PA, NYC, and Other Ballot Battle ‘X Factors’: ‘BradCast’ 9/29/2020

I’ll try to keep my BradCast summary as short and sweet as possible, as tonight’s Presidential Debate in Cleveland begins shortly — with full special coverage of it on tomorrow’s program! [Audio link to today’s full show is posted below.]

Among the stories covered today, beginning with some good news and slowly sliding downhill from there…

• At around 7 points, Joe Biden’s current lead in the national polling average against Donald Trump is the largest since Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996. But don’t get too excited just yet. We don’t run national elections. We run 50 state-by-state elections and it’s the Electoral College votes of each of those states that matters, not the popular vote…except for this year, when the popular vote actually could end up making a huge difference in who becomes the next President. I explain why;

• Biden’s pre-election polling lead in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania, according to a new WaPo/ABC News poll, is now at a substantive 9 points. With the poll’s margin of error factored in, however, it could be a much tighter race that that number suggests in Biden’s birth state, which is being seen of late, by both campaigns, as the potential tipping point state for the Electoral College this year. But the news is much more good than bad for Biden in the key battleground, in that he is outperforming Hillary Clinton’s 2016 lead over Trump in the noteworthy Dem-leaning parts of the state, and has substantially cut into Trump’s 2016 margins in the Republican regions of the state and among voters (for example, white without college degrees) that Trump would need to repeat his very narrow reported victory in the Keystone State four years ago;

• There are, however, many “X Factors” this year that should prevent anyone from thinking they know anything about how all of this could ultimately play out based on either national or battleground state polling numbers — from the pandemic and the unprecedented number of absentee ballots this year, to the US Postal Service slowdowns, to new, unverifiable touchscreen voting systems in many locations, to the GOP’s stolen U.S. Supreme Court and how those “Radicals in Robes” could still help game the system between now and Election Day (and in the days after), particularly if Republicans are able to steal an even larger the majority by ramming Trump’s SCOTUS nominee Amy Coney Barrett onto the Court before Election Day, as Senate Republicans currently intend;

• One of those “X Factors,” for example, is playing out right now in New York City today, where the Board of Elections has an apparent disaster on its hands after their vendor sent out tens of thousands of mail-in ballots with the wrong names and addresses printed on the accompanying return envelopes. The BOE claims they will make good on the problem by getting corrected envelopes to voters in time to vote, but once again, chaos reigns for voters in Brooklyn, who are asked by the BOE to contact Apply4Absentee@boe.nyc or call 1-866-VOTE-NYC if they received an absentee ballot with the incorrect name or address on the return envelope;

• Meanwhile, ballot battles continue in both state and federal courts regarding, among other things, how long after Election Day that mail ballots in swingstates like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan and North Carolina may arrive at County headquarters to still be included in the final results. We’re joined today by BRAD BLOG’s long-serving legal analyst ERNEST A. CANNING to discuss some of those cases and how the U.S. Supreme Court’s so-called “Purcell Principle” may serve to overturn (or uphold) rulings in both lower federal courts and in state Supreme Courts. Canning also offers some thoughts on Trump’s nomination of Barrett to SCOTUS and how the latest Federalist Society-backed judge to be packed onto the high court illustrates the sweeping lurch to the radical right on our federal court system over the past 40 years;

• Finally, we close with Desi Doyen and our latest Green News Report. The news she’s got today is pretty grim…but don’t blame Desi. There ain’t much good news out there to work with these days…

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…
[audio:http://BradBlog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman-BidenPA-MailInMessNYC_ErnieCanning-BallotBattles-PA-WI-Barrett-Purcell_092920.mp3]

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