Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Friday, Nov. 1, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some very pressing stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on just four days before the presidential election.
Early voting numbers reveal some very peculiar patterns, the lawsuit against the world’s richest man and his million-dollar giveaways hits a snag, and officials in the Pacific Northwest are looking for a suspect accused of setting fire to ballot boxes.
Also, a university student has been charged with illegal voting, and a top government official says depending on how the election pans out, big changes could be coming to your health care.
Early Voting Patterns Change
The University of Florida Election Lab says that so far, more than 32 million people have cast early votes in person at polling places, while another 28 million have already returned their mail-in ballots.However, looking only at those people who have voted in person, the university’s election figures show that nearly 1 million more Republicans have voted than Democrats.
So far, over a million more Democrats have returned their mail-in ballots compared to Republicans. The numbers also show that a total of around 19 million Democrats have requested mail-in ballots, compared to 13 million Republicans.
Looking now at the very important swing states, officials in Georgia say that around half of the registered voters there have already cast their ballots. Additionally, over 2 million people have voted in Michigan so far, and in nearby Wisconsin, more than a million others have cast their ballots in advance of Election Day.
Meanwhile, the election lab numbers show that Republicans are leading Democrats in early voting in both Arizona and Nevada, another pair of critical battleground states.
Ballot figures also point out that Republicans are leading Democrats in terms of overall early voting in North Carolina, but in Pennsylvania, which only reports mail-in ballots, Democrats have a sizable lead.
You should know that unlike in 2020, both Republicans and former President Donald Trump have encouraged their supporters to cast their votes ahead of time rather than waiting until Election Day, and that in Georgia and North Carolina, the early turnout has already broken records.
Lawsuit on Hold After Elon Musk’s Legal Maneuver
The lawsuit brought against Musk over his randomly selected $1 million giveaways to registered voters was just placed on hold after lawyers for the billionaire removed the case to federal court.Yesterday, a Philadelphia judge said that he no longer had jurisdiction over the case following the maneuver. So you know, the term referred to as “removing cases” is a common legal procedure that moves lawsuits from a state court to a federal court, and it can be done at the privilege of the defendants.
However, the federal judges who are assigned these removed cases can decide whether or not to keep them in the federal court, or whether to send them back to the state court.
Earlier this week, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner sued Musk and his political action committee called America PAC over their daily million-dollar giveaways to registered voters in Pennsylvania and other swing states.
The DA alleged that the scheme constitutes an illegal lottery, and he asked a state court to stop it right away.
The lawyers for Musk argued that the case deals with a federal political action committee, and they said that therefore, the issue should be governed by both federal law and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
At yesterday’s hearing, an attorney for the DA’s office suggested that Musk and his legal team were using procedural maneuvers to run out the clock. He also cast doubt on the idea that the giveaways were random, but argued that even if they were, it was still an illegal lottery.
Update on Ballot Box Suspect
Officials say the unidentified man suspected of igniting fires in ballot drop boxes in both Oregon and Washington state is a metalworker and he might be planning more attacks.A spokesman for the police in Portland, Oregon, said that the man had a great deal of experience in both metal fabrication and welding before he set off a number of incendiary devices in the city and in nearby Vancouver, Washington.
Officials describe the suspect as a 30- to 40-year-old Caucasian man who’s either balding or with very short hair, and they have surveillance video showing the man driving an older model, dark-colored Volvo.
Earlier this week, a county official in the state of Washington said that around 475 damaged ballots were retrieved from a burned drop box in Vancouver, after a fire suppression device located inside the box failed to work properly.
Meanwhile, a county election official in Oregon said that only three ballots, out of hundreds, had been damaged in Portland. He also said the “fire suppression devices” located inside of that box extinguished any fire “almost immediately.”
One candidate running for Congress in Washington is now requesting an overnight law enforcement presence at all drop boxes in Clark County, Washington, right up until the election. She said that the “right to vote needs to be protected under all circumstances.”
By the way, investigators are still trying to identify a motive for the suspected arson attacks.
Chinese Citizen Charged With Voting Illegally in US
Michigan officials have charged a non-U.S. citizen Chinese student for casting an illegal vote at an early voting site in Ann Arbor on Oct. 27.A clerk had alerted officials about the illegal vote, which led to an investigation. The noncitizen was charged with one count of “unauthorized elector attempting to vote” and one count of perjury for “making a false affidavit for the purpose of securing voter registration.”
State officials say that the noncitizen’s vote was “an extremely isolated and rare event,” and they reiterated that Michigan’s elections remain secure. They also pointed out that a number of nationwide investigations have not found any evidence showing that a large number of noncitizens are registering to vote.
The Michigan secretary of state’s office confirmed to The Epoch Times that the defendant is a Chinese national who is a student at the University of Michigan.
The office said that the 19-year-old man had registered to vote on Oct. 27, that he established residency in part by using his student ID, and that he signed a document declaring that he was a U.S. citizen.
The student later contacted the city clerk’s office and tried to retract the illegal vote, but his ballot had already been processed through the tabulator, making it impossible to retract.
By the way, a congressman from Michigan wants the University of Michigan to expel the student for violating U.S. laws. He also says that the leaders in Michigan must take “serious action against the Chinese Communist Party’s attempts to influence our state.”
So you know, this is the first year that Michigan is offering early in-person voting, and the state’s attorney general has also opened up an investigation into this incident.
Speaker Proposes ‘Massive’ Obamacare Change
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is proposing a major change to the U.S. health care system, including the Affordable Care Act (ACA), if former President Donald Trump wins next week’s election.Earlier this week in Pennsylvania, Johnson said that “massive” health care reform would be a “big part of the agenda” during the first hundred days of a new Trump administration.
He also noted that the ACA, also known as Obamacare, is “deeply ingrained,” but he did not provide specific details about how the law would change.
Johnson said that the “regulatory state” has been “weaponized against the people” and is “crushing the free market” by inhibiting job creators and risk-takers. He added that taking the government out of the health care equation and replacing it with a free market is “better for everybody.”
In response to the comments, the Democratic Party said that both Johnson and Trump want to repeal the ACA. Johnson said he made “no such claim.”
So you know, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Department has said that more than 40 million people are insured through coverage related to provisions of the ACA.
By the way, a conservative think tank called The Heritage Foundation has estimated that Obamacare “doubled the cost of individual health insurance” between 2013 and 2019.
However, the White House recently said that the ACA has saved American families an average of around $800 each year. Another statement from the administration indicated that Vice President Kamala Harris would work to expand the program if she is elected to the nation’s highest office.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Friday edition of The Epoch Times News Brief.
Don’t forget the News Brief Motto: We’re portable, affordable, and always on-demand.
And finally, as we do each and every day on this program, we wrap everything up with a very notable quote, and this one comes to us from Cynthia Rylant, who said: “In November, the smell of food is different. It is an orange smell. A squash and pumpkin smell. It tastes like cinnamon and can fill up a house in the morning, can pull everyone from bed in a fog.”
Rylant is an American author and librarian. She has written more than 100 children’s books, including works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
For all of us here at The Epoch Times News Brief, I’m Bill Thomas.
The Epoch Times News Brief program is written each day by David Ross.
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Enjoy the remainder of your day and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow for the Saturday edition (the weekend edition) of The Epoch Times News Brief.
For now, let’s all continue to watch out for one another, and have an absolutely superb day today. Bye for now.
