U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger testifies during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on the Legislative Branch hearing at the U.S. Capitol on May 22, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Kent Nishimura/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — U.S. Capitol Police Chief Thomas Manger testified Wednesday that more than 700 threats against members of Congress were made during the last month alone, with at least 50 cases of people making false 911 calls in an attempt to get police teams to respond to lawmakers’ homes, often called “swatting.”
Manger, who took over the police department following the Jan. 6 attack, said the agency has done a relatively good job bolstering security at the Capitol building during the last few years, but needs more officers and money to address lawmakers’ security when they are back home or at offsite events.
Manger pointed to the dignitary protection division, which is responsible for keeping congressional leadership safe wherever they go, as “woefully understaffed.”
“We provide the protection at the level it needs to be. But you do that through officers working double shifts and averaging … 50 hours of overtime every pay period,” Manger said.
The division that protects leadership currently holds about 250 officers, but Manger pressed for that to be doubled to at least 500.
“And not only can we provide protection for the leadership 24/7, but when we have people that have threats against them that require us to stand up temporary details, we can do that,” Manger said. “Because right now, when we do it, we’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. We’re yanking somebody off another detail to stand up a detail to help someone for a temporary threat situation.”
There are numerous situations, he testified, where if USCP had more officers it could better protect lawmakers both on and off Capitol Hill. For example, USCP needs more than the 20 or so agents it currently has investigating threats against members of Congress.
Woman in Georgia killed
Threats against lawmakers have been on the rise for years, but are having increasingly dire consequences. Just this week a woman in Georgia was killed in what local police described as a “tragic chain of events” after an email falsely claimed there was a bomb in the mailbox at Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s home there.
Manger said during the hearing in the Senate Rules Committee that lawmakers need to raise USCP’s spending levels to allow it to continue holding 12 recruiting classes per year of 25 officers each for the next few years.
The mandatory retirement age for USCP should also be raised from 60 to 65 to match the “tweak” the Secret Service holds that allows it to keep senior officers working above the ceiling of 57 years old for federal law enforcement, which Manger called “shameful” because he believes it is too low.
“We have people that are in the prime of their career at that age and they got to go. And so, you know, I’ve been able to get the Capitol Police Board to agree to extend it to the age 60. And I have several officers that I’ve spoken with just in the last month who are hitting 60 years old, and they said, ‘Chief, I don’t want to go,’” Manger said. “And you look at them, and they look like they’re 35 and they certainly can still do the job, physically, mentally, and they’re some of the best cops you’d ever want to work with. But I have no ability to hold on to them.”
Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump wants to jail former and current members of Congress who investigated his incitement of the violent Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and he plans to pardon the rioters immediately upon taking office, he told NBC News Sunday.
On the network’s “Meet the Press with Kristen Welker,” Trump said leaders of the special congressional panel that probed the Capitol riot “lied” and “should go to jail.”
Trump singled out committee Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat and a senior Black member of Congress, and former high-ranking House Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming, who co-chaired the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol.
“Cheney did something that’s inexcusable, along with Thompson and the people on the un-select committee of political thugs and, you know, creeps,” Trump told NBC host Welker.
Jason Miller, an adviser to Trump, walked back the president-elect’s comments Monday. Miller told CNN that Trump’s remarks about jailing Jan. 6 committee members were taken out of context and that he just wants his administration to “apply the law equally” to everybody.
President Joe Biden is reportedly mulling preemptive pardons for Cheney and former Democratic Congressman and incoming Sen. Adam Schiff of California, who also sat on the panel, along with others who could be targeted by the new Trump administration, according to media reports citing anonymous White House sources.
Trump takes office Jan. 20.
Cheney: ‘Here is the truth’
In a statement Sunday, Cheney described Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 as “the worst breach of our Constitution by any president in our nation’s history.”
“Here is the truth: Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and seize power,” Cheney said. “He mobilized an angry mob and sent them to the United States Capitol, where they attacked police officers, invaded the building and halted the official counting of electoral votes. Trump watched on television as police officers were brutally beaten, and the Capitol was assaulted, refusing for hours to tell the mob to leave.”
The Justice Department charged just over 1,560 people for taking part in the attack. Among those, 210 were found guilty at trial, and 979 pleaded guilty to charges that included assaulting police officers, trespassing and bringing deadly weapons to the Capitol, according to the most recent department data. That means it’s possible more than 1,000 individuals could be pardoned, depending on Trump’s decisions.
“As proven in Court, the weapons used and carried on Capitol grounds include firearms; OC spray; tasers; edged weapons, including a sword, axes, hatchets, and knives; and makeshift weapons, such as destroyed office furniture, fencing, bike racks, stolen riot shields, baseball bats, hockey sticks, flagpoles, PVC piping, and reinforced knuckle gloves,” according to the Justice Department.
Thompson said Monday the committee members “are simply not afraid of his most recent threats.”
“Our committee was fully authorized by the House, all rules were properly followed, and our work product stands on its own. In fact, in the two years since we have completed our work, no court or legal body has refuted it,” Thompson said in a statement provided Monday to States Newsroom.
“Donald Trump and his minions can make all the assertions they want – but no election, no conspiracy theory, no pardon, and no threat of vengeful prosecution can rewrite history or wipe away his responsibility for the deadly violence on that horrific day. We stood up to him before, and we will continue to do so,” said Thompson, who has served as the top Democrat on the House Committee on Homeland Security for the past two years.
Pardons on day one
Trump told Welker that he intends to pardon the Jan. 6 rioters on his first day in office. He said they violently attacked police officers because “they had no choice” and that their lives have been “destroyed” after facing charges for their actions.
During the wide-ranging interview Trump also blamed former U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the attack and repeated debunked claims that “antifa” activists were part of a conspiracy to bait his supporters into attacking.
Video from Trump’s speech that day show him rallying his supporters to march to the Capitol and urge Congress to “do the right thing” by refusing to certify Biden’s 2020 presidential election victory.
Trump also falsely told Welker that the Jan. 6 committee destroyed its investigative material and evidence.
In fact, hundreds of witness interview transcripts, videos and online exhibits are publicly available. The committee’s work culminated in a nearly 900-page final report that remains available online, and can be easily found with a simple internet search.
Kinzinger: ‘We did nothing wrong’
Former GOP Rep. Adam Kinzinger, the only other Republican who sat on the Jan. 6 committee, said Sunday in a statement that Trump’s threat is “nothing more than the desperate howl of a man who knows history will regard him with shame.
“Let me be clear: we did nothing wrong. The January 6 Committee’s work was driven by facts, the Constitution, and the pursuit of accountability — principles that seem foreign to Trump,” Kinzinger, of Illinois, published on Substack.
Trump did not specifically name Kinzinger during his interview.
The White House did not immediately respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment on Biden’s reported consideration of preemptive pardons.
Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks at a rally on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Oct. 29, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, with the White House as her backdrop, gave what she called her closing argument Tuesday evening, pressing voters to support her bid over that of “unstable” Republican candidate Donald Trump.
The 30-minute speech on the Ellipse was the same location where Trump, then president, held a rally nearly four years ago before his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol. Harris highlighted Democrats’ core argument that another term for the former president would present a threat to the country’s future.
“This election is more than just a choice between two parties and two different candidates,” Harris said. “It is a choice about whether we have a country rooted in freedom for every American, or ruled by chaos and division.”
Harris evoked the conception of the United States, how it was “born when we wrested freedom from a petty tyrant.” She said since then, Americans across generations have fought to protect those freedoms and expand them, from those who marched in the civil rights movement to the troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy.
“They didn’t do that only to see us submit to the will of another petty tyrant,” she said. “We are not a vessel for the schemes of wannabe dictators.”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement that Trump’s “closing argument to the American people is simple: Kamala broke it; he will fix it.”
In the crowd of tens of thousands of rallygoers was LaShaun Martin, 52, of Prince George’s County, Maryland, who said she is voting for Harris because the vice president is “incredibly positive.”
“She has been for all people, Republicans and Democrats,” she said. “It doesn’t matter what walk of life you come from. She really wants to represent you, and whatever it is you need to be able to be a prosperous person.”
Biden’s endorsement of Harris and widespread support from Democrats throughout the country forced the GOP to overhaul its approach to the campaign, as Democrats shifted their focus from the policies that Biden wanted to champion to those important to Harris.
In her remarks, Harris rebuked Trump and his supporters for their disparaging comments about immigrants living in the country illegally, a main element of his campaign.
“Politicians have got to stop treating immigration as an issue to scare up votes in an election,” Harris said. “And instead treat it as the serious challenge that it is, that we must finally come together to solve.”
Harris pledged to work with Congress on immigration policy as well as a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers and for the more than 500,000 children brought into the country without authorization. They are known as Dreamers, enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Harris touched on several of her top policy issues, including housing affordability, abortion access nationwide, a ban on price gouging at grocery stores and expansion of the child tax credit.
Reaching out to the undecided
Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler previewed the speech earlier Tuesday, telling reporters the vice president would speak directly to undecided voters’ “sense of frustration, their sense of exhaustion with the way that our politics have played out under the Trump era — and offer them directly a vision that something is different, that something different is possible.”
Trump on Sunday appeared at a six-hour campaign event at Madison Square Garden in New York City that brought bipartisan condemnation for a comedian who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”
Ahead of Harris’ Tuesday speech, Trump gave remarks at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, accusing her of trying to divide the country and seeking to distance himself from the racist and vulgar remarks made by the comedian and other speakers during the rally.
Trump did not take questions, but told ABC News earlier in the day he did not hear the comedian’s remarks.
“I don’t know him,” Trump said. “Someone put him up there.”
With the presidential race essentially tied, Harris and Trump have both focused their final campaign push on the crucial swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Harris promised the crowd during her speech that if elected she will protect institutions and the democratic ideals that are the bedrock of American law. She also slammed Trump’s comments referring to Democrats as the “enemy from within.’”
“The fact that someone disagrees with us does not make them the enemy within,” Harris said. “They are family, neighbors, classmates, coworkers, they are fellow Americans, and as Americans, we rise and fall together.”
Time to ‘turn the page’
Harris said the country must move beyond the ever-widening polarization that she described as a distinct feature of Trump’s grip on American politics.
“Donald Trump has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other,” Harris said. “That’s who he is.”
In her pitch to undecided voters, Harris offered an opportunity to leave the Trump era behind.
“It is time to turn the page on the drama and the conflict, the fear and division,” she said. “It is time for a new generation of leadership in America and I am ready to offer that leadership as the next president of the United States.”
That leadership, she said, would seek to build on bipartisan work.
“I pledge to seek common ground and common sense solutions to make your life better. I am not looking to score political points. I am looking to make progress,” she said. “I pledge to listen to experts, to those who will be impacted by the decisions I make and to people who disagree with me. Unlike Donald Trump, I don’t believe people who disagree with me are the enemy.”
During her speech, protesters advocated for an arms embargo on U.S. military weapons sent to Israel amid the war with Hamas. Several senators have also called for an arms embargo.
“Stop arming Israel. Arms embargo now,” one protester said before being escorted out.
The death toll of more than 43,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, according to health authorities there, has fractured Muslims, Arab Americans and anti-war Democrats within the party. It spurred the Uncommitted National Movement that sent 30 delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer.
After Harris’ speech, nearly 100 pro-Palestinian protesters surrounded an exit of the campaign rally.
Harris supporters gather
The campaign’s finale in Washington, D.C., was expected to draw more than 50,000 supporters, according to the local NBC affiliate. The Harris campaign estimated 75,000 spectators showed up.
It featured speeches from supporters such as a mother who was able to access affordable insulin for her son because of the Affordable Care Act; a farming couple from Pennsylvania who were previously Trump voters; and Craig Sicknick, the brother of U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died following the insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.
“(Trump) incited the crowd to riot while my brother and his fellow officers put their lives at risk,” Craig Sicknick said. “Now, Mr. Trump is promising to pardon the convicted criminals who attacked our Capitol, killing my brother and injuring over 140 other officers. This is simply wrong.”
Craig Sicknick endorsed Harris, who he called a “real leader.”
The family farmers, Bob and Kristina Lange from Malvern, Pennsylvania, said they are lifelong Republicans, but will be voting for Harris this election.
“It’s very clear that Donald Trump doesn’t care about helping hard-working people like us,” Bob Lange said. “He’s too focused on seeking revenge and retribution to care about what we need. We deserve better.”
The couple have been featured in multiple digital ads targeting rural voters in Pennsylvania.
History and excitement
Attendees from as far as Illinois to local residents made the trek to the Ellipse for the speech.
Tiffany Norwood, 56, of Washington, D.C., said she attended the rally with her 87-year-old mother, Mary Ann Norwood, for “the history of it, the excitement.”
“I feel we need something different in the United States, and she is it,” said Tiffany Norwood, who identified herself as an entrepreneur. “Her plan for the economy, for the future, for women, for everyone. I love the fact that it’s a big umbrella that includes the melting pot of the United States.”
Some attendees weren’t old enough to vote, such as 13-year-old Grace Ledford of Champaign, Illinois.
The teenager said her first political rally felt “like a big party.”
“Kamala would be a great president because she is, for one, a woman, and she is African American,” she said. “A lot of men presidents don’t know how hard it is to be a woman, especially Trump.”
Daniel Nyquist, 79, of Rockville, Maryland, stood in the crowd wearing a hat with the words “Make America Less Hateful.”
“It’s the alternative of Trump’s theme,” Nyquist said, pointing to his hat. “He’s a big promoter of hate, and this is to counter that.”
The Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, speaks at a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump promised “America’s new golden age” of closed borders and world peace as he rallied a capacity crowd at Madison Square Garden in his home city in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential contest against Vice President Kamala Harris.
Trump headlined the over six-hour rally that featured nearly 30 speakers, some of whom insulted Latinos and attacked Democratic nominee Harris over her race, and he vowed “to make America great again, and it’s going to happen fast.”
“It is called America first, and it is going to happen as no one has ever seen before,” Trump said, adding “We will not be overrun, we will not be conquered. We will be a free and proud nation once again. Everyone will prosper.”
But the event also generated intense criticism from Democrats for remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who spoke during the afternoon hours ahead of Trump and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now.”
The joke could prove politically problematic for Republicans, who have been courting the Latino vote, and particularly in the swing state of Pennsylvania, where hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans live.
The United States is home to 5.6 million Puerto Ricans, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of census data, and about 8% of them live in Pennsylvania.
Hinchcliffe, who hosts a podcast called “Kill Tony,” also said Latinos “love making babies” and made a lewd joke about them.
Florida Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, whose state is also home to hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans, on X wrote, “It’s not funny and it’s not true. Puerto Ricans are amazing people and amazing Americans!”
Democrats brought in U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is Puerto Rican, and the vice presidential nominee, Tim Walz, to blast the joke. “When you have some a-hole calling Puerto Rico floating garbage … that’s what they think about anyone who makes less money than them,” she said.
Harris on Sunday in Philadelphia laid out a new policy proposal focused on Puerto Rico.
The former president’s 80-minute speech mostly featured his standard campaign promises and stories, though he added a proposal to his list of tax breaks — a benefit for those caring for sick or aging relatives in their homes. Harris also introduced a policy for at-home care for seniors earlier in October.
Trump repeated his popular pledges to “get transgender insanity the hell out of our schools,” “stop the invasion” at the border and restore peace to Ukraine and the Middle East, which he claims would have never become war-torn had he been in office.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told the crowd his time campaigning around the country for Trump has revealed “something very powerful out there happening among the base.”
“I’m telling you, there’s an energy out there that we have not seen before,” Johnson said.
NYC stop a detour
Trump held the rally nine days before polls close on Nov. 5. Nearly 42 million Americans have already voted early, in person or by mail, in more than two dozen states, according to the University of Florida Election Lab’s early voting tracker.
Trump’s New York stop detoured from the seven battleground states in this election’s spotlight — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. His campaign also announced on Sunday two upcoming stops in New Mexico and Virginia during the contest’s final week.
Still, both candidates once again hit Pennsylvania over the weekend, with Trump delivering remarks Saturday at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, and Harris spending Sunday rallying a crowd in Philadelphia.
Harris spoke to the press in Philadelphia, a city she described as “a very important part of our path to victory.”
“I’m feeling very optimistic about the enthusiasm that is here and the commitment that folks of every background have to vote and to really invest in the future of our country,” Harris told reporters.
The vice president criticized Trump for using “dark and divisive language,” including his comments this week that America is the “garbage can of the world.”
“I think people are ready to turn the page,” she said.
Tucker Carlson goes after Harris
Numerous speakers attacked Harris’ record — a standard feature of political rallies — but some comments invoked her race. Trump’s childhood best friend, David Rem, clutched a crucifix and told the crowd Harris is the “antichrist.”
Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson described Harris as a “Samoan Malaysian low IQ former California prosecutor” as he was spinning a scenario in which the Democrats reflect on their candidate post-election.
“Donald Trump has made it possible for the rest of us to tell the truth about the world around us,” Carlson said earlier in his speech.
Harris’ mother was Indian, and her father is Jamaican. Trump has previously questioned her race during his interview with the National Association of Black Journalists.
Carlson, who was fired by Fox News in April 2023, accused Democrats of telling “lies,” and said in a mocking voice, “Jan. 6 was an insurrection, they were unarmed, but it was very insurrection-y.”
The violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 by thousands of Trump supporters came after months of the former president refusing to concede the 2020 presidential election, which President Joe Biden won.
Twenty-eight speakers preceded Trump, beginning at just after 2 p.m. and holding court until the former president took the stage at 7:13 p.m. Trump’s wife, Melania, in a rare campaign rally appearance, introduced him and spoke briefly.
The lineup included the founder of Death Row Records, TV personality Dr. Phil and pro wrestling’s Hulk Hogan and Dana White — some of whom spoke at July’s four-day Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, whose super PAC has flooded more than $75 million into the campaign, was among the cast of speakers.
Musk told the crowd to vote early and that he wants to see a “massive crushing victory.”
“Make the margin of victory so big that you know what can’t happen,” he said, referring to debunked claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Focus on NYC
The day was heavy on the mystique of New York and Trump’s ties to it. New York City is not only where Trump grew up and followed his father’s path into real estate, but now also where he was convicted in May in a Manhattan court on 34 state felony counts for a hush money scheme involving a porn star.
A vendor hawking campaign gear to supporters waiting to enter Madison Square Garden Sunday morning advertised a hat that read “I’m voting for the convicted felon.”
Several speakers credited Trump with changing the New York City skyline. The 58-story Trump Tower stands on 5th Avenue in midtown Manhattan, among his other real estate holdings on the island.
“New York City made Donald Trump, but Donald Trump also made New York City,” said Lara Trump, Trump’s daughter-in-law and co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
Howard Lutnick, chair and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of the Trump campaign’s “transition team,” told the story of losing just over 650 of his employees in the World Trade Center attack on Sept. 11, 2001 masterminded by known terrorist Osama bin Laden.
“We must elect Donald J. Trump president because we must crush jihad,” Lutnick said.
Lutnick bantered with Musk on stage, estimating the pair could possibly cut $2 trillion in federal spending under a second Trump administration. Trump has chosen the duo to lead a commission on government efficiency if elected.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who took a leading role in spreading Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election, received a standing ovation from the full arena.
He accused Biden and Harris of spreading “socialism, fascism and communism.”
Giuliani, a major player in Trump’s false claim that he won the 2020 election, appeared at the rally just days after a federal judge in New York ordered him to surrender his apartment and valuables to election workers in Georgia whom he was found guilty of defaming.
Giuliani, along with a handful of other speakers, also implied that Democrats are responsible for the two assassination attempts on Trump.
“I’m not gonna do conspiracy,” Giuliani said, “but it’s funny that they tried to do everything else, and now they’re trying to kill him.”
The accusation was a theme throughout the daylong event. Speaker after speaker implied or outright blamed Democrats for the two attempts on Trump’s life, never mentioning the perpetrators. The gunman in the first attempt was killed by law enforcement, and the second, who never fired at Trump, has been charged in Florida; neither has been found to have ties to Democrats.
Trump focused some of his comments on New York City, referencing his childhood and adding that he felt sympathy for the city’s indicted Mayor Eric Adams.
The rally ended, not with Trump’s signature closer “YMCA” by the Village People, but with a live rendition of “New York, New York” by Christopher Macchio.
Voters make selections at their voting booths inside an early voting site on Oct. 17, 2024 in Hendersonville, North Carolina. (Photo by Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — As an exceedingly bitter, tight and dark campaign for the presidency moves into its last moments, apprehensive election officials and experts warn Election Day is only the first step.
The closing of the polls and end of mail-in voting kick off a nearly three-month process before the next president of the United States is sworn in on Inauguration Day in January. New guardrails were enacted by Congress in 2022 to more fully protect the presidential transition, following the Jan. 6, 2021 mob attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters and a failed scheme to install fake electors.
But even before that shift to a new chief executive begins, a presidential victor is unlikely to be announced election night or even the following day.
It’s a result that will possibly take days to determine, given tight margins expected in seven swing states. Officials needed four days to count all the votes to determine President Joe Biden the victor of the 2020 presidential election.
In states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the law does not allow that process to begin for millions of mail-in ballots until Election Day. Other states allow pre-processing of ballots.
Trey Grayson, Kentucky’s former Republican secretary of state, said ballot authentication could be on different timelines across the country after voting ends on Election Day.
“We have 50 states, plus D.C., that pretty much all do it differently,” Grayson, who served as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, told reporters Friday on a call of bipartisan former state election officials who are working to explain the process to the public.
It could mean “in a very close election that we don’t know on election night who the president is or who controls the House or the Senate, but we should feel confident over the next couple of days, as we work through that, that we’re going to get there,” he said.
Lawsuits and potential recounts
Those delays, which former President Donald Trump seized on to spread the baseless lie that the election was stolen from him, are expected again in November, especially as all eyes will be on the battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Additionally, there already are hundreds of pre-election lawsuits, mainly filed by Republicans, ranging from election integrity challenges to accusations of noncitizens allowed to vote in federal elections — something that rarely happens and is already illegal. The legal challenges could further spark delays.
“We will not have a winner on election night most likely and so we need to be able to prepare the public for this,” said Virginia Kase Solomón, the president and CEO of the democracy watchdog group Common Cause, during a Tuesday briefing.
She added that her organization will focus on combating misinformation and disinformation on election night and beyond.
“There is the potential that somebody could claim the win before … all of the votes have been counted,” she said.
In the early morning hours after Election Day in 2020, before results from key states were determined, Trump falsely claimed he won in an address at the White House.
On top of that, experts say this year could see election denial erupting in countless courtrooms and meeting rooms in localities and the states, as well as across social media, if doubts are sown about the results.
Recounts could also delay an official election result, and the laws vary from state to state.
For example, in Pennsylvania, if a candidate demands a recount, three voters from each of the over 9,000 precincts have to petition for a recount.
“We’ve never seen that happen actually in Pennsylvania,” Kathy Boockvar, the commonwealth’s former Democratic secretary of state, said on Friday’s call with reporters.
An automatic statewide recount is triggered in Pennsylvania if there’s a difference of a half percent of all votes cast for the winner and loser. The final recount results, by law, are due to the secretary of state by Nov. 26, and results would be announced on Nov. 27, Boockvar said.
The margin in Pennsylvania’s 2020 results for the presidential election was between 1.1% and 1.2%, not enough to trigger the automatic recount, Boockvar said.
Taking out the shrubs
State election officials have been preparing for the past year to train poll workers to not only run the voting booths but for possible violence — a precaution put in place after the 2020 election — and have beefed up security around polling locations.
On Friday, Trump posted on X that the election “will be under the closest professional scrutiny and, WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again.”
A reporter asked Grayson about the possibility of aggression from poll watchers. The Republican National Committee announced in April a “historic move to safeguard the integrity of the electoral process,” establishing party-led trainings for poll watchers.
Poll watchers are not a new concept, and Grayson said clear “safeguards” are in place.
“If you’re intimidating, you’re gone. There’s clear laws in every state on that,” he said.
Celestine Jeffreys, the city clerk in Green Bay, Wisconsin, said during a Wednesday roundtable with election workers that the city has an Election Day protocol in place that includes everything from blocking off streets to City Hall to getting rid of shrubbery.
“We have actually removed bushes in front of City Hall” to ensure no one can be concealed behind them, she said. In the second assassination attempt on Trump earlier this year, a gunman hid in bushes outside Trump’s private golf course.
New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver said during a Tuesday briefing she is focused on the physical safety of election officials.
During the event with the National Association of Secretaries of State, she said such safety is not only a priority during voting but when officials move to certify the state’s election results in December.
“We have all been spending a lot more time on physical security and making sure that our election officials at all levels are more physically secure this year,” Toulouse Oliver said. “And of course, you know when our electors meet in our states, you know, ensuring for the physical security of that process and those individuals as well.”
On Dec. 17, each state’s electors will meet to vote for the president and vice president. Congress will vote to certify the results on Jan. 6.
“We are thinking a lot more about this in 2024 than we did in 2020, but I think that each one of us… have a playbook in mind for how to handle any unanticipated eventualities in the certification process,” she said.
For the first time, Congress’ certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 has been designated a National Special Security Event, something that is usually reserved for Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
The 2020 experience
In 2020, The Associated Press did not call the presidential election for Biden until 11:26 a.m. Saturday, Nov. 7 — roughly three-and-a-half days after polls closed. The AP, as well as other media organizations, project election winners after local officials make initial tabulations public.
Those tallies are then canvassed, audited and certified, according to each state’s legal timeline. Recounts may also extend the timeline before final certification.
The vote totals reported in Pennsylvania — a state that carried 20 Electoral College votes in 2020 — put Biden over the top for the 270 needed to win the presidency.
Trump refused to concede the race, and instead promised to take his fight to court.
For the next two months, Trump and his surrogates filed just over 60 lawsuits challenging the results in numerous states. Ultimately none of the judges found evidence of widespread voter fraud.
The next step was for Congress to count each state’s certified slate of electors, which by law, it must do on the Jan. 6 following a presidential election.
However, in the weeks leading up to Jan. 6, Trump and his private lawyers worked to replace legitimate slates of electors with fake ones, according to hundreds of pages of records compiled by a special congressional investigation, and by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to block ratification of the Electoral College’s vote at the Jan. 6 joint session of Congress, because the vice president’s role in the certification of electoral votes was not exactly clear in the Electoral Count Act of 1887.
Pence ultimately refused.
Thousands of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 following a “Stop the Steal” rally at The Ellipse park, south of the White House, where Trump told the crowd “We will never concede.”
The mob assaulted police officers, broke windows to climb inside and hurled violent threats aimed at elected officials, including the desire to “hang” Pence. More than 1,500 defendants have been charged by the Department of Justice.
Congress stopped its process of reviewing the state electors in the 2 p.m. Eastern hour as police ushered the lawmakers to safety. The joint session resumed at roughly 11:30 p.m., and Pence called the majority of electoral votes for Biden at nearly 4 a.m. on Jan. 7.
The Electoral Count Reform Act codifies into law that the vice president, who also serves as the president of the U.S. Senate, only ceremoniously reads aloud a roll call of the votes.
Most notably, the provision raises the threshold for lawmakers to make an objection to electors. Previously, only one U.S. House representative and one U.S. senator would need to make an objection to an elector or slate of electors.
But under the new law, it would take one-fifth of members to lodge an objection and under very specific standards — 87 House members and 20 senators.
The Electoral Count Reform Act also identifies that each state’s governor is the official responsible for submitting the state’s official document that identifies the state’s appointed electors, and says that Congress cannot accept that document from any official besides the governor, unless otherwise specified by the state’s law.
Trump and his allies tried to replace legitimate slates of electors in several states with fake electors who would cast ballots for Trump.
The Presidential Transitional Improvement Act provides candidates with funding and resources for transitional planning, even if a candidate has not conceded after the election.
There are already issues with the transition of power. The top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, sent a Wednesday letter to Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, urging them to sign documents to ensure a peaceful transition of power.
“With fewer than three weeks left until an election in which the American people will select a new President of the United States, I urge you to put the public’s interest in maintaining a properly functioning government above any personal financial or political interests you may perceive in boycotting the official transition law and process,” Raskin wrote.
Denial expected at all levels of government
Experts warn the effort to delay certification of the vote is largely being fought at the local and state levels, and that several groups are gearing up to sow doubt in the election outcome.
Devin Burghart, president of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, said on a press call Wednesday that since 2020, “election denial has shifted away from the capital to county election commission meetings, courtrooms, cyber symposiums and countless conspiracies in preparation for a repeat this November.”
“This time, the baseless claim that undocumented immigrants are somehow swamping the polls has fueled the ‘big lie’ machine,” Burghart said.
Kim Wyman, the former Washington state secretary of state, said the noncitizen topic is not new.
In two high-profile cases, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Republican-led efforts in Alabama and Virginia to purge voter rolls after alleging thousands of noncitizens were registered to vote. Both states were ordered to stop the programs and reinstate voters – though Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin promised Friday to appeal and even escalate to the Supreme Court.
In Georgia, the state’s Supreme Court delayed new rules until after this election that would have required three poll workers at every precinct to count ballots by hand once the polls closed — essentially delaying unofficial election results.
More than 165 electoral process lawsuits across 37 states have been filed by both parties since 2023 leading up to the 2024 presidential election, according to a survey by Bloomberg of pre-election cases. The journalists found that more than half the cases have been filed in swing states, and challenge almost every facet of the voting process, from absentee voting, to voter roll management, voter eligibility and vote certification.
Republican and conservative groups have filed roughly 55% of the lawsuits, mostly aimed at narrowing who can vote, and overall most of the cases were filed in August and September, according to the analysis.
Courts threw out dozens of lawsuits claiming voter fraud in 2020.
Mai Ratakonda, senior counsel at States United Democracy Center, said anti-democracy groups have used litigation “to legitimize their efforts to sow doubt in our election system.”
“We’ve unfortunately continued to see this trend of filing lawsuits to bolster and legitimize narratives that our elections are insecure and laying the groundwork to contest results later,” Ratakonda told reporters on a press call Wednesday hosted by the organization, whose stated mission is to protect nonpartisan election administration.
Timeline of key presidential election dates
Nov. 5, 2024—Election Day The voters in each state choose electors to serve in the Electoral College.
By Dec. 11, 2024—Electors appointed The executive of each state signs the Certificate of Ascertainment to appoint the electors chosen in the general election.
Dec. 17, 2024—Electors vote The electors in each state meet to select the president and vice president of the United States.
Jan. 6, 2025—Congress counts the vote Congress meets in joint session to count the electoral votes.
Jan. 20, 2025—Inauguration Day The president-elect is sworn in as president of the United States.
Source: The National Archives and Records Administration
Correction: This report has been updated to reflect that former Washington state Secretary of State Kim Wyman made the comment that noncitizen voting has been illegal at the federal level since 1996.
Donald Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as people try to storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The threat of political violence will likely hang over the nation’s capital in the weeks following Election Day, security experts say, despite intensive preparations by law enforcement officials determined to avoid another Jan. 6 insurrection.
The 2,000-plus officers who make up the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as other federal law enforcement agencies like the Secret Service, have responded to a surge in threats against elected officials during the last few years, including two assassination attempts against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just this year.
But the threats, attacks and shooting have led to questions about whether the two agencies are truly prepared for the presidential transition, especially after a report released this week said the Secret Service “requires fundamental reform to carry out its mission.”
The agency is tasked with planning and coordinating security for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College on Jan. 6 —the first time it’s been designated a National Special Security Event — and Inauguration Day on Jan. 20.
Experts interviewed by States Newsroom said there is a very real chance of political violence in the weeks and months ahead, though they said law enforcement agencies have learned from recent events. The unrest could build after what is expected to be a very close presidential election, with results possibly delayed for days or longer or even litigated in the courts.
“Unfortunately, you can never have 100% security,” said Javed Ali, associate professor of practice at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan.
“It’s nice to think that would exist. But, if you’re trying to consider all the different kinds of variables that you have to plan for, there’s always going to be a gap or vulnerability — now what you try to do is kind of minimize the big one and hope that the small ones don’t get exploited.”
Darrell M. West, the Douglas Dillon Chair in Governmental Studies at the Brookings Institution, said the risk of political violence could increase following Election Day if one or more political leaders object to the outcome.
“For months, we’ve been hearing extreme and sometimes violent rhetoric,” West said. “And rhetoric has consequences — it can encourage some people to take action.”
Trump has refused to accept the 2020 election results, and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, declined to say Trump lost the election. Vance on Oct. 12 said there was a “peaceful transfer of power” in January 2021.
Trump has repeatedly recycled false claims he made following his loss that the system is rigged — a talking point he’s likely to use to rile up supporters should he lose this year’s election. Trump has been charged by special counsel Jack Smith with four felony counts in connection with 2020 election interference, in a complex case that will continue after the election.
Threats against lawmakers
Members of Congress are more vulnerable than presidential candidates, in part because most lawmakers live in normal houses and don’t have security details anywhere close to the kind the Secret Service provides for high-ranking officials.
And unlike the presidency, which has a long line of succession to avoid gaps in authority following a death or a crisis, Congress has been criticized for not having better plans in place to address continuity of government following a mass casualty or similar event.
U.S. Capitol Police Chief J. Thomas Manger testified in April the agency was looking for ways to bolster protection for lawmakers in the line of presidential succession, like the speaker of the House and Senate president pro tempore.
Manger told the panel that security for those two officials was substandard to that provided for the Secretary of State, who sits below them in the line of succession.
“We can’t just go back to the days when we said, ‘Well, we’ll just follow them around and we’ll make sure they’re well protected wherever they are,’ because their homes, their families are at risk,” he testified.
Members of Congress who haven’t risen to the ranks of leadership don’t get security details unless there are specific threats to their safety. And those aren’t permanent.
That could present challenges for lawmakers who have higher profiles or who regularly receive threats, especially if people respond violently to the election results and encourage their supporters to take matters into their own hands.
Trump assassination attempts
Making the situation more complicated, this year has shown that substantial levels of security aren’t a guarantee of safety.
Trump has some of the highest levels of protection in the country, if not the world, but that did not stop a man from shooting at the former president during a rally in Pennsylvania this summer. A separate would-be gunman was spotted and apprehended just off Trump’s Florida golf course with a semi-automatic weapon in September.
Both instances raised questions about the Secret Service’s ability to protect Trump as well as others, though agency leaders maintain they’re up to the task.
Trump’s experiences, as the subject of political violence, haven’t deterred him from spreading disinformation about Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris as well as other lawmakers who disagree with him on policy issues.
Trump’s comments about immigrants have also led to threats against everyday people, including Haitian immigrants in Ohio, who are in the country legally.
During an interview with Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News earlier this month, Trump said he may use the National Guard or the military against his political opponents should he win reelection, calling them “the enemy from within.”
“We have some very bad people,” Trump said. “We have some sick people. Radical left lunatics. And it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary by the military, because they can’t let that happen.”
The military and National Guard have significantly different training programs and missions than local, state, or federal law enforcement, making Trump’s comments somewhat darker than previous claims he’d try to put his political opponents in prison if reelected.
Trump hasn’t committed to respecting the results of the election or supporting a peaceful transition in power should he lose his bid for the White House.
Trump’s comments could indicate that violence is likely following the election, if he loses, or after he regains the powers of the presidency, if he wins.
Delayed election results predicted
West from the Brookings Institution said violence isn’t likely to take place in the days immediately following the end of voting on Nov. 5, since it’s unlikely anyone learns the results of the presidential election for a few days.
Mail-in ballots, which Democrats tend to submit in larger numbers than Republicans, could lead to confusion in swing states, especially if people don’t understand they tend to boost numbers for Democratic candidates over GOP politicians as they’re counted, he said.
“We could end up in a situation where on election night, Trump is ahead, because we know Republicans tend to vote in person on Election Day, and Democrats often vote via mail ballots,” West said. “And then as the mail ballots get counted on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, the numbers may shift from Trump to Harris.
“And I think that’s a very bad combination, because it will look to some individuals like voter fraud, even though there’s a perfectly logical explanation for the change. But that’s a scenario that could lead to violence, because it’ll look like the election is being stolen from Trump.”
While the presidential candidates will play a significant role in stirring up or calming down their supporters, members of Congress, many of whom sought to legitimize misinformation and disinformation four years ago, have responsibilities as well.
“We need leaders who act responsibly, but unfortunately, in the last few months, we have not seen that,” West said. “We’ve seen members of Congress who have promoted misinformation. There’s been a lot of it surrounding the hurricane, and so the fear is that there will be blatant lies that then will incite people to take action.”
Learning from 2020
Ali, from the University of Michigan, said he expects federal law enforcement will be better prepared for post-election violence than they were four years ago, though there are still chances for violent people to slip through the cracks.
The most likely scenario, Ali said, is a single actor or “lone wolf” attack and not a mob marching to the Capitol, the way Trump supporters did on Jan. 6.
“I still think it’s relatively low,” Ali said of the likelihood of violence. “But as we’ve seen, all it takes is one person to really shake up the perception of security. And if they’re aiming at President Trump or Vice President Harris, well then, you know the stakes are even higher.”
Ali said he’s confident that the Secret Service, U.S. Capitol Police and other law enforcement agencies in the Washington, D.C., area are preparing for various scenarios, though he’s less sure about what would happen if there’s violence at state capitals.
“There might be a little more vulnerability there,” Ali said. “But I still think, at least when we’re getting to the Electoral College (certification) day, that January 6th-type insurrection will be almost impossible to pull off.”
When it comes to spreading disinformation, Ali said, he expects there will be a combination of foreign adversaries, including Iran and Russia, as well as domestic actors.
“You’ll probably see a lot of disinformation, especially if Vice President Harris wins, sort of casting doubt on the integrity of the voting, the credibility of the process, maybe going after specific individuals and key swing states, or even counties,” Ali said.
“All those things that were happening in 2020. But there were also costs to doing that, as we’ve seen too, with the civil charges and some of the potential criminal ones as well,” he added. “So I think that’s also an area domestically, where people will have to tread very cautiously. That doesn’t mean that you won’t see it, but again, there might be a line that gets crossed where people will be held accountable for that.”
‘More prepared than ever before’
U.S. Capitol Police Inspector General David T. Harper said USCP leadership has implemented the 100-plus recommendations put forward by his predecessor following the Jan. 6 attack, closing gaps that existed that day.
“I think they’ve made a lot of improvements, and I think that they’re more prepared than ever before,” Harper said, though he later added he couldn’t “say for certain that they are prepared to handle anything that can come up” due to the unpredictable nature of domestic terrorism and political violence.
The OIG is also “prepared to be all hands on deck” in the event of another attack on the Capitol or lawmakers takes place, to analyze what went wrong and make recommendations for USCP to implement, he said.
Harper, whose tenure as inspector general began earlier this year, noted during the interview that much of what he can publicly discuss is restricted by national security concerns.
The U.S. Capitol Police declined an interview request from States Newsroom, but provided written information about changes that it’s implemented during the last few years.
Among those is a law approved by Congress that allows the USCP chief to request the National Guard without the approval of the three-member Capitol Police board.
USCP has also overhauled its intelligence-gathering activities and established partnerships with other law enforcement agencies to bolster its ranks ahead of major events.
Secret Service planning for Jan. 6
The Secret Service is one of those partners and it will take the lead this year planning security for major events during the presidential transition, even those undertaken by Congress inside the Capitol.
While Inauguration Day has traditionally been categorized as a National Special Security Event, the Department of Homeland Security has extended that classification for the first time for Congress certifying the winner of the presidential race on Jan. 6.
Nate Herring, spokesperson for the United States Secret Service, said part of the process includes planning with other law enforcement agencies for “various scenarios” that could take place, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Metropolitan Police Department.
“We work very closely with our partners throughout the whole planning process,” Herring said. “And D.C. is especially unique because National Special Security Events occur fairly frequently.”
But the Secret Service’s leadership and structure have come under scrutiny during the last few months.
The four-member panel tasked with investigating the Pennsylvania assassination attempt against Trump wrote in the 52-page report released in mid-October that the Secret Service “has become bureaucratic, complacent, and static even though risks have multiplied and technology has evolved.”
“This is a zero-fail mission, for any failure endangers not only the life of the protectee, but also the fundamentals of our government itself,” they wrote.
Without substantial changes to the Secret Service, the independent review panel wrote, it believes the type of deadly attack that took place in Butler, Pennsylvania, “can and will happen again.”
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a written statement after the report’s release, saying the department had begun “taking the actions needed to advance the Secret Service’s protection mission,” including addressing the “systemic and foundational issues” described by the review panel.
D.C. planning
District of Columbia Assistant City Administrator Chris Rodriguez said that city officials will be watching for any indications people intent on violence begin traveling or gathering inside the city following Election Day.
“We are obviously attuned to what happened last time. I mean, I don’t think we can ignore that, and we’re not,” Rodriguez said, referring to the Jan. 6 attack. “But we also are in a place where we have great relationships among our agencies within the region, with the federal government in terms of coordination, and we will be prepared to adapt our operational posture in any way that we need to.”
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser originally requested the NSSE designation for Jan. 6, which Rodriguez said has increased planning and coordination, in hopes of avoiding any violence.
Rodriguez also stressed D.C. officials and the city’s police department are used to planning for the large crowds and protests that tend to take place whenever there’s a presidential transition.
“We are a city that prides itself, as the nation’s capital, to ensuring that there is a peaceful transition of power,” he said. “And we will do our part to ensure that.”
Republican vice presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, of Ohio, speaks at a rally at JWF Industries on Saturday, Oct. 12, 2024, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance campaigned Saturday in the key battleground of Pennsylvania, where early mail-in voting is already underway as just 25 days remain in the heated 2024 race that will be decided by a handful of states.
Former President Donald Trump’s running mate rallied a crowd of a few hundred at a sprawling riverside manufacturing facility in Johnstown, adhering to the ticket’s main themes of immigration and the economy.
During a question-and-answer session with the press following his prepared remarks, States Newsroom asked Vance if he will commit to the peaceful transfer of power no matter the winner in November.
The coming presidential election is the first since a mob of Trump supporters violently breached the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, delaying Congress from certifying the 2020 presidential election results. More than 1,500 defendants have been charged with crimes associated with the attack on the Capitol, during which 140 police officers were assaulted.
“Yes, of course,” Vance replied. “Look, this is very simple. Yes, there was a riot at the Capitol on January 6, but there was still a peaceful transfer of power in this country, and that is always going to happen.”
Vance, Ohio’s junior U.S. senator, in his speech painted Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, as “a tax-and-spend San Francisco liberal who wants to open our borders and destroy American manufacturing.”
“Are we going to give Kamala Harris a promotion to president of the United States? Hell no. We are going to tell Harris ‘You are fired,’ and we are voting Donald J. Trump to be our next president,” Vance said to cheers.
Vance spoke from a stage inside JWF Industries, a local plant that manufactures transportation, energy and defense equipment and vehicles.
Four military tactical utility vehicles framed the stage, where roughly 80 spectators lined the stage behind and to each side of Vance. A couple hundred people sat below the stage, with several empty rows behind them and an empty section to the left.
New poll numbers
Both campaigns and their surrogates are blanketing seven must-win swing states, as the presidential contest remains incredibly tight.
Trump holds an advantage in Arizona, while Harris has a slight lead in Pennsylvania, according to the latest poll results for the key battleground states released Saturday morning by The New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College.
Vance urged the crowd to check their voter registration status and talk to family and friends about going to the polls.
“It’s the only way that we’re going to make Donald Trump the next president, so let’s get out there and vote, my friends,” he said.
Vance spent the majority of his remarks faulting Harris and President Joe Biden for economic suffering, including inflation and credit card debt delinquency.
A consumer price index report released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed inflation is at its lowest since February 2021.
Vance also attacked Harris for participating in “softball interviews,” citing her recent appearances on podcasts, as well as daytime and late-night TV.
Vance took credit for the Trump campaign ad that features a clip from Harris’ interview on “The View” in which she declined to distance herself from decisions of the Biden presidency.
“The problem with a softball interview is that you still have to be able to hit a softball,” Vance said.
In addition to appearances this week on the podcast “Call Her Daddy” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” as well as a town hall for Univision, Harris also sat for an interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Monday. Trump backed out of his own promised appearance on “60 Minutes.”
Jan. 6 protesters ‘knuckleheads’
Vance implied accusations of voter fraud during his speech, telling the crowd that “you have to make the margins so big in Pennsylvania that it doesn’t matter what shenanigans Democrats pull at the last minute.”
“We will never have the fake media or the Democrats telling the truth. We do have our own voices, and our own networks, our family and friends. That is the people power that is going to make Donald Trump the next president,” Vance said.
During the reporter Q and A, the crowd jeered when a student journalist from a Pittsburgh university asked if Vance condemned the Jan. 6 violence.
Vance defended Trump’s actions on that day, saying the former president encouraged the crowd to protest “peacefully.”
“And the fact that a few knuckleheads went off and did something they shouldn’t do, that’s not on him. That’s on them,” Vance said to cheers.
Vance chafed at journalists asking more than once about Trump’s refusal to accept that Biden won the 2020 race. The former president continues to repeat the falsehood that he won. Trump challenged election results across dozens of lawsuits in multiple states following the 2020 election and lost them all.
“What Kamala Harris and the media are doing is trying to tell us that we should hear more about what happened four years ago than about her failure in governance,” Vance said. “I think that on November the 5th, we are going to reject it.”
Other questions from the press focused on western Pennsylvania, veterans’ benefits and Project 2025, the 900-page “mandate” for the next government, produced by the conservative Heritage Foundation.
Vance said the conservative project has “no relation” to the Trump campaign. An CNN investigation in June found at least 140 several former Trump administration officials were involved in the project.
Vance spoke for 23 minutes and addressed reporter questions for just under the same amount of time.
Fielding audience questions in Reading
Later on Saturday, Vance headed east to Reading for a town hall discussion moderated by former ESPN anchor Sage Steele.
Unlike his event in Johnstown, he didn’t take questions from the media, instead fielding questions from audience members. It wasn’t clear how the audience members and questions were selected.
When one audience member expressed concern about government overreach, Vance said the most important job after president in the next administration would be attorney general. “You need an attorney general who believes in true equal justice under law,” adding “we’ve got a few good candidates” without naming anyone specific.
He encouraged the audience to vote for Republican Dave McCormick for U.S. Senate to ensure an AG nominee would be approved, and called current Attorney General Merrick Garland “one of the most corrupt” attorney generals who should be fired
Vance relayed the story of meeting “a Latino immigrant to this country” and her thoughts on immigration.
“She came here 25 years ago, she paid thousands of dollars in fees and legal expenses just to become an American citizen and she is pissed off at the illegal immigration problem because it’s insulting to her,” he said.
On Wednesday, the Harris campaign announced the launch of a group aimed at encouraging support from Latino men titled “Hombres con Harris,” with events planned in Philadelphia and the Lehigh Valley.
The Harris campaign sent out a statement ahead of Vance’s visit to Reading, criticizing the GOP ticket’s position on abortion and tax policy.
“Pennsylvanians are sick and tired of Trump and Vance’s extremism and divisiveness, which is why they are ready to back the only candidate in this race who is fighting to take our commonwealth forward: Vice President Kamala Harris,” Harris campaign spokesperson Onotse Omoyeni.
An audience member who said she was an immigrant from the Dominican Republic asked Vance what the Trump administration would do to assist small businesses like hers.
Trump, Vance said, would lower business taxes “but only for the businesses that are hiring American workers, we’re not going to reward people for shipping jobs overseas” he added.
Vance told an audience member who asked about competing with China that he wants to protect the U.S.manufacturing sector and reaffirmed the ticket’s position that tariffs are the most effective way to compete with China.
“When Kamala Harris goes against tariffs and she attacks tariffs all the time, what she’s effectively saying is we’re going to let slave laborers build products and then bring it into our country, undercutting the jobs and the industries of America,” Vance said. “We’ve got to cut that crap out.” Vance said, claiming China “pays slaves $3 a day.”
Several times during the event in Reading, Vance encouraged those to go to a website run by the Trump campaign that promotes voting by mail. Trump criticized vote by mail during his previous presidential election, but has appeared to embrace it over the past few months. But on multiple occasions in Pennsylvania this year he’s criticized vote by mail, calling it “corrupt.”
Vance will be in Pennsylvania for several additional campaign events next week. Harris and Trump will both be in Pennsylvania on Monday; she will appear at a rally in Erie, and Trump will campaign in Montgomery County.
Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski in her office, displays real and fake electors' documents | Wisconsin Examiner photo
Over the past four years, Congress and state governments have worked hard to prevent the aftermath of the 2024 election from descending into the chaos and threats to democracy that occurred around the 2020 U.S. presidential election.
A new federal law cleaned up ambiguities that could allow for election subversion. New state laws have been enacted across the country to protect election workers from threats and harassment. Technology experts are working to confront misinformation campaigns and vulnerabilities in election systems.
But untouched in all of these improvements is the underlying structure of presidential elections – the Electoral College.
Here is a quick refresher about how the system works today:
After citizens vote in the presidential election in November, the Constitution assigns the task of choosing the president and vice president to electors. Electors are allocated based on the number of congressional representatives and senators from each state. The electors meet in their separate state capitals in December to cast their votes. The ballots are then counted by the vice president in front of members of Congress on Jan. 6 to determine which ticket has won a majority.
The widely varied pros and cons of the Electoral College have already been aired and debated extensively. But there is another problem that few have recognized: The Electoral College makes American democracy more vulnerable to people with malicious intent.
A state-centric system
The original brilliance of the Electoral College has become one of its prime weaknesses. The unusual system was devised at the Constitutional Convention in 1787 as a compromise that prioritized the representation of state interests. This focus helped win over reluctant delegates who feared that the most populous states would disregard small states’ concerns.
Nowadays nearly every state has chosen to award all of its electoral votes to whichever ticket wins more votes in the state. Even if a candidate gets 51% of the popular vote, use of the winner-take-all rule in these states means they will be awarded 100% of the electoral votes.
This is what leads to the “battleground state” phenomenon: Presidential candidates focus their rallies, advertisements and outreach efforts on the few states where campaigns could actually tip the balance. In 2020, 77% of all campaign ads ran in just six states that were home to only 21% of the nation’s population.
In this way, the Electoral College system naturally draws campaign attention to issues that might tip the balance in these hotbeds of competitiveness.
Wisconsin’s electors meet in the Capitol on Monday, Dec. 14, 2020 to deliver the state’s 10 electoral votes for Joe Biden. (Pool photo by Morry Gash)
A road map for bad behavior
By doing so, the system essentially identifies the states where malicious people who want to alter or undermine the election results should focus their energies. The handful of battleground states are efficient targets for harmful efforts that would otherwise not have much success meddling in elections.
Someone who wants to infiltrate the election system would have difficulty causing problems in a national popular vote because it is decided by thousands of disconnected local jurisdictions. In contrast, the Electoral College makes it convenient to sow mischief by only meddling in a few states widely seen as decisive.
In 2020, the lawsuits, hacking, alternative electors, recount efforts and other challenges did not target states perceived by some to have weaker security because they had less strict voter ID laws or voter signature requirements. Opponents of the results also did not go after states such as California and Texas that account for a large share of the country’s voters.
Rather, all of the firepower was trained on about a half-dozen swing states. By one account, there were 82 lawsuits filed in the days after the 2020 presidential election, 77 of which targeted six swing states. The “fake elector” schemes in which supporters of Donald Trump put forward unofficial lists of electors occurred in only seven battleground states.
The popular vote alternative
A majority of Americans say in surveys they prefer to scrap the Electoral College system and simply award the presidency to the person who gets the most votes nationwide.
Dumping the Electoral College would have a variety of consequences, but it would immediately remove opportunities for disrupting elections via battleground states. A close election in Arizona or Pennsylvania would no longer provide leverage for upending the national result.
Any election system that does not rely on states as the puzzle pieces for deciding elections would remove opportunities like these. It could also seriously reduce disputes over recounts and suspicion about late-night ballot counts, long lines and malfunctioning voting machines because those local concerns would be swamped by the national vote totals.
There is no ideal way to run a presidential election. The Electoral College has survived in its current form for almost two centuries, a remarkable run for democracy. But in an era where intense scrutiny of just a few states is the norm, the system also lights the way for those who would harm democracy.
A protester holds a Trump flag inside the U.S .Capitol Building near the Senate chamber on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police are welcoming a special security designation from the Department of Homeland Security for Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress will gather to certify the Electoral College vote count for the winner of the presidential election.
The last time Congress undertook the responsibility, a pro-Trump mob attacked the building, eventually breaking through police barricades, severely injuring officers and disrupting the process.
The rioters were spurred on by false claims from former president and current Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump that he won the 2020 election when he had in fact lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College.
Members of Congress and then-Vice President Mike Pence were evacuated or told to shelter in place in their offices as one of the most secure buildings in the country was overrun.
Federal prosecutors have since secured convictions or plea deals for hundreds of the people who attacked law enforcement and obstructed Congress’ responsibility to certify the vote that day.
United States Capitol Police Chief Tom Manger released a written statement Thursday saying the “National Special Security Event designation will further strengthen our work to protect the Members of Congress and the legislative process.”
“The United States Capitol Police has been preparing for the January 6 count, as well as the Inauguration, for several months,” Manger added. “We have made hundreds of changes and improvements over the past three years, and we are confident that the Capitol will be safe and secure.”
National Special Security Events, or NSSEs, are somewhat expected for major events, like State of the Union speeches, presidential inaugurations and the presidential nominating conventions that the Democrats and Republicans hold every four years.
This, however, will be the first time that one has been issued for Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.
The designation means the U.S. Secret Service will be the lead federal law enforcement agency planning security for the event, despite it being held in the U.S. Capitol, where USCP typically holds the top jurisdiction.
“National Special Security Events are events of the highest national significance,” Eric Ranaghan, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Dignitary Protective Division, said in a written statement released Wednesday. “The U.S. Secret Service, in collaboration with our federal, state, and local partners are committed to developing and implementing a comprehensive and integrated security plan to ensure the safety and security of this event and its participants.”
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