Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

About 77 mil­lion Amer­i­cans have al­ready vot­ed ear­ly in what is said to be one of the most his­tor­i­cal­ly sig­nif­i­cant elec­tions in the U.S.A.

North Car­oli­na is see­ing a record turnout, sur­pass­ing its ear­ly-vot­ing record set in 2020. Of­fi­cials said 57% of the state’s 7.8 mil­lion reg­is­tered vot­ers cast bal­lots in the gen­er­al elec­tion as of Sun­day morn­ing.

Mean­while, Don­ald Trump and Ka­mala Har­ris are mak­ing their fi­nal cam­paign push as will come to an end in a mat­ter of hours.

Don­ald Trump is hold­ing four ral­lies in three states, be­gin­ning in Raleigh, North Car­oli­na and stop­ping twice in Penn­syl­va­nia with events in Read­ing and Pitts­burgh. He ends his cam­paign with a Mon­day night event in Grand Rapids, Michi­gan.

Ka­mala Har­ris is spend­ing all of Mon­day in Penn­syl­va­nia, vis­it­ing work­ing-class ar­eas in­clud­ing Al­len­town. She will end with a late-night Philadel­phia ral­ly that in­cludes La­dy Gaga and Oprah Win­frey. —(AP)

Here are high­lights of to­day’s ac­tiv­i­ties from both cam­paigns…

Fed­er­al of­fi­cials mon­i­tor­ing threats at elec­tion com­mand post

By ALAN­NA DURKIN RICH­ER

Fed­er­al law en­force­ment of­fi­cials are work­ing around the clock at a com­mand post at FBI head­quar­ters to mon­i­tor and re­spond to any threats sur­round­ing the elec­tion.

The FBI runs a com­mand post around every fed­er­al elec­tion, but this year’s is more “ro­bust” with more fed­er­al agen­cies in­volved, ac­cord­ing to James Bar­na­cle, deputy as­sis­tant di­rec­tor of the FBI’s Crim­i­nal In­ves­tiga­tive Di­vi­sion.

The com­mand post brings of­fi­cials from the FBI, Jus­tice De­part­ment, Se­cret Ser­vice, Capi­tol Po­lice, De­part­ment of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty, and oth­er agen­cies to­geth­er un­der one roof to al­low law en­force­ment to quick­ly re­spond to any threats to elec­tion se­cu­ri­ty.

“Those threats in­clude crim­i­nal threats — such as threats to elec­tion work­ers — for­eign ma­lign in­flu­ence, cy­ber threats and acts of do­mes­tic vi­o­lence,” Bar­na­cle said.

Bar­na­cle said fed­er­al of­fi­cials have seen “some for­eign ma­lign in­flu­ence op­er­a­tions,” as well as at­tempt­ed cy­ber at­tacks “where ad­ver­saries are try­ing to hit the sec­re­taries of state or state gov­ern­ments or lo­cal gov­ern­ments and cause is­sues with their in­fra­struc­ture.”

The com­mand post will op­er­ate 24/7 through at least Sat­ur­day, Nov. 9, with about 80 peo­ple work­ing per shift, he said.

Har­ris calls Penn­syl­va­nia vot­ers elec­tion dif­fer­ence mak­ers

By DAN MER­I­CA

Har­ris dropped the pre­tense at an event in Al­len­town on Mon­day: Penn­syl­va­nia vot­ers, she said, would make the dif­fer­ence in the 2024 pres­i­den­tial elec­tion.

“We need every­one in Penn­syl­va­nia to vote,” Har­ris said. “You are go­ing to make the dif­fer­ence in this elec­tion.”

Both Har­ris and Trump have put con­sid­er­able fo­cus on Penn­syl­va­nia in the clos­ing hours of the 2024 cam­paign, with Har­ris spend­ing all of Mon­day cam­paign­ing across the state. Both Trump and Har­ris aides see the com­mon­wealth as cen­tral to their re­spec­tive paths to vic­to­ry.

Trump brings some of his chil­dren on stage in Read­ing

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

Trump brought some of his chil­dren on stage at his ral­ly in Read­ing af­ter he gave them a shoutout from the podi­um and ap­peared to get wist­ful in his fi­nal cam­paign events, say­ing, “This is our last time now, for for­ev­er.”

His chil­dren Er­ic, Don Jr. and Tiffany, along with Er­ic’s wife and Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee co-chair Lara Trump, and Tiffany’s hus­band, Michael Bou­los, all ap­peared with the Re­pub­li­can pres­i­den­tial can­di­date on stage.

Trump’s chil­dren, as well as Lara, each ad­dressed the crowd, in­clud­ing a rare turn speak­ing from Tiffany.

“They’re kind peo­ple,” Trump said. “They have big hearts. They’re strong. They can be nasty. But they have big hearts, those great chil­dren of mine.”

Har­ris touts ‘long­stand­ing com­mit­ment’ to Puer­to Ri­co

By DAR­LENE SU­PERVILLE, DAN MER­I­CA

The vice pres­i­dent con­trast­ed her­self with Trump and his re­cent ral­ly that fea­tured a co­me­di­an call­ing Puer­to Ri­co a “float­ing is­land of garbage” dur­ing an event in Al­len­town, Penn­syl­va­nia, on Mon­day.

“I stand here proud of my long­stand­ing com­mit­ment to Puer­to Ri­co and her peo­ple and I will be a pres­i­dent for all Amer­i­cans,” Har­ris said to siz­able ap­plause, re­peat­ing “all Amer­i­cans” for em­pha­sis.

Har­ris’ cam­paign is look­ing to use that com­ment to win over vot­ers in Penn­syl­va­nia and na­tion­wide. Fat Joe, a rap­per of Puer­to Ri­can her­itage, spoke short­ly be­fore Har­ris.

“Mo­men­tum is on our side,” Har­ris said. “Can you feel it? We have mo­men­tum.”

In Geor­gia, Re­pub­li­cans say coun­ties wrong­ly al­lowed vot­ers to hand in bal­lots af­ter ear­ly vot­ing end­ed

By RUSS BYNUM

A fed­er­al judge will hear a le­gal mo­tion Tues­day by Re­pub­li­can Par­ty at­tor­neys who ar­gue that sev­er­al Geor­gia coun­ties wrong­ly al­lowed vot­ers to hand de­liv­er mail-in bal­lots over the week­end and Mon­day.

A sim­i­lar court chal­lenge was struck down over the week­end by a state judge in Ful­ton Coun­ty, which in­cludes most of At­lanta. Now the Re­pub­li­can Na­tion­al Com­mit­tee and the Geor­gia Re­pub­li­can Par­ty are su­ing elec­tion boards in Ful­ton and six oth­er heav­i­ly De­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­ties in U.S. Dis­trict Court in Sa­van­nah.

GOP at­tor­neys ar­gue that coun­ties should have stopped tak­ing ab­sen­tee bal­lots dropped off in-per­son once ear­ly vot­ing end­ed Fri­day.

They want U.S. Dis­trict Judge R. Stan Bak­er to or­der those coun­ties to keep ab­sen­tee bal­lots de­liv­ered by hand Sat­ur­day through Mon­day sep­a­rate from oth­ers so they can be pre­served as ev­i­dence in fur­ther lit­i­ga­tion. The Re­pub­li­cans’ le­gal mo­tion doesn’t ask the judge to stop those bal­lots from be­ing count­ed.

It has long been the prac­tice for Geor­gia elec­tion of­fices to ac­cept mail bal­lots over the counter. State law says vot­ers can de­liv­er their ab­sen­tee bal­lots in per­son to coun­ty elec­tion of­fices un­til polls close at 7 p.m. on Elec­tion Day.

Some Alas­ka vot­ers could face bliz­zard con­di­tions on Elec­tion Day

By BECKY BOHRER

Win­try weath­er is fore­cast for Elec­tion Day in parts of Alas­ka, with bliz­zard con­di­tions in the south­west and a win­ter storm warn­ing that could see more than a foot of snow­fall in parts of south-cen­tral Alas­ka.

The bliz­zard warn­ing is­sued by the Na­tion­al Weath­er Ser­vice un­til ear­ly Tues­day af­ter­noon in­cludes rur­al vil­lages in the Kuskok­wim Delta, with snow­fall to­tals of up to 9 inch­es along the coast and wind gusts of up to 50 mph pos­si­ble.

Some Flori­da stu­dents nav­i­gat­ed ad­dress changes, long lines when vot­ing over the week­end

By KATE PAYNE

Stu­dents on some Flori­da col­lege cam­pus­es had to wait up­wards of two hours to vote over the week­end, rais­ing con­cerns among some ad­vo­cates that de­lays could de­press turnout among young vot­ers, a bloc that his­tor­i­cal­ly fa­vors De­moc­rats but turns out to vote at much low­er rates than old­er Amer­i­cans.

On Sun­day, long lines were re­port­ed at ear­ly vot­ing sites at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cen­tral Flori­da in Or­lan­do and a Broward Col­lege cam­pus in Pem­broke Pines, 15 miles south­west of Fort Laud­erdale.

Christo­pher Heath, chief elec­tions ad­min­is­tra­tor for the Or­ange Coun­ty Su­per­vi­sor of Elec­tions Of­fice, which in­cludes Or­lan­do, said the long lines were be­cause many stu­dents hadn’t up­dat­ed their ad­dress­es be­fore com­ing to vote.

Heath said staff en­cour­aged vot­ers to up­date their in­for­ma­tion on­line while they wait­ed, but for those that didn’t, clerks had to spend about 20 min­utes per vot­er mak­ing the changes.

As elec­tion nears, the Na­tion­al Guard will be on stand­by in Neva­da and Wash­ing­ton state

By CLAIRE RUSH

In the lead up to Elec­tion Day, the gov­er­nors of Neva­da and Wash­ing­ton state have ac­ti­vat­ed some of their Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers to be on stand­by in the event they’re asked to sup­port lo­cal law en­force­ment.

Neva­da Gov. Joe Lom­bar­do an­nounced last Mon­day that 60 Neva­da Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers will be sta­tioned in Las Ve­gas and the state cap­i­tal Car­son City on Elec­tion Day. They’ll be avail­able to help with things such as build­ing se­cu­ri­ty and traf­fic en­force­ment, his of­fice said in a state­ment.

Wash­ing­ton state Gov. Jay In­slee has al­so ac­ti­vat­ed some Wash­ing­ton Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers to be on stand­by. In a Fri­day news re­lease, he said the or­der was a pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sure tak­en in re­sponse to in­ci­dents in Oc­to­ber in which in­cen­di­ary de­vices set fires at bal­lot drop box­es in Van­cou­ver, Wash­ing­ton. One of the in­ci­dents oc­curred just a week be­fore Elec­tion Day and dam­aged hun­dreds of bal­lots, forc­ing elec­tions of­fi­cials to scram­ble to iden­ti­fy the vot­ers af­fect­ed and is­sue re­place­ment bal­lots.

In­slee’s or­der ac­ti­vates as many Na­tion­al Guard mem­bers as de­ter­mined nec­es­sary for up to four days, be­gin­ning Mon­day and end­ing at 12:01 a.m. Nov. 8.

Wash­ing­ton steps up se­cu­ri­ty ahead of Elec­tion Day

By ALAN­NA DURKIN RICH­ER

Wash­ing­ton D.C. po­lice are in­creas­ing pa­trols in ar­eas down­town and near the White House around Elec­tion Day, though of­fi­cials say there are no known cred­i­ble threats to the na­tion’s cap­i­tal.

D.C. Po­lice Chief Pamela Smith told re­porters Mon­day the in­creased pa­trols are a “pre­ven­ta­tive mea­sure.” Po­lice will al­so be us­ing a he­li­copter and drones to mon­i­tor ar­eas down­town, she said. Po­lice will be work­ing out of a new com­mand cen­ter to co­or­di­nate oth­er agen­cies and re­spond to events from elec­tion week through the in­au­gu­ra­tion in Jan­u­ary.

Four years af­ter a mob of Don­ald Trump sup­port­ers at­tacked the U.S. Capi­tol on Jan. 6, 2021, D.C. of­fi­cials say they wel­come peace­ful protests but will have no tol­er­ance for vi­o­lence.

“We will hold all of­fend­ers ac­count­able,” Smith said. “We will not tol­er­ate the de­struc­tion of prop­er­ty, and we will not tol­er­ate threats to pub­lic safe­ty as well as this elec­tion process.”