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Officials place ‘unusual’ limits on DC National Guard ahead of riot, commander says

Officials place 'unusual' limits on DC National Guard ahead of riot, commander says

WASHINGTON – Pentagon officials placed “unusual” restrictions on the DC National Guard ahead of the Capitol riot, its commander told Senators on Wednesday, saying military commanders’ fears of a repeat of aggressive tactics used during the riot. Racial justice protests last year slowed decision-making and wasted time as violence from a pro-Trump mob escalated.

Military and federal security officials detailed in a joint Senate committee hearing the additional security blackouts that led to the failure to quell the January 6 mob attack. Major General William J. Walker, the commander of the DC National Guard, said he did not. receive authorization to mobilize troops more than three hours after requesting it.

The delay he described was longer than previously known and was revealed during the last hearing of lawmakers investigating the attack.

Days before the riot, the Pentagon had stripped General Walker of the power to rapidly deploy troops, he said. He said he was unable to move troops even from one traffic stop to another without permission from Ryan D. McCarthy, the secretary of the military. After General Walker obtained approval for the deployment, the guard arrived at the Capitol a few minutes later at 5:20 p.m. and helped re-establish the security perimeter on the east side of the building.

General Walker said he could have had 150 soldiers in the complex a few hours earlier. The violent outburst that lasted for nearly five hours injured nearly 140 police officers and left five dead.

“That number could have made a difference,” General Walker said of the possibility of deploying his troops earlier.

“Seconds counted,” he added. “Minutes counted.”

Responding to questions from senators, General Walker said he believed there was a double standard in military decision-making, pointing out the differences between the quick and aggressive tactics he was allowed to use during protests. last spring and last summer of the murders of black men by the police. and the slower response to violence from Trump supporters. He said military officials had expressed concerns about the optics of sending troops to Capitol Hill to subdue the Americans.

“Senior military leaders didn’t think it looked good” and didn’t think “it would be a good lens,” General Walker said. “The word I kept hearing was ‘optics’ of it.”

When asked if a similar debate took place last year, General Walker said no.

“It was never discussed in the week of June,” he said. “It was never discussed on July 4, when we were supporting the city. This was never discussed on August 28, when we supported the city.

“Did you think this was unusual?” asked Senator Gary Peters of Michigan, the Democratic leader of the Homeland Security Committee.

“I did it,” General Walker said.

The restrictions were put in place because of the Guard’s widely criticized crackdown on mostly peaceful protesters in Washington in June, said Robert G. Salesses, a senior Defense Department official during his testimony at the ‘hearing.

He said Mr. McCarthy and other military officials, including Christopher C. Miller, the acting Defense Secretary, delayed their decision to deploy forces on Jan.6 because they wanted to know more about it. that the troops were going to do. They had assumed deployment authority over the DC National Guard to avoid a repeat of last year, Mr Salesses said.

“Secretary Miller wanted to make the decisions about how the National Guard was going to be employed on that day,” Mr. Salesses said.

General Walker recounted how the day unfolded as Trump supporters protesting Congress’ certification of election results turned into violence. He said he received a “frantic call” at 1:49 p.m. from Steven A. Sund, then Capitol Police Chief, about half an hour before the rioters crossed the Capitol.

“Chief Sund, voice trembling with emotion, indicated that there was a serious emergency on Capitol Hill,” General Walker said. “He asked for immediate help from as many available National Guardsmen as I could find.”

He said he immediately alerted army leaders and even put troops on buses “ready to go to Capitol.” But Miller didn’t approve the request until 3:04 p.m., after military officials expressed concerns about the optics. General Walker was not informed that Pentagon officials authorized his request until 5:08 p.m. – three hours and 19 minutes after receiving Chief Sund’s plea.

“I can’t stop thinking about the hours that have passed, the people who have been injured and the officers whose lives have changed forever,” said Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota and chair of the Settlement Committee. Senate. “We have to understand why, on that day, it took so long for the Department of Defense to deploy the Guard.”

After hearing General Walker’s testimony, Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, the committee’s senior Republican, told reporters he wanted to hear from senior military officials.

“We will certainly have questions for Secretary McCarthy and for Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller,” Blunt said. “It’s definitely going to take an opportunity to ask them about their perspective from their perspective on why this decision-making process has gone so terribly wrong.”

The testimony came at the last bipartisan investigative hearing of the Homeland Security and Rules Committees. In a hearing last week, Chief Robert J. Contee III of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department said he was “stunned” by the slow deployment of the National Guard on January 6, noting that, then Even as the violence escalated, the military had expressed reluctance to send troops.

At this hearing, the first joint oversight meeting of the two committees, three former senior Capitol security officials deflected responsibility for the failures that contributed to the riot, blaming the other agencies on each other. and at one point even to a subordinate for the blackouts that allowed hundreds of Trump’s supporters to storm the Capitol.

Officials said the FBI and the intelligence community failed to provide adequate warnings that rioters were planning to take over the Capitol and that the Pentagon had been too slow to allow Guard troops to assist them. Police forces overwhelmed after the start of the attack.

In addition to General Walker and Mr Salesses, the officials who testified on Wednesday were Melissa Smislova, a senior official in the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis, and Jill Sanborn, the FBI’s deputy director of its division of fight against terrorism.

After the attack, law enforcement officials focused on rioters from militias and extremist groups as part of their investigation. Ms Sanborn testified that few of the 257 rioters arrested so far were the subject of an FBI investigation prior to the attack.

“I can only remember one of the people who were investigated before,” she said.

The testimony came as Capitol Police said they were increasing security this week on Capitol Hill, warning of “potential threats to members of Congress or the Capitol complex.”

Testifying at a House hearing, Yogananda D. Pittman, the acting Capitol Police chief, told lawmakers his agency had received “worrying” information about possible threats to the Capitol by Thursday. But she said the information was sensitive to law enforcement and that she would only share it as part of a closed-door briefing. She assured committee members that the police would be ready.

Chief Pittman noted threats to lawmakers were “through the roof,” increasing by nearly 94% in the first two months of this year in 2020.

After January 6, the Capitol Police Directorate is asking for nearly $ 620 million in total spending, an increase of almost 21% from current levels to pay for new equipment, training and 212 additional officers for assignments. such as a permanent safeguard force. Chief Pittman also told lawmakers she would work with the Capitol architect to design more “physical hardening” of the building after it was overrun by rioters.

Carl Hulse contribution to reports.

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‘Race and Place Matter’: Biden adviser tackles coronavirus inequalities

'Race and Place Matter': Biden adviser tackles coronavirus inequalities

WASHINGTON – President Biden has repeatedly stated that racial equity will be at the heart of his response to the coronavirus. Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith is responsible for making this happen.

A Yale epidemiologist who grew up in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Dr. Nunez-Smith is the chair of Mr. Biden’s Coronavirus Equity Task Force, tasked with advising the president on how to allocate resources and ” reach underserved populations to fight a pandemic that has had a devastating impact on people of color. Blacks and Latinos are almost twice as likely as whites to die from Covid-19.

“Make no mistake – beating this pandemic is hard work,” Dr Nunez-Smith told reporters on Wednesday, after the White House appointed members of the task force. “And defeating this pandemic while ensuring that everyone in every community has a fair chance to stay safe or recover their health, well, that’s hard work and good work.”

Dr Nunez-Smith spoke to the New York Times about the challenges ahead. This interview is edited and condensed for clarity.

Q. You have only been in office for a few weeks. What have you learned?

A. What is great is to be facing the audience. I hear Americans everyday, every day. People write all the time with their own experiences.

What do they say?

People might write and say it’s great that you get the elderly vaccinated, but one person wrote – they were Hispanic – and said, “Culturally we keep the older members of our family at home, and it is a multigenerational household. Or: “I am an 82 year old person living in place X and I do not know how to register for my vaccine”. “

So what do you do when you receive this kind of letter?

A. We are going to set up a system to respond formally, but during this transition period, I would simply respond to them and simply say, “Thank you”. And we were trying to connect people with their local resources. And people write out of gratitude, even though I haven’t done anything for them yet.

What do they say when they write out of gratitude?

A lot of people say they are really happy that there is a commitment to fairness. This is by far the dominant message that I receive. I did not expect that.

Obviously, you can’t address racial disparities in health care overnight, so what are you aiming for, at least in the short term? And then in the long term.

We are charged with making recommendations for early intervention and then paving the way for equity in the recovery. We talk a lot about vaccines. But we cannot forget everything else. We are thinking of essential frontline workers and others who still struggle to have inadequate protection in the workplace. Access to testing is also uneven. It’s exciting to see new technologies emerge, but we also need to make sure that everyone can benefit from all scientific discoveries.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently released a report showing that they have data on race and ethnicity for only 52% of those vaccinated. Were you surprised by this?

I can’t say I was surprised. It’s a big part of my academic reality.

Is tackling the data problem the most immediate thing you can do to get the biggest impact in the shortest time?

It is fundamental for us. We cannot follow or intervene on what we cannot see. The absence of data is in itself a reflection on the choices we make. In a march for fairness, you must have data to guide that work. This is only a first principle.

What are you going to do then to improve it?

I often say, “Race and location matter a lot to health outcomes in our country.” So we think of things like postal codes, areas with socially vulnerable geographic markers, and the integration of our rural communities as well. The idea is that we can have a toolbox of different metrics that we can use and track. We’re never going to hang our hat entirely on a data point.

I am optimistic that we will get to a place where we will be able to run in a data driven manner. I am very optimistic and confident about this.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that in New York City, among hospital workers, the reluctance to vaccinate African Americans they see is through the roof. What are you doing about it? I know it must be on your mind.

This worries me a lot. And, you know, the governor is right about that observation, and it’s playing out across the country, both in hospitals and in long-term care facilities. We’re seeing about 38 percent participation among long-term care workers who identify as black and brown.

But there are no transport barriers, as the vaccine is given at work.

There are structural barriers. I have heard many stories that invitations to register for vaccination were sent by email, and they never even activated their email account because they were working in environmental services or they worked in dietetic services. So they didn’t even know they were invited.

Or there were others who said after the second hit you might want to take a day off or something, but maybe they didn’t have any sick days. And they didn’t want to feel bad after being vaccinated. So I think in every conversation about reluctance or confidence in vaccines, we are forced to think a little deeper.

I have family members who write to me and say they think it causes infertility.

Members of your own family?

Oh sure! On the Internet, it’s bad. The misinformation is out there and travels fast, so we’re going to be really intentional about it. At the end of the day, you need to know who people trust. My cousin did not write to me because I have a role in administration. She was just, like, you’re my cousin and you’re in health care. I’ve had a lot of these incoming texts.

How often do you see the president and what is his message to you?

We regularly inform the president, the Covid-19 response team. Its message is clear and consistent: we must lead with fairness at work. It is a clear call from the president and vice president. I appreciate how often they want to hear from us directly.

Is there a special reward for you being a black woman and working for an administration that made history by putting the first black woman in the vice president’s office?

It’s phenomenal. I am a parent. I have three young biracial children and they were thrilled when we had our first biracial president. And now to see her make history this way, it’s amazing.

So for now, are you dividing your time between Yale and Washington? What’s your plan?

This is the plan. I am honored to chair the task force and am trying to get out of this role.

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Amazon Union Drive takes place in an unlikely location

Amazon Union Drive takes place in an unlikely location

But the company also began to face pressure from its employees, climate change and other issues, and from many warehouse workers across the country who felt encouraged to speak out. The attention will only increase with Amazon poised to surpass Walmart as the nation’s largest employer in a few years.

The success of the Bessemer warehouse, which only opened in March, could inspire workers in the burgeoning e-commerce industry more broadly, said Nelson Lichtenstein, a labor historian at the University of California at Santa Barbara. “If you can do it in Alabama, we can definitely do it here in Southern California,” he said. “It would have a huge ripple effect.”

In a statement, Heather Knox, an Amazon spokesperson, said the company does not believe the union “represents the majority of the opinions of our employees,” adding, “Our employees choose to work at Amazon because we offer some of the best jobs available. wherever we hire, and we encourage anyone to compare our total rewards, health benefits, and work environment to any other company with similar jobs. “

The company has created a website that suggests union dues – which could add up to around $ 9.25 per week for a full-time employee – will leave workers with less money to pay for school supplies.

“Why not save some money and get the books, gifts, and things you want?” the website says.

An early version of the website featured photos of happy-looking young workers, including an image of a black man leaping through the air that appeared to be from a free photo website. On the site, the man and a woman are pictured in an image titled “Excited African American couple jumping, having fun”.

Asked about the site, Amazon called it “educational” and said it “helps employees understand the facts about joining a union.” (Last Tuesday evening, the company removed archival photos, including that of the man who was jumping.)

Race has often been at the heart of organizing campaigns in the South. A century ago, the multiracial steel and coal miners’ unions around Birmingham were a “cockpit of labor activism,” said Lichtenstein.

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How this place (in Mozambique) got its leopard

How this place (in Mozambique) got its leopard

They are also the most versatile and unpredictable of the Panthera crew, both stealthy and brash, antisocial and hip. “They have a little attitude towards them,” said Alan M. Wilson of the Royal Veterinary College, who has studied the leopard. movement patterns and athletic performance. If you irritate the leopards, he says, “they’ll come back to have a conversation with you.”

New research on leopards in Tanzania suggests that males and females avoid potentially unpleasant “conversations” about food by adhering to different hunting styles and schedules. Males are night hunters and, being 50% larger than females, they will target large fleshy quarries like gemsbok and kudu. Females are active from dawn to mid-morning and again to dusk, and they will consume just about any living material they are found on, from antelopes and baboons to lizards, birds, rodents and dung beetles.

Mother leopards have an added incentive to minimize the risk of meeting an unknown male. Researchers have found that the rate of infanticide in leopards is quite high: as many as four in 10 leopard deaths occur at the mouths of adult males who, by destroying the little leopards they encounter, may simply push the mothers away. local state of receptive fertility.

For this and other reasons, leopards are very territorial, always roaming the neighborhood to keep an eye out for pets and quickly identify strangers. “The way we think of lonely cats is flawed,” said Dr. Hunter. “Leopards might not hang out together, but they have a rich social network that we don’t always observe, and they know as much about their network as lions.”

Hostility is by no means inevitable. Males are as accommodating to the offspring they have likely fathered as they can be fatal to those they don’t have. “A male assumes the pups in his territory are his, and he’s very protective and even playful with them,” Dr. Hunter said.

One thing leopards don’t do is boast about the size of their kingdom through thunderous roars. Leopards share with lions, tigers, and jaguars the extended larynx and bony hyoid apparatus that allows the Big Four elite to roar, but the leopard’s roar is categorically low-key, “more like sawing a tree,” said Mrs Bouley, or even to the cough of a domestic cat.

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Hush! In Los Angeles, New Years Eve parties always take place.

Hush! In Los Angeles, New Years Eve parties always take place.

Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, busy parties have mostly been closed in Los Angeles, leading to a culture of secrecy on social media.

But for all of those who can’t imagine leaving their homes right now, there are others who are quite ready to celebrate the arrival of 2021 in the company of foreign relatives, despite calls from health officials. public.

Those New Years Eve parties in Los Angeles, where more than 14,000 positive coronavirus tests are reported in a day, include Spanky’s, which promises a laid-back affair in an “indoor / outdoor” downtown location. The entry price includes a “10 min Covid-19 antigen test”, according to the invitation

An iOS app called Vybe Together encouraged users to “Engage Your Rebel” and “Party” and was designed to organize and promote underground parties to its audience. After gaining attention this week, its website went down and Apple pulled the app from its store.

Eventbrite, an event management and ticketing platform, has also been a popular option for people who throw parties. A recent “Maskerade” in a Los Angeles mansion ($ 80, open bar, round-trip bus to party) was announced there. The invitation, which sparked anger on social media, was removed from Eventbrite’s website.

“Our community policy has always prohibited events that promote or contain illegal behavior,” an Eventbrite spokesperson said in a statement. The company is investigating the complaints and says it wants to promote digital gatherings during the pandemic.

Those who still want to party will come back looking for celebrations in a retro way: via private Instagrams, DMs and invitations with no downloadable details, just an address that will be texted by midnight with a request to wear a mask.

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The place most affected by the virus

The place most affected by the virus

Photographs and text by Adam ferguson

Gallup’s hospitals are almost full. Most of the stores are empty. The unemployment rate in the county where the city is located is one and a half times the national average. Earlier this month, there were the most cases per capita of any metropolitan area in the United States, according to a New York Times database.

While the pandemic has swept across the country steadily in recent months, places like Gallup have been among the hardest hit.

PictureThe Lions Club rodeo was held every June at Red Rock Park. It was canceled this year.

Perched between the Navajo Nation to the north and the Zuni Nation to the south, nearly half of Gallup’s residents are Native Americans, according to census data.

Native American communities have been particularly vulnerable to the virus, accounting for nearly 40% of all cases in New Mexico at one point, even though these communities represent less than a tenth of the state’s population. And some who have so far been spared the virus are nonetheless reeling from the consequences of the economic downturn.

Eric-Paul Riege, a 26-year-old artist, is the son of a veteran and hotel manager and a Navajo mother who taught him the art of weaving. Her work has appeared in galleries and collections across the country. But the projects paid for this year have almost dried up.

When I first met Mr. Riege, he was working shifts at a restaurant called Grandpa’s Grill, processing take out orders.

Route 66 passes through Gallup. The city has relied on tourism to boost its economy, relying on visitors to shop at local galleries and counters selling Native American arts and crafts. But the limits of activity in the region made this difficult.

As the region experienced an extreme wave of virus cases in May, the city was locked down and state police and National Guard agents barricaded highway exits to prevent people who were not living for Gallup to enter town unless it was an emergency.

Last month, long after the barricades fell, trading posts were open but closed for shopping inside, limiting the chances of anyone passing by to stop and browse.

The iconic El Rancho hotel, where John Wayne, Katharine Hepburn, and other Hollywood stars stayed, was about a quarter full.

Gallup is in many ways a relic of conquered Indigenous lands and American expansion. Many trading posts, for example, are owned and operated by whites. These little stores lie in the shadow of McDonald’s, Walmart, and other big American franchises, where cars and people often overflow parking lots now.

Bill Lee, the head of the Gallup Chamber of Commerce, said there was a growing economic divide due to restrictions put in place by local and state officials. Small businesses often have to operate with more stringent guidelines, including rules preventing in-store purchases, while large outlets, especially those deemed essential, might operate with fewer limits. “The governor picked the winners and the losers,” Mr. Lee told me.

When the barricades were put up earlier this year, Walmart was inundated with shoppers stocking up for weeks, mostly because grocery stores on native lands are scarce. The barricades, however, also had the effect of preventing members of Native American groups from shopping in the city.

Indigenous groups in the region have long suffered from a lack of information and resources.

Even before the pandemic, the Indian Health Service, the government program that provides health care to 2.2 million members of the country’s tribal communities, had severe shortages in funding and supplies, in addition to a lack of aging physicians and facilities.

The virus has made these weaknesses even more apparent.

Amid the devastation of the pandemic, some people have been lucky. Dan Bonaguidi, the son of the town mayor who owns Michele’s Ready Mix Rock and Recycle with his wife, Michele, is one of them. His business flourished as government grants in the pandemic led to greater demand for building materials for home improvement and projects such as new or expanded health care facilities.

But even with bright spots, there are a lot more stories of empty or closed businesses – big and small.

After an oil and natural gas boom in New Mexico and Texas in recent years, the pandemic has reduced demand and prices for oil. Marathon Petroleum announced in August plans to shut down operations in the area and lay off more than 200 workers – about 1% of the city’s population.

Operations like the Marathon are vital to Gallup’s economy, and job losses helped push the region’s unemployment rate to 10.6% in October. Raul Sanchez is one of the workers who lost his job.

As I walked past his home on a hill overlooking the western part of town one afternoon two days before Thanksgiving, Mr. Sanchez was tinkering with a red pickup truck. He had worked at Marathon for 10 years. “No other job in this city pays so much,” said Sanchez, 39.

“It’s going to have an effect on us,” city mayor Louis Bonaguidi said earlier this year of the closure of the Marathon plant. “It will definitely affect the housing market. But it will also affect all businesses. “

When I walked through Gallup the day before Thanksgiving, the last few minutes of sunlight lit up the tracks of the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. Despite the city’s hardships, I could still feel a sense of pride in the community as I drove.

But the sense of vulnerability was just as apparent. Even before the outbreak of the pandemic, more than a quarter of the city’s residents lived in poverty, and those numbers have increased this year.

Shortly after my visit to Rehoboth Medical Center, I saw a group of Navajo men lower a bronze-colored casket into a grave in a cemetery 50 miles north of Gallup. It wasn’t the only virus-related funeral planned that week.

Production by Renee Melides

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Are cities a safe place to live during a pandemic?

Are cities a safe place to live during a pandemic?

In editorials published in the spring on the Brookings website and in NextCity, a nonprofit news organization, Dr Loh and his co-authors argued that some of the very traits that can make cities more dangerous during a pandemic, like population density, may also make them more beneficial in the event of a pandemic.

Urban areas and populated cities may offer wider safety nets than rural areas, Dr Loh said. New York, for example, has many hospitals, specialists, equipment and resources for coronavirus testing.

Cities also tend to offer a greater variety of social support services, said Jenifer E. Allsworth, an epidemiologist at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, including various childcare and public transportation options. (So ​​far, public transport does not appear to contribute significantly to the spread of the coronavirus, provided there is adequate ventilation and drivers wear masks.) And cities tend to have more delivery options for all kinds of items, including food, medicine and cleaning. Provisions.

It is also easier for small businesses like restaurants to use delivery services to stay afloat when there are more potential customers per square mile, a boon to city dwellers who own or operate these businesses. depend. And cities tend to have more job opportunities than rural areas, Dr Loh said.

“Urban areas are more resilient because they have more diverse economies,” she added.

Ultimately, all the experts agreed that when it comes to reducing the risk of getting sick, behavior is more important than location.

“This virus is relentless and it will hunt down anyone who ignores social distancing practices,” said Dr. Lee W. Riley, professor of infectious diseases at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley. “So it’s not necessarily the type of space people live in, but the type of behavior people adopt in their spaces that ultimately determines who gets infected.”

New York City was able to fend off the virus in late spring and summer by implementing essential public health measures such as shutting down non-essential businesses, adopting masks and encouraging social distancing. Other areas that did not take such precautions, such as parts of the south and upper Midwest, experienced severe surges.

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Where the electoral struggle takes place in the courts

Where the electoral struggle takes place in the courts

As Joseph R. Biden Jr. draws closer to victory in the presidential race, President Trump and the Republican Party have stepped up their efforts to stop the counting of the ballots and challenge the ballots of Democratic voters in the framework of legal proceedings across the country.

Nearly a dozen lawsuits were already pending in courts in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Georgia, four key states where Mr. Biden leads or has won the vote count.

But none of them seem – at least not yet – to provide Mr. Trump with what he would need to win: the rejection of a sufficient number of Democratic ballots in enough states to nullify any Biden victory. .

If Mr. Trump and the Republicans fail to find those rejections in court, they could – and will try – to do so through recounts, but the bar is raised there, too.

Here are the cases currently underway or subject to a potential appeal. All were initiated by Mr. Trump, his party or his allies.

Status: at the Supreme Court of the United States

In September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that election officials could accept ballots that were postmarked on election day but arrived up to three days later. The Republicans then sued and the case went to the United States Supreme Court.

But in late October, the Supreme Court refused to intercede, saying it was too close to election day to make such a decision, but left open the possibility of a decision at a later date.

On Wednesday, the Trump campaign filed a motion to intervene in the case, and on Friday the Pennsylvania Republican Party sought to join the effort.

But that fight could turn out to be fruitless, as Mr Biden’s advance in the state is based on ballots issued on Election Day and is expected to increase. Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar said Thursday that there were not a large number of late ballots. Friday evening, no follow-up had been given to this case.

Status: pending in state court and resolved in federal court

On Thursday morning, a Pennsylvania state court awarded Mr. Trump a small victory. A judge ruled that election observers from the Trump campaign, who were allowed to stand 10 feet from the vote count at the Philadelphia Convention Center, could move closer, six feet away.

By the end of the day, however, advocates for the Trump campaign had filed an emergency petition in federal court claiming city election officials were not respecting the state court ruling and asking that the tally be taken. in Philadelphia be delayed.

In a hastily scheduled hearing Thursday night, however, Mr. Trump’s campaign admitted that a “non-zero number” of Republican observers had in fact turned up.

“So what’s the problem?” Asked Judge Paul S. Diamond.

The Trump campaign finally agreed to drop its demand to stop the vote count after Judge Diamond, who was appointed by President George W. Bush, allowed a total of 120 observers at the convention center – 60 for Democrats and 60 for Republicans. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has yet to rule on the issue of observers.

Status: pending in state and federal courts

Republicans have taken legal action in federal and state courts alleging Ms Boockvar provided inappropriate advice to counties by allowing them to contact voters whose ballots were rejected due to errors so those voters could correct or “cure” their ballots or vote. provisional ballots.

Both cases focus on the votes in Montgomery County, where officials say only 98 ballots could be affected.

A federal case judge, also appointed by George W. Bush, expressed skepticism at a hearing Wednesday on the validity of the Republicans’ challenge. A decision is pending.

Status: pending in state court

The Trump campaign has also sued Ms Boockvar over her decision to extend by three days, until November 12, the deadline by which mail-in voters must submit documents confirming their identity if they vote for the first time in certain districts. It is not known how many votes this case could affect.

Status: call waiting at state level

Mr. Trump’s campaign filed a lawsuit ahead of election day to try to stop the processing of mail-in ballots in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. The campaign alleged that county officials were not giving Republican observers adequate access to monitor the processing of mail-in ballots and that the county’s signature-matching system violated electoral equality protection laws because it was not used elsewhere in the state.

A judge rejected the Trump campaign’s request earlier this week, citing a lack of evidence. An appeals court dismissed the Republicans’ request to order an immediate end to the count, but agreed to hear arguments next week.

Republicans said on Thursday they would drop their case in exchange for a county deal to expand their observers’ access to polling counters, but Democrats refused to agree to a dismissal, so the case remains. pending. Republicans have since filed a similar lawsuit in federal court.

Status: resolved in federal court

In an effective extension of the state’s trial, two Nevada Republican House candidates filed a lawsuit on Thursday, alleging that there were “lax procedures for authenticating ballots” in Clark County and that more than 3,000 ballots had been cast by ineligible voters, including some “On behalf of deceased voters.”

The case was assigned to Judge Andrew P. Gordon, appointed by President Barack Obama, who dismissed it on Friday. The two Republican candidates who brought the case can however appeal the decision.

Status: pending in state court

It was one of the strangest election claims. Hours after the Arizona polls closed, a story ricocheted the internet saying that dozens, if not hundreds, of ballots across the state had not been counted because voters filled them with Sharpies with felt tip and not with ball point pens.

Even though cybersecurity officials from the Department of Homeland Security urged people to ignore the story, crowds came outside a polling station in Maricopa County, shouting about “SharpieGate”.

Maricopa County voter Laurie Aguilera on Wednesday filed a lawsuit with help from a conservative Indiana legal group, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, claiming that her ballot – and those of countless other people – hadn’t been read correctly by voting scanners. because she had used a Sharpie and the “ink was bleeding”. Ms Aguilera asked a judge to allow all voters who filled out their ballots with Sharpies to “cure” them.

Thursday, the Maricopa County Elections Department issued a statement saying the Sharpies were in fact “manufacturer recommended” of the vote tabulation machines the county uses. Later in the day, the state attorney general’s office issued a letter noting that the use of Sharpies in Maricopa County “did not result in deprivation of the right to vote”.

Status: Thrown by the county court

The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit in Georgia on Wednesday, claiming that a witness observed that 53 late ballots in Chatham County were not properly stored, potentially allowing them to mingle with ballots in in due course, and demanded that the counting of ballots in the county be stopped. .

But Chatham County Superior Court Judge James Bass dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, saying there was no evidence that those 53 ballots were received after the 7 p.m. deadline and that there was no evidence that county officials had broken the law.

The Trump campaign or its Republican allies did not say on Friday whether an appeal was pending.

The Trump campaign filed a lawsuit on Wednesday asking a state judge to stop the counting of the votes, alleging that his observers had been blocked from meaningful access to the counting rooms. The campaign also demanded access to surveillance footage of state ballot boxes.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit Thursday, noting that the tally was over. Mr. Biden won the state and maintains a lead of nearly 150,000 votes. But it’s not clear whether the Trump campaign will please.

Georgia: Brad Raffensperger, Secretary of State, announced on Friday that the state would conduct a recount in the presidential race, saying the results would fall within the margin of a recount. “We’re literally looking for a lower margin than a large high school,” said Gabriel Sterling, director of voting implementation in Georgia.

Wisconsin: Mr. Trump would be entitled to a recount in Wisconsin as long as the margin between him and Mr. Biden remains below 1% of the vote. Preliminary state results show Mr. Trump lags by about six-tenths of 1%.

A request for a recount cannot be made until all 72 counties in the state have submitted their results to the Wisconsin Election Commission, which is expected by November 17. The Trump campaign should pay for a statewide recount unless the margin narrows to less than one. quarter of 1 percent.

Pennsylvania: State law requires an automatic recount if the result is half a percent or less. If the margin is larger than that, Mr. Trump could still ask for a statewide recount, but he would have to pay for it.

Arizona: State law requires a recount if the margin is one-tenth of one percent or less – otherwise, it cannot be requested.

Nevada: Any candidate or campaign can request a recount within three days of the final statewide results poll, regardless of the margin. There is no automatic recount of states.