Vance and Walz visiting Arizona as early voting begins in the battleground state

(ARLINGTON, Va.) — President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris observed Veterans Day at Arlington National Cemetery on Monday in what was their first appearance together since last week’s election.

The two participated in a full honor wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier before Biden made remarks at the Memorial Amphitheater.

“This is the last time I will stand here at Arlington as commander in chief,” Biden said. “It’s been the greatest honor of my life to lead you, to serve you, to care for you, to defend you, just as you defended us.”

Biden, who began by quoting President Abraham Lincoln, said this is the moment to “come together as a nation.”

“The world is dependent on each of you and all of us, all of you, to keep honoring the women and the men and the families of borne, the battle,” he said. “To keep protecting everything they fought for. To keep striving to heal our nation’s wounds. To keep perfecting our union.”

Earlier Monday, Biden and first lady Jill Biden hosted veterans, members of the military and caregivers at the White House.

Biden touted his record on veterans affairs, including bringing down veteran homelessness and passing the PACT Act.

The White House on Monday announced new efforts to address toxic exposures for veterans, including an expansion of the cancers considered presumptive for VA disability benefits. The topic is a personal one for Biden, whose son Beau died from cancer in 2015. Biden said he believes exposure to burn pits overseas during Beau’s deployment to Iraq contributed to his death.

“For all the military families, all those with a loved one still missing or unaccounted for, all Americans grieving the loss of a loved one who wore the uniform, Jill and I want you to know we see you. We thank you. And we will never stop working to meet our sacred obligation to you and your families,” Biden said.

First lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff were also at Arlington to commemorate the holiday. They sat alongside Harris and Secretary of State Antony Blinken as Biden made his remarks.

Biden also raised the military withdrawal from Afghanistan during his address. The handling of removing troops from the conflict became a lightning rod for Republican criticism.

“Four presidents faced the decision after we got [Osama] bin Laden whether to end our longest war in history in Afghanistan,” he said. “I was determined not to leave it to a fifth.”

Former President Donald Trump visited the cemetery in August to mark the third anniversary of the Afghanistan airport attack that killed 13 U.S. service members. An incident described as a confrontation between his campaign and a cemetery worker prompted an investigation that appeared ongoing as of late October.

Trump defeated Harris last week in the presidential race. The former president swept the seven swing states and he is projected to win 312 electoral votes to Harris’ 226, and he is on track to win the popular vote.

Harris conceded on Nov. 6, saying she would help with a peaceful transition of power and vowed to continue the “fight that fueled this campaign.”

Biden, in his own remarks after Harris’ loss, praised her for running an “inspiring” campaign and implored Americans to “bring down the temperature.”

Biden and Trump are set to meet at the White House on Wednesday, restoring a tradition that Trump did not participate in after he lost the 2020 election.

ABC News’ Michelle Stoddart and Molly Nagle contributed to this report.

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(WASHINGTON) Former President Donald Trump has drawn scrutiny in recent weeks for an escalation of rhetoric threatening political opponents with retribution if he’s elected to a second term. The comments have triggered alarm from some officials who served with him the first time around, such as former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

Earlier this month, Trump described Democratic Reps. Adam Schiff and Nancy Pelosi each as “an enemy from within.”

“These are bad people. We have a lot of bad people. But when you look at ‘Shifty Schiff’ and some of the others, yeah, they are, to me, the enemy from within,” Trump told Fox News on Oct. 20.

While Trump’s comments prompted a renewed focus on the issue of democracy, a Gallup poll earlier this month showed that the economy still ranks as the top issue of concern for voters.

However, a strong separation between issues of democracy and the economy is misguided, some academics who study the tie between political systems and economic performance told ABC News.

“People interested in making a large investment will be less likely to do it unless they can curry favor with the president himself,” Thomas Pepinsky, a professor of government and public policy at Cornell University, told ABC News. “There will be some who stand to benefit but the average American will lose.”

If Trump makes good on his threats to crack down on political adversaries, media outlets and some government agencies, he risks spooking investors, saddling businesses with uncertainty and driving away workers, experts said. That in turn could diminish economic growth, increase the likelihood of an economic downturn and harm the finances of everyday people, they added.

The impact may prove to be minimal in the short term but could grow substantially over time, some experts said, while also acknowledging the difficulty of predicting to what extent existing checks and balances might constrain Trump.

“If Trump suddenly threatens the rule of law, you won’t have an immediate recession,” Daron Acemoglu, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-author of the book “Why Nations Fail,” told ABC News.

“But you get a huge amount of uncertainty and that has economic implications,” Acemoglu added. “If companies favored by Trump can expect to get a special deal and others can’t compete, that’s a slippery slope.”

Stephen Moore, an economic advisor to Trump, rebuked the notion that democracy would weaken during a second Trump term. Instead, he added, the economy would perform well, just as it did over Trump’s first term.

“I’d be much more prone to look at his track record in office than speculation about how he might undermine democracy,” Moore told ABC News. “We had a booming economy.”

“If Trump wins, I think the markets will react in a very, very positive way,” Moore added.

In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign shared a statement from a representative of the Republican National Committee (RNC).

“Kamala is a continuation of Biden’s failed economic policies, and they’ve left our economy in shambles. Kamala Harris broke America’s economy, our national security, and world peace, but President Trump will fix it through his America first policies,” RNC spokesperson Anna Kelly told ABC News.

Trump has threatened to use the Department of Justice to prosecute political opponents, including Vice President Kamala Harris. Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted,” Trump said at a rally last month. He also has suggested rescinding the licenses of media outlets that he dislikes.

Trump continues to make false claims in denying the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and has repeatedly attempted to sow doubt regarding the validity of the impending one, should he lose.

The potential erosion of government and civic institutions under a Trump presidency could cause investors to second-guess whether they want to do business in the U.S., the experts said. Trump has hinted at taking away some of the independence of the Federal Reserve, which could introduce further uncertainty surrounding the nation’s interest rates. Meanwhile, the experts added, Trump may treat more favorably companies that stay in good standing with his administration, putting other entities at a disadvantage even if they’re more competitive.

“It would simply create a huge amount of uncertainty about which rules apply and who they apply to,” Steven Hahn, a professor of history at New York University and author of “Illiberal America: A History,” told ABC News. “It would just have enormous consequences for the economic life of the country.”

Uncertain U.S. politics have already negatively affected the nation’s financial foundation, according to some financial measures. Last year, the rating agency Fitch Ratings downgraded U.S. credit for the second time in the nation’s history, citing the ballooning U.S. debt load and a weakening of governance, as well as the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as factors in their decision.

After studying more than 50 populist leaders going back to 1900, German researchers Manuel Funke, Moritz Schularick and Christoph Trebesch found that after a populist leader took office, a nation’s economy grew at a 10% slower pace over the ensuing 15 years than it would have otherwise, according to an article published in the American Economic Review in December.

A separate study in 2019 found that democratization boosted a nation’s gross domestic product by about 20% over the long run, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Columbia University, among others.

“The evidence is pretty clear,” Vanessa Williamson, a senior fellow in governance studies at the left-leaning Brookings Institution, told ABC News. “Democracy is pretty good for an economy, and authoritarian regimes do worse than they otherwise would.”

There are exceptions, however. India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, has seen its ranking in the global Democracy Index fall since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took office in 2014. The Chinese economy grew rapidly over the past three decades under authoritarian rule, though that economic expansion has slowed in recent years.

“Sometimes undemocratic countries have had amazing growth, but those examples are rare,” Williamson said.

What’s unknown, of course, is whether Trump, if elected, would implement his proposed agenda. Also unknown is to what extent such actions could or would be resisted by others, including Congress, the courts and other institutions.

“Even if Republicans win Congress, they won’t have 60 votes in the Senate,” Moore, the economic advisor to Trump, said, pointing to the threshold of support necessary to overcome a Senate filibuster.

Some experts also acknowledged that the economy performed fairly well under Trump during his first term, despite his administration taking steps that those experts perceived as testing democratic norms.

“Trump’s first term was chaotic, disorganized and bad for some institutions, but I fear his second term would be worse,” Acemoglu said.

In theory, the market itself could act as a check on Trump’s plans, experts said. A negative market response helped unseat then-UK Prime Minister Liz Truss In 2022.

Fiscal plans put forward by Truss caused the nation’s currency to plummet in value while bond yields spiked. Within weeks of her taking office, and amid heated criticism from both her opponents and members of her own party, Truss resigned.

A dramatic market reaction could limit Trump’s plans, but he could instead prioritize the consolidation of power, in turn diminishing the impact of a financial response, Pepinsky said.

“For most politicians, they change course if the market signals to them that something won’t work,” Pepinsky added. “Trump isn’t a normal politician.”

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(WASHINGTON) — Election officials in Vancouver, Washington, are encouraging voters to check the status of their absentee ballots after an arsonist lit a ballot drop box on fire on Monday morning, damaging hundreds of ballots one week before Election Day.

While incidents of bad actors targeting ballot drop boxes are rare, experts told ABC News that the infrastructure surrounding absentee voting over the last decade has allowed election officials to be prepared for such incidents, through the use of 24-hour surveillance, fire suppression systems, and advanced ballot tracking software.

“These are the types of scenarios that election officials are staying up at night thinking about and have been thinking about for years and as part of their contingency planning,” said Claire Woodall-Vogg, the former executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission. “While it’s very rare, it’s something that your election official has definitely thought about.”

Monday’s arson attack — which destroyed hundreds of ballots in Vancouver, Washington and three in Portland, Oregon — follows other incidents last week when ballots in Florida and Arizona were damaged in transit. Phoenix officials also arrested a man for arson last week after he allegedly lit a fire inside a USPS collection mailbox, destroying five ballots, and federal prosecutors in Florida charged another man last week for allegedly disposing of hundreds of pieces of election mail, including at least one ballot.

Here’s what to know about dealing with a ballot that’s been damaged.

How can voters find out if their ballot is impacted?

Voters who suspect their ballot might be impacted should contact their local election office to confirm if their ballot has been received, according to Brian Hinkle, senior voting policy researcher at the Movement Advancement Project.

Forty-seven states offer free ballot tracking services, allowing voters to confirm if their ballots have been mailed, received and counted. In Clark County, Washington — where Vancouver is located — voters can track their ballots through the VoteWA online tool.

“If they don’t receive a message that their ballot has been accepted for counting or even received by the county office to be accepted, they’re going to know something’s wrong,” said Steve Olsen, the president of BallotTrax, a software company whose ballot tracking service covers 28% of American voters.

When possible, election officials will also attempt to contact any voter they believe may be impacted by an incident to ensure their ballots are received or to help with a replacement ballot. Because the USPS recommends that voters mail their ballot by Oct. 29 to ensure it is received in time, some voters who request replacement ballots may need to vote in person rather than attempt to vote by mail again.

“There are systems in place in every state, with every legal system, to make sure that someone’s vote wouldn’t be taken away from them by such a criminal act,” said Woodall-Vogg.

How are election officials able to track individual ballots?

According to Olsen, election officials are able to track individual ballots by using “intelligent mail barcodes” that are embedded in envelopes for absentee ballots.

“Voters can track their ballots similarly to how they would track package delivery,” said Hinkle.

The barcodes — which are printed on the envelopes sent to voters, as well as the return envelopes for the ballots themselves — allow voters to track when their absentee ballot is mailed out, sent back, and received by election officials.

The tracking technology cannot see how a ballot has been filled out.

“Basically, what we’re doing is tracking the envelopes,” said Olsen. “We have no access to the ballot.”

BallotTrax works with election offices in 546 counties across the United States, covering 72 million voters and tracking over 240 million ballots. Created in 2009 to assist the city of Denver its elections, the company expanded tenfold in 2020 when large swaths of the country moved to mail-in voting as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Individual counties foot the bill for the BallotTrax service, which allows voters to opt-in to receive free updates about their ballot status, according to Olsen. Even if a voter does not opt in to tracking, election offices can still track ballots to identify issues.

Once a ballot makes it to a local election office and is removed from its return envelope, the ballot is no longer identifiable to a particular voter, preserving the anonymity of the vote.

“Once the ballot is pulled out of the envelope, where all of the identification marks are on it, it becomes anonymous at that point,” Olsen said.

What happens to damaged ballots?

If a ballot is damaged in transit but still recognizable, election officials can attempt to remake the ballot so that it can be fed into a voting machine. Bipartisan teams are involved in the process known as “ballot duplication.”

“The election workers will reconstruct the ballot to preserve the voters’ intent and translate it onto a clean new ballot,” Hinke said.

If a voter suspects their ballot might be damaged, they should contact their local election office to confirm if their ballot has been received or if they need to request a replacement ballot.

Are ballot drop boxes safe?

Despite the recent high-profile incidents, ballot drop boxes are still one of the most secure ways to cast a ballot, according to experts.

Most ballot drop boxes are tamper proof, bolted to the ground, under 24-hour surveillance, and include fire suppression systems. In most areas, the ballots themselves are picked up by two-person teams.

“We have a chain-of-custody system in place so that we know when we picked up the ballots and when we dropped them off, and all the ballots have barcodes on them, so that they’re secure,” said George Dreckmann, a longtime poll worker in Milwaukee. “So the drop box system is as safe as putting it in the mail, and in some cases, might even be safer.”

Drop boxes in many states have fire suppression systems that extinguish fires using powder rather than water, preventing further damage to the ballots. While the fire suppression system failed to work effectively during Monday’s arson attack in Clark County, election officials credited the fire suppression system with saving over 400 ballots in neighboring Multnomah County, Oregon.

“These boxes are very secure, and voters should be able to trust using them,” said Hinkle.

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