Secret Service report details multiple failures ahead of July Trump assassination attempt – live | US elections 2024

A Secret Service report looking into the events leading up to the July assassination attempt on the former president was released on Friday, and, according to the Associated Press, found fault with both local and federal law enforcement in the run-up to the Pennsylvania rally where a gunman fired at Donald Trump, injuring him and others, and killing a rally attendee.

The report details a series of “communications deficiencies” before the shooting occurred, and states that the Secret Service knew even before the shooting that the site of the rally posed a security challenge.

“It’s important that we hold ourselves to account for the failures of July 13 and that we use the lessons learned to make sure that we do not have another mission failure like this again,” the Secret Service’s acting director, Ronald Rowe Jr, said in a statement.

Georgia’s election board has voted to require that ballots be counted by hand, a move that could complicate and slow down determining whether the swing state has voted for Kamala Harris or Donald Trump in the November election. The decision, made after Trump-aligned members gained a majority on the board, comes despite a warning from the state attorney general that such a rule would be illegal. The meeting is ongoing, with the election board voting down a proposal to require the hand counting of early voting ballots. We will let you know what else they decide.

Here’s what else is happening today:

• In an interview with Oprah, Harris, a gun owner, said: “If somebody breaks into my house they’re getting shot.”

• Democratic state lawmakers denounced the Georgia election board’s rule change with a press conference held in sight of Trump supporters.

• CNN reported that Mark Robinson, the Republican candidate for governor in North Carolina has a history of lewd and offensive statements online. Will he appear with Trump during his rally tomorrow? The former president’s campaign won’t say.

Opponents of the Georgia election board’s rule change rallied in the state capitol in Atlanta as the body met.

But supporters of Donald Trump were not far away:

Georgia election board rejects hand-counting ballots from early voting

Sam Levine

The Georgia state election board just voted 4-1 to table a proposal that would have required hand-counting ballots during early voting.

The decision to delay came after member Janelle King raised concerns that people hand-counting the ballots could potentially leak information about who was ahead in certain precincts. Anticipating that this election was going to be contentious, King said she did not want to get the rule wrong.

The only member to vote in favor of the rule was Janice Johnston.

The state attorney general had advised the board that this rule was likely illegal.

Sam Levine

The Georgia state election board was advised by the attorney general’s office that the decision to hand-count ballots was likely illegal.

“The statutes upon which these rules rely do not reflect any provision enacted by the general assembly for the hand-counting of ballots prior to tabulation,” it said.

“There are thus no provisions in the statutes cited in support of these proposed rules that permit counting the number of ballots by hand at the precinct level prior to delivery to the election superintendent for tabulation. Accordingly, these proposed rules are not tethered to any statute – and are, therefore, likely the precise type of impermissible legislation that agencies cannot do,” the attorney general’s office wrote in a memo.

Georgia election board approves rule change that could delay determining presidential winner

Sam Levine

The Georgia state election board approved a rule requiring election workers to hand-count ballots on election night. The vote was three in favor, and two opposed.

The three Republicans who voted in favor of the proposal were all praised by name by Donald Trump during an August rally as “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”.

The board’s lone Democrat, Sara Tindall Ghazal, and John Fervier, a Republican who serves as the board’s chair, voted against the proposal.

The concern among voting advocates and local election officials is that the rule will delay the reporting of election results and open the door for chaos after the presidential vote. It could also make it harder to determine whether Kamala Harris or Donald Trump wins the state’s electoral votes in the November election.

Hand counts, long favored by those who question the results of the 2020 election, have been shown to be slower and less reliable than machine counts.

Georgia attorney general warns election board that proposed rule changes are illegal

Sam Levine

The Guardian has obtained a memo from the Georgia attorney general’s office advising the state election board that several of the rules it is voting on today are illegal.

“A review of the proposed rules reveals several issues including that several of the proposed rules, if passed, very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority and in some instances appear to conflict with the statutes governing the conduct of elections. Where such is the case, and as outlined below, the board risks passing rules that may easily be challenged and determined to be invalid,” the letter says.

Sam Levine

Sara Tindall Ghazal, a Democrat on the state election board, just had a back-and-forth with Sharlene Alexander, a Republican on the Fayette county election board, over whether her proposal to count ballots by hand was feasible.

Ghazal noted that no local election officials had told her they supported the rule. Alexander and other Republicans have framed the rule as something that will be a minimal burden to implement.

Sam Levine

The board is about to vote on a proposal to require hand-counting of ballots on election night.

Janice Johnston, a Republican on the board, just went through a lengthy recitation of election rules that were adopted close to an election. She’s trying to rebut criticism from election officials that it’s too close to the election to adopt new rules.

“The hue and cry about how early or how late it is to adopt these rules, I don’t buy. Rulemaking is good any month of the year.”

Sam Levine

We’re now beginning the part of the meeting during which the board is going to consider rules.

First up is perhaps the most controversial change it is considering today: a rule that would require election workers to hand-count ballots on election night.

Sharlene Alexander, a member of the board of elections in Fayette county, is presenting the rule and says she doesn’t understand why it’s so controversial – it’s just checking the machine counts.

Earlier this morning, election officials and poll workers warned against this rule, saying it’s not needed and would only delay tabulation of election results.

Sam Levine

One of the speakers who really stuck out to me this morning was Milton Kidd, the election director in Douglas county, Georgia.

He was one of half a dozen local election officials to urge the state election board not to enact rules so close to the election. But Kidd also pointed out that the volunteer board – whose members are not election experts – was ignoring the advice of seasoned election experts.

“The idea that you’re not going to listen to the individuals that are charged with conducting elections is absurd to me,” he said. “Most of us have worked decades in these career paths, and to say that we don’t know what we’re talking about, you wouldn’t say that to any other professional.”

“I’ve stayed at a lot of Waffle Houses in my life, but that does not qualify me to operate a Waffle House,” he added.

Sam Levine

We’re now wrapping up the morning public comment session of this meeting.

The overwhelming majority of speakers have urged the board not to adopt the proposed rules, including around half a dozen local election officials who have spoken.

We’re expecting to move on to discussion of the actual new rules shortly.

Sam Levine

Travis Doss, executive director of the Richmond county board of elections in Augusta and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, urged the board to stop its rulemaking.

“Now is simply not the time to implement sweeping changes that could create unnecessary confusion and disruption,” he said.

He noted that in previous elections – the 2018 gubernatorial race and the 2020 presidential race – Stacey Abrams and Donald Trump, respectively, said last-minute changes contributed to their loss.

He didn’t mention her by name, but Doss at one point seemed to be appealing directly to Janice Johnston, a retired OB/GYN who is leading the Republican bloc on the board. He said what the board was doing was akin to making changes during the third trimester of pregnancy.

Sam Levine

Brook Schreiner, the election director in Butts county, Georgia, is the first election official to testify at today’s meeting.

Local election officials throughout the state have strongly objected to the way the board has pushed through election rules.

“While we do not oppose many of the rules being processed, the timing could certainly be improved,” she said.

She also laid out how a proposal to hand-count ballots in local precincts “would unnecessarily delay election day tabulation”. She noted that poll managers already have a litany of tasks on election night, including sealing ballots and transporting memory cards.

Sam Levine

We’re now beginning the public comment section of the meeting, which is expected last at least an hour.

John Fervier, the board’s chairman, called it his favorite portion of the meeting, which may have been said somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

Sam Levine

The Georgia state election board meeting has only been under way for a few minutes and you can already see the two factions on the board at work.

Janice Johnston, the state GOP’s representative on the board, went back and forth with John Fervier, the board chair, over two last-minute additions to the agenda. One was to add a petition for rulemaking to the agenda, which Fervier objected to because he said the board hadn’t had proper time to consider it.

Johnston and two other members of the conservative bloc overruled Fervier’s attempt to block the petition from the agenda.

Johnston has seen a meteoric rise from being a citizen activist to essentially being in control of the three-member majority on the board.