Comment on The Election Cases That Could Matter After the Polls Close

Nevada’s secretary of state, the New York Times’ Danny Hakim reports, is concerned about the large numbers of absentee ballots getting rejected in the state’s most populous counties because of signature mismatches—potentially enough ballots to change election results. From the Times: More than 11,300 ballots were reported by the state Monday night as still needing signature curing in Clark County, home of Las Vegas, and more than 1,800 in Washoe County.

As Americans cast their votes in an election dominated by debates over inflation and the cost of living, a ballot measure in Vice President Kamala Harris’ home state is dividing the Democratic Party on the issue of how to address skyrocketing rents. Proposition 33—dubbed the Justice for Renters Act—would repeal the state’s controversial Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which for decades has restricted local governments’ ability to cap rent increases.

The first time I met Kamala Harris, in 2007, I was a reporter profiling her for San Francisco magazine. She was in a basement near City Hall, trying to persuade a roomful of low-level ex–drug dealers to find time in their lives for a little self-care. “I have a job that’s just crazy,” she told the crowd of 100 or so young men and women, sounding more like a motivational speaker than the San Francisco district attorney and possible future president of the United States.

If you look at Elon Musk’s so-called “Election Integrity Community” on X—a crowd-sourced feed of right-wing keyboard warriors turned self-appointed poll watchers—you will have the impression that our voting system is full of pro-Democratic fraud, making a Kamala Harris victory is inevitable. The feed, which describes itself as a place to “share potential incidents of voter fraud or irregularities you see while voting,” is a project of Musk’s pro-Trump America PAC, which the tech billionaire reportedly pumped with at least $75 million.

This year, the road to take back the House of Representatives runs through California and New York, two states often skipped over when discussing the balance of power in an election year. In 2022, the GOP showed surprising strength in the two blue stalwarts. They won upsets in each, earning Republicans the majority in the House.

Steve Bannon claims he is setting up a new version of the Willard Hotel “war room”—the infamous locale from which he and other Trump allies attempted to oversee last-ditch efforts in January 2021 to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Bannon told CBS News’ Robert Costa that the “war room” is being “revived and reorganized” in the hours ahead of today’s election results, with he and other Trump backers gathering at the posh downtown DC hotel. As with much of what Bannon does, his Election Day announcement mixes self-promotion that may include exaggeration of his importance with genuine menace. Bannon has been courting media attention since he was released from federal prison last week, where he served four months for contempt of Congress.