US election: a roller-coaster count for both the Trump and Biden camps

Trump’s campaign has already unleashed a flurry of litigation: as soon as Michigan was called for Biden, they filed a lawsuit in an attempt to halt the count in the state until access was granted to Republican poll monitors. (AP)
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Updated 06 November 2020
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US election: a roller-coaster count for both the Trump and Biden camps

  • Democrats say robust legal team is ready to fight ‘nuisance’ lawsuits from Republicans

NEW YORK: The 2020 presidential election has been a roller-coaster ride for American voters, whichever side they are on.

The magic number of 270 Electoral College votes a candidate needs to win does not change, yet it has still seemed like a moving target as counts of the popular vote continue in key battleground states — two days after the polls closed.

The share of votes in the latest returns are so exceedingly close that, as of Thursday afternoon, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia remained uncalled — and the result of the election will be decided by some combination of them.

For those who are perplexed by the mathematical gymnastics involved in US elections, this nail-biter of a week should have made clear the reasoning behind the complex system: it was designed to ensure that voters in remote, rural counties, largely ignored or forgotten by politicians, have as much of a say in choosing their leader as those in huge, heavily populated states such as New York or California.

More than 140 million votes have been tallied and now the outcome will be determined by about 1 million votes that remain to be counted in Pennsylvania, 400,000 in Georgia, where the margin between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is razor-thin, and 400,000 in Arizona.

The eyes of Americans, and the entire world, are now on counties the names of which will fade back into oblivion for most people after the election is over: Maricopa country in Arizona, for example, or Fulton county in Georgia.

In those counties, the last word could go to minorities. Latinos originally from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, for example, who were unhappy about how Trump treated their homelands during Hurricane Maria and have come out in droves to vote against him. Or Cuban Americans who have rallied behind the president for his stance against the perceived threat of socialism, a specter that evokes a painful history for a community that reeled under a socialist regime for decades.

Meanwhile African Americans in the suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia, chose Biden in preference to an incumbent president who, they believe, did not stand with them in their fight against racial injustice. On the other hand, Black males in Miami-Dade County in Florida voted for Trump in larger numbers than expected; the perception that Biden had taken their vote for granted did not resonate well with this young community.

Late on Thursday afternoon the White House called the “the lid,” the term used to announce there will be no more announcements that day. Trump shunned the cameras and remained huddled with advisers, gearing up for a possible legal battle to challenge the result should he lose the election. This is a candidate who suggested the only way he could lose was if the election was rigged.

Trump’s campaign has already unleashed a flurry of litigation: as soon as Michigan was called for Biden, they filed a lawsuit in an attempt to halt the count in the state until access was granted to Republican poll monitors. They filed a similar lawsuit in Pennsylvania, and threatened to take their battle all the way to the Supreme Court.

Trump is also seeking a recount in Wisconsin, where he lost by only half a percentage point. He is also challenging the handling of ballots in Georgia, where his campaign is suing election officials in Chatham county amid allegations that ballots that arrived after the voting deadline were being improperly counted.

This aggressive posture has been backed with appearances by and comments from a number of administration officials, during which they have attempted to discredit the election and call into question its integrity.

The president’s son Eric, for example, posted a message on Twitter on Wednesday declaring victory for his father in Pennsylvania, where more than a million votes remained to be counted. Twitter was quick to add a disclaimer to the tweet that read: “Official sources may not have called the race (in Pennsylvania) as this was tweeted.” As of Thursday evening, the result in the state remains too close to call.

Trump ally Rudy Giuliani bizarrely alleged, in front of television cameras, that mail-in ballots could be coming from Mars or that Joe Biden “could have voted 5,000 times for all I know.”

In stark contrast to Trump, Joe Biden has picked his words carefully as the count continues. Even as the election seemed to shift in his favor, he resisted the temptation to declare victory and instead expressed his trust in the electoral system.

While both candidates have the right to challenge very close results and call for recounts, the Biden camp views Trump’s lawsuits alleging electoral impropriety as a nuisance tactic more than anything else, as there appears to be little evidence to support the claims. They believe allegations of a lack of transparency in the counting process, for example, do not hold water when all tabulation centers are equipped with security cameras and the whole operation is being streamed live for the world to watch.

But while they hope any legal challenges will be dismissed long before they reach the Supreme Court, the Democrats have made it clear that they also have a robust legal team on hand. Fueled by fears about how the unpredictable Trump might react to defeat, they have created the largest election-protection program any campaign has ever developed — and made it clear they are prepared to use it.

“We’re winning the election, we’ve won the election, we’re going to defend that election,” said Bob Bauer, a leading attorney for the Biden campaign.

While many people are frustrated that the remaining vote counts are taking so long, Tom Wolf, the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania, made no apology for his state taking its time.

“This is a hiring process,” he said. “We need to make sure the voters are choosing the leaders and not the other way around.”

He described the Trump campaign’s lawsuits filed against the state as “(disgraceful) attempts to subvert the democratic process,” and vowed “to fight like hell (and) do everything in my power to make sure every vote is counted.”

In response to Trump’s attempt to halt the state’s count, Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar was even more blunt: “We get to decide when the last vote is counted.”

She also evoked the long fight by American women to gain voting rights, which culminated 100 years ago in the adoption of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, and the Voting Act of 1965, which prohibited racial discrimination in elections.

“I take that every day with me as we fight for every vote in Pennsylvania,” she said.

Pollsters and pundits got many things wrong in so many ways about this election, but they are right about one thing: the story of this election is still far from over.
 

Al-Andalus revisited
Eight centuries of Muslim rule in Spain, during which Arab culture and science flourished, are echoed not only in the magnificent art and buildings of Al-Andalus, but also in the souls and the DNA of its descendants

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Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods

Updated 6 sec ago
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Under-fire Spain minister defends state agencies’ role in floods

Doubting state agencies was “deeply unfair and deeply dangerous,” Ribera told parliament
“I would like to thank the work and dedication of the public servants who issued the information as was their duty“

MADRID: Spain’s under-fire ecological transition minister, a candidate for a top European Commission post, on Wednesday said questioning the role of state agencies during the country’s devastating floods was “dangerous.”
The state weather and environment services have faced intense scrutiny over their response to the October 29 disaster that wreaked widespread destruction and killed 227 people.
The European Parliament has blocked Teresa Ribera’s appointment to an influential EU commission role encompassing environment and competition, with opponents accusing her of neglecting her duties during the floods.
Regions are in charge of disaster management in Spain’s decentralized political system, but the hardest-hit Valencia region’s conservative leader Carlos Mazon said he received “insufficient, inaccurate and late” information.
Doubting state agencies was “deeply unfair and deeply dangerous,” Ribera told parliament, in a veiled retort to the conservative opposition.
“I would like to thank the work and dedication of the public servants who issued the information as was their duty,” she added.
Mazon defended his handling of the catastrophe last week, citing an “information blackout” and criticizing a government agency responsible for monitoring river levels.
But Ribera said “there was never an information blackout” and enumerated a lengthy list of warnings issued by public bodies to the regional authorities.
Although the national weather agency issued the highest red alert in the morning of October 29, Valencia residents in many cases only received telephone warnings when water was already gushing through towns.
The socialist-led central government has argued Mazon bore responsibility for the late issuing of the emergency alert.
“Having all the necessary information is of little use if the one who must respond does not know how,” Ribera added.
The right-wing opposition Popular Party (PP) has accused the government of abandoning the Valencia region before and after the floods for political gain.
Anger has coursed through Spain over the authorities’ perceived mishandling of the country’s deadliest floods in decades and the ensuing political polarization has spilled over at EU level.
The conservative EPP parliamentary group to which the PP belongs refused to approve Spain’s nomination for the commission until she reported to the Spanish parliament.
“The European Commission does not deserve to come into existence with a candidate under suspicion,” PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo wrote on X.
The Socialists and Democrats group have complained that the Spanish right was trying to make Ribera “the scapegoat” for its own failure to manage the floods in Valencia.
By doing so, it was “pushing the entire European Union to the brink in the most irresponsible way,” it said.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Tuesday said his party always backed PP candidates for the commission and urged “reciprocity” from them.

Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years

Updated 6 min 29 sec ago
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Spain will legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants in the next 3 years

  • The policy aims to expand the aging country’s workforce and allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency
  • Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers

MADRID: Spain will legalize about 300,000 undocumented migrants a year, starting next May and through 2027, the country’s migration minister said Wednesday.
The policy aims to expand the aging country’s workforce and allow foreigners living in Spain without proper documentation to obtain work permits and residency. Spain has largely remained open to receiving migrants even as other European nations seek to tighten their borders to illegal crossings and asylum seekers.
Spain needs around 250,000 registered foreign workers a year to maintain its welfare state, Migration Minister Elma Saiz said in an interview on Wednesday. She contended that the legalization policy is not aimed solely at “cultural wealth and respect for human rights, it’s also prosperity.”
“Today, we can say Spain is a better country,” Saiz told national broadcaster Radiotelevisión Española.
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has often described his government’s migration policies as a means to combat the country’s low birthrate. In August, Sánchez visited three West African nations in an effort to tackle irregular migration to Spain’s Canary Islands.
The archipelago off the coast of Africa is seen by many as a step toward continental Europe with young men from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania and elsewhere embarking on dangerous sea voyages there seeking better job opportunities abroad or fleeing violence and political instability at home.
The new policy, approved Tuesday by Spain’s leftist minority coalition government, simplifies administrative procedures for short and long-term visas and provides migrants with additional labor protections. It extends a visa offered previously to job-seekers for three months to one year.
By mid-November, some 54,000 undocumented migrants had reached Spain this year by sea or land, according to the country’s Interior Ministry. The exact number of foreigners living in Spain without documentation is unclear.
Many irregular migrants make a living in Spain’s underground economy as fruit pickers, caretakers, delivery drivers, or other low-paid but essential jobs often passed over by Spaniards.
Without legal protections, they can be vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Saiz said the new policy would help prevent such abuse and “serve to combat mafias, fraud and the violation of rights.”
Spain’s economy is among the fastest-growing in the European Union this year, boosted in part by immigration and a strong rebound in tourism after the pandemic.
In 2023, Spain issued 1.3 million visas to foreigners, according to the government.


Danish military says it staying close to Chinese ship after data cable breaches

Updated 15 min 5 sec ago
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Danish military says it staying close to Chinese ship after data cable breaches

  • Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday
  • “The Danish Defense can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said

STOCKHOLM: The Danish military said on Wednesday that it was staying close to a Chinese ship currently sitting idle in Danish waters, days after two fiber-optic data telecommunication cables in the Baltic Sea were severed.
Chinese bulk carrier Yi Peng 3 was anchored in the Kattegat strait between Denmark and Sweden on Wednesday, with a Danish navy patrol ship at anchor nearby, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data showed.
“The Danish Defense can confirm that we are present in the area near the Chinese ship Yi Peng 3,” the military said in a post on social media X, adding it had no further comments.
It is quite rare for Denmark’s military to comment publicly on individual vessels traveling in Danish waters. It did not mention the cable breaches or say why it was staying with the ship.
The Chinese ship left the Russian port of Ust-Luga on Nov. 15 and was in the areas where the cable damages occurred, according to traffic data, which showed other ships to have been in the areas too.
One cable running between Sweden and Lithuania
was cut
on Sunday and another one between Finland and Germany was severed less than 24 hours later on Monday.
The breaches happened in Sweden’s exclusive economic zone and Swedish prosecutors started a preliminary investigation on Tuesday on suspicion of possible sabotage.
Swedish Civil Defense Minister Carl-Oskar Bohlin told Reuters on Tuesday that the country’s armed forces and coast guard had picked up ship movements that corresponded with the interruption of two telecoms cables in the Baltic Sea.
A Chinese government spokesperson told a daily news briefing on Wednesday that it always required its vessels to abide by relevant laws and regulations.
“We also attach great importance to the protection of seabed infrastructure and, together with the international community, we are actively promoting the construction and protection of submarine cables and other global information infrastructures,” the spokesperson said.
Russia dismissed on Wednesday any suggestion that it had been involved in damaging the two cables.
European governments accused Russia on Tuesday of escalating hybrid attacks on Ukraine’s Western allies, but stopped short of directly accusing Russia of destroying the cables.
Asked about the matter on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a regular news briefing: “It is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason.”


Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan gets bail in state gifts case, his party says

Updated 23 min 52 sec ago
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Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan gets bail in state gifts case, his party says

  • “If the official order is received today, his family and supporters will approach the authorities for his release,” one of his party’s lawyers, Salman Safdar, told journalists
  • Safdar added that, as far as he knew, Khan had been granted bail or acquitted in all the cases he faced

ISLAMABAD: A court in Pakistan granted bail to jailed former prime minister Imran Khan in a case relating to the illegal sale of state gifts, his party said on Wednesday.
Khan, 71, has been in prison since August 2023, but it was not immediately clear if the embattled politician would be released given that he faces a number of other charges too, including inciting violence against the state.
“If the official order is received today, his family and supporters will approach the authorities for his release,” one of his party’s lawyers, Salman Safdar, told journalists. Safdar added that, as far as he knew, Khan had been granted bail or acquitted in all the cases he faced.
However, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar, a member of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, told Geo TV Khan lacked bail in cases in which he is charged with planning riots by his supporters in the wake of his arrest in May last year.
Khan denies any wrongdoing, and alleges all the cases registered against him since he was removed from power in 2022 are politically motivated to keep him in jail.
The case in which he was granted bail on Wednesday by the Islamabad High Court is known as the Toshakhana, or state treasury case.
It has multiple versions and charges all revolving around allegations that Khan and his wife illegally procured and then sold gifts worth over 140 million rupees ($501,000) in state possession, which he received during his 2018-22 premiership.
Khan and his wife, Bushra Bibi, were both handed a 14-year sentence on those charges, following a three-year sentence handed to him in late 2023 in another version of the same case.
Their sentences have been suspended in appeals at the high court.
The gifts included diamond jewelry and seven watches, six of them Rolexes — the most expensive being valued at 85 million rupees ($305,000).
Khan’s wife was released last month after being in the same prison as Khan for months.


US defense chief regrets China’s decision not to meet during Southeast Asian security talks

Updated 42 min 26 sec ago
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US defense chief regrets China’s decision not to meet during Southeast Asian security talks

  • The decision by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “is a setback for the whole region,” Austin said after the first day of meetings
  • “It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other, and that reassures the entire region”

VIENTIANE, Laos: US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin expressed regret Wednesday that his Chinese counterpart chose not to hold talks with him during meetings of Southeast Asian defense chiefs in Laos, calling it a setback for the entire region.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is holding security talks in Vientiane at a time of increasing maritime disputes with China and as the transition to a new US president approaches.
The decision by Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun “is a setback for the whole region,” Austin said after the first day of meetings.
“It’s unfortunate. It affects the region because the region really wants to see us, two significant players in the region, two significant powers, talk to each other, and that reassures the entire region,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from China on its decision not to meet with Austin.
Austin just wrapped up meetings in Australia with officials there and with Japan’s defense minister. They pledged to support ASEAN and expressed their “serious concern about destabilizing actions in the East and South China Seas, including dangerous conduct by the People’s Republic of China against Philippines and other coastal state vessels.”
In addition to the United States and China, other nations attending the two-day ASEAN meetings from outside Southeast Asia include Japan, South Korea, India and Australia.
Along with the Philippines, ASEAN members Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei have competing claims with China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims almost entirely as its own territory.
Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos are the other ASEAN members.
Opening the talks, Laotian Defense Minister Chansamone Chanyalath said he hoped for productive meetings that would “become a standard for us to continue ASEAN’s cooperation in defense, including how to handle, thwart, and manage security challenges in the present and in the future.”
As China has grown more assertive in pushing its territorial claims in recent years, ASEAN members and Beijing have been negotiating a code of conduct to govern behavior in the sea, but progress has been slow.
Officials have agreed to try to complete the code by 2026, but talks have been hampered by thorny issues, including disagreements over whether the pact should be binding.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has called for more urgency in the code of conduct negotiations, complained at a meeting of ASEAN leaders last month that his country “continues to be subject to harassment and intimidation” by China’s actions, which he said violated international law.
Chinese and Philippine vessels have clashed repeatedly this year, and Vietnam in October charged that Chinese forces assaulted its fishermen in disputed areas in the South China Sea. China has also sent patrol vessels to areas that Indonesia and Malaysia claim as their exclusive economic zones.
At the meeting of ASEAN leaders last month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington was “very concerned about China’s increasingly dangerous and unlawful activities in the South China Sea which have injured people, harm vessels from ASEAN nations and contradict commitments to peaceful resolutions of disputes.”
He pledged that the US would “continue to support freedom of navigation, and freedom of overflight in the Indo Pacific.”
In response, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said US and other non-regional militaries present in the sea were the main source of instability.
“The increasing military deployment and activities in the South China Sea by the US and a few other non-regional countries, stoking confrontation and creating tensions, are the greatest source of instability for peace and stability in the South China Sea,” Mao said.
It is not clear how the incoming administration of US President-elect Donald Trump will address the South China Sea situation.
After Austin’s meetings in Australia, the Defense Department said the US, Australia and Japan had agreed to expand joint drills and announced a defense consultation body among the three countries’ forces to strengthen their cooperation.
When asked Tuesday while in the Philippines about whether the strong US defense support would continue for the country under Trump, Austin said he would not speculate.
Although Austin failed to hold talks with Chinese Defense Minister Dong, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani was expected to meet with Dong and express concerns about Beijing’s military activities, Japan’s NHK public television reported.
Japan has protested that a Chinese military aircraft violated its airspace briefly in August, and in September expressed “serious concerns” after a Chinese aircraft carrier and two destroyers sailed between two Japanese islands.
The meetings are also likely to touch on tensions in the Korean Peninsula, the Russia-Ukraine war, and wars in the Middle East. They are also expected to discuss other issues, including natural disasters, cybersecurity and terrorism.
Another thorny regional issue is the civil war and humanitarian crisis in ASEAN member Myanmar. The group’s credibility has been severely tested by the war in Myanmar, where the army ousted an elected government in 2021, and fighting has continued with pro-democracy guerillas and ethnic rebels.
More than a year into an offensive initiated by three militias and joined by other resistance groups, observers estimate the military controls less than half the country.
Myanmar military rulers have been barred from ASEAN meetings since late 2021, but this year the country has been represented by high-level bureaucrats, including at the summit in October.