TX. Gov. Abbott shutting down early voting drop off sites

SC-SEN: GOP super PAC to spend $10 million boosting Graham in unexpectedly tight Senate race

A Republican super PAC is preparing a massive ad blitz in South Carolina, hoping to boost GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham in a re-election campaign that has become unexpectedly competitive despite the state’s rightward lean.

Senate Leadership Fund plans to spend $10 million over three weeks starting Saturday on TV and radio ads in the state, an enormous late push into the state the group’s leader says is reflective of the massive spending disparity between Graham and his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison.

Harrison has significantly outraised Graham thanks to a surge of small-dollar online donations, creating a financial advantage in the race even before a Democratic super PAC this week announced its own ad campaign in South Carolina totalling $6.5 million.

The cash crunch for Graham is so significant that he made an unusual appearance on Fox News last week to plead for contributions to his campaign, saying that he was getting “killed” in fundraising.

“The far-left money spigot has been turned on for liberal lobbyist Jamie Harrison, and now he’s flooding South Carolina with his liberal donors’ funds,” SLF president Steven Law said in a statement. “Our investment is an insurance policy helping South Carolinians understand Harrison is not the candidate he portrays himself to be — he is a hardcore liberal bought and paid for by his out of state donors who support a radical agenda.”



https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/election/article246135710.html#storylink=cpy

Amy Coney Barrett Signed Letter Urging End of 'Barbaric' Roe v. Wade

Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett signed a letter in 2006 calling for the end of Roe v. Wade, denouncing the seminal court decision that provided a legal right to abortion as “barbaric.”

The letter came in the form of an advertisement from the anti-choice group St Joseph County Right to Life which was based in South Bend, Indiana.

“The Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalized abortion for any reason,” the ad read. “It’s time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade and restore laws that protect the lives of unborn children.”

At the time of the ad, Barrett worked as a law professor at the University of Notre Dame. The views expressed in the letter reflect the thinking of a vast majority of conservatives and Catholics. But they present potential political problems for Barrett now that she is President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court.

Trump, on Tuesday night, tried to downplay the notion that Barrett’s confirmation could result in the overturning of Roe, saying that there was no way to know that abortion rights could be impacted by her taking the seat of the recently deceased Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The letter from St Joseph County Right to Life was first reported by The Guardian, which reported that the group also believes that “discarding of unused or frozen embryos created in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process ought to be criminalized.”



https://www.thedailybeast.com/amy-coney-barrett-signed-letter-urging-end-of-barbaric-roe-v-wade

Trump's winning the voter registration battle against Biden in key states

In the last few weeks, Joe Biden has led President Donald Trump by a fairly consistent eight point average in national polls and has maintained leads in more than enough battleground states to win the Electoral College, including Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — all states Trump won in 2016.

But there are signs Trump's ground operation is paying off when it comes to registering new voters in key states, an advantage that could become important if the race tightens before Nov. 3.

The Trump campaign has boasted that it knocks on more than a million doors a week, a claim that's impossible to independently verify. In sharp contrast, the Biden campaign has ditched a ground game for virtual outreach, citing COVID-19 concerns — even though academic research has routinely concluded door-to-door canvassing is the "most consistently effective and efficient method of voter mobilization."

As deadlines approach, new data from the past few months shows Republicans have swamped Democrats in adding new voters to the rolls, a dramatic GOP improvement over 2016 — even if new registrations have lagged 2016 rates across the board. It's a sign that in a pandemic, Democrats are struggling to seize traditional opportunities to pad their margins, such as the return of students to college campuses.




https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-s-winning-voter-registration-battle-against-biden-key-states-n1241674

People who follow Trump's advice and hang around watching polling places will be prosecuted, Nevada'

Nevada's attorney general said he would prosecute people who follow President Donald Trump's advice to go to polling places and monitor votes being counted, accusing the president of encouraging voter intimidation.

During his first debate against the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, on Tuesday, Trump refused to commit to accepting the results of the November election and repeated his unsubstantiated claims that mail-in voting is open to widespread fraud.

"I am urging my supporters to go into the polls and watch very carefully, because that's what has to happen," the president said.

Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford later tweeted: "Trump also told 'his supporters' to 'go into the polls and watch very carefully.' But he wasn't talking about poll watching. He was talking about voter intimidation.

"FYI — voter intimidation is illegal in Nevada. Believe me when I say it: You do it, and you will be prosecuted."



https://www.businessinsider.com/nevada-attorney-general-prosecute-people-watching-polls-trump-suggestion-2020-9

Joe Biden to make first 2020 Miami appearance at NBC town hall Monday

NBC News announced Tuesday that Biden will participate in a town hall event moderated by anchor Lester Holt on Monday, October 5. The event, which will include a socially-distanced audience of undecided Florida voters outside at Pérez Art Museum Miami, will air on NBC at 8p.m. ET for one hour.

NBC said it extended a similar offer to President Donald Trump.

Monday’s event is the beginning of NBC Nightly News “Across America” series, which will also include coverage of voters in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. Trump won all four states during his 2016 victory, though he currently trails in most polls conducted in those four swing states.

Biden hasn’t visited Miami since September 2019, months before the Democratic presidential primary began. Biden and other Democrats largely avoided Florida during the latter part of 2019 to focus on early primary states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Florida’s presidential primary in March came after the coronavirus pandemic shut down in-person campaigning, and Biden had built a large delegate lead over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.



https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article246107295.html#storylink=cpy

Broward strikes deal with USPS to speed up process for record number of mail ballots

Planning for a record number of mail ballots amid concerns about whether the U.S. Postal Service can handle the load, Broward Elections Supervisor Peter Antonacci has come up with a way to streamline the process of getting Nov. 3 ballots to the elections office.

Under an agreement his office struck with the USPS, mail ballots that once had to pass through a massive distribution center in Opa-locka, in northwest Miami-Dade County, will now be picked up directly from local post offices by Broward elections workers starting the Saturday before Election Day.

And even before then, the deal with the USPS allows Broward elections workers to pick up mail ballots at a post office in Oakland Park, where ballots are being consolidated. On Tuesday, elections workers made their first pickup from the Oakland Park location, collecting about 14,000 ballots, according to Broward elections spokesman Steve Vancore.

Eliminating the stop at the Opa-locka facility means elections workers will have more time to notify voters if there is a problem — such as forgetting to sign the back of the ballot envelope — and fix the issue so the vote can be counted.

It also means more ballots may get to elections officials on time. In the August primary, more than 2,500 mail ballots in Broward County were rejected because they were received past the 7 p.m. Election Day deadline. In that election, Broward election workers went to the Opa-locka facility once the day before the election and twice on Election Day to retrieve mail ballots.




https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article246113370.html#storylink=cpy

Why St. Petersburg's Black voters beat national averages

Lynette Hardy found a dusty, metal contraption in the attic of her grandfather’s house. The metal frame has a series of levers near yellowing names. She knew exactly what it was — a sample voting machine from the middle of the 20th century.

Her grandfather, Chester James Sr., is best known as the unofficial mayor of Methodist Town, later renamed Jamestown. He also was instrumental in registering people to vote during the civil rights era.

In 1963, he earned a service award from the NAACP and in 1964 recognition from President Lyndon Johnson for registering 1,000 Black voters. At the time, the census reported 24,000 Black residents.


https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-politics/elections/2020/10/01/why-st-petersburgs-black-voters-beat-national-averages/

National Guard could be tasked to protect voting. So far, few governors have asked

The National Guard is prepared to help with security at polling sites, sort ballots or bolster cybersecurity for the November elections, but so far few governors have requested that assistance, Guard units across the country told McClatchy on Wednesday.

The Kentucky National Guard, which was most recently called to respond to civil unrest following the death of Breonna Taylor, has been asked by the governor to assist polling locations in the 2020 election with tasks such as cybersecurity help or even directing traffic.

The service members who provide support for the general election will be in civilian clothes, said Kentucky National Guard spokesman Maj. Stephen Martin.

“In no way will we perform any duty of an election officer,” he said.

According to federal law, military personnel under federal control and funding are prohibited from conducting operations at polling places.





https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/election/article246128340.html#storylink=cpy