Election 2020: SCOTUS rejects attempt to block extended ballot deadline
This was the Pa. GOP's second attempt to block the extension for mail-in ballots
With six days until Election Day, and President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden racing toward Nov. 3, more than 71 million Americans have voted early so far -- a record.
The president continues an aggressive, defensive campaign as polls show him trailing nationally and in several battleground states key to his reelection hopes. He has back-to-back rallies in Arizona Wednesday.
Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, is also in Arizona making stops in Tucson and Phoenix. Biden will deliver remarks on his plan to beat COVID-19 from Wilmington, Delaware.
Vice President Mike Pence, meanwhile, has campaign rallies in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Michigan.
Top headlines:
- Kavanaugh revises Wisconsin opinion at request of Vermont
- Supreme Court rejects GOP attempt to block extended ballot deadline
- Trump, Biden condemn violence in Philadelphia
- Biden early votes in Wilmington, expands on health care plan
- 2020 election cost projected to near $14 billion, twice the amount spent in 2016 cycle
Trump campaign releases 'American Dream Plan'
While Trump was speaking at his second rally in Arizona and stumping to Latino voters, he mentioned the "American Dream Plan," a new plan targeted towards Latino and Hispanic communities nationwide.
According to the campaign, the plan is promises to add 500,000 Hispanic-owned businesses, increase capital for minority entrepreneurs through Opportunity Zones, create 2 million new jobs for Hispanic Americans, increase access to home ownership, bolster school choice programs, and deliver a resolution to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program with a permanent solution that benefits both Americans and recent arrivals.
'Latinos for Trump' advisory board member Alfredo Ortiz said that Trump's "American Dream Plan" gives Hispanic Americans another reason to vote for Trump.
Earlier Wednesday the Trump campaign also launched three new Spanish-speaking ads targeted towards Latino voters in South Florida, Central Florida, Arizona and Nevada.
-ABC News' Terrance Smith
Trump wraps up Goodyear, Arizona, rally
After relentlessly downplaying the virus at recent rallies this week, disparaging testing, and complaining about the media's continued coverage of the worst pandemic in a century that continues to surge -- Trump at his Goodyear, Arizona, rally appeared to pull back those comments a bit.
The president did not mention the word "COVID," as he has been, often repeating it multiple times seemingly exasperated by having to discuss the virus.
Trump also didn't explicitly say "we are rounding the turn" or try to uses testing as an excuse for the surging cases. But the president did continue to claim he's done "a great job we've done in fighting the China virus," and claimed he was "immune" while sharing a fist-bump on stage with Sen. Rand Paul. The immunity duration after contracting COVID-19 remains unknown, according to experts.
-ABC News' Will Steakin
How DC officials perform signature verifications
ABC News Live got an exclusive look at how election officials in Washington, D.C., perform signature verifications before mail-in ballots are counted.
Trained staff manually inspect each handwritten script and visually compare it to an electronic version associated with the voter's driver's license or other official record.
Supreme Court allows NC ballot deadline extension, rejects GOP request to block
The Supreme Court has denied a GOP request to block a six-day extension of the mail ballot deadline in North Carolina which was imposed by the state board of elections.
The decision was 5-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the liberal justices. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch would have granted an emergency injunction.
"Such last-minute changes by largely unaccountable bodies invite confusion, risk altering election outcomes, and in the process threaten voter confidence in the results," Gorsuch wrote in the dissent.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett took no part in the decision, the court said, because "of the need for a prompt resolution and because she has not had time to fully review the parties’ filings."
-ABC News Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer