ballot voting by mail or through a secure drop box, according to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.
In a news release, the Georgia Secretary of State’s Office said that as of noon today, 3,063,716 ballots have been cast so far.
Some context: Georgians have already cast nearly three-quarters of the total vote of the 2016 election, when just over four million total votes were recorded across the state. There has been a 96.6% increase in total turnout to date compared to this stage of early voting in Georgia in 2016, according to the secretary of state.
More than 7.8 million people have cast their vote in Texas, including the first 14 days of early voting, according to data posted on the Texas Secretary of State website Tuesday morning. That represents 46.02% of registered voters.
So far, the number of early votes this cycle accounts for nearly 87% of the overall vote in Texas in 2016 — with four days of early voting plus Election Day remaining.
If this trend holds, the state is on track to far surpass the 59% of registered voters who cast a ballot in 2016.
On Monday, 366,732 people voted in person, bringing the total in-person votes to 6,925,428. Cumulative ballots-by-mail so far this cycle were 877,077.
The final day of early voting in Texas is Friday.
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence has agreed to brief Florida lawmakers this week about interference in the US election by Russia and Iran.
The announcement comes after Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said last week that Iran and Russian had obtained US voter registration information and that Iran was behind intimidating emails sent to voters that were made to look like they came from the Proud Boys, a far-right group. Some Florida voters received those threatening emails.
The offices of GOP Rep. Michael Waltz and Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy told CNN that the ODNI had offered a briefing on Tuesday or Wednesday, but the exact time had not yet been set.
An ODNI spokesperson said the office is working with Waltz and Murphy to “provide them details on the most recent threat reporting impacting their districts.”
Waltz and Murphy sent a letter last week to the ODNI, as well as the FBI and Department of Justice, and requested a classified briefing for Florida lawmakers on “the nature and extent of Iranian and Russian efforts to undermine the 2020 election in our state.”
Their letter also said that while Florida’s elections infrastructure had been “specifically — and successfully — targeted by Russia” in 2016, Florida lawmakers and the general public were not made aware of that until 2019 through special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.
Lawyers for a Pennsylvania County have already filed a petition with the Supreme Court asking Justice Amy Coney Barrett to recuse herself from an election-related case.
In a brief filed just after Barrett officially could begin work as a justice, the lawyers admitted that their motion “comes at an inopportune time for Justice Barrett, this being her first day as an Associate Justice.” But they said that they needed to move quickly as her participation would be “catastrophic to the delicate foundation of integrity and public confidence upon which the judiciary sits.”
They pointedly noted comments made by President Trump while her nomination was pending suggesting that the Supreme Court would be called upon to determine the winner of the presidential election.
The court is currently consider a request from Pennsylvania Republicans asking the justices to block a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that allowed the counting of ballots received three days after the election, even if there is no legible postmark. Lucerne County — whose lawyers penned the brief — supports the state court decision.
At the Supreme Court, it is up to individual justices to decide whether they should recuse. At her confirmation hearing, Democrats pressed Barrett on whether she would promise to do so but she made no commitments.
One week from Election Day, early voters so far are younger, more racially diverse and more likely to be Democrats than they were ahead of the 2016 election in many of the key states that could decide the next president.
More than 65.5 million votes have already been cast around the US, surpassing the 58.3 million total pre-election votes cast in 2016. That’s almost half of the total presidential votes cast four years ago.
Here’s a look at 2020 pre-election ballots cast so far by state:
While these are trends that could benefit Democrats, including the party’s presidential nominee Joe Biden, they’re not predictive of the final results. Polling shows that Republicans are much more likely to say they prefer to vote on Election Day this year, and an early vote counts just the same as one cast on November 3.
Detailed voting information on these key states comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving insights into who is voting before November.
Here’s a look at who has already voted in some of the most competitive states this cycle:
Read more voter data in more key states here.
Former President Barack Obama on Tuesday hit the campaign trail in Florida and encouraged people to vote early in-person or by mail.
The former president, an important surrogate for Joe Biden, delivered his second campaign speech in Florida in four days. The state could play a decisive role in the outcome of the election, and recent polls show a tight race between President Donald Trump and Biden.
“If you’ve already voted, then your job is to help your friends and family make a plan to vote, because this election requires every single one of us. And what we do this week will matter for decades to come,” Obama said.
Obama echoed his past praise for Biden and offered direct criticism of his successor.
“He hasn’t shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends or treating the presidency as anything more than a reality show that can give him the attention that he craves,” Obama said of Trump.
WATCH:
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s plane has landed in Georgia.
He will hold two events in the state Tuesday, one in Warm Springs, the town of former president Franklin Roosevelt’s personal retreat, and a drive-in mobilization rally in Atlanta.
Biden’s running mate Sen. Kamala Harris meanwhile has two voter mobilization events in Nevada.
New weekly data from the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office show that 181,577 absentee ballots have been returned to clerks around the state, more than double the number of absentee ballots cast in total during the 2016 election in the Granite State.
In 2016, 75,305 absentee ballots were cast in total during the general election cycle, according to Election Day tallies from the New Hampshire Secretary of State’s office. Absentee ballots accounted for approximately 10% of the total votes cast in New Hampshire during the 2016 general election.
As a point of comparison, absentee ballots in the New Hampshire state primary this September accounted for about 30% of the total vote.
Nearly 50,000 ballots were received in the past week, according to the data — last week’s total received ballots stood at 136,137. There are 225,002 total requests for absentee ballots, meaning nearly 81% have been returned.
Absentee ballots in New Hampshire must be received by clerks by 5 p.m. local time on Election Day. Rules have been expanded this year to accommodate those with concerns about the Covid-19 pandemic.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts administered the Judicial Oath with Amy Coney Barrett Tuesday morning.
After the Senate voted 52-48 to confirm Barrett, she was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice at a ceremony on the south lawn of the White House Monday night.
The Hamilton County Board of elections reports record levels of early and absentee voting the board said. The County includes the Ohio’s third largest city, Cincinnati.
More than 50,000 people in the county have cast early in-person votes so far this cycle. This total includes the first weekend of in-person voting. In 2016, 27,248 people voted during the entire early voting period.
Early voting in the state will continue every day until Election Day. Historically, the largest levels of in-person voting occur the weekend before election day, Sherry L. Poland Director of the Board tells CNN
The county has also mailed 179,000 absentee to voters and more than 138,000 have been returned. This is also a record level.
The county has 600,401 voters registered to vote during this election, Poland told CNN.
The Ohio Secretary of State is expected to release statewide early voting and absentee numbers later today.
Asked by CNN why Vice President Mike Pence did not attend Monday night’s White House ceremony for Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, an administration official suggested that Pence did not do so because he was adhering to guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“As has been the case, the Vice President has been adhering to the CDC guidelines for essential personnel,” the official said in a statement.
The official added that Pence “has been wearing a mask on the helicopter, airplane, off the plane and onto the stage, in his cabin.”
The official also noted that Pence’s regional media interviews have been canceled and during rallies.
“When he removes his mask on stage he is greater than 20 feet from the audience,” the statement said.
Though he has been heeding the guidelines at the events himself, Pence continues to host campaign rally events that actively ignore CDC guidelines on mask usage and social distancing among his supporters.
Former US Attorneys, who were appointed and served under Republican presidents as far back as Dwight Eisenhower, announced on Tuesday their endorsement for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
The former chief law enforcement leaders of the Justice Department co-signed a statement not only to endorse Biden, but to voice their concerns that the “foundational principles of the Department of Justice” have been a “threat to the rule of law” under President Trump’s leadership.
Attorney General William Barr was not named in the statement.
The statement was endorsed with signatures of Republican leaders that span six decades including, William Webster who served under Eisenhower for the Eastern District of Missouri to former US Attorney for the District of Nevada Donald Ayer who serviced under George W. Bush and Trump.
