The South Carolina Board of Election says 1.3 million people have voted early in South Carolina as of 12 p.m. Monday either by mail or in person.

This blows past the 2016 numbers where just 517,000 people voted early. The South Carolina legislature expanded early absentee voting this year because of Covid-19.

The popularity of early voting can be seen in long lines over the weekend. Early in-person voting ends at 5 p.m. ET on Monday.

A top former RNC official announced on Monday that he is voting for Joe Biden.

Ryan Mahoney, a former RNC communications director, tweeted a photo of his ballot.

Mahoney said he was "proud to vote country over party" and "proud to vote" for Joe Biden. Mahoney served as communications director during the 2018 midterms after working for the Committee in 2016, 2014, and 2012. 

The final Quinnipiac University poll of the 2020 election shows Biden with slight leads over Trump among likely voters in Florida and Ohio and maintaining his wider lead over the president nationally.

In Florida, 47 percent of likely voters support Biden and 42 percent back Trump, while in Ohio, the Democratic nominee is seeing 47 percent support to the president's 43 percent.

In both states, the bulk of respondents who support Trump said they would cast their votes on Election Day (69 percent in Florida and 62 percent in Ohio), while far fewer Biden supporters said they would do the same (21 percent in Florida and 28 percent in Ohio).

Meanwhile, 50 percent of likely voters nationwide support Biden and 39 percent back Trump, according to the poll, which was released Monday. Biden's lead is a slight increase from the 10-point advantage he held among likely voters in September.

“Will it be a tidy game, set, match on Tuesday night? Or should we brace for an agonizing and ugly overtime, further enflaming a divided and troubled country? Tim Malloy, Quinnipiac University polling analyst, said in a statement. "The Biden numbers lean toward the first scenario, but 2016 lurks in the memory of Democrats.” 

The poll was conducted from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1, with margins of error of 2.4 points for the Florida results, 2.6 percent for the Ohio responses, and 2.5 percent for the national survey. 

A federal judge ruled against Texas Republicans suing to toss more than 127,000 ballots because they were cast in drive-thru voting booths in Harris County, declaring that the plaintiffs didn't have standing in the suit.

Judge Andrew Hanen, who was nominated to the bench by George W. Bush, gave an oral ruling on Monday after an emergency hearing in the Southern District of Texas, a day after the Texas Supreme Court denied a similar suit in that court. Earlier, Hanen said the Fifth Circuit could change his ruling if he got it wrong.

Harris, the third most populous county in the country which includes Houston, set up drive-thru voting booths to accommodate voters during the pandemic, but a group of state Republicans sued the county clerk repeatedly claiming that the process violated the legislature’s authority over elections and Texans' equal protection rights.

More than 127,000 Texans — nearly 9 percent of the county’s cast ballots — came from the drive-thru voting booth, the county said on Saturday. The Houston Chronicle analysis revealed that that the vast majority of these ballots came from precincts won by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke in 2018.

Read more here.

Beyoncé is 'crazy in love' with the Joe Biden and Kamala Harris ticket. 

In an Instagram video, the artist is sporting a Biden/Harris mask and an "I Voted" sticker on her hat — in a notable designer ensemble. 

In her caption, Beyoncé, who was born and raised in Houston, urged her Texas fans to get out and vote. 

Beyoncé shared her support for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and performed a free concert at a rally in Cleveland. The artist joins several other celebrities in endorsing the former Vice President. 

Police are investigating two decapitated deer heads left near a Joe Biden and Kamala Harris political campaign sign and a Black Lives Matter sign in Lake Oswego, Oregon.

Police in Lake Oswego said in a news release on Friday they discovered the heads at different locations on Thursday.

One was found next to a Biden presidential campaign sign at an intersection in the morning, police said. The other was found on the front lawn of a home next to a Black Lives Matter sign in the afternoon, according to police.

A police spokesperson told NBC News in an email that no suspects have been arrested, and an investigation is ongoing. 

Read the story.

Given President Trump's recent comments on about the propriety of counting mail ballots that arrive after election day, here are some things to keep in mind:

• There's nothing unusual about counting ballots after election night. Every state does it. Early returns are incomplete. Mail-in, military, and overseas ballots typically aren't fully counted in more than half the states for a few days after poll close.
• The vote count doesn't end on election night for another reason. Counties must canvass the returns, which will include adding in provisional ballots and making decisions about disputed ballots. States don't formally declare a winner until the results are certified. In most states, that process isn't over until mid-to-late November.
• The Supreme Court has never ruled that only state legislatures can extend the voting deadline.  Even so, four U.S. Supreme Court justices and some lower court judges have said in recent weeks that because the Constitution says every state must choose its presidential electors "in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct," only legislatures can alter voting rules. But in the 2000 Bush v Gore case, that notion attracted only three votes and was not a holding of the court.
• In a 2015 case, the Supreme Court said that the Constitution's reference to "legislature" in a separate but similar clause meant the entire lawmaking apparatus, not simply the two statehouses. If the Pennsylvania late-ballot fight comes back to the Supreme Court, this will be a major issue.

For many Americans, the election results will play out on social media. And this year, tech companies have new rules designed to avoid a repeat of 2016 when their sites were called a “wild, wild West” for politics. 

First, there will be a quiet period for political ads. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Google plan to halt all political ads after the polls close Tuesday, so candidates and activist groups won’t be able to buy their way into people’s feeds and encourage unrest while votes are counted. It could last for days or weeks, depending on what happens. 

Labels will be everywhere. On Facebook and Twitter, if a candidate claims victory before the news media declares a winner, their posts will get a label. On Twitter the rule applies broadly to everyone, so Twitter may label an election call by any user unless the race has been “authoritatively called” by at least two national news outlets.Other election-related posts may get labels or fact-checks if they include misleading information. 

Results from the traditional news media will be king. Though social media is usually about giving everyone equal voices, the tech companies will rely on and promote the voting data coming in from traditional news organizations such as wire services or television networks. YouTube and Google have partnered with The Associated Press, Facebook has partnered with Reuters, and Twitter will rely on big national news organizations. 

And some content may be taken down, the tech companies say. Twitter, for example, says it may remove false or misleading information intended to undermine public confidence in the outcomes. “This election is not going to be business as usual,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post in September where he outlined several goals, including “reduce the chances of violence and unrest.”