This live coverage has ended. Continue reading election news from November 8, 2020
Joe Biden became president-elect Saturday after winning Pennsylvania, NBC News has projected.
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump vowed Saturday to press forward with a legal fight, pushing unfounded claims of voter fraud in response to the news that came while he was at his Virginia golf club.
Check here for more on the presidential results.
'Democracy won!': Biden's victory cheered by Lizzo, Eva Longoria, LeBron other activist celebs
Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump to become the next U.S. president prompted a wave of reaction on social media on Saturday, including from celebrities who had actively supported the former vice president’s candidacy.
Actress Eva Longoria, who campaigned for Biden and emceed the Democratic National Convention earlier this year, shared a video showing her TV screen when Biden was declared president-elect. Her enthusiastic cheers can be heard in the background.
"Democracy won!!! USA USA USA," the actress, producer and philanthropist tweeted alongside the video.
Singer Lizzo shared an emotional video on her Instagram page.
"There are a few times in this country when I'm hopeful. But I feel like every time I'm hopeful, it gets taken away from me... I think this is the end of a four-year term that felt like a thousand years," she said tearfully about the coming end to Donald Trump's presidency. "Whether you were blue or were red, that man didn't care about you."
Biden will be sworn in as the 46th U.S. president on Jan. 20, and Harris will become the first female, first Black and first South Asian American vice president.
"The people have spoken! Thank you to everyone who used your vote and your voice to make history. PRESIDENT Joe Biden and VICE PRESIDENT Kamala Harris," tweeted Kerry Washington, an actress, producer and director who also emceed the Democratic National Convention alongside Longoria.
Other celebrities such as NBA star LeBron James, filmmaker Ava DuVernay, musician John Legend and many more also cheered Biden's victory.
As Trump leaves Virginia golf course, Biden supporters wave goodbye, give him thumbs down
Trump left his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, on Saturday afternoon where he spent the first half of the day as networks called the presidential race for Biden.
His motorcade left around 2:30 p.m. ET and a couple hundred people had lined up outside along the entrance to the golf club, with Biden supporters on one side and Trump supporters on the other.
The Biden side of the crowd was all waving bye and giving the motorcade the thumbs down.
There was also a small parade of pro-Trump cars doing laps and someone with a loud speaker chanting "defund the media."
An enormous crowd has formed, meanwhile, outside the White House celebrating Biden's victory.
Clyburn: 'I'm very ecstatic'
Rep. James Clyburn, who's been credited with reviving Joe Biden's struggling presidential campaign in South Carolina during the Democratic primaries earlier this year, hailed his victory in the presidential race in an interview with CNN on Saturday.
"I'm very pleased with the results. I'm very ecstatic about what may be the future of this great country of ours," the powerful South Carolina Democrat said. "I could not sit idly by and watch this country take backward steps in that pursuit of perfection. And so, I am pleased that we can now get back on course."
He also said he was "moved" by Sen. Kamala Harris becoming vice president-elect, and revealed that despite what he was saying publicly at the time, he'd urged Biden to pick a running mate of color.
"I never said that publicly so I don't think you ought to diminish your candidate, and when you ever tell a candidate what he must do publicly, that diminishes the standard with the public. So, I gave all my advice to him in private, but I'm very pleased that it was a Black woman selected. I think it cemented his relationship to the Black community," he said.
"I'm the father of three daughters and I have two granddaughters, and to me this breaks the glass ceiling for them and all other daughters and granddaughters in the world. So, I was very, very moved by this."
'Major' day: Biden's German shepherd Major to become first rescue dog in the White House
President-elect Joe Biden's adopted German shepherd, Major, will become the first rescue dog to live in the White House.
The Bidens adopted Major in 2018 from the Delaware Humane Association after fostering the German shepherd.
Major joins Champ, the Bidens' other German shepherd, in accompanying the incoming first family. Presidential pets are a tradition in the White House.
Pennsylvania to Supreme Court: Don't stop the count of later-arriving mail-in ballots
The state of Pennsylvania urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Saturday to deny the request from the state Republican Party, which on Friday sought an order stopping the counting of mail-in ballots that arrived during the extended deadline period.
For starters, the state said, that would complicate tabulating the results in state races, "impacting the commonwealth’s ability to seat its General Assembly by December 1, 2020, as required by the Pennsylvania Constitution."
Second, the state said, there's no evidence that any counties are disregarding the secretary of state's directive to keep those ballots separate and tally them separately: "63 counties have already confirmed to the secretary their compliance with the prior guidance, including the commonwealth’s two largest counties (Allegheny and Philadelphia). And no county has expressed an intention to violate the guidance," officials said.
One of those counties, Luzerne, filed its own response, asking, in essence, what difference does any of this make? The county says it's hard to see "how the ballots in question will have any relevance to the electoral outcome."
Photo: Chuck Schumer celebrates in New York
Carter says he looks forward to the 'positive change' coming
Former President Jimmy Carter released a statement Saturday congratulating Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their projected win.
"Rosalynn joins me in congratulating our friends President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris," he said. "We are proud of their well-run campaign and look forward to seeing the positive change they bring to our nation."
Carter is only one of a few incumbent presidents in the 20th century not to win re-election to the White House.
Obama has spoken to both Biden and Harris
"President Obama spoke separately this afternoon with President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris," a spokesperson for the former president said. "He congratulated each of them on their historic victory and told them how proud he was of the campaign they ran in unprecedented times."
Biden wins Nevada, NBC News projects
Around 2 p.m. ET, NBC News projected that Biden has won Nevada, allocating 6 electoral votes to the president-elect.
Biden now has 279 Electoral College votes, while Trump has 214 votes. NBC News projected Biden had become the president-elect earlier on Saturday.
The only states that NBC News has not called yet in the presidential race are Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona and Alaska.
Ukrainian president, of the 'perfect phone call,' congrats Biden and Harris
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the world leader whose phone call with President Donald Trump last year led to the House impeaching the president, congratulated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Twitter Saturday afternoon.
He said Ukraine is "optimistic" about the future of its strategic partnership with the U.S.
The House impeached Trump in December 2019 after Democrats said there was ample evidence that Trump had abused his power by pressuring Ukraine to announce investigations into Biden and his son, Hunter, while withholding almost $400 million in U.S. aid.
After Joe Biden's win over Donald Trump, relief sweeps through America's allies
Sighs of relief rippled through the capitals of the United States' traditional allies Saturday after Joe Biden became president-elect.
Many leaders have been battered by four years of the convention-smashing President Donald Trump and see in Biden a counterpart who will try and return America onto a path of multilateralism and international cooperation.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who had a fraught relationship with Trump, was among the first world leaders to issue a statement congratulating Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris.
"Our two countries are close friends, partners, and allies. We share a relationship that’s unique on the world stage," Trudeau wrote soon after news emerged that the former vice president had won the pivotal state of Pennsylvania, according to NBC News projections. "I’m really looking forward to working together and building on that with you both.”
Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo was less diplomatic. "Welcome back America!" she wrote on Twitter. "Congratulations to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris for their election!"
Jill Biden says husband will be a president for 'all families'
'Adiós Trump' T-shirt sale will fund DACA kids, says Julián Castro
SAN ANTONIO — Former presidential candidate Julián Castro has the words some Democrats may be looking for as the news sinks in that Joe Biden is the projected president-elect: Adiós Trump!
Castro, who made that a catchphrase of his primary campaign, relaunched T-shirts with the phrase as soon as Biden hit the magic Electoral College vote number to become the projected president-elect Saturday.
Castro, former Housing and Urban Development secretary in the Obama-Biden administration, said repeatedly on the trail that he looked forward to the day when the traditional moment would come for the new president to usher out the old one.
He imagined it would be him with his wife and children, as any ambitious candidate would, and Marine One would be taking off and the nation would be saying, "Adiós Trump."
The proceeds from the sale of his T-shirts will go toward helping young immigrants who are renewing their permission to remain in the country and work under the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program — which President Donald Trump has tried to end.
'America has spoken and democracy has won': Bill Clinton congratulates Biden, Harris
Former President Bill Clinton congratulated Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on their election victory Saturday afternoon on Twitter, saying they will "bring us together."
Pelosi, Schumer call Biden on his victory, say they hope to 'achieve great things' together
Around 12:45 p.m. ET, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called President-elect Biden to congratulate him on his victory, according to a senior Democratic aide.
"It was a happy call," the aide said, adding that Biden's wife, Jill, also participated. "Speaker Pelosi and Senator Schumer look forward to working with the Biden-Harris administration to achieve great things for the American people."
Desi Twitter bursts with pride over Kamala Harris as VP-elect
Desi Twitter erupted Saturday in response to the news that Joe Biden became president-elect and Sen. Kamala Harris will become the first female, first Black and first South Asian American vice president.
Many on Desi Twitter, the space where South Asians share everything from political commentary to inside jokes and memes, celebrated the win for representation.
Leading up to the election, a report found that 65 percent of Indian Americans were planning to vote for Biden. Demographic breakdowns for Asian Americans have not yet been released for this year's election.
Harris, the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants, had highlighted her roots in her vice presidential acceptance speech in August, acknowledging "my chitthis," the Tamil word for "aunts."
That instance had created an emotional stir for her South Asian supporters. Here's how the community reacted to the news of her election Saturday.
Click here to see more reactions
Pennsylvania Latinos were pivotal for Biden in the state
Latinos are a small part of Pennsylvania’s electorate but came out strong for Joe Biden and were pivotal in helping deliver the state he needed to become the winner in the presidential race Saturday.
Exit polling showed Latinos were about 4 percent of all voters who showed up at the polls this election. As many as 6 in 10 Latino voters cast their ballots for him. President Donald Trump got 35 percent of Latino votes.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton won about three-quarters of the Latino vote in Pennsylvania and Trump got 22 percent.
A little more than half a million Latinos — about half of the state's Hispanic residents — are eligible to vote in Pennsylvania. Puerto Ricans are the dominant Latino group, followed by Dominican Americans and Mexicans.
“We already knew that since the last presidential election, there were 300,000 new Latino voters in Pennsylvania, and we know that based on the results we have seen that without those folks coming and participating, maybe the result wouldn’t have been the same,” said Thaís Carrero, Pennsylvania director of CASA in Action, a progressive group that does political organizing around Latino and immigrant rights advocacy, which endorsed Biden in August.
Click here for the full story.
Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani vows lawsuits challenging votes in Pennsylvania
Senate Democrats contemplate divided government under a Biden presidency
Senate Democrats are coming to terms with the possibility of a different type of Congress than they had expected — one without a clear Democratic majority.
Instead of sweeping Democratic policy changes with a Democratic president willing to sign bills into law, they are bracing for a best-case scenario of cooperative Republicans agreeable to incremental policy wins. But they fear a brick wall will be built by Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who could retain his position as majority leader after all Senate races are called.
“I am going to clean the slate and be open-minded to the idea that this will open up a new era of cooperation,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said in a phone interview.
“The real test is whether there’s going to be a blockade against [Biden] Cabinet. If there is, we know [Republicans] are deciding to go scorched-earth,” Schatz added.
Democrats have little trust in McConnell, a partisan tactician whose top priority is maintaining his Republican majority. They also say McConnell will have little incentive to cooperate — he will be navigating as many as a half-dozen Senate Republicans who will immediately begin posturing for a potential 2024 presidential run.
Trump golfs as Biden named president-elect
Photos: Spontaneous celebrations as news spreads of Biden victory
Biden's win sparks street celebrations around the country
The announcement that Democrat Joe Biden has won the presidential election sparked spontaneous street celebrations around the country on Saturday.
Within seconds of the race being called, a group at Black Lives Matter plaza outside the White House erupted in cheers.
Shouts of joy could also be heard around several New York City neighborhoods. In one video filmed in Washington Heights, cars honked their horns as pedestrians lining the sidewalks clapped and cheered.
Biden amassed 273 Electoral College votes after winning Pennsylvania’s 20 electors, according to NBC News, surpassing the 270 needed to defeat President Donald Trump. The victory ended one of the most tumultuous and longest campaigns in modern history.
The scene in Times Square
'We did it, Joe': Harris calls Biden
'History-making ticket': Hillary Clinton reacts to the Biden-Harris win
Nancy Pelosi responds to Biden's win
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi responded to the election of President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris in a statement.
“Today marks the dawning of a new day of hope for America. A record-shattering 75 million Americans cast their ballots to elect Joe Biden President of the United States – a historic victory that has handed Democrats a mandate for action," she said.
Pelosi highlighted Biden's plans to combat Covid-19 and the safe reopening of schools and businesses, followed by "mandates" to rebuild health care, infrastructure and "cleaner government."
"President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris won with a strong margin, and they will have a strong Democratic House Majority by their side," she said. "Working together, we have the opportunity to deliver extraordinary progress For The People."
Doug Emhoff tweets on Harris
Harris makes history as first female, Black, South Asian American VP-elect
With Joe Biden now projected to win the presidency, his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, also solidified her place in history Saturday by becoming the first woman, the first Black American and the first South Asian American elected vice president in U.S. history.
Harris’ political career has included many barrier-breaking moments, such as serving as the elected attorney general of California and being the second Black woman in history to be elected to the U.S. Senate.
Harris, 56, the only Black woman currently in the Senate, was elected in 2016 after serving as California’s attorney general and, before that, as the San Francisco district attorney. The child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, the native of Oakland, California, has said she was inspired to attend law school after attending civil rights protests with her parents.
"This election is about so much more than @JoeBiden or me," Harris tweeted Saturday after NBC News projected her victory. "It’s about the soul of America and our willingness to fight for it. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Let’s get started."
Photos: Philadelphia reacts to announcement of Biden winning election
Trump responds to projection of Biden's win
President Donald Trump reacted to news that Joe Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 election by vowing to continue to fight.
"Beginning Monday, our campaign will start prosecuting our case in court to ensure election laws are fully upheld and the rightful winner is seated," Trump said in a statement. "The American People are entitled to an honest election: that means counting all legal ballots, and not counting any illegal ballots. This is the only way to ensure the public has full confidence in our election."
Trump blamed news outlets for declaring Biden the victor and repeated unfounded claims that rampant voter fraud occurred.
"We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don’t want the truth to be exposed," Trump said in a statement. "The simple fact is this election is far from over. Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states, let alone any of the highly contested states headed for mandatory recounts, or states where our campaign has valid and legitimate legal challenges that could determine the ultimate victor. In Pennsylvania, for example, our legal observers were not permitted meaningful access to watch the counting process. Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media."
Biden and Harris tweet their thanks to the country
NBC News Exit Poll: How Biden rebuilt the Democrats' 'blue wall'
If 2018 was the year of the suburban woman, 2020 was the year of the white man. This latter group was a major factor in Joe Biden’s ability to rebuild the so-called Democratic blue wall and win the White House.
Biden may not have won the majority of white men, but he significantly improved on Hillary Clinton’s performance with this group. The NBC News Exit Poll of early and Election Day voters found this was a significant component in his ability to flip key battleground states back into the Democratic column.
Donald Trump won 58 percent of the white male vote, but Biden’s 40 percent showing shrunk the president’s margin with the group from 31 points in 2016 to 18 points in 2020. This was especially important in the blue wall states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where white men made up between 38 and 41 percent of the total electorate — a higher share than the nation as a whole (32 percent).
Biden’s strong showing with white men, combined with the backing of more than 7 in 10 voters of color, helped propel him to victory.
Another reason why Biden won the popular vote is because most voters like him. Just over half (52 percent) said they have a favorable opinion of him, which is better than Clinton’s 43 percent favorable rating in 2016. By contrast, less than half (45 percent) of 2020 voters had a favorable opinion of Trump, although this is an improvement from four years ago (38 percent).
A key element in Trump’s 2016 victory was the fact that he won over voters who held unfavorable views of both candidates. He repeated that feat this year, but with one crucial difference: Far fewer voters this time around disliked both candidates — just 4 percent, compared with 18 percent who felt that way four years ago.
Other factors in Biden’s success are that he won:
- independent voters (54 percent to 40 percent), a group Trump carried by 4 points in 2016
- voters under age 30 (62 percent to 35 percent)
- those who said the recent rise in Covid-19 cases was the most important factor in their vote (61 percent to 38 percent)
- those who believe climate change is a serious problem (68 percent to 29 percent)
- those who believe racism is the nation’s most important problem (87 percent to 11 percent)
- those who are dissatisfied or angry with the federal government (70 percent to 28 percent)
BIDEN DEFEATS TRUMP TO WIN THE WHITE HOUSE, NBC NEWS PROJECTS
Joe Biden became president-elect Saturday after winning Pennsylvania and its 20 Electoral College votes.
He had focused his campaign aggressively on President Donald Trump’s widely criticized handling of the coronavirus pandemic, which was seen by many voters as the most important issue facing the country. The results came on the fourth day of ballot counting after Election Day.
Biden will become the 46th president on Jan. 20.
Incendiary texts traced to outfit run by top Trump aide
A texting company run by one of President Donald Trump’s top campaign officials sent out thousands of targeted, anonymous text messages urging supporters to rally where votes were being counted in Philadelphia on Thursday, falsely claiming Democrats were trying to steal the presidential election.
The messages directed Trump fans to converge at a downtown intersection where hundreds of protesters from the opposing candidates’ camps faced off Thursday afternoon. Pennsylvania is a crucial battleground state where former Vice President Joe Biden's jumped ahead Friday and in a televised address later predicted a victory that would give him the presidency.
“This kind of message is playing with fire, and we are very lucky that it does not seem to have driven more conflict,” said John Scott-Railton, senior researcher at the University of Toronto’s online watchdog Citizen Lab. Scott-Railton helped track down the source.
The texts were sent using phone numbers leased to the text-messaging platform Opn Sesame, said two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition they not be further identified. The company’s CEO is Gary Coby, the Trump campaign’s digital director. It provides text-messaging services to GOP clients including the Republican National Committee.
“ALERT: Radical Liberals & Dems are trying to steal this election from Trump! We need YOU!” the text said, directing recipients to “show your support” on a street corner near the Philadelphia Convention Center where votes were being counted and tensions were running high.
A top Trump campaign official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the message did not come from the campaign. Because Opn Sesame is used by multiple customers, none of whom the company would identify, it could not be determined exactly who sent the message. Coby declined to comment.
Click here for the full story.
Fact check: Trump claims tractors, cardboard as signs of fraud
The president continued to make baseless allegations of voter fraud and illegal voting Saturday morning, complaining in particular that “tractors blocked doors & windows were covered with thick cardboard so that observers could not see into the count rooms.”
There are no news reports of a polling site being affected by farm equipment, though Newt Gingrich made a similar claim on Fox News yesterday. None of the more than 165,000 general election reports made to the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline mentioned a tractor, either; NBC News reviewed those reports in partnership with ProPublica’s Electionland.
As for the windows and the cardboard — that did happen, but not the way Trump says it did. At a polling site in Detroit, there were hundreds of challengers and observers from both parties inside the poll counting rooms, but when protesters began filming poll workers and challengers from the outside, The Detroit News reported poll workers put up cardboard on the windows to keep protesters from filming them. Only the media is allowed to film inside ballot-count rooms.
The Trump campaign sued over a lack of “meaningful access” to observe the ballot counting, but the lawsuit was tossed lacking evidence of wrongdoing or a lack of access. The suit, the court said, was moot because the counting was done.
Biden widens margin in Georgia, Pennsylvania as final votes tabulated
Joe Biden's vote margin over President Donald Trump continued on Saturday to widen in several key battleground states, where the final votes were being tabulated.
While no winner has been projected, Biden entered Saturday with higher vote totals in four key states: Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. But all four remained rated by NBC News Decision Desk as too close to call.
A call in both Nevada and Arizona in Biden's favor would put him right at the 270 electoral votes needed to win, while a victory in Pennsylvania alone would give him 273 electoral votes.
As Americans watched as the vote count entered the fourth day, Democrats have tried to project optimism.
“We don’t have a final declaration, a victory yet. But the numbers tell us a clear and convincing story,” Biden said in a brief speech Friday night. “We’re going to win this race.”
'My ideals are driven by my faith': Raphael Warnock on his Senate runoff race
From the pulpit of one of the most storied churches in America, the Rev. Raphael Warnock has blended his fiery sermons of faith and love with urgent social messages of fairness and democracy for the last 15 years.
Many members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta — the church of Martin Luther King Jr. — wondered from early on, whether Warnock, the church’s senior pastor, had political aspirations.
He confirmed those longstanding impressions by running for Senate in Georgia, and finds himself one runoff victory away from taking his influential voice to Washington, D.C.
“I have been preaching in this campaign the same message I have been preaching for years,” Warnock, 51, told NBC News. “I’ve been trying to point us toward the highest ideals in our humanity and in the covenant we have with one another as American people — that all of us deserve an opportunity to create a prosperous life for us and our families.”
Trump's election falsehoods 'put a smile' on the faces of dictators, observers warn
LONDON — Accusations of vote-rigging, protests at counting centers and false declarations of victory from an embattled incumbent.
President Donald Trump's baseless claims in the wake of the election are a gift to the world's dictators and undermine American efforts to call out antidemocratic behavior abroad, experts have warned.
Since the election, Trump has launched a rhetorical assault on the basic tenets of American democracy.
He urged officials to stop counting votes when his lead in several battleground states began to narrow; he alleged widespread voter fraud without evidence and wrongly labeled mail-in ballots illegal; and he repeatedly accused the Democrats of trying to "steal" the election.
Even after a first term in which the president has repeatedly undermined democratic values, his comments this week have caused a whole new level of alarm. This only increased when his supporters, some of them armed, began crowding polling centers during knife-edge counts in Arizona and Michigan.
Biden predicts win, calls for unity, as presidential race still undecided
WILMINGTON, Del. — Joe Biden on Friday night once again predicted victory in the 2020 race, calling for unity after the final results come in and claiming that the vote that had so far been counted proved that the nation had given him a “mandate for action” on issues like combatting the pandemic.
“We don’t have a final declaration, a victory yet. But the numbers tell us a clear and convincing story,” Biden said in a brief speech from his campaign headquarters. “We’re going to win this race.”
According to NBC News, Biden has received 253 Electoral College votes, compared to 214 for President Donald Trump. The battleground states of Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina remain too close to call, according to NBC News.
Citing the fact that he’d already received more than 74.3 million votes — the most ever by any presidential candidate — Biden said he was “going to win this race with a clear majority, with the nation behind us.”
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White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tests positive for Covid-19
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tested positive for Covid-19, a source familiar with the diagnosis told NBC News on Friday.
The news comes as the U.S. has recorded for the third day in a row of more than 100,000 new cases, breaking previous records.
Meadows, 61, was among those in attendance Wednesday morning hours after the polls closed for an election night party at the White House, where Trump falsely claimed that he had won the presidential election as millions of votes had yet to be counted and several battleground states were not called.
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What are 'provisional ballots' and why it takes time to count them
Provisional ballots — used by voters if there's a question about their eligibility when they show up at the polls — are slowing the count of the presidential election three days after polls closed. And there could be enough provisional ballots to affect the race in some key states.
Such ballots are used only when a voter has an issue that needs to be resolved before their vote can be counted, so they take longer to process than regular ballots and can be subject to legal action and challenges.
They are a fallback when a voter can't immediately prove they're eligible to vote when they show up at the polls or their information doesn't match what's listed on voter rolls.
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Supreme Court Justice Alito weighs in on Pennsylvania mail-in ballot case
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito late Friday granted part of a request from Pennsylvania state Republicans, who wanted an order regarding mail ballots that came in during the extended deadline.
He ordered county election officials to comply with a previous directive issued by the secretary of state to keep separate the mail ballots that arrived after Election Day but before Friday at 5 p.m. But he did not order the state to stop counting them.
He also ordered the state to file a response to the Republican request by 2 p.m. Saturday.
The state GOP told the court midday Friday that even though the secretary of state directed counties to separate out the ballots that arrived after Election Day but before Friday at 5 p.m., it was unclear whether all the counties were obeying that directive.
"The vote in Pennsylvania may well determine the next President of the United States, and it is currently unclear whether all 67 county boards of elections are segregating late-arriving ballots," they told the justices.
They asked the Supreme Court to order the secretary to repeat her directive to keep the late ballots separate — and this time to add that they should not even be counted. Otherwise, the Republicans said, it might not be possible to remove those ballots from the count if the party later prevails on its argument that the deadline extension was illegal.
