‘Florida is in play’: Democrats put money into states where they were struggling

(NEW YORK) With just weeks to go until the presidential election, a Georgia judge has ruled that certification of election results by county officials in the state is “mandatory” — a new ruling that is likely to be heralded by election experts amid rising fears that rogue election officials could seek to delay or decline to certify results after Election Day due to allegations of fraud or error.

“Election superintendents in Georgia have a mandatory fixed obligation to certify election results,” the order states.

Judge Robert McBurney, as part of an ongoing election case, found that the law is clear: “the superintendent must certify and must do so by a certain time.”

“There are no exceptions,” he wrote in the Monday night ruling.

The ruling comes after Georgia’s controversial State Election Board recently passed new rules that some voting rights activists are concerned would cause chaos in the certification process. One of those new rules allows election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” prior to certification.

Specifically, McBurney’s ruling Monday noted that certification by the county superintendents must occur, even in the case where there are concerns about fraud or error.

“While the superintendent must investigate concerns about miscounts and must report those concerns to a prosecutor if they persist after she investigates, the existence of those concerns, those doubts, and those worries is not cause to delay or decline certification,” McBurney wrote. “That is simply not an option for this particular ministerial function in the superintendent’s broader portfolio of functions.”

Broadly, McBurney noted that the election officials must still certify the results, but report concerns to authorities:

“And if in the course of her canvassing, counting, and investigating, a superintendent should discover what appears to her to be fraud or systemic error, she still must count all votes — despite the perceived fraud — and report her concerns about fraud or error to the appropriate district attorney,” the judge wrote.

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(WASHINGTON) — Despite Kamala Harris’ loss, pro-abortion rights activists are celebrating the results of the 2024 election, arguing that abortion rights won.

“When we look at the election results from this week, we saw voters in states that are really different from each other, in large majorities support abortion rights,” Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News in an interview.

Abortion was a central issue in Harris’s campaign as she sought to draw a stark difference between her vision for the country and President-elect Donald Trump’s. But, exit polling shows some supporters of abortion rights still voted for Trump, despite Roe v. Wade being overturned as a result of his U.S. Supreme Court appointments.

The battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada were among 10 states with abortion on the ballot Tuesday. Some strategists hypothesized that this would boost turnout among the majority of voters who support legal abortion, aiding Democratic candidates in the process.

Trump’s approach, focusing on states’ rights, appeared to resonate with voters who didn’t view abortion access as incompatible with a Trump presidency. In Arizona, 23% who voted “yes” on the state’s initiative enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution also voted for Trump. In Nevada, where another abortion rights measure was approved, 27% of “yes” voters elected Trump.

This followed at the national level. Among the two-thirds of voters who said abortion should be legal in all or most cases, 28% voted for Trump; that included 30% in Arizona, 33% in Nevada and 36% in Florida.

Supporters of legal abortion still broke strongly for Harris, but partisan elasticity on the issue did not cut both ways. As Harris made abortion access a central focus of her campaign, she won only 9% of voters who said abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. In Arizona, anti-abortion voters made up 31% of the electorate and backed Trump by 95%.

“In thinking about what seems like a contradiction, research has shown that Americans — when there is an abortion ballot or abortion-protecting constitutional amendment or initiative on the ballot — they don’t see abortion as a partisan issue,” Smith said. “Americans see abortion as an issue of liberty and of freedom.”

“In 2022, 10% of voters in the state of Kentucky voted against the restrictive constitutional amendment that was on their ballot and for Rand Paul — a senator who has made his opposition to abortion rights known,” Smith said.

Trump has also told voters that there won’t be a federal abortion ban and it could be that voters were persuaded by him, Smith said.

“I don’t think that people know that a federal abortion ban would preempt state constitutional protection. So I think there could also be this sense ‘I’m voting yes on this amendment, and that means my state is fine,'” Smith said.

At least 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services since Roe v. Wade was overturned. In total, 21 states have restrictions on abortion in effect.

Seven of the 10 states with abortion on the ballot are projected to vote in favor of abortion rights while three states are projected to uphold abortion restrictions — marking a first since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Six states previously voted in favor of abortion rights in the 2022 midterm elections.

In Florida, 57% of voters voted in favor of enshrining protections for abortion rights in the state’s constitution, but the measure failed to reach the 60% threshold it needed to pass. Still, abortion rights groups dubbed this measure a success, saying a majority of voters sided with abortion.

“Abortion won big,” said Gretchen Borchelt, the vice president for reproductive rights and health at the National Women’s Law Center, at a press conference Wednesday. “If not for the rigged rules and for the very intentional and purposeful efforts to confuse and mislead voters and change the goal post and change the rules, abortion access would have won, certainly in Florida but in Nebraska and South Dakota too.”

In Nebraska, two contradicting abortion-related amendments on the ballot confused voters, likely contributing to the failure of the initiative, Smith argued.

“There is research, outside of the abortion context, but about ballot initiatives that show that when voters are confronted with two choices on the same question, that creates a lot of confusion about what people are voting for. And in Nebraska, when signatures were being collected, there were voters who alleged that they were told they were signing the abortion rights petition and later found out they had signed the petition against abortion rights,” Smith said.

Despite the success of ballot initiatives, advocates need to make it more understandable to people that their elected officials greatly determine their ability to access reproductive healthcare like abortion, Kelly Baden, the Guttmacher Institute’s vice president of policy told ABC News in an interview.

“Women are dying from these abortion bans. And so unfortunately, to to see that that reality wasn’t sufficient for people to fully prioritize abortion rates up and down the ballot in every way possible is it’s a tough pill to swallow,” Baden said.

“Seven states did soundly declare their support for abortion, active rights via ballot measures and I think there’s a bigger conversation of how and why people are able to make that make sense in their own voting patterns. That is a problem that predates Trump,” Baden said.

ABC News’ Gary Langer contributed to this report.

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Despite celebrating the passing of abortion-related ballot initiatives in seven states, abortion rights advocates warn that a second Donald Trump presidency puts nationwide access to abortion care in danger.

“An already harmful abortion access crisis will likely get worse,” Kelly Baden, the vice president of policy at the Guttmacher Institute, told ABC News.

“The 13 states that currently ban abortion — there are real consequences to that including death. Women are dying from these abortion bans,” Baden said.

Trump may have persuaded voters that there won’t be a federal abortion ban, but experts warn nationwide access could be at risk.

“I don’t think that people know that a federal abortion ban would preempt state constitutional protection. There could also be this sense that, ‘I’m voting yes on this amendment, and that means my state is fine,'” Elisabeth Smith, the director of state policy at the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News.

“A federal abortion ban — if the U.S. Supreme Court allowed it to take effect — would preempt the policy of a state where abortion is legal and accessible,” Smith said. “We don’t yet know which party controls the House [of Representatives], but that is a possibility.”

The regulation of federal agencies could also impact access to abortion care. Medication abortion could come under fire if the Food and Drug Administration — under a Trump presidency — limits access to mifepristone, one of the pills used in the regimen to terminate pregnancy, or rolls back its approval, as anti-abortion groups have tried to do.

The Trump administration could also attempt to misuse the Comstock Act to try to prevent access to medication abortion, Smith warned.

The 150-year-old law is an anti-obscenity law “makes it a crime to mail anything that’s ‘indecent, filthy, or vile’ or ‘intended for producing abortion,'” according to the ACLU.

Ballot initiatives

Missouri became the first state with a near-total abortion ban in effect to approve a pro-abortion rights initiative since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights.

If the ban is repealed as expected, Missouri could facilitate closer access to abortion care for women in the South. The state borders four states that have ceased nearly all abortion services — Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas and Oklahoma.

But, there is not currently a single brick-and-mortar abortion clinic in Missouri which means that even when the law is repealed, it would still take time for access to care to resume, according to Baden.

“So, we’ll continue to see people having to leave the state for clinician-provided abortion care or to find another way to get care in the meantime,” Baden said.

The legal proceeding to overturn the state’s ban under the new constitutional amendment could also take months to years, according to Baden.

The battlegrounds of Arizona and Nevada were also among 10 states with abortion on the ballot Tuesday. Some strategists hypothesized that this would boost turnout among the majority of voters who support legal abortion, aiding Democratic candidates in the process.

But, exit polling showed that some supporters of abortion still elected Trump in battleground states.

Advocates warn that while ballot initiatives have proved effective, they are not a universal solution.

“They are just one tool in the toolbox. They are clearly not our silver bullet, both, because structurally they can’t be. Not every state even allows for ballot measures like that, they’re expensive and they also are not an immediate solution … a series of litigation has to happen,”

Advocates for abortion-care-related protections said they will continue to work to restore and protect access to abortion care under the incoming administration.

“It is our task to hold this incoming administration to its word that it will not work to further restrict or ban abortion and we will hold them to their insistence that they will invest in caregiving,” Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, told reporters during a press conference Wednesday.

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