“[T]here is simply not enough time at this late date to decide the question before the election,” Justice Alito wrote. “That does not mean, however, that the state court decision must escape our review.”
With less than a week before Election Day, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it will not grant an expedited review of a Pennsylvania GOP appeal of a mail-in ballot extension in the state. The court previously split 4-4 on a request from Pennsylvania Republicans to halt the state high court’s decision to order the extension. The court could still decide to hear the case, however, reports CBS News campaign reporter Zak Hudak. Joined by two other justices, Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged there was little time remaining to make a change, but said they were open to it. “I reluctantly conclude that there is simply not enough time at this late date to decide the question before the election,” he wrote. “That does not mean, however, that the state court decision must escape our review.” The ruling came after Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar told counties to separate ballots received within the 3-day extension after the election, meaning that a court decision could theoretically come after Election Day. “The Secretary continues to defend the extension to ensure that every timely and validly cast mail-in and absentee ballot is counted,” Boockvar wrote in the guidance to counties. But Boockvar, a Democrat, said that because the issue is still pending before the court, the action was necessary. Trump campaign senior counsel Justin Clark called Boockvar’s guidance “a big victory” in a statement. In Las Vegas today, President Trump said he hopes the ballots received after Election Day aren’t counted. “Hopefully, the few states remaining that want to take a lot of time after Nov.3 to take ballots, that won’t be allowed by the various courts because as you know, we’re in courts on that,” he said. Over twice as many Democrats as Republicans have applied to vote by mail in Pennsylvania. In the state’s primary, counties received over 100,000 ballots after Election Day, over twice Mr. Trump’s 2016 margin of victory in the state. President Trump is hoping to drum up support in the battleground state of Nevada, holding a rally Wednesday afternoon across the border in neighboring Arizona due to the Silver State’s coronavirus restrictions. The president’s Western swing comes with just six days left until the election, as early voting totals continue to show high turnout across the country. Early votes in Arizona and Nevada account for more than 60% of the total ballots cast in those states four years ago. A senior Trump campaign official told CBS News campaign reporter Nicole Sganga the president plans to visit 10 states during the last week of the campaign, and hold 11 rallies in the 48 hours before Election Day. At a rally in Bullhead City, Arizona, the president renewed his promise for a “return to normal” and a COVID-19 vaccine. “A safe vaccine is coming very quickly,” Mr. Trump said. “You are going to have it momentarily.” Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s unprecedented effort to accelerate production and distribution of a coronavirus vaccine, is already producing tens of millions of vaccine doses, even before any vaccine candidate has been proven safe and effective. Retired Lieutenant General Paul Ostrowski, director for supply, production and distribution of Operation Warp Speed told CBS News senior medical correspondent Dr. Tara Narula, “We will have vaccines, we anticipate, prior to the turn of the new year.” The president, speaking from his hotel in Las Vegas Wednesday, also commented on the violent protests in Philadelphia, criticizing the city’s Democratic mayor and governor for not doing more to enforce the laws there. He said the federal government is ready to step in at the governor’s request, CBS News digital White House reporter Kathryn Watson reports. The unrest began after police shot a Black man, Walter Wallace, on Monday. The city’s mayor and police commissioner have pledged an investigation into the incident. Violent clashes have followed for two nights, with roughly 30 police officers reportedly injured on the first night. The president said the violence had to stop, and claimed without evidence that Biden would be “weak” on crime and criminals. Like millions of other Americans, Joe Biden joined in on early voting and officially cast his vote for president on Wednesday, alongside his wife, Jill, in Delaware. The two flaunted their “I Voted” stickers after Biden attended a COVID-19 briefing with his health adviser team. Biden’s message is rooted in contrast with Mr. Trump regarding the current response to the pandemic. Biden’s campaign broadcast large graphs of COVID hospitalizations for Biden to appear next to as the candidate warned the cases of COVID will be a “bigger wave of anything we’ve experienced to date.” Biden said, “The refusal of the Trump administration to recognize the reality we’re living through at a time when almost 1,000 Americans are dying every single day is an insult to every single person suffering from COVID-19, and to every family who has lost a loved one.” The Democratic nominee is heading back to Florida on Thursday, marking his fourth trip to the state during the general election. By the end of the week, if his schedule holds, the tallies of Biden’s battleground trips since June 1, according to CBS News campaign reporter Bo Erickson, include: 16 trips to Pennsylvania, four trips to Michigan, three trips to Wisconsin, two trips to North Carolina and Ohio, and one trip each to Minnesota, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and Iowa. Senator Kamala Harris began her Wednesday in Tucson and was asked about the expanded map the Biden-Harris campaign is playing with in the remaining 6 days. She listed where she’s been in the past week and where she’ll go: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Nevada and Arizona. “There are people all over our country who want to know that they are being seen and heard on some of the most challenging times in the history of our country,” she told CBS News campaign reporter Tim Perry. Harris also addressed the split screen rallies Trump would be holding in Arizona and Nevada on Wednesday and said she and Biden “are going to talk to voters, but we’re not going to do it in a way that we don’t risk their safety and their health.” At a drive-in rally in Tucson, Harris invoked the name of the late Arizona Sen. John McCain (“Let’s start with a little straight talk…”) and addressed some of the “talk about my values,” in reference to her being labeled as a liberal or socialist. “Let me just tell you Tucson, I am a proud, patriotic American. I love my country. And our values reflect the values of America. Our values tell us we have witnessed the worst, the biggest disaster of any presidential administration in the history of this country, our values tell us that, ” she said. During a discussion of climate change, Harris seemed to address some of the blowback Biden got from the last debate on phasing out fossil fuels, notes CBS News political unit broadcast associate Aaron Navarro. “Understand we need to set time limits. Net zero emissions by 2050. We need to set goals that include an investment in renewable energies. And guess what? That’s about jobs! Millions of jobs,” she said. Harris’ last event Wednesday is another drive-in rally alongside musician Alicia Keys in Phoenix. Trumbull County in eastern Ohio voted for President Obama by a large margin in 2012, but flipped in 2016 for President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump pitched an ‘America First’ economic message that resonated with Ohioans in 2016. After his election, the president visited the county, which was the home to General Motors Lordstown plant, in 2017 and told industrial workers that jobs would return and urged them not to sell their homes.
