Good morning, and welcome to The Epoch Times News Brief for Thursday, Oct. 31, 2024. I’m Bill Thomas, we have some very important stories to share with you right now, and here’s what’s going on just five days before the presidential election.
The U.S. Supreme Court issues a critical ruling dealing with voter rolls in Virginia, Vice President Kamala Harris responds to a controversial remark made by her boss, and one portion of the population is being less than truthful about how they lean politically.
Also, passwords to Colorado’s voting system have been leaked online, and the price of a highly coveted precious metal has just reached a record high.
Supreme Court Rules 6–3 on Virginia Voter Purge
The U.S. Supreme Court has just voted 6–3 to allow officials in Virginia to remove 1,600 suspected noncitizens from its voter rolls.The court did not provide any reasons for its decision; however, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, indicating that they would not have granted the order.
Virginia state officials had asked the high court for a ruling earlier this week. The request was made a day after a U.S. appeals court found unanimously that taking the names off the voter rolls within 90 days of an approaching federal election violated the National Voter Registration Act.
In its appeal, Virginia argued that the people who were removed from its voter rolls are not actual U.S. citizens, making that prior legal provision irrelevant to this case.
So you know, last week a district court ruled that state officials were free to cancel the voter registration of noncitizens individually, but could not systematically remove the entire group at once.
Virginia objected to the district court’s decision. It argued that the court was ordering the state and its election officials to put “over 1,600 self-identified noncitizens” back onto the voter rolls, in violation of both the law and common sense.
The state also said that the district court ruling would “impose significant cost, confusion, and hardship upon Virginia” in the critical week before the presidential election.
The Supreme Court’s new order suspends the district court’s ruling and returns the case to the appeals court for further hearings on the matter.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, called the new ruling “a victory for common sense and election fairness.” He said that clean voter rolls are an important part of the state’s comprehensive election integrity process.
Harris Responds to Biden’s ‘Garbage’ Comment
Yesterday, Vice President Kamala Harris said that she disagrees “with any criticism of people based on who they vote for” and that she’d “represent all Americans,” including those who do not vote for her.Her remarks were made on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland after Biden appeared to refer to former President Donald Trump’s supporters as “garbage” on Tuesday.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz also tried to downplay Biden’s remarks yesterday in an interview with ABC News, and he and Harris each pointed out that the president had later clarified his comments.
So you know, Biden made the controversial statement during a campaign call, and it referred to a joke delivered earlier this week about Puerto Rico during a Trump rally in New York City.
During his call, Biden pointed out that a comedian appearing at the rally had joked that Puerto Rico is a “floating island of garbage.” The president then told the people on the call that “the only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters.”
Later on, Biden said that his remark was referring to the comedian’s supporters and not people who support Trump. The president also condemned the comedian’s “demonization” of Latinos and his “hateful rhetoric.”
However, both Republicans and campaign representatives for Trump reacted to Biden’s comment on social media, and they called on the Harris campaign to quickly denounce it.
Yesterday in North Carolina, Trump said that his response to Biden and Harris was very simple: “You can’t lead America if you don’t love Americans,” and “you can’t be president if you hate the American people.”
By the way, Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), also weighed in, saying that “there’s no excuse” for Biden’s remark and that he hopes “Americans reject it.”
Half of Gen Z Voters Have Lied About Their Voting Preferences: Poll
A new survey done by The Harris Poll says that nearly half of Gen Z voters and 23 percent of U.S. voters overall have lied about their voting preferences this year to people whom they’re close to.Additionally, one-third of all voters say they aren’t close to certain family members due to different political beliefs, and that number is even higher for Gen Z voters and Millennials.
The online poll questioned over 1,800 registered voters, and nearly 60 percent of them said that their voting preferences are a private matter.
Now this is really interesting: Around 25 percent of both Democrats and Republicans say they’ve lied about who they’re voting for this year, and one in five independents also say that they have not told the truth.
Nearly the same number of Gen X voters also admit that they’ve lied, but only 6 percent of people born before 1965 say the same.
The CEO of the Harris Poll says that political polarization has pushed many Americans into censoring themselves about their voting preferences in order to preserve important relationships. He also says that people raised on smartphones tend to avoid social confrontations, so they may lie about who they’re voting for in order to avoid an awkward situation.
The survey also found that more men than women said they lied about who they voted for, and that nearly 10 percent of all voters say that they’re going to make a “gut decision” when they cast their ballots on Election Day.
Partial Passwords to Voting System Posted Online
The Colorado secretary of state’s office says that it mistakenly posted a spreadsheet to its website that contained partial passwords to some parts of the state’s voting systems.The office said that the spreadsheet included a hidden tab where visitors could find the information, and that “immediate action” was taken as soon as it became aware of the incident.
You should know that the secretary of state’s office says that the posting will not impact how the state’s ballots are counted, and it was Colorado’s Republican Party who first reported the accidental leak.
The GOP also shared an affidavit from an unnamed individual who claimed to have downloaded the spreadsheet and opened the hidden file on three separate occasions over the last few months.
The state’s Republican Party said that the file contained more than 600 unencrypted passwords for voting systems in 63 out of Colorado’s 64 counties, and that it appears to have been posted on the website since the beginning of August.
The chairman of the state’s GOP said the leak demonstrates “significant incompetence and negligence” and calls into question other security protocols in the secretary of state’s office.
In response, that office said Colorado elections include “many layers of security,” including two unique passwords for every component of the election equipment, which are kept in separate places and held by different parties.
The office also pointed out that these passwords can only be used in person, with physical access to a voting system.
Gold Registers Record High Price
Yesterday, the price of gold hit a new high, and is now selling for just under $2,800 an ounce.So you know, the recent market for gold has been bullish, and since the beginning of the year, the price has risen by more than 34 percent. It’s now on pace for its best year in over four decades, and one financial expert predicted the price of gold will soon go even higher.
By the way, the prices jumped amid a host of geopolitical triggers, which include the U.S. presidential election. Additionally, investors are waiting for some significant economic numbers to be released later this week, including reports on the employment rate and the core price index.
The ongoing tensions in the Middle East also make gold what’s called a “safe-haven” asset during times of global uncertainty.
Earlier this week, the financial services firm Goldman Sachs predicted that gold prices will continue to “climb higher than previously expected.”
The firm points out that a number of central banks in emerging nations have boosted their purchases of gold, a commodity that is usually more desirable when interest rates fall.
By the way, yesterday a group called the World Gold Council reported that for the third quarter of this year, total gold demand had jumped 5 percent from the same period 12 months ago.
The council also said that the value of gold demand exceeded $100 billion for the first time ever.
And now, it looks like our time is just about up for today, so we’re going to call it a wrap for the Thursday edition, the Halloween 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 Steve Almond, who said: “Nothing on Earth so beautiful as the final haul on Halloween night.”
It’s the best thing in the world—a bucket filled to the brim with Twix bars, M&Ms, candy corn, and maybe a handful of 3 Musketeers bars.
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.
Thank you for making us your one-stop source for a concise, accurate, and unbiased daily synopsis of many of the news stories you need to know about.
Enjoy the remainder of your day, and we’ll see you right back here tomorrow for another 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.
