Liz Cheney attends Liz Cheney in Conversation with David Rubenstein at The 92nd Street Y, New York, June 26, 2023. (Gary Gershoff/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Former Wyoming Republican Rep. Liz Cheney, a staunch critic of former President Donald Trump, announced Wednesday that she will be voting for Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, revealed her decision during a panel at Duke University and reiterated her warnings of the dangers of a second Trump term.
“As a conservative and as someone who cares and believes in the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this and because of the danger Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris,” she said to a roaring crowd.
Harris is “proud” to get “patriot” Cheney’s endorsement, the Harris campaign said in a statement Wednesday night as it continues to court Republican voters ahead of the election.
“The Vice President is proud to have earned Congresswoman Cheney’s vote. She is a patriot who loves this country and puts our democracy and our Constitution first,” Harris campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon wrote. “As she noted in her powerful remarks, this election is a choice between the fundamental threat Donald Trump poses to our democracy and a leader who will stand up for our freedoms and the rule of law in Vice President Harris.”
Answering questions from the audience at a campaign event in Mesa, Arizona, Trump’s running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance blasted Cheney for backing Harris.
“A very good thing that I could say about the next Presidency of Donald J. Trump is that he’s going to make sure that people like Liz Cheney are laughed out of the Oval Office instead of rewarded,” Vance said.
Cheney voted to impeach Trump following what she has called the “insurrection” of Jan. 6, 2021, and was vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. She received backlash from Trump and other Republicans for her criticism of the former president and was censured by the Republican National Committee.
Trump said in March that Cheney and the entire Jan. 6 committee should be jailed.
Cheney lost her seat in the 2022 primary to Trump-backed Harriet Hageman by more than 60,000 votes, according to election results.
Since leaving Congress, Cheney has continued to criticize MAGA Republicans and Trump.
“I think we have to take everything that Donald Trump says literally and seriously,” Cheney said in an interview with ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jonathan Karl in December.
“And I think that we saw, frankly, what he was willing to do already after the 2020 election in the lead up to Jan. 6, after Jan 6,” she continued. “People need to remember that when Donald Trump woke up on the morning of Jan. 6, he thought he was going to remain as president. And we saw the extent to which he was willing to attempt to seize power when he lost an election.”
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said Wednesday that Vice President Kamala Harris’s nomination as the first Black and Asian woman nominee for U.S. president “gives a lot of people hope” that greater equality of opportunity is possible.
“I know a little bit about being a first,” said Jackson, the nation’s first Black woman justice on the high court who was appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. “I think a lot of people were very happy about my appointment, in part, because they saw it as progress for the country.”
“Whenever we see someone moving into a position where no one has ever been, it gives a lot of people hope,” she said during an appearance on ABC’s “The View.”
The comments were Jackson’s first public acknowledgement on the historic Democratic ticket — Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.
“I’m a first, not because I’m the first person who could ever do this job, right? But because our times have changed. Our society has changed,” she said.
Jackson, 53, has been on a media blitz in conjunction with the release of her memoir “Lovely One,” which recounts personal stories from her childhood, education, family life and early career before arriving at the nation’s highest court.
Jackson has been careful to avoid speaking publicly on politics or policy issues, stressing her need to preserve the appearance of impartiality.
Asked whether she is confident the courts would uphold the will of voters if results of the 2024 election are challenged, she said: “I am confident that the courts will faithfully uphold the law, because that is our duty.”
Jackson also weighed in on the Supreme Court’s new, non-binding ethics code, saying she supports public debate over enforcement mechanisms and possible changes to the court’s structure.
“The question is, [how] is that going to play out? We’re still pretty early in the process,” she said, “but I guess I think about all of this as democracy at work, public engagement, these ideas of reforms, are the kinds of things that have been around since the beginning of our Republic.”
(WASHINGTON) — A group of more than 30 current and former Republican officials filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday condemning a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.
“States have no business overruling the decisions of fit parents who make an informed medical choice for their children that is supported by their doctors,” the filing reads.
The Supreme Court is preparing to take up a constitutional challenge to the law, which restricts access to puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries specifically for the purpose of gender transitioning for people under the age of 18. The law does not restrict this care for non-transgender patients.
At least 25 states have passed similar bans on gender-affirming medical care.
The Republican signatories include representatives from state legislatures, the George W. Bush administration, as well as the John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. It also includes Jordan Willow Evans, the nation’s first openly transgender elected Republican.
The signatories argue that the law is “nothing less than ‘a vast government overreach,’” quoting former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who vetoed a gender-confirming medical care ban for transgender youths in his state.
Hutchinson’s veto was followed by a veto from Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine against his state’s own proposed gender-affirming care ban. Both Hutchinson’s and DeWine’s vetoes were overridden by their respective state legislature.
Republicans and political conservatives in opposition to the Tennessee law say they are against the law because of their values of limited government and respect for families – “in particular, the rights of parents to make weighty decisions about the upbringing and medical care of their own children.”
“Parents want their children to be safe, happy and healthy. Parents of transgender children are no different,” the filing reads. “Reasonable people can disagree about what is best for kids, but the question presented here is who makes that decision: their parents or government bureaucrats?”
The filing also quotes Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – whose former staff is also represented among the amicus brief signatories.
On the presidential campaign trail in 2023, Christie said that “parents are the people who are best positioned to make these judgments” and “the government should [n]ever be stepping into the place of the parents.”
Tennessee Republican lawmakers in favor of trans care bans have defended the law in light of the impending Supreme Court case, often arguing that children should wait to receive care until they are adults.
“Tennessee is committed to protecting children from permanent, life-altering decisions,” Gov. Bill Lee said in an April 2023 post on the social media platform X after the Justice Department argued the law violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
In a statement on the Supreme Court case, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also defended the law: “We fought hard to defend Tennessee’s law protecting kids from irreversible gender treatments and secured a thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion from the 6th Circuit.”
He continued, “I look forward to finishing the fight in the United States Supreme Court. This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity.”
The filing notes people and medical professionals believe that it endangers children with gender dysphoria not to provide them with gender-affirming care.
Major national medical associations — including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and more than 20 others — agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial and medically necessary.
Research has found that hormone therapy can improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a sweeping crackdown Wednesday on dueling efforts by the Russian government to influence the upcoming 2024 election through covert networks aimed at spreading disinformation to American voters.
For months, the Biden administration has been publicly warning of Russia’s efforts to influence Americans through disinformation and propaganda to sow distrust in the election.
In a meeting Wednesday at the Justice Department, Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray highlighted both foreign and domestic incidents of attempts to influence voters, as well as pervasive and growing threats against those who administer elections.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing,” Garland said.
The Justice Department alleged that two employees of Russia Today, or RT — a Russian state-controlled media outlet, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme “to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government.”
To carry this out, the attorney general said the two employees — 31-year-old Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27 — allegedly directed the company to contract with social media influencers to amplify Russian propaganda.
“The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government. Instead, the defendants and the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor, but that private investor was a fictitious persona,” Garland said.
Russian entities also created fake websites to allegedly further influence the election, officials said.
“RT has used people living and working inside the U.S. to facilitate contracts with American media figures to create and disseminate Russian propaganda here. The content was pitched as legitimate independent news when, in fact, much of it was created in Russia by RT employees who work for the Russian government,” Wray said. “The second operation reveals even more malign activities by companies working under the direction and control of the Russian government, companies that created media websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said they will continue to investigate election threats without fear or favor.
“Russia remains a predominant foreign threat to our elections, and as the intelligence community has publicly reported, and as I have previously warned, Iran also is accelerating its efforts to influence our elections, including the presidential election,” Monaco said.
Wray also delivered a blunt message for Iran and China when asked what the bureau’s response would be to those who intend to meddle in the presidential election: “Knock it off.”
The attorney general said Russia is using new techniques Russia such as artificial intelligence and other cyber techniques.
“They’re now using bot farms in a way that was not possible before, and therefore it’s a bigger threat than it ever was before. I would just say that [the] reality is that Russia has meddled in our society and tried to sow discord for decades,” Garland said.
The DOJ also announced that it’s targeting a Russian disinformation campaign referred to as “Doppelganger.”
The DOJ has seized 32 internet domains it claims have been used by the Russian government and government-sponsored actors to allegedly engage in the Doppelganger influence campaign by spreading propaganda intended to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster support for pro-Russian policies and influence American voters, according to newly unsealed court records.
Garland on Wednesday also highlighted domestic efforts to threaten election officials around the country.
Since March, the Election Threats Task Force has participated in more than 25 engagements, trainings and tabletop exercises, including both with law enforcement partners and partners in the election community, the attorney general said.
Over the next several weeks, task force representatives will be on the ground meeting with election workers and, in early November, both in advance of and after Election Day, the FBI will host federal partners at its headquarters command center to address events, issues and potential crimes related to the elections in real time, Garland said.
“Election officials and administrators do not need to navigate this threat environment alone,” he added.
CNN first reported news of the expected law enforcement actions.
In a statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined the steps the State Department said it’s taking to “counter Kremlin-backed media outlets’ malicious operations seeking to influence or interfere in the 2024 U.S. elections.”
The measures include introducing a new visa restriction policy to penalize adversaries, designating RT’s parent company and subsidiaries as entities controlled by a foreign government, and offering cash rewards for information on the Russian intelligence-linked hacking group RaHDit under its “Rewards for Justice” program.
“Today’s announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions. But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate foreign malign actors intentionally interfering and undermining free and fair elections,” Blinken said.
In addition, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Wednesday that it’s designating 10 individuals — including several RT employees — and two entities as part of the U.S. response to “Moscow’s malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 U.S. presidential election.”
The head of a “hacktivist” group RaHDit and two associates were also part of Wednesday’s sanctions, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
ABC News’ Shannon Kingston and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland announced a sweeping crackdown Wednesday on dueling efforts by the Russian government to influence the upcoming 2024 election through covert networks aimed at spreading disinformation to American voters.
For months, the Biden administration has been publicly warning of Russia’s efforts to influence Americans through disinformation and propaganda to sow distrust in the election.
In a meeting Wednesday at the Justice Department, Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray highlighted both foreign and domestic incidents of attempts to influence voters, as well as pervasive and growing threats against those who administer elections.
“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing,” Garland said.
The Justice Department alleged that two employees of Russia Today, or RT — a Russian state-controlled media outlet, implemented a nearly $10 million scheme “to fund and direct a Tennessee-based company to publish and disseminate content deemed favorable to the Russian government.”
To carry this out, the attorney general said the two employees — 31-year-old Kostiantyn Kalashnikov, also known as Kostya, and Elena Afanasyeva, 27 — allegedly directed the company to contract with social media influencers to amplify Russian propaganda.
“The company never disclosed to the influencers or to their millions of followers its ties to RT and the Russian government. Instead, the defendants and the company claimed that the company was sponsored by a private investor, but that private investor was a fictitious persona,” Garland said.
Russian entities also created fake websites to allegedly further influence the election, officials said.
“RT has used people living and working inside the U.S. to facilitate contracts with American media figures to create and disseminate Russian propaganda here. The content was pitched as legitimate independent news when, in fact, much of it was created in Russia by RT employees who work for the Russian government,” Wray said. “The second operation reveals even more malign activities by companies working under the direction and control of the Russian government, companies that created media websites to trick Americans into unwittingly consuming Russian propaganda.”
Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said they will continue to investigate election threats without fear or favor.
“Russia remains a predominant foreign threat to our elections, and as the intelligence community has publicly reported, and as I have previously warned, Iran also is accelerating its efforts to influence our elections, including the presidential election,” Monaco said.
Wray also delivered a blunt message for Iran and China when asked what the bureau’s response would be to those who intend to meddle in the presidential election: “Knock it off.”
The attorney general said Russia is using new techniques Russia such as artificial intelligence and other cyber techniques.
“They’re now using bot farms in a way that was not possible before, and therefore it’s a bigger threat than it ever was before. I would just say that [the] reality is that Russia has meddled in our society and tried to sow discord for decades,” Garland said.
The DOJ also announced that it’s targeting a Russian disinformation campaign referred to as “Doppelganger.”
The DOJ has seized 32 internet domains it claims have been used by the Russian government and government-sponsored actors to allegedly engage in the Doppelganger influence campaign by spreading propaganda intended to reduce international support for Ukraine, bolster support for pro-Russian policies and influence American voters, according to newly unsealed court records.
Garland on Wednesday also highlighted domestic efforts to threaten election officials around the country.
Since March, the Election Threats Task Force has participated in more than 25 engagements, trainings and tabletop exercises, including both with law enforcement partners and partners in the election community, the attorney general said.
Over the next several weeks, task force representatives will be on the ground meeting with election workers and, in early November, both in advance of and after Election Day, the FBI will host federal partners at its headquarters command center to address events, issues and potential crimes related to the elections in real time, Garland said.
“Election officials and administrators do not need to navigate this threat environment alone,” he added.
CNN first reported news of the expected law enforcement actions.
In a statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken outlined the steps the State Department said it’s taking to “counter Kremlin-backed media outlets’ malicious operations seeking to influence or interfere in the 2024 U.S. elections.”
The measures include introducing a new visa restriction policy to penalize adversaries, designating RT’s parent company and subsidiaries as entities controlled by a foreign government, and offering cash rewards for information on the Russian intelligence-linked hacking group RaHDit under its “Rewards for Justice” program.
“Today’s announcement highlights the lengths some foreign governments go to undermine American democratic institutions. But these foreign governments should also know that we will not tolerate foreign malign actors intentionally interfering and undermining free and fair elections,” Blinken said.
In addition, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said Wednesday that it’s designating 10 individuals — including several RT employees — and two entities as part of the U.S. response to “Moscow’s malign influence efforts targeting the 2024 U.S. presidential election.”
The head of a “hacktivist” group RaHDit and two associates were also part of Wednesday’s sanctions, the Treasury Department said in a statement.
ABC News’ Shannon Kingston and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Though Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced last month he was suspending his struggling independent campaign and endorsing former President Donald Trump, voters in many states are still likely to see him on their ballot this fall.
Announcing his decision in Phoenix, Arizona, Kennedy said that he would remove himself from the ballot in battleground states where he could act as a “spoiler” for Trump, but he encouraged voters in solidly Democratic or Republican states to vote for him.
Kennedy did not name the states from which he would withdraw, but ABC News has confirmed that he has successfully removed himself from several battleground state ballots.
However, in a hiccup for the campaign — and for Trump — Kennedy was unable to remove his name from the ballot in at least three states expected to be competitive: Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina.
Here’s a look at where Kennedy has been taken off from the ballot — and where he’ll still be on them.
Where has Kennedy been removed from the ballot?
As of Wednesday, ABC News had confirmed that Kennedy has successfully withdrawn his name from the ballot in at least 10 states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas and South Carolina.
Many of those states are considered presidential battlegrounds, or at least contain some competitive congressional districts — such as Maine’s 2nd District, which Trump won in 2020, but is currently a seat held by Democratic Rep. Jared Golden.
Kennedy has moved quickly to scratch his name from ballots: in Arizona, his team scrambled to file withdrawal paperwork the night before he suspended his campaign. They were working to beat a crucial deadline: the Arizona secretary of state’s office was set to print ballots, which included Kennedy’s name, just hours later.
Then, in the hours after his announcement, Kennedy’s campaign successfully withdrew his name from the ballot in Texas, Pennsylvania and Ohio, ABC News confirmed.
In the days since, officials in several other states have told ABC News that Kennedy has successfully removed his name from the ballot.
In Georgia, a key battleground, the secretary of state’s office received two letters from lawyers for Kennedy asking to remove him from the ballot, according to a spokesperson.
But the office never considered Kennedy to be “on the ballot” in the first place — as an administrative judge ruled that the independent candidate did not meet the qualifications.
A spokesman for the office told ABC News, “He won’t be on the ballot.”
Officials in Nevada confirmed to ABC News last week that Kennedy is now off the ballot in the state — in that case, because of a court order received by the office.
The Nevada Independent reported that the court order is due to an agreement between Kennedy’s lawyers and the Nevada Democratic Party, which had challenged his petition to get on the ballot in Nevada, to drop the lawsuit and to mutually agree that Kennedy should not be on the ballot.
In New Hampshire, the office of the secretary of state confirmed to ABC News that Kennedy’s campaign submitted signatures to get him on the ballot the morning he suspended his campaign. But days later, a spokesperson for the office told ABC News that the Kennedy campaign “withdrew the nomination petitions required to be a certified candidate on the general election ballot.”
Where is Kennedy still on the ballot?
As of Wednesday, ABC News had confirmed that Kennedy will likely be on the ballot in about 30 states, although this could shift with any further successful withdrawals, legal challenges or decisions by elections offices ahead of state ballot certifications.
That number includes battleground states whose ballots Kennedy tried in recent days to withdraw from, such as Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted 5-1 on Tuesday to certify Kennedy and some other independent candidates for the ballot. The board debated over whether to remove him given his withdrawal from the race, with commissioner Ann S. Jacobs, a Democratic Party appointee on the board, arguing that Kennedy could not withdraw due to state statutes.
“It literally says, ‘if you filed nomination papers you cannot withdraw unless you’re dead.’ I mean, all of this is just vibing to try to ignore a statute. And this statute’s clear — like this isn’t even equivocal,” Jacobs said during a meeting of the commission.
A lawyer for Kennedy had submitted a letter to the Wisconsin Elections Commission requesting to withdraw him from the state’s ballot. But a spokesperson for the commission told ABC News recently that if a candidate files to get on the ballot in Wisconsin, “there is no mechanism to ‘take back’ the filing.”
ABC News has reached out to the Kennedy campaign to see if he plans to appeal the decision.
In Michigan, a judge ruled against Kennedy, who had sued Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for ordering his name to remain on the ballot.
Nominees of minor political parties may not remove themselves from the ballot, a representative for Benson’s office told ABC News.
The Natural Law Party, a two-member political party with ballot access in Michigan, nominated Kennedy to lead its ticket in April.
And in North Carolina, election officials voted to keep Kennedy’s name on the ballot since nearly two million ballots had already been printed across the state.
Reprinting them would be costly and leave most counties without ballots until at least mid-September (under state law, absentee ballots must go out by Sept. 6 to voters who have requested them).
On Friday, Kennedy sued the North Carolina Board of Elections to get his name removed from the ballot.
In an oddity, there are also some states where Kennedy’s campaign filed to get on the ballot even after he announced suspending his campaign.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams wrote on X on Monday afternoon that Kennedy filed to run in Kentucky (a state that his campaign had not discussed much or at all previously) that afternoon.
“Having just completed review of his submission of signatures, we are placing him on the ballot,” Adams wrote. The Kentucky secretary of state’s website also shows his filing.
And in Oregon, Kennedy achieved a spot on the ballot three days after announcing his suspension through the We the People Party and “at this time” will be on the ballot in the state, a spokesman for the Oregon secretary of state’s office said. The Oregon secretary of state’s website also has an entry for his filing.
(WASHINGTON) — While polling sites around the country are gearing up for huge voter turnout on Election Day, data and experts predict that a majority of the votes that will decide this year’s key races will be cast months before.
In fact, many of those votes could be cast in the next few weeks.
Analysts who have been studying early-voting trends say mail-in balloting and voting done at early opening polling sites will not only be a crucial indicator for this year’s races, but also future voting methods adopted by the country.
Early in-person voting options are available for almost all registered voters in 47 states with some allowing voters to cast their ballot as early as September, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, which tracks election laws across the country.
Michael McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida who helps run the school’s election lab, told ABC News that early voting exploded during the 2020 election and its effectiveness has reshaped the way the electorate and campaigns navigate the election.
“People find it easier to navigate and return the ballot at their convenience and it gives them more chances. They’re more likely to cast a ballot with those options,” he said.
How and where voters can cast a ballot early
In addition to offering voters a chance to cast their ballot through the mail, many states offer voters two ways of casting a ballot in person: either dropping off their absentee ballot at an election office or site, known as in-person absentee voting; or at a polling machine polling place that is open prior to Election Day.
As of 2024, 22 states offer all voters who vote via absentee the option to turn in their ballot in person early, according to NCSL data.
Alabama and New Hampshire offer no in-person early voting options — something the state’s election officials have not opted to do. Mississippi only offers in-person absentee to voters who meet specific criteria such as a physical disability, or proof that they will not be in the state on Election Day, such as military members.
Twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia give voters both in-person absentee and early in-person poll site options, NCSL data shows.
Eight states — California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont and Hawaii — and D.C. have adopted all-mail ballots and allow voters to cast their ballots in person before Election Day. With this process, states mail ballots to all registered voters and they can send it back, drop it off in-person absentee or ballot box, or simply choose to vote in a polling site either early or on Election Day.
Some election offices will offer voters a chance to submit their paper ballots in person as early as mid-September.
In Pennsylvania, some voters may be able to cast absentee ballots in person at their county’s executive office starting Sept. 16, which is the date for when counties must begin processing applications for mail-in or absentee ballots. The Pennsylvania Department of State told ABC News, however, that counties might not necessarily have the ballots ready by that date.
Rise in popularity
Charles Stewart, the director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s election data science lab, told ABC News that voting data has shown a gradual increase in votes cast before Election Day over nearly three decades.
In fact, during the 2020 election, more than 69% of votes cast in the election were done through either mail-in ballots or early in-person voting, according to election data. By comparison, only 40% voted early in the 2016 election and 33% in the 2012 election, the data showed.
The data did not indicate how many mail ballots were turned in person.
Stewart noted that the pandemic was a factor behind the 2020 surge in early voting, and even though there was a decrease in early voting numbers during the 2022 midterms, there was still a jump in the number of people who cast their ballots either through the mail or at an early-voting site compared to previous midterms.
“If you extend the trend line and extend it to 2022, there is only a little bit more voting by mail,” he said. “That tells me that voters have, on aggregate, returned to patterns we saw before 2020, which is that of a slowly growing reliance on convenience voting methods.”
The extra convenience isn’t the only incentive that is moving more voters to early voting, particularly mail-in ballots, according to Stewart.
Stewart said that several studies that have been published about voting behaviors have shown that voters who cast their ballot through the mail are thinking about their choices “more deeply and thoroughly.”
“I heard it from a voter the other day who said they appreciate being able to lay the ballot on the table and do the research on the issues and the candidates,” he said.
The enthusiasm has also had ripple effects, according to research conducted by McDonald.
McDonald said that data has shown that the states that opted to give all registered voters their ballot in the mail, such as Colorado, Washington and Oregon, saw the highest turnout rates in the country in 2020.
“In the early states that opted [into] mail balloting, places like Oregon and Washington, they’ve done satisfaction surveys and voters there love it, both Democrats and Republicans,” he said.
A boon for voters, election offices and campaigns
Election experts said that 2020’s jump in early voting helped to decrease long lines on Election Day at a time when the pandemic required smaller indoor crowds and social distancing.
Even though the need to decrease crowds has lessened, McDonald stressed there is still a need for “safety valves” when it comes to Election Day lines.
“It means if someone has a problem … and they try to catch their problem earlier, they have more time to rectify that problem,” he said, citing examples such as an error on their form or improper voter ID.
McDonald also cited the sudden snowstorm that hit northern Arizona in November 2022 as a major obstacle that voters and election offices faced when it came to Election Day voting.
“These are the things that can happen and campaigns kind of know they shouldn’t rely too much on Election Day because there could be things that go wrong,” he said.
Christopher Mann, the research director for the non-profit group, The Center for Election Innovation & Research, told ABC News that early voting also gives election office teams, many of whom are understaffed and underfunded, extra time to handle the large number of ballots that come through during presidential cycles.
“They can move more people around during those early weeks, especially on the weekends,” he said.
At the same time, early voting has reshaped how campaigns are conducted.
Former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden pushed for their debates to take place prior to October because of early voting. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris are scheduled to debate on Sept. 10 on ABC News.
Aside from the campaign trail, McDonald said that early voting also affects the campaign staffers on the ground who receive voter information from election offices.
“Then the campaigns can say, ‘OK this voter already voted, I don’t need to call them or mail them something. I can scratch them off the list,” he said.
Trump’s false claims on early voting shift dynamics
In both the 2020 election and in this year’s contest, Trump has been vocal about his distrust in early voting, falsely claiming it is not secure and pushed for only voting on Election Day.
Despite appearing in a video at the Republican National Convention encouraging Republicans to vote by mail or early if available, Trump has been criticizing early voting at his events.
“We should have one-day voting. We should have paper ballots, we should have voter ID, and we should have proof of citizenship,” he told reporters at a news conference last month.
McDonald said Trump’s rhetoric led to a major shift in the 2020 election as the number of Republicans who voted by mail dropped compared to Democrats. Prior to 2020, more Republicans cast their vote in the mail, according to McDonald.
“We can see that those patterns really haven’t restored themselves [to] pre-pandemic,” he said.
The election experts stressed that there is no evidence of fraud when it comes to mail-in ballots and, in fact, showed there is no correlation between the number of early votes cast and the outcome of the election.
“If you look at states where half of the ballots were issued before Election Day, Trump won half of that vote,” Mann said.
The experts say the election data is showing an upward trend of more voters opting to vote early versus on Election Day, with mail-in voting seeing the biggest increases, and they predict more states will expand those early voting offerings.
Stewart noted that the momentum is still there as several states failed to pass measures in the last four years that would have restricted early-voting options, specifically ending pandemic-era rules that allowed for no-excuse absentee.
Ultimately, Stewart contended that giving voters as many options to safely and properly cast their ballot leads not only to more convenience, but a stronger electorate.
“I would encourage voters to think about their own lives, their own habits, their own values and choose their mode that is keeping with all of those things,” he said.
Former U.S. President and current Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks about the economy, inflation, and manufacturing during a campaign event at Alro Steel on August 29, 2024 in Potterville, Michigan. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images)
(ATLANTA) — A federal judge in Atlanta on Tuesday issued a temporary injunction ordering Donald Trump and his campaign to stop using a song co-written by the late musician Isaac Hayes at their events.
The song “Hold On, I’m Coming,” published in 1966, was played at Trump rallies and can be heard in campaign videos that were posted online, according to court documents reviewed by ABC News. The judge did not order that these videos be taken down, according to a statement from Trump representative Ronald Coleman.
“The campaign had already agreed to cease further use,” Coleman told ABC News in a statement. “We’re very gratified that the court recognized the First Amendment issues at stake and didn’t order a takedown of existing videos.”
Isaac Hayes III, Hayes’ son, said in a social media post last month that he was demanding $3 million in licensing fees from Trump and his campaign for unauthorized use of the song “Hold On, I’m Coming.” Trump and his partners played the song over 150 times without permission, court documents said.
“We won,” Isaac Hayes III posted on Instagram on Tuesday after the hearing. “@realdonaldtrump has been barred from playing @isaachayes music forever.”
The injunction stops the campaign from playing the song pending further proceedings, Coleman told ABC News, and the court would consider a motion for reconsideration based on copyright ownership if appropriate.
“The campaign has a license to play the music through an agreement with BMI and ASCAP,” the Trump campaign said in a statement emailed to ABC News in response to the ruling, referring to performance rights groups Broadcast Music Inc and the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
Neither Isaac Hayes III nor attorneys for Isaac Hayes Enterprises — the company that handles licensing for Hayes’ estate — have responded to ABC News’ request for statements. Neither sides’ attorneys have responded to ABC News regarding any decision made on money allegedly owed to Isaac Hayes Enterprises.
The song was popularized by the music duo Sam & Dave in 1966 and reached No. 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 at the time, according to court documents. Hayes, who wrote the song with David Porter, passed away at age 65 in 2008, but his estate is the current owner of right and title to the song, the court documents noted.
After Trump and his campaign played the song in 2020 as “outro” music at one of their events, a cease-and-desist letter was sent to the Trump campaign on behalf of Isaac Hayes Enterprises, according to court documents.
The Donald J. Trump for President campaign, Republican National Committee (RNC), conservative advocacy group Turning Point, National Rifle Association (NRA), American Conservative Union and BTC were named as defendants on the complaint filed by Isaac Hayes Enterprises last month, for hosting events and uploading videos where the song was played, according to court documents.
The motion was withdrawn on Tuesday by Hayes Enterprises as to Turning Point, NRA and RNC, the court noted.
Hayes is part of a group of musicians who have called for Trump to stop playing their music at his events, which include Beyoncé, the Foo Fighters, Jack White and Celine Dion.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign kicked off a weekslong 50-stop “reproductive freedom bus tour” across battleground states in West Palm Beach, Florida — former President Donald Trump’s backyard — on Tuesday.
The campaign said “reproductive rights storytellers” will join campaign surrogates along the route to help emphasize the split screen on the issue between the Harris-Walz campaign and Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance.
Women’s reproductive rights are a key voter issue driving suburban women to the polls, and has been a spotlight since the Supreme Court overruled the constitutional right to abortion that had been the law nationwide for almost 50 years.
“Our campaign is hitting the road to meet voters in their communities, underscore the stakes of this election for reproductive freedom, and present them with the Harris-Walz ticket’s vision to move our country forward, which stands in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s plans to drag us back,” Harris-Walz Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a statement.
The bus tour began just days after Trump announced a sweeping new policy proposal on in vitro fertilization, promising to make the costly treatments free. The former president has not yet provided any specific details about how he would fund the initiative.
Trump’s initiative is seen as a way to court those suburban women as November approaches.
On a phone call with reporters on Friday, Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who has been campaigning for Harris, said “American women are not stupid” and that they understand the promise is coming from Trump, who has consistently bragged about being responsible for the Supreme Court’s decision to overrule Roe v. Wade.
“It was Donald Trump who opened the door for any extremist judge or extremist state legislature to ban IVF without legal protection for abortion and IVF,” Warren said.
Tuesday’s bus tour kicked off in West Palm Beach — not far from Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago.
“Now my friends, I ask you, what better place to kick off the Harris/Walz reproductive freedom bus tour than in Donald Trump’s backyard?” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida Democrat, said.
Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar spoke at the event and called on women to have their voices heard.
“Americans have shown us time and time again that they will not tolerate a country where our daughters have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers, and they believe that women have the right to make their own health care decisions and not politicians,” Klobuchar said.
Chavez Rodriguez said the campaign is mobilizing around women’s reproductive rights.
“Today, by launching this bus tour, we are reminding Trump of the fact that by pulling our reproductive freedom and putting it on the ballot, he is going to have an incredible amount of energy and organizing that he is going to have to contend with.”
Later in the bus tour, there will be appearances from reproductive rights advocates Amanda Zurawski, Hadley Duvall and Kaitlyn Joshua throughout the tour as well, according to the campaign.
So far, the Harris-Walz campaign already has events scheduled in Arizona, Nevada, Florida and Georgia for the bus tour — with more stops scheduled throughout the fall.
This election cycle, seven states, including the critical battleground states of Arizona and Nevada, will vote on abortion-related ballot initiatives in November.
According to a New York Times/Siena Poll released in August, abortion was a top-three issue among all registered voters in swing states with 14% of registered voters saying it was the most important issue in deciding their vote this November.
Trump, whose stance on abortion has wavered at times over the past year, recently criticized Florida’s six-week abortion ban.
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he said to NBC News last month.
His campaign attempted to walk back that comment before Trump clarified that he’ll be voting “no” on Florida’s Amendment 4 — also known as the “Right to Abortion Initiative” — come November, despite continuing to claim that a ban at six weeks is “too short.”
This isn’t Harris’ first time hitting the campaign trail to focus on reproductive rights. She had already been tapped to lead reproductive rights discussions under President Joe Biden’s former campaign. In January, she embarked on a “reproductive freedom tour” on the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade, making stops in Florida and Arizona.
(NEW YORK) — Linda Sun, a former aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, schemed to advance the interests of China while working in New York State government, federal prosecutors alleged in an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The indictment charges Sun with failure to register as a foreign agent, visa fraud, alien smuggling and money laundering conspiracy.
Her husband, Christopher Hu, allegedly facilitated the transfer of millions of dollars in kickbacks for personal gain, prosecutors said.
Sun and her husband were arrested at their Long Island home Tuesday morning, according to federal prosecutors from the Eastern District of New York and the FBI. The FBI had searched the Manhasset home in July.
Both are due in Brooklyn federal court Tuesday afternoon. It was not immediately clear whether they are represented by attorneys.
Sun was hired by the Executive Chamber more than a decade ago, before being fired last year, according to Avi Small, Hochul’s press secretary.
“We terminated her employment in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct, immediately reported her actions to law enforcement and have assisted law enforcement throughout this process,” Small said in a statement to ABC News.
Sun worked in state government for about 15 years before she was fired last year from her job as deputy commissioner for strategic business development at the New York State Department of Labor. She previously served as Hochul’s deputy chief of staff and in the administration of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
The indictment alleges that, acting at the request of Chinese government officials and representatives of the Chinese Communist Party, Sun blocked Taiwanese government officials from having access to high-level New York State officers, changed New York State officers’ messaging about China and arranged meetings for visiting delegations from the PRC government with New York State government officials.
In return for these and other actions, Sun allegedly received economic and other benefits from China, including the facilitation of millions of dollars in transactions for the China-based business activities of Hu; travel benefits; tickets to events; promotion of a close family friend’s business; employment for Sun’s cousin in the PRC; and Nanjing-style salted ducks prepared by a PRC government official’s personal chef that were delivered to the residence of Sun’s parents, according to the indictment.
“As alleged, while appearing to serve the people of New York as Deputy Chief of Staff within the New York State Executive Chamber, the defendant and her husband actually worked to further the interests of the Chinese government and the CCP,” United States Attorney Breon Peace said in a statement. “The illicit scheme enriched the defendant’s family to the tune of millions of dollars.”
