Elections
Election Results: When will Michigan’s ballots be counted by?
The victor of the 2020 presidential election won’t be known on Election Night. Postal ballots (both “mail-in” and “absentee”) and in-person votes, early voting mean that many states will have a backlog of uncounted ballots on Election Day, placing additional strain on state election systems that are already under unprecedented stress.
Swing states have always been the king-makers in presidential elections—”president-makers,” I should say. But, this time around, greater skepticism of the election’s integrity puts more pressure on the swing states’ election processes.
In this series of explainers, I’ve already covered the swing states of Pennsylvania and Arizona. Let’s dive into another one: Michigan.
For an explanation about the difference between mail-in and absentee ballots, check out this piece here by Ben Wilson: The Difference Between Absentee and Mail-In Ballots.
The state, which President Donald Trump won in 2016 with a microscopic 0.3% margin, currently leans toward his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, according to FiveThirtyEight. Michigan is a must-win state for President Trump if he is to get a second term, so a lot’s riding on the Wolverine State.
Back in 2018, Michigan passed a law which allowed its voters to request an absentee ballot for any reason, expanding the amount of voters who qualify for ballots of this sort.
Under another state law, ballots received by clerks after 8 pm on Election Day will not be counted. While the Supreme Court recently ruled that ballots received up through November 6 in Pennsylvania are allowed to be counted, a Michigan appeals court on Friday upheld the state’s current law. As of right now, it is uncertain if this ruling will be appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court.
In September, however, Michigan lawmakers passed a law that permits election clerks to open and sort—but not count—ballots on November 2 for 10 hours before the start of Election Day at midnight. This will save election officials some time on November 3 when they then have to also count all the in-person ballots from that day.
Of the more-than-three million absentee ballots requested this election, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the state’s chief election official, said on Tuesday that 1.5 million have already been submitted, The Detroit Free Press reported.
Even though Michiganders are still able to request absentee ballots, Benson has urged those who have still not requested one to request one in-person from their clerk’s office instead as well as to deliver their ballot in person to the clerk or a designated dropbox. This is to take some of the burden off of the U.S. Postal Service, which has been facing its own set of problems nationwide.
As for when she predicts the results will be released, Benson, according to Politico, said earlier this month: “We still expect that will be the Friday of that week … that we can expect every ballot will be tabulated. Now it may be sooner, but we want to manage those expectations.”
Given the information presented, Michigan’s full election results most likely won’t be known on Election Night. Most of its results should be published within the week after Election Day, probably November 6 (Friday) at the earliest, as Sec. Benson approximated.
Nonetheless, in the year 2020, anything could go haywire—nothing is certain.
RELATED: Election Results: When will Pennsylvania’s ballots be counted by?
RELATED: Election Results: When will Arizona’s ballots be counted by?
You can follow Douglas Braff on Twitter @Douglas_P_Braff.
Elections
Report: Beijing’s military hacked U.S. nuclear firm before Hunter Biden aided Chinese bid to acquire it
A bombshell report by Just the News explains that “U.S. officials were acutely aware that Beijing was trying to obtain America’s premiere nuclear reactor technology, including through illicit hacking, months before Hunter Biden and his business partners sought to arrange a quiet sale of an iconic U.S. reactor company to a Chinese firm, according to court records and national security experts.”
Hunter Biden attempted to assist CEFC China Energy to acquire Westinghouse, one of America’s most famous electricity and appliance brands, as well as its state-the-art AP1000 nuclear reactor.
Hunter began his work with the Chinese company in early 2016 – while Joe Biden was the sitting Vice President – memos show. According to a copy of the indictment, just 20 months earlier, his father’s Justice Department charged five members of a Chinese military hacking unit for breaching the company’s computer systems in search of intellectual property and internal strategy communications.
Just the News reports:
In May 2014, the five operatives of the People’s Liberation Army’s Unit 61398 were charged with hacking into the systems of six U.S.-based companies across different industrial sectors, including Westinghouse Electric Co., SolarWorld, United States Steel Corp., and a union. The attorney general at the time, Eric Holder, called the breach a classic case of “economic espionage.”
One operative gained access to Westinghouse’s computers in 2010 and “stole proprietary and confidential technical and design specifications related to pipes, pipe supports, and pipe routing” pertaining to the company’s advanced AP1000 nuclear reactor design, according to an indictment filed by the Department of Justice.
“Among other things, such specifications would enable a competitor to build a plant similar to the AP1000 without incurring significant research and development costs associated with designing similar pipes, pipe supports, and pipe routing systems,” the indictment reads.
Just the News notes that while there is no evidence at the moment that Hunter Biden was aware of or involved in the hacking efforts by the Chinese, documents previously released by Congress in the Biden impeachment inquiry show Hunter Biden wrote in one text message in 2017 that he believed one of the CEFC officials he worked with, Patrick Ho, was the “f—ing spy chief” of China.
Ho was later indicted in the U.S. and charged with corruption. Joe Biden’s brother James told the FBI he believed CEFC Chairman Ye Jianming had a relationship with China’s communist president.
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