Supreme Court denies GOP request to block counting of certain provisional ballots in battleground Pennsylvania
The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to freeze a decision from Pennsylvania’s highest court that required election officials to count provisional ballots cast by people whose mail ballots are invalid because they lacked mandatory secrecy envelopes.
The order from the justices means that election officials in the key battleground state must tally provisional ballots submitted on Election Day by voters who returned defective mail ballots, either because they didn’t include secrecy envelopes or failed to sign or date the outer envelope.
Trump holds final Wisconsin rally of campaign
Donald Trump held his final Wisconsin rally of the 2024 campaign Friday night, returning to Fiserv Forum, in Milwaukee, the site of the Republican convention, to deliver his closing message to the Badger State. In 2016, he narrowly won Wisconsin but he lost the state’s 10 electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020.
The rally was plagued by microphone problems. People in the upper sections in the back of the arena couldn’t hear Trump, and he expressed frustration with the technical issues.
“I’m seething. I’m working my ass off with a stupid mic,” Trump said.
He then made crude gestures toward the mic stand, complaining it was too low. He held the microphone for the rest of the rally but complained about how heavy it was several times. He also threatened not to pay the contractor.
“Do you want to see me knock the hell out of people backstage?” Trump asked. “I don’t ask for much. The only thing I ask for is a good mic. And this is the second time today that this happened.”
He loosely blamed campaign manager Susie Wiles for the microphone issue.
By Olivia Rinaldi and Katrina Kaufman
Harris and Trump both rally in Milwaukee area Friday night
Both Donald Trump Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned in the Milwaukee area Friday night, going into the final weekend of the 2024 campaign. Harris didn’t deviate much from her standard stump speech in West Allis, Michigan, a Milwaukee suburb of Milwaukee. She urged people to vote who haven’t yet cast their ballots.
“No judgment, no judgment at all — but do get to it,” Harris said, before reviewing the list of her campaign promises and litany of grievances against Trump.
Cardi B, who spoke shortly before Harris, told the crowd she didn’t intend to vote this year, but “Kamala Harris changed my mind.”
She called Trump a “bully” and said, “I can’t stand a bully, but just like Kamala, I stand up to one.” Cardi B repeatedly said she was nervous about speaking at the rally. Women, she said, have to work 10 times harder than men “and still, people question us.”