Harris will not speak as tearful supporters leave watch party
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(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Kamala Harris will not be speaking as election night went into Wednesday morning, according to Harris Campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond who took the stage at a Harris watch party at Howard University.
Photos show partygoers thinning out and Harris supporters crying as results continued to come in.
The mood at Howard University had dampened over the last couple of hours. The night started out with music pumping and crowds dancing.
Later on in the evening, muted crowds watched as the results came in, with many glued to the screen.
The crowd cheered anytime races are called for Harris and booed whenever states were called for Trump.
Former President Donald Trump was reported to be riding over to the convention center with his family and his top campaign leadership team.
(WASHINGTON) — Some ex-pats living abroad, including active-duty service members and their family members, are sounding the alarm after Republicans in three swing states have tried to delay accepting and counting overseas absentee ballots.
And there is already fear among Americans at home and abroad that no matter what the result, the damage has already been done, according to Sarah Streyder, the executive director of Secure Families Initiative, a nonpartisan non-profit that advocates for military families’ rights.
“We are already hearing military voters from all states who feel discouraged from participating, if they have concern that their ballot won’t even be counted,” Streyder, who is stationed in England with her husband a Space Force member, told reporters in a video news conference with other advocates Friday.
Election officials and other political science experts say the suits filed in Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina in the last couple of weeks have no merit. The Republican plaintiffs, however, claim state election offices created loopholes that could allow ineligible people to vote through overseas absentee ballots.
GOP casts doubt on absentee ballots, election officials push back
On Sept. 30, five Pennsylvania GOP House members running for re-election — Guy Reschenthaler, Dan Meuser, Glenn Thompson, Lloyd Smucker and Mike Kelly — filed a suit against Al Schmidt, the secretary of the Commonwealth and Deputy Secretary for Elections Johnathan Ivlarks accusing them of providing guidance to local election offices to not allow ID requirements for their foreign absentee voters.
“The Commonwealth’s practice is an illegally structured election process which makes Pennsylvania’s elections vulnerable to ineligible votes by individuals or entities who could purport to be…eligible, register to vote without verification of identity or eligibility but receive a ballot by email and then vote a ballot without providing identification at any step of the process,” the plaintiffs in the Pennsylvania suit alleged.
Reschenthaler is the only member of the five plaintiffs with military experience as he previously served as a United States Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps attorney from 2009 to 2012, according to his bio. He was deployed to Iraq during his tenure with JAG.
The Pennsylvania Secretary of State’s office said in a statement that the lawsuit is “nothing more than an attempt to confuse and frighten people ahead of an important election,” and the state law ensures that all overseas ballots that are sent out are eligible.
“Ballots cast by ineligible voters occur at extremely low rates and are routinely investigated and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities when they occur. Individuals registering to vote must affirm that the information they submit is accurate, with any false statement subjecting them to a potential felony conviction, prison sentence and substantial fine,” the office said in a statement.
Pennsylvania election officials could not immediately provide ABC News data on how many absentee ballots have currently been sent overseas and how many of those ballots have been returned.
The Republican National Committee filed a pair of lawsuits in North Carolina and Michigan last week arguing their state rules are violating federal law and allowing ex-pats to vote despite never residing in their state.
In both suits, the RNC officials allege that the states’ election officials have not created a secure system to verify that an overseas voter is an American and have specifically called out provisions in their election laws that permit spouses or dependents of military or overseas voters to vote in elections based on the residency of the military or overseas voter.
“As a result, certain people who have never resided in Michigan (or perhaps anywhere else in this country) are registering to vote and voting in Michigan elections,” the plaintiffs in the Michigan case claim in their filing.
Similar language was used in the North Carolina lawsuit.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed amicus briefs this week seeking to dismiss her state’s case, contending that the plaintiffs have no standing in their claims.
“Challenging a decades-old statute in this frivolous manner is both irresponsible and abusive. Their actions are a clear attempt to sow doubt about the integrity of the election and suppress the legitimate votes of American citizens,” she said in a statement.
Nessel noted that absentee ballots have already been sent out to Michigan voters living overseas, and the RNC failed to file a timely notice of intent to sue under the Michigan Court of Claims Act.
Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections, echoed that sentiment and maintained the state law allowing military family members to vote in the state is valid.
“North Carolina lawmakers adopted this law more than 13 years ago, as a way to implement a federal law that required states to make voting more accessible for military families and other citizens living abroad. It has been part of our state’s law for every election since then,” he said in a statement.
As of Friday afternoon, over 22,000 Michigan military and overseas voters have requested ballots for the general election, according to data from the Michigan Secretary of State’s office. Of that number, almost 8,000 voters have already completed and submitted their ballots to be counted, the data showed.
As of Friday afternoon, 8,451 North Carolina absentee ballots have been requested by military members and 20,571 ballots have been requested by civilians living overseas, according to data from the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
Of those requests, 8,331 ballots were sent to the military members and 2,434 of those have been returned and accepted, the board said. There have been 20,449 absentee ballots sent to other ex-pats, and 10,481 of those ballots have been returned and accepted, according to the data.
Veterans, ex-pats furious over the move
Ray Kimball, a veteran who serves as an Arizona volunteer for the nonpartisan advocacy group Veterans for All Voters, told reporters on Friday he was furious about allegations made by officials who questioned the validity of absentee ballots back in 2020.
Kimball, a former Pennsylvania voter who said he mostly voted by mail when he was deployed overseas, said he was appalled that “partisan actors are doubling down,” despite the lack of evidence to their claims.
“I took that as a personal insult to what I and tens of thousands of Americans including service members and civilians abroad have been doing for years prior to this narrative,” he said.
One of the biggest concerns from legal experts and overseas voters is the request in all three lawsuits to segregate the foreign absentee ballots and stop counting them until the person can be verified.
Susan Dzieduszycka-Suinat, the president and CEO, of U.S. Vote Foundation, a nonprofit group that provides ex-pats with resources to help cast their vote, told reporters that this move was done to “just reduce the number of ballots counted overall.”
“It is a complete disenfranchisement of U.S. citizens,” Dzieduszycka-Suinat, who lives in Munich, said. “We are U.S. citizens. We do have a secure voting process.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley told reporters that she has concerns that if the request is granted, it would put extra unnecessary work on the already overtaxed election workers.
“All that time, energy and effort doing that, that further chips away at people’s confidence in the election,” she said.
Lawsuits are just the beginning: Expert
Michael Traugott, research professor emeritus in the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan, told ABC News that the three suits are part of a strategy by Republican leaders aimed at sowing doubt in the election results in the months to come.
He predicted the three suits will be dismissed, especially in Michigan where he said the secretary of state’s office has been efficient for determining voter eligibility.
“They do this in a very careful and systematic way and it’s worked,” he said.
Traugott said that election offices will be prepared for these attacks but they may not be able to control the public relations damage that the suits cause.
Kimball, however, said he believed that the majority of voters want more access to their right to cast a ballot.
“Bottom line this should not be a partisan issue. We should get behind the idea of Americans voting wherever they are all over the world,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — President-elect Donald Trump announced Saturday that he plans on firing FBI director Christopher Wray and replacing him with longtime ally Kash Patel.
The appointment must be approved by the Senate.
Patel has been a staunch supporter of Trump for years and served in his first administration under a number of roles. He has vocally defended Jan. 6 rioters.
Patel has said he would target journalists, former senior FBI and Department of Justice officials and turn the FBI into a museum for the “deep state” on Day 1.
“This FBI will end the growing crime epidemic in America, dismantle the migrant criminal gangs, and stop the evil scourge of human and drug trafficking across the Border,” Trump said in a Truth Social post.
The FBI and Patel did not immediately comment about Trump’s announcement. Trump can not make personnel changes to the FBI until he is sworn in.
Wray was appointed in 2017 after he fired Director James Comey, less than four years into his 10 year term. Trump claimed Comey “wasn’t doing a good job.”
Patel, 44, grew up in Long Island and earned a law degree from Pace University Law School. He first served as a public defender in Miami for nine years before moving to Washington D.C. in 2013 to work at Justice Department’s National Security Division.
Patel left the Justice Department in 2017 claiming frustration with the agency, especially with the handling of the Benghazi case.
He went on to lead the “Russia Gate” investigation for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, with a promise from Nunes that after the investigation he would help Patel get a job at the National Security Council in the White House.
As the self-described “lead investigator of the Russia Gate hoax,” Patel authored the so-called “Nunes memo” alleging that the FBI improperly eavesdropped on former Trump adviser Carter Page.
A major report by the Justice Department’s inspector general released in late 2019 found that the FBI was not impacted by political bias when it opened the investigation — though it outlined what it called “serious performance failures” on the part of agents as they vetted information from sources and sought surveillance warrants against Page.
In February 2019, Patel became Deputy Assistant to the President and “senior director for counterterrorism” on the White House’s National Security Council.
In February 2020, Patel took on a “temporary duty assignment” as deputy to the newly installed acting Director of National Intelligence. That November, after Trump lost the election, Patel was named chief of staff for the Defense Department, despite large critics pointing out that he was unqualifed for the role.
After Trump left the White House, Patel held a number of jobs including hosting shows on far right media outlets.
On a podcast two months ago, Patel said anyone involved in “Russiagate” should be stripped of their security clearances.
According to Patel, there is a “massive” list of such government officials, from the FBI and Justice Department to the CIA and U.S. military.
“They all still have clearances,” including those who left government for private sector jobs, so “everybody” should lose their clearances, Patel said.
Patel said he has personally “recommended” to Trump that the new administration also strip any security clearances still held by the 51 then-former intelligence officials, including former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and former CIA director John Brennan, who in October 2020, just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, signed onto a letter dismissing the public release of emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop as part of a “Russian information operation.”
Patel has also come to the defense of January 6th rioters.
He’s raised money for Jan. 6 defendants and their families, including by promoting the “J6 Prison Choir,” featuring Jan. 6 defendants still in jail, and co-producing their fundraising song “Justice for All,” which Trump played at some of his campaign rallies. And Patel once suggested Jan. 6 was “a free speech movement.”
Patel became a part of the investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.
After news surfaced that the National Archives found some classified documents in boxes previously stored at Mar-a-Lago, Patel called the news “disinformation” and insisted he was there when Trump “declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves.”
Four weeks later, Trump named Patel as one of his official representatives to the National Archives, and Patel promised to “march down there,” “identify every single document that they blocked being declassified at the National Archives, and we are going to start putting that information out.”
Two months later, Patel’s claimed Trump declassifying documents were included in the FBI’s affidavit laying out why the FBI believed a broad search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was warranted. And Patel was subpoenaed to testify to the grand jury investigating the matter, but at first he refused to answer key questions.
He later returned to the grand jury and answered those questions only after being granted limited-use immunity. He has blasted the entire probe as unlawful overreach by a politically corrupted Justice Department.
(MOUNT AIRY, N.C.) — Mark Robinson, North Carolina’s Republican candidate for governor, was hospitalized after suffering burns at a campaign event Friday evening in Mount Airy, his campaign said.
Robinson’s campaign said he suffered second-degree burns at a truck show.
“This evening following an incident at a campaign appearance at the Mayberry Truck Show in Mt. Airy, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson was treated at Northern Regional Hospital for second-degree burns. He is in good spirits, appreciates the outpouring of well wishes, and is excited to return to the campaign trail as scheduled first thing tomorrow morning,” Mike Lonergan, the campaign’s communications director, said in a statement.
Robinson, the current lieutenant governor of the state, has been under fire after being accused of posting inflammatory comments on the message board of a pornography website more than a decade ago, according to a report published by CNN earlier this month. Robinson has denied the accusations.
Since the release of the report, several of Robinson’s key staffers have “stepped down” from the campaign, including general consultant and senior advisor Conrad Pogorzelski, III; campaign manager Chris Rodriguez; finance director Heather Whillier; and deputy campaign manager Jason Rizk.
