US Election Week 2020

[Admiral Yi]

Now he's changed his mind back to unknown.

[Syt]

Operation DISCREDIT THE VOTE continues.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-election-challenges/2020/11/09/49e2c238-22c4-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html

Top Republicans back Trump's efforts to challenge election results

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans on Monday backed President Trump's efforts to contest his loss to President-elect Joe Biden, despite the lack of evidence of significant fraud and sharp rebukes from election officials who defended the integrity of the vote.

McConnell (R-Ky.) said from the floor of the Senate that the president is "100 percent within his right" to pursue recounts and litigation. McConnell did not repeat Trump's baseless assertions that fraud had cost him the election, but he said he had met with Attorney General William P. Barr earlier in the day and supports the president's right to investigate all claims of wrongdoing.

"We have the tools and institutions we need to address any concerns," McConnell said. "The president has every right to look into allegations and request recounts under the law."

Separately, Barr on Monday gave federal prosecutors a green light to pursue allegations of voting irregularities in certain cases before results are certified. The memo appeared to reverse previous Justice Department guidance that prosecutors generally should not take overt steps in cases involving alleged voter fraud until results are in and official.

Meanwhile, other GOP officials also rushed to bolster Trump's case, including the two U.S. senators from Georgia, who demanded the resignation of Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a fellow Republican, after his office said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the state.

And the Republican attorneys general of about a dozen states threw their support behind a legal effort pending before the U.S. Supreme Court to throw out mail ballots in Pennsylvania that were received after Election Day — a small number of votes that state officials said would not be enough to change the outcome.

Behind the scenes, Trump advisers and allies are increasingly resigned to a Biden victory, according to people familiar with internal discussions, who, like others interviewed for this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private conversations.

But few so far are actively discouraging the president or his campaign from pursuing all legal paths to contest the results. Only a smattering of Republican senators have acknowledged Biden's victory, and there has been little coaxing on the part of senior GOP lawmakers to help Trump come to terms with his loss. Some said there is value in ensuring the integrity of this year's results, while others described a chaotic and scattershot operation that they hoped would eventually push Trump to cooperate in a peaceful transfer of power.

"What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change," said one senior Republican official. "He went golfing this weekend. It's not like he's plotting how to prevent Joe Biden from taking power on Jan. 20. He's tweeting about filing some lawsuits, those lawsuits will fail, then he'll tweet some more about how the election was stolen, and then he'll leave."

Still, Trump's rhetoric has inflamed some of his supporters around the country, who have gathered in small "Stop the Steal" protests and declared that they do not have faith in the results.

As a result, two starkly different tones prevailed throughout the day. Inside the White House, aides described a deflated president aware of the difficulty of reversing the outcome and even declaring plans to run again in 2024. But publicly, Trump fired off tweet after combative tweet asserting without evidence that results in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Nevada had been illegally rigged against him. And his campaign announced at least one new federal lawsuit, in Pennsylvania, seeking to block state officials from certifying the results.

"Pennsylvania prevented us from watching much of the Ballot count," Trump tweeted despite extensive reporting, and some live feeds, showing poll watchers had access. "Unthinkable and illegal in this country."

Since Election Day, the Trump campaign and GOP allies have made claims of election irregularities in six states where Biden holds the lead in the vote count. But they have yet to prove any widespread fraud and have largely suffered defeat in courts.

And much of the legal activity Monday recycled previously dismissed allegations. The new Pennsylvania suit filed by the Trump campaign alleged — again — that some counties had improperly allowed voters to fix problems on mail ballots, a claim that was thrown out last week. It also falsely claimed that observers were not allowed to watch the processing and counting of ballots.

Trump aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly, said there was little expectation inside the campaign that litigation would overturn Biden's win — and said advisers have told Trump this directly. But they also said the campaign will pursue the cases to their conclusions, in part to sustain an argument about the risk of voter fraud. The campaign has also urged allies to publicly encourage people to report evidence or firsthand accounts of suspicious voter activity.

The campaign's top two officials, Bill Stepien and Justin Clark, met with the staff at their Arlington headquarters Monday and urged them to keep fighting, officials said, adding that campaign leaders were closely watching who was still showing up.

But further complicating their effort: David Bossie, tapped to lead the campaign's legal effort, tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a person familiar with the situation.

It was clear Monday the campaign's strategy is at least as much about rhetoric as about legal tactics. Clark, the deputy campaign manager, and others spent the weekend assembling a plan — and a messaging strategy — for various states, officials said. The campaign also sent out "talkers" — talking points — that included such suggestions as "This election is far from over," "Joe Biden has not been certified as the winner of any states," and "Legal votes decide who is president, not the news media."

In Michigan, where Republicans have so far lost their legal challenges, a conservative nonprofit law firm filed a new suit asserting that ballots in Wayne County, home of Detroit, had been counted from voters not on the rolls and without verification of voter signatures, citing six signed affidavits. The suit also alleged that Republican poll watchers were not allowed to witness the counting, even though more than 200 GOP challengers were inside the counting room at the TCF Center in Detroit, where votes were counted last week.

"The allegations in this suit appear to be an exaggeration of routine situations that arise every election," said Christopher Trebilcock, a longtime Democratic election lawyer in Michigan. "They either don't understand the process or don't care what the law actually provides."

In Nevada, the Trump campaign and Republicans have already lost two attempts to get courts to order changes to ballot counting in Clark County, the state's largest Democratic stronghold. State and federal judges rejected their demands for emergency intervention, citing a lack of evidence of any widespread voter fraud.

In response, Trump allies made a slew of new unsubstantiated allegations. On Sunday, Matt Schlapp of the American Conservative Union claimed "thousands of examples of voter irregularities," including a "Biden-Harris van" at the Clark County vote-counting center in which ballots were "opened with letter openers, and ballots were filled in and resealed."

Asked about the GOP's various fraud allegations Monday, Clark County Registrar of Voters Joe Gloria said his office had forwarded allegations to the secretary of state for investigation. "If there's anything that's been done illegally, unfortunately, we're going to find it," he said.

Gloria said he was confident in the election results. "We've had answers for every allegation that has been brought forward," he said. "All we want to do is count votes."

The office of Nevada Attorney General Aaron D. Ford, meanwhile, said no formal complaints had been filed to his office as of Monday evening.

In Georgia, a new level of intraparty hostility burst into view between Republicans who have questioned the election's integrity and those who have publicly defended it.

Trump allies seized on the news that a small number of ballots had not been scanned over the weekend in Fulton County, home of Atlanta. The news prompted a story from the conservative website Breitbart News — and a tweet from the president — suggesting that the additional ballots might alter the outcome. Critics also falsely accused Fulton County election officials of not allowing Republicans to watch the process.

In fact, only 342 ballots were affected, and the county invited members of both political parties and a monitor from the Georgia secretary of state's office to Atlanta's State Farm Arena, the elections headquarters, to observe. A Raffensperger adviser also rejected broader claims of voter fraud.

Gabriel Sterling, the voting system implementation manager at the secretary of state's office, said claims of widespread illegal activity were false, calling Election Day "an amazing success" and chastising those "trying to undermine the system that was put together" by state and county officials.

Later in the day, Georgia's two Republican senators, both headed to runoff elections Jan. 5, demanded that Raffensperger resign.

"There have been too many failures in Georgia elections this year and the most recent election has shined a national light on the problems," Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue said in the statement, which did not list a single example of a problem. "The Secretary of State has failed to deliver honest and transparent elections."

In a fiery response, Raffensperger said he would not step down and defended the election process as orderly and transparent.

"I know emotions are running high," Raffensperger said. "Politics are involved in everything right now. If I was Senator Perdue, I'd be irritated I was in a runoff. And both Senators and I are all unhappy with the potential outcome for our President."

Biden's 11,595-vote lead in Georgia means the race is eligible for a recount, but Raffensperger emphasized it was unlikely to change the outcome of the election.

Just as more Republicans came forward to back Trump's legal push, others came forward to urge the country to move on.

"At this stage, I think the transition should be underway, even though it's not finalized," said Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah). "We want to make sure that the interests of national security and smooth transition is carried out."

After having the RUSSIA HOAX hanging over the Trump it seems Republicans want to repay the favor by casting a permanent doubt over the Biden presidency, even if only their hardcore base will really believe it. If nothing else, it will be ammunition for them to make voting harder for people they don't want to vote under the guide of "PROTECTING DEMOCRACY".

[katmai]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/doj-s-election-crimes-chief-resigns-after-barr-directs-prosecutors-n1247220

[Syt]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/doj-s-election-crimes-chief-resigns-after-barr-directs-prosecutors-n1247220

DeEp StaTE rAtS LeaVInG tHe SinKINg SHip!!!!1111oneonee

[celedhring]

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/doj-s-election-crimes-chief-resigns-after-barr-directs-prosecutors-n1247220

Trump doesn't need him. Giuliani will take the case all the way to the Supreme Court Landscaping.

[Syt]

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1325991277364588551?s=20

Lindsey Graham: "Mitch McConnell and I need to come up with an oversight of mail in balloting. If we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country."

[Maladict]

https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1325991277364588551?s=20

Lindsey Graham: "Mitch McConnell and I need to come up with an oversight of mail in balloting. If we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country."

I'm still flabbergasted people will say this kind of stuff out loud. 

[Sheilbh]

What does Cunningham need is what I want to know.

Trump is up 74,899 votes; Tillis is up 95,338.

I doubt it will happen, especially not for Tillis.

It is really striking that in NC and GA Trump is running a fair bit behind the Senators. What's the opposte of coat-tails?

Lindsey Graham: "Mitch McConnell and I need to come up with an oversight of mail in balloting. If we don't do something about voting by mail, we're going to lose the ability to elect a Republican in this country."

And the opposite is true. The GOP have done well in a high turnout election. They can make it work/reach to a majority.

[Syt]

From BoJo:

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1325133262075940864/photo/1



People pointed out that you can faintly see "Trump" still in the note, so that the graphic was either edited or recycled from 4 years ago.

People did the work online, but I also checked in Photoshop. And when you open the graphic in a separate window and zoom in you can see something's there.

I set tolerance to 0 (hah!), selected the background, inverted selection, copied as new layer and overlaid a flat color over that layer and got this:



EDIT: My guess: they reused an old file. Instead of deleting the contents, or putting a flat color box as background, they used a paintbrush that was not set to 100% opacity and/or 100% sharpness and just painted over the existing graphic until it "looked fine"

[DGuller]

Meanwhile, Biden is down to 86 cents.  I think we already have our Benghazi for Biden's presidency.

[FunkMonk]

Yeah, the GOP may be shooting themselves in the foot with continually trying to depress turnout. The Dems are increasing their margins with high-turnout voters.

The GOP was competitive this time around because they swept through every corner of the country and found low-turnout, low information voters and Trump turned it up to 11. Will these voters come out when Donald Trump is not on the ticket? They didn't in 2018.

Of course why bother with turnout if you can just disenfranchise your political opponents. Or consider all election outcomes illegal if your side lost.

[The Larch]

Add Pfizer and the FDA to the growing list of Trump's enemies.

Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr., without evidence, accuse Pfizer of deliberately waiting until after Election Day to release its COVID-19 vaccine trial results

* President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. on Monday baselessly accused Pfizer of deliberately waiting until after the US election to announce the promising early results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials.
* Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Monday told CNN that Pfizer had simply released the results "when the science told us the data was available."
* Though the announcement came Monday from Pfizer, and not a government organization, Trump speculated on Twitter that Democrats and even the US Food and Drug Administration "didn't want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election."
* The younger Trump suggested the timing of Pfizer's late-stage-trial results, which suggested the company's vaccine was more than 90% effective, was "nefarious."

President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. claimed on Monday that Pfizer deliberately waited until after the US election to announce the promising early results from its COVID-19 vaccine's late-stage clinical trial.

They offered no evidence for their claims.

Pfizer on Monday said its experimental coronavirus vaccine had succeeded in the final stage of clinical trials: The shot was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, the company said, a milestone in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Both Trump and his son took to Twitter to speculate about the timing of Pfizer's announcement, made six days after Election Day.

Though it was Pfizer that made the announcement, Trump tweeted Monday night attacking the US Food and Drug Administration and Democrats, which he said "didn't want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election."

He added that Pfizer "didn't have the courage" to issue the statement earlier.

A Pfizer spokesperson told Business Insider that the timing had nothing to do with the election.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn't have the courage to do it before. Likewise, the @US_FDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!

The younger Trump called the timing of Pfizer's announcement "pretty amazing" and suggested he thought the timing was "nefarious."

The president had previously claimed a vaccine would be ready by Election Day. In mid-October, Pfizer said it planned to submit its COVID-19 vaccine for FDA authorization in late November.

Trump also tweeted that if President-elect Joe Biden had been in the White House, "you wouldn't have the Vaccine for another four years, nor would the FDA have ever approved it so quickly."

The data Pfizer announced on Monday came from an analysis that took place while its coronavirus vaccine trial is still ongoing. The analysis was conducted by an independent group of scientists responsible for monitoring the trial. The outside scientists performed their analysis on November 8 and told Pfizer of the results that day.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla first learned of the trial results on Sunday, he told CNN in an interview on Monday, adding that he hadn't yet seen the data yet himself.

Though Pfizer had looked at the data several times throughout the trial, it didn't have enough infections in its test group to draw meaningful conclusions until Sunday, Bourla said.

When questioned about the "remarkable" postelection timing of the results, Bourla said Pfizer had simply released them "when the science told us the data was available."

A Pfizer spokesperson told Business Insider that the timing "did not have to do with the election."

Pfizer had initially planned to conduct the analysis after 32 people in the trial got sick with COVID-19. However, after discussions with the US Food and Drug Administration, the company decided to delay that analysis, conducting it after at least 62 people got sick, the company said on Monday. Pfizer didn't say why it made that change.

By the time the outside experts analyzed the study, 94 people had gotten sick, mainly among those who received a placebo, instead of the working vaccine. The results showed that Pfizer's vaccine was more than 90% effective at preventing the coronavirus, Pfizer said.

Bourla had repeatedly talked up the prospects for his company to deliver coronavirus-vaccine data in October. In September, he appeared on The "Today" show and CBS' "Face The Nation" to predict "we will have an answer by the end of October."

Pfizer's ambitious timeline aligned with President Donald Trump's repeated predictions of having success on a vaccine before Election Day, but it didn't come to pass.

Trump celebrated Pfizer's announcement
Trump's tweets Monday night were in stark contrast to earlier ones he had sent about Pfizer's announcement throughout the day.

He had called the trial results "SUCH GREAT NEWS!"

Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted about the development, though he misleadingly presented Pfizer's milestone as an accomplishment of the Trump administration.

Pence tweeted that Pfizer had developed its vaccine "thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President Trump."

While the US government did place a large order over the summer for Pfizer's vaccine, the company was never part of Operation Warp Speed, the government's initiative to accelerate the development and distribution of a vaccine, and Pfizer said it had never taken any money from the US government to aid its research.

[Maladict]

It would be hilarious if the first vaccinations start on some random date like January 21st.

[alfred russel]

It is really striking that in NC and GA Trump is running a fair bit behind the Senators. What's the opposte of coat-tails?

Contrary to stereotypes about NC and GA, both states are similar in that they have cities with highly educated and high earning professionals. Even back before civil rights, those were the major base of the Republican party. It looks like Trump turned out the rednecks in the sticks, and the educated professionals kept voting Republican down ticket, but a lot of those educated professionals went for Biden. But since he turned out the rednecks, it is possible he pushed the senators over the top, even if he faltered. Education is one of the best indicators of turnout, so those educated professionals voting for Trump were probably going to vote anyway.

I saw a map of Trump's performance vs. Senators, and while he underperformed in some states, on balance he probably overperformed.

[Josquius]

Amazingly deluded. If there had been some control of the release then leaving it till after the election would be the smartest way to make sure it doesn't interfere with politics.