US First Lady Melania Trump made her campaign appearance for President Donald Trump on Saturday in the battleground of Wisconsin, where she urged voters to let her husband return to the White house.

US Election 2020: First lady campaigns for Trump in battleground Wisconsin

A few days earlier, Taylor Swift revealed she will be <a href="http://13.235.153.162/entertainment/us-elections-2020-taylor-swift-reveals-she-will-vote-for-joe-biden-333384">voting</a> for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year's US election. Now, just three days before the election, the singer has approved the use of her song for the democrat's endorsement.&nbsp; 
 
Taylor granted permission for the use of her song 'Only the Young' from the Netflix documentary 'Taylor Swift: Miss Americana' in an advertisement to support Biden-Harris bid for the presidency.

<a href="http://13.235.153.162/photos/jennifer-aniston-ryan-reynolds-other-celebs-who-came-out-to-vote-in-the-2020-us-election-337396" hreflang="en">Jennifer Aniston, Ryan Reynolds &amp; other celebs who came out to vote in the 2020 US election</a> 
 
The advertiesment was shared online on Friday (October 30) by California’s Democratic representative Eric Swalwell. By quoting some lyrics from the song in his post, he wrote,'' Up there’s the finish line. Our future is worth our fight. Thank you, @TaylorSwift13, for voicing what #Onlythe young can do. Let’s run!'' Swalwell wrote in his tweet.

<div class="ui-state-default" contenteditable="false">
<div class="twitter-block" draggable="false">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Up there's the finish line. 
Our future is worth our fight. 
 
Thank you, <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@taylorswift13</a>, for voicing what <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OnlyTheYoung?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#OnlyTheYoung</a> can do. Let’s run! <a href="https://t.co/q4EAJwwzqG">pic.twitter.com/q4EAJwwzqG</a>
— Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) <a href="https://twitter.com/ericswalwell/status/1322161334696386560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 30, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>
<a class="close-mark close-div" href="#" id="jqclosemark">×</a></div>

Later, Kamala also re-tweeted the post and wrote,'' Thank you @TaylorSwift13 and my friend @EricSwalwell for showing young people what’s at stake in this election.''

<a href="http://13.235.153.162/photos/donald-trump-vs-joe-biden-which-celebrity-is-backing-whom-in-the-us-presidential-elections-333505" hreflang="en">Donald Trump Vs Joe Biden: Which celebrity is backing whom in the US presidential elections</a> 
 
Taylor, who is pro-Biden and a vocal critic of Donald Trump, is urging young voters to head to the polls to cast their ballots on Election Day which is on November 3. 
 
Before Taylor, Brad Pitt <a href="http://13.235.153.162/entertainment/brad-pitt-calls-joe-biden-a-president-for-all-americans-in-new-campaign-ad-337843">narrated a commercial</a> in which he called Biden a 'President For All Americans'

A few days earlier, Taylor Swift revealed she will be voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year's US election. Now, just three days before the election, the singer has approved the use of her song for the democrat's endorsement.

A few days earlier, Taylor Swift revealed she will be voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in this year's US election. Now, just three days before the election, the singer has approved the use of her song for the democrat's endorsement. Taylor granted permission for the use of her song 'Only the Young' from the Netflix documentary 'Taylor Swift: Miss Americana' in an advertisement to support Biden-Harris bid for the presidency. Jennifer Aniston, Ryan Reynolds & other celebs who came out to vote in the 2020 US election The advertiesment was shared online on Friday (October 30) by California’s Democratic representative Eric Swalwell. By quoting some lyrics from the song in his post, he wrote,'' Up there’s the finish line. Our future is worth our fight. Thank you, @TaylorSwift13, for voicing what #Onlythe young can do. Let’s run!'' Swalwell wrote in his tweet. Up there's the finish line. Our future is worth our fight. Thank you, @taylorswift13, for voicing what #OnlyTheYoung can do. Let’s run! pic.twitter.com/q4EAJwwzqG — Eric Swalwell (@ericswalwell) October 30, 2020 × Later, Kamala also re-tweeted the post and wrote,'' Thank you @TaylorSwift13 and my friend @EricSwalwell for showing young people what’s at stake in this election.'' Donald Trump Vs Joe Biden: Which celebrity is backing whom in the US presidential elections Taylor, who is pro-Biden and a vocal critic of Donald Trump, is urging young voters to head to the polls to cast their ballots on Election Day which is on November 3. Before Taylor, Brad Pitt narrated a commercial in which he called Biden a 'President For All Americans'

US election 2020: Taylor Swift lends her Netflix documentary song for Biden-Harris ad

Political heat is stirring up ahead of the US election in duelling campaign rallies in key election state of Florida. Rival Joe Biden & President Donald Trump pulled out all stops to appeal to the voters just days before the voting day. Watch the report to know more.

Political heat stirs up ahead of the US Election; Trump & Biden's final appeal to voters

The COVID-19 pandemic is driving more Americans to vote by mail. At least 70 million Americans have already cast their ballots with a record number which keeps getting larger day by day. Watch the report to know, how is the vote counted on election night?

US Election 2020: How is the vote counted on election night?

With Joe Biden & DonaldTrump electronically muted for portions of the debate, the constant interruptions were replaced by a sharply defined personal attacks, accusations & confusion. WION brings you the best moments from the final Presidential Debate 2020.

Personal attacks, confusion & time

In their final chance, DonaldTrump & and Joe Biden unleashed a series of falsehoods, misleading & exaggerated statements. WION fact-checks the Final Presidential Debate2020.

Falsehoods, misleading & exaggerated claims

America's former Commander-in-Chief Barack Obama has made his 2020 Campaign trail debut ahead of the last Presidential Debate. Obama vented four years of his pent-up frustration at a rally in Philadelphia. WION's Palki Sharma gets you the latest updates from US Election 2020.

Gravitas: Obama makes 2020 campaign trail debut

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system.

The debate was, on the whole, a more restrained affair than the first encounter between the two candidates last month, when Trump harangued Biden for most of an hour and a half and effectively short-circuited any policy debate. But if the tenor of Thursday’s forum was more sedate, the conflict in matters of substance and vision could not have been more dramatic.

From the opening minutes, the two candidates took opposing stances on the pandemic, with Trump promising, in defiance of evidence, that the disease was “going away” while Biden called for much more aggressive federal action for the “dark winter” ahead.

Trump, who badgered Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, “all talk and no action.” And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Biden and members of his family.

Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own reelection, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again, even as polls show that a majority of voters believe the worst of the coronavirus crisis is still ahead.

Trailing in a series of crucial swing states, and with 48 million Americans having already voted, the president was under more pressure. But while he proved he can engage in a more conventional political jousting, it was less clear whether his performance could prompt people who dislike him to reconsider their well-ingrained perceptions.

Biden, for his part, stuck to the core of the argument that has propelled his campaign from the start, denouncing Trump as a divisive and unethical leader who has botched the federal response to a devastating public-health crisis. Though Trump pushed him onto the defensive repeatedly, the former vice president also laid out a fuller version of his own policy agenda than he managed in the first debate, calling for large-scale economic stimulus spending, new aid to states battling the pandemic and a muscular expansion of health care and worker benefits nationwide.

Significantly, Biden made no serious error of the sort that could haunt him in the final days of a race in which he’s leading.

Of all the disagreements between the two candidates, none blazed more brightly than their assessments of the U.S. experience battling the coronavirus.

Prompted by the moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC News, to explain his plan for the coming months, Trump stuck to the sunny message he has delivered at recent campaign rallies, promising a vaccine in short order and citing his own recovery from a bout with the virus as an example of medical progress. The president boasted that he was now “immune” to the disease, and insisted that states like Texas and Florida had seen the virus fade away, even as case counts are on the rise across the country.

“I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we’ve been able to do,” Trump said, without offering any specifics.

Biden, in response, pressed a focused and familiar line of attack against the president, faulting him for doing “virtually nothing” to head off the pandemic early this year and heading into the coldest part of the year with no defined plan to control the virus. Holding up a face mask, Biden said he would encourage all Americans to don them and would ramp up rapid testing on a national scale.

“We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan,” Biden said. Trump shot back: “I don’t think we’re going to have a dark winter at all — we’re opening up our country.”

But when the president said “we’re learning to live with” the coronavirus, Biden pounced. “We’re learning to die with it,” he said.

“Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said, adding, “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.”

The president did, however, say for the first time, “I take full responsibility” for the impact of the virus. Then he quickly sought to skirt blame. “It’s not my fault that it came here — it’s China’s fault,” he said.

The debate Thursday, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, represented perhaps the last opportunity for Trump to shake up the presidential campaign and claw his way into closer contention against Biden with just 11 days remaining.

Trump was more coherent than in the first debate, getting off a series of attack lines depicting Biden as a career politician and avoiding harsh personal critiques of his children.

With the candidates’ microphones turned off at times while the other was speaking, a new rule implemented to avoid a repeat of Trump’s constant interruptions in the first debate, their facial expressions often did the talking. When Biden said Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, was being “used as a Russian pawn,” the president gaped and jarred his head to the right. And when Trump insisted, not for the first time, that he would release his tax returns after an IRS audit, Biden let out a wide, here-we-go-again grin.

It was in the second segment of the debate that the exchanges turned sharply personal, as the focus shifted to foreign interference in U.S. elections. Biden spoke first, warning that countries like Russia and Iran would “pay a price” for tampering with the campaign. Alluding to unsubstantiated stories about him that have circulated in conservative media, Biden chided Trump for the actions of “his buddy Rudy Giuliani.”

Trump rapidly escalated matters, brandishing the unproven allegations about Biden’s son to accuse his rival of personally taking money from foreign interests. “They were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are,” Trump said, leveling a charge for which no evidence has surfaced. An investigation by Senate Republicans found no evidence that Biden, the former vice president, engaged in wrongdoing over his son’s business dealings.

Biden rejected the charge, saying he had “not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” Pushing back on the president, he cited a New York Times report that Trump maintained a Chinese bank account and challenged the president to let the American people see his tax returns. “Release your tax returns,” Biden said, “or stop talking about corruption.”

The extended back-and-forth was the most prominent airing so far of the negative message that Trump clearly sees as his best chance of undermining Biden in the final days of the presidential campaign. But the clash did not yield the kind of explosive confrontation that strategists on both sides had anticipated, and in some cases feared.

As Trump peppered Biden with exaggerated or baseless charges, Biden repeatedly countered, “Not true,” sometimes without elaboration, and the segment took on a kind of flat and circular shape.

After the protracted back-and-forth, Biden sought to pivot with a rehearsed line in, saying: “It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.”

Biden’s strongest moment may have been when he looked into the camera and knowingly addressed voters. “You know who he is,” he said, alluding to Trump. “You know his character. You know my character. You know our reputations for honor and telling the truth.”

 
At times, the debate resembled a more conventional political clash between a Democrat and a Republican, albeit with an incumbent president quick to distort his opponent’s positions.

“He wants socialized medicine,” Trump insisted of Biden, citing the stances of more liberal Democrats, including Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both former primary foes of Biden.

“He thinks he’s running against someone else,” Biden said, adding, “I beat all those other people because I disagreed with him.”

 
The candidates both expressed support for new federal spending on a large scale to help prop up the economy and aid distressed individuals and households, an initiative still gridlocked on Capitol Hill. Trump again blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the holdup, promising that if a deal were arranged, lawmakers from his own party would fall in line.

But he continued to draw a firm line against Democratic-backed plans to help distressed states and cities close immense budget gaps. That aspect of the Democrats’ legislation, the president said, was merely “a big bailout for badly run Democrat cities and states.”

Biden called state relief an urgent priority and defended his party’s congressional wing, pointing out that it passed new relief legislation that had languished before the Republican Senate. And he put the onus on Trump to drum up support in that chamber. “Why isn’t he talking to his Republican friends?” Biden said.

 
Days after it was reported that the government had failed to locate the parents of more than 500 migrant children separated from them by the Trump administration, the president repeatedly evaded questions about how he intended to reunite those families. “We are trying very hard,” Trump said, before attempting to pivot into an attack on the Obama administration’s border policies.

But Biden castigated the president for imposing a family separation policy in the first place. “Those kids are alone — nowhere to go,” Biden said. “It is criminal. It is criminal.”

And he also suggested he would be more effective at addressing the issue than the president he served — Barack Obama.

“I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States,” Biden said, vowing to deliver an immigration overhaul that offers unauthorized migrants a pathway to legal status in the first 100 days of his administration.

After Biden described climate change as an “existential threat” requiring an all-out government response, Trump made a counterargument riddled with inaccuracies and some allegations that were simply perplexing. He claimed falsely that the construction of renewable-energy facilities created more emissions than traditional fuels, and accused Biden of trying to mandate that buildings be constructed with “little, tiny, small windows.” And he again insisted that wind energy is “extremely expensive” and “kills all the birds.”

In a debate that was originally planned as a forum on national security, the two candidates devoted only a few glancing exchanges to the subject. In one, Trump took credit for averting war on the Korean Peninsula, touting his “good relationship” with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and faulting the Obama administration for failing to establish such relations. Kim, he said, “didn’t like Obama.”

Biden defended the Obama administration’s view of Korean diplomacy, explaining that it had not wanted to “legitimize” Kim.

At the end of the debate, Biden said he would push the country to “transition from the oil industry,” adding that “the oil industry pollutes significantly” and that he would end federal subsidies. Sensing an opening, Trump said “that’s a big statement” and then invoked a series of states with energy-heavy industries. “Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?”

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system.

President Donald Trump and Joe Biden delivered starkly divergent closing arguments to the country in the final presidential debate Thursday, offering opposite prognoses for the coronavirus pandemic and airing irreconcilable differences on subjects from rescuing the economy and bolstering the health care system to fighting climate change and reshaping the immigration system. The debate was, on the whole, a more restrained affair than the first encounter between the two candidates last month, when Trump harangued Biden for most of an hour and a half and effectively short-circuited any policy debate. But if the tenor of Thursday’s forum was more sedate, the conflict in matters of substance and vision could not have been more dramatic. From the opening minutes, the two candidates took opposing stances on the pandemic, with Trump promising, in defiance of evidence, that the disease was “going away” while Biden called for much more aggressive federal action for the “dark winter” ahead. Trump, who badgered Biden with increasing aggression over the course of the debate, appeared determined to cast his opponent as a career politician who was, as he jabbed toward the end of the debate, “all talk and no action.” And the president used the event as his most prominent platform yet for airing unsubstantiated or baseless attacks about the finances of Biden and members of his family. Trump, however, did little to lay out an affirmative case for his own reelection, or to explain in clear terms what he would hope to do with another four years in the White House. He frequently misrepresented the facts of his own record, and Biden’s. And on his most important political vulnerability — his mismanagement of the pandemic — Trump hewed unswervingly to a message that happy days are nearly here again, even as polls show that a majority of voters believe the worst of the coronavirus crisis is still ahead. Trailing in a series of crucial swing states, and with 48 million Americans having already voted, the president was under more pressure. But while he proved he can engage in a more conventional political jousting, it was less clear whether his performance could prompt people who dislike him to reconsider their well-ingrained perceptions. Biden, for his part, stuck to the core of the argument that has propelled his campaign from the start, denouncing Trump as a divisive and unethical leader who has botched the federal response to a devastating public-health crisis. Though Trump pushed him onto the defensive repeatedly, the former vice president also laid out a fuller version of his own policy agenda than he managed in the first debate, calling for large-scale economic stimulus spending, new aid to states battling the pandemic and a muscular expansion of health care and worker benefits nationwide. Significantly, Biden made no serious error of the sort that could haunt him in the final days of a race in which he’s leading. Of all the disagreements between the two candidates, none blazed more brightly than their assessments of the U.S. experience battling the coronavirus. Prompted by the moderator, Kristen Welker of NBC News, to explain his plan for the coming months, Trump stuck to the sunny message he has delivered at recent campaign rallies, promising a vaccine in short order and citing his own recovery from a bout with the virus as an example of medical progress. The president boasted that he was now “immune” to the disease, and insisted that states like Texas and Florida had seen the virus fade away, even as case counts are on the rise across the country. “I’ve been congratulated by the heads of many countries on what we’ve been able to do,” Trump said, without offering any specifics. Biden, in response, pressed a focused and familiar line of attack against the president, faulting him for doing “virtually nothing” to head off the pandemic early this year and heading into the coldest part of the year with no defined plan to control the virus. Holding up a face mask, Biden said he would encourage all Americans to don them and would ramp up rapid testing on a national scale. “We’re about to go into a dark winter, a dark winter, and he has no clear plan,” Biden said. Trump shot back: “I don’t think we’re going to have a dark winter at all — we’re opening up our country.” But when the president said “we’re learning to live with” the coronavirus, Biden pounced. “We’re learning to die with it,” he said. “Anyone who’s responsible for that many deaths should not remain as president of the United States of America,” Biden said, adding, “I will end this. I will make sure we have a plan.” The president did, however, say for the first time, “I take full responsibility” for the impact of the virus. Then he quickly sought to skirt blame. “It’s not my fault that it came here — it’s China’s fault,” he said. The debate Thursday, at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, represented perhaps the last opportunity for Trump to shake up the presidential campaign and claw his way into closer contention against Biden with just 11 days remaining. Trump was more coherent than in the first debate, getting off a series of attack lines depicting Biden as a career politician and avoiding harsh personal critiques of his children. With the candidates’ microphones turned off at times while the other was speaking, a new rule implemented to avoid a repeat of Trump’s constant interruptions in the first debate, their facial expressions often did the talking. When Biden said Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, was being “used as a Russian pawn,” the president gaped and jarred his head to the right. And when Trump insisted, not for the first time, that he would release his tax returns after an IRS audit, Biden let out a wide, here-we-go-again grin. It was in the second segment of the debate that the exchanges turned sharply personal, as the focus shifted to foreign interference in U.S. elections. Biden spoke first, warning that countries like Russia and Iran would “pay a price” for tampering with the campaign. Alluding to unsubstantiated stories about him that have circulated in conservative media, Biden chided Trump for the actions of “his buddy Rudy Giuliani.” Trump rapidly escalated matters, brandishing the unproven allegations about Biden’s son to accuse his rival of personally taking money from foreign interests. “They were paying you a lot of money and they probably still are,” Trump said, leveling a charge for which no evidence has surfaced. An investigation by Senate Republicans found no evidence that Biden, the former vice president, engaged in wrongdoing over his son’s business dealings. Biden rejected the charge, saying he had “not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life.” Pushing back on the president, he cited a New York Times report that Trump maintained a Chinese bank account and challenged the president to let the American people see his tax returns. “Release your tax returns,” Biden said, “or stop talking about corruption.” The extended back-and-forth was the most prominent airing so far of the negative message that Trump clearly sees as his best chance of undermining Biden in the final days of the presidential campaign. But the clash did not yield the kind of explosive confrontation that strategists on both sides had anticipated, and in some cases feared. As Trump peppered Biden with exaggerated or baseless charges, Biden repeatedly countered, “Not true,” sometimes without elaboration, and the segment took on a kind of flat and circular shape. After the protracted back-and-forth, Biden sought to pivot with a rehearsed line in, saying: “It’s not about his family and my family. It’s about your family.” Biden’s strongest moment may have been when he looked into the camera and knowingly addressed voters. “You know who he is,” he said, alluding to Trump. “You know his character. You know my character. You know our reputations for honor and telling the truth.” At times, the debate resembled a more conventional political clash between a Democrat and a Republican, albeit with an incumbent president quick to distort his opponent’s positions. “He wants socialized medicine,” Trump insisted of Biden, citing the stances of more liberal Democrats, including Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, both former primary foes of Biden. “He thinks he’s running against someone else,” Biden said, adding, “I beat all those other people because I disagreed with him.” The candidates both expressed support for new federal spending on a large scale to help prop up the economy and aid distressed individuals and households, an initiative still gridlocked on Capitol Hill. Trump again blamed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for the holdup, promising that if a deal were arranged, lawmakers from his own party would fall in line. But he continued to draw a firm line against Democratic-backed plans to help distressed states and cities close immense budget gaps. That aspect of the Democrats’ legislation, the president said, was merely “a big bailout for badly run Democrat cities and states.” Biden called state relief an urgent priority and defended his party’s congressional wing, pointing out that it passed new relief legislation that had languished before the Republican Senate. And he put the onus on Trump to drum up support in that chamber. “Why isn’t he talking to his Republican friends?” Biden said. Days after it was reported that the government had failed to locate the parents of more than 500 migrant children separated from them by the Trump administration, the president repeatedly evaded questions about how he intended to reunite those families. “We are trying very hard,” Trump said, before attempting to pivot into an attack on the Obama administration’s border policies. But Biden castigated the president for imposing a family separation policy in the first place. “Those kids are alone — nowhere to go,” Biden said. “It is criminal. It is criminal.” And he also suggested he would be more effective at addressing the issue than the president he served — Barack Obama. “I’ll be president of the United States, not vice president of the United States,” Biden said, vowing to deliver an immigration overhaul that offers unauthorized migrants a pathway to legal status in the first 100 days of his administration. After Biden described climate change as an “existential threat” requiring an all-out government response, Trump made a counterargument riddled with inaccuracies and some allegations that were simply perplexing. He claimed falsely that the construction of renewable-energy facilities created more emissions than traditional fuels, and accused Biden of trying to mandate that buildings be constructed with “little, tiny, small windows.” And he again insisted that wind energy is “extremely expensive” and “kills all the birds.” In a debate that was originally planned as a forum on national security, the two candidates devoted only a few glancing exchanges to the subject. In one, Trump took credit for averting war on the Korean Peninsula, touting his “good relationship” with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, and faulting the Obama administration for failing to establish such relations. Kim, he said, “didn’t like Obama.” Biden defended the Obama administration’s view of Korean diplomacy, explaining that it had not wanted to “legitimize” Kim. At the end of the debate, Biden said he would push the country to “transition from the oil industry,” adding that “the oil industry pollutes significantly” and that he would end federal subsidies. Sensing an opening, Trump said “that’s a big statement” and then invoked a series of states with energy-heavy industries. “Will you remember that Texas? Will you remember that Pennsylvania, Oklahoma?”

In calmer debate, Biden and Trump offer sharply divergent visions for nation

U.S. Election Dialogues with WION's Palki Sharma.

U.S. Election Dialogues: Anti-China sentiment = Trump's gain?

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved President Donald Trumps SC nominee Amy Barrett. Watch report.

Your Story: Senate approves Trump's court nominee Amy Barrett

After casting doubts about Joe Biden's standing with China & cornering Hunter Biden, is now hit by another bombshell report. From trade war to constant barbs over the origin of Pandemic, was everything a cover up? WION reports on Trump's link with CHINA.

Donald Trump: China crusader or covert ally?

US election 2020: Joe Biden or Donald Trump? 15 days to go for the big election day, and faith has now taken the centre stage. Both the president and his challenger are eager to showcase how their campaigns are guided by faith.

All of a sudden, the US president loves going to churches. His rival Joe Biden is attending mass ceremonies. The US president attended a church services at the International Church of Las Vegas, an evangelical mega-church with contemporary musical programmes.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-religion-takes-centerstage-in-us-election-336537/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Trump has always worked closely with evangelical Christians and has put their causes of restricting abortion and preserving gun ownership on top of his political agenda.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-election-2020-trump-and-biden-finally-agree-on-something-as-november-3-nears-336482" hreflang="en">US election 2020: Trump and Biden finally agree on something as November 3 nears</a>

Addressing the gathering, one of the pastors said that at 4:30 the lord told her that Trump was going to be the president again.

“At 4.30 (am), the Lord said to me,Ii am going to give your president a second win. (cheering) this has three meanings, a win. And you will be the president again”, Denise Goulet, Senior Associate Pastor, International Church of Las Vegas.

The congregation then began praying for their president. As they prayed, Donald Trump kept himself busy counting money before he donated it.

After much deliberation, Trump settled for 20 dollars and dropped them in a bucket titled “change for change”. His critics say, the billionaire president should have donated more. Trump's supporters say - they couldn't care less.

“Everything he has promised to do, he has taken care of. The best economy that we have had in quite a while, he has built the wall, umm....What am I missing?”, David Tainowitz, a Trump supporter said.

“I do honestly feel that what's happening now, with the most corrupt man to ever have run for president, in John, Joe, John, I’m getting like him, Joe Biden, then you deserve to vote for him and you get what you get. I think Trump is the best man we have ever had”, another supporter said.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-election-2020-key-states-that-will-likely-decide-fate-of-donald-trump-and-joe-biden-336311" hreflang="en">US election 2020: Key states that will likely decide fate of Donald Trump and Joe Biden</a>

Last week, Joe Biden was spotted leaving a mass ceremony in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden has frequently stressed on how his Catholic faith has guided his actions as a public official. On Sunday, he participated in a virtual event with African-American faith leaders. He asked the leaders to pray for him to have the capacity to carry out his job when he becomes the president.

“Pray I have the capacity to step up and do this job, because four more years of Donald Trump will fundamentally change the nature of this country for several generations”, Biden was heard saying.

Donald Trump is trying to woo white evangelicals., Biden is catering to black protestants. Both their campaigns are working hard to court other key religious blocks.

But how much of a role does religion really play in the US election?

The Pew Research Centre recently conducted a survey of the key religious blocks. 78 per cent of white evangelical protestants said they will vote for Trump if the election were held today. Only 17 per cent prefer Biden.&nbsp;

White non-evangelical protestants:&nbsp;53 per cent said they would vote for Trump. 43 per cent said they lean towards the Democrats.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-election-donald-trump-claims-his-campaign-is-doing-very-very-well-336290" hreflang="en">US election: Donald Trump claims his campaign is doing 'very, very well'</a>

Among white catholic voters, Trump is again ahead by 8 percentage points. 52 per cent in this group said they would vote for Trump and 44 per cent favoured Biden. Among black protestant voters, 90 per cent favour Biden, while only 9 per cent say they would vote for Trump. Among hispanic&nbsp;catholics too, Biden leads with 67 per cent favouring him, and 26 per cent saying they would vote for Trump. Among Jewish Americans, 27 per cent say they will vote for Trump, and over 70 per cent say they prefer Biden.

Among atheist and agnostic voters, only 11 per cent say they will vote for Trump, while 83 per cent say they prefer Biden.

What do the figures tell?

There are deep divisions among white Christians and almost everybody else. Most of them support Donald Trump, and they account for roughly 44 per cent of registered American voters.

Will they manage to give their president another term?

US election 2020: Joe Biden or Donald Trump? 15 days to go for the big election day, and faith has now taken the centre stage. Both the president and his challenger are eager to showcase how their campaigns are guided by faith.

US election 2020: Joe Biden or Donald Trump? 15 days to go for the big election day, and faith has now taken the centre stage. Both the president and his challenger are eager to showcase how their campaigns are guided by faith. All of a sudden, the US president loves going to churches. His rival Joe Biden is attending mass ceremonies. The US president attended a church services at the International Church of Las Vegas, an evangelical mega-church with contemporary musical programmes. Trump has always worked closely with evangelical Christians and has put their causes of restricting abortion and preserving gun ownership on top of his political agenda. Also read: US election 2020: Trump and Biden finally agree on something as November 3 nears Addressing the gathering, one of the pastors said that at 4:30 the lord told her that Trump was going to be the president again. “At 4.30 (am), the Lord said to me,Ii am going to give your president a second win. (cheering) this has three meanings, a win. And you will be the president again”, Denise Goulet, Senior Associate Pastor, International Church of Las Vegas. The congregation then began praying for their president. As they prayed, Donald Trump kept himself busy counting money before he donated it. After much deliberation, Trump settled for 20 dollars and dropped them in a bucket titled “change for change”. His critics say, the billionaire president should have donated more. Trump's supporters say - they couldn't care less. “Everything he has promised to do, he has taken care of. The best economy that we have had in quite a while, he has built the wall, umm....What am I missing?”, David Tainowitz, a Trump supporter said. “I do honestly feel that what's happening now, with the most corrupt man to ever have run for president, in John, Joe, John, I’m getting like him, Joe Biden, then you deserve to vote for him and you get what you get. I think Trump is the best man we have ever had”, another supporter said. Also read: US election 2020: Key states that will likely decide fate of Donald Trump and Joe Biden Last week, Joe Biden was spotted leaving a mass ceremony in Wilmington, Delaware. Biden has frequently stressed on how his Catholic faith has guided his actions as a public official. On Sunday, he participated in a virtual event with African-American faith leaders. He asked the leaders to pray for him to have the capacity to carry out his job when he becomes the president. “Pray I have the capacity to step up and do this job, because four more years of Donald Trump will fundamentally change the nature of this country for several generations”, Biden was heard saying. Donald Trump is trying to woo white evangelicals., Biden is catering to black protestants. Both their campaigns are working hard to court other key religious blocks. But how much of a role does religion really play in the US election? The Pew Research Centre recently conducted a survey of the key religious blocks. 78 per cent of white evangelical protestants said they will vote for Trump if the election were held today. Only 17 per cent prefer Biden. White non-evangelical protestants: 53 per cent said they would vote for Trump. 43 per cent said they lean towards the Democrats. Also read: US election: Donald Trump claims his campaign is doing 'very, very well' Among white catholic voters, Trump is again ahead by 8 percentage points. 52 per cent in this group said they would vote for Trump and 44 per cent favoured Biden. Among black protestant voters, 90 per cent favour Biden, while only 9 per cent say they would vote for Trump. Among hispanic catholics too, Biden leads with 67 per cent favouring him, and 26 per cent saying they would vote for Trump. Among Jewish Americans, 27 per cent say they will vote for Trump, and over 70 per cent say they prefer Biden. Among atheist and agnostic voters, only 11 per cent say they will vote for Trump, while 83 per cent say they prefer Biden. What do the figures tell? There are deep divisions among white Christians and almost everybody else. Most of them support Donald Trump, and they account for roughly 44 per cent of registered American voters. Will they manage to give their president another term?

US election 2020: Biden-Trump campaigns and the role of faith in American elections

US Election 2020: United States Republican President Donald Trump, and his Democratic rival Joe Biden may not agree on much, but both recently urged supporters to vote as early as possible.&nbsp;

In Nevada, Trump asked voters to cast ballots early, while Biden asked voters in North Carolina to “go vote today”.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/us-supreme-court-to-review-legality-of-trumps-remain-in-mexico-asylum-policy-336475" hreflang="en">US Supreme Court to review legality of Trump's 'remain in Mexico' asylum policy</a>

Ahead of the November 3 election, 27.9 million Americans have already cast their votes, either by mail or in person, based on data from the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, setting a new record. Many are voting early to avoid last minute rush at polling stations given the severity of the pandemic in the US.

Trump was heard saying in Carson City, Nevada - "Early voting is under way, so get out and vote." Trump had lost Nevada in 2016.

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/gravitas-biden-vs-trump-the-story-of-dueling-town-halls-335917/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

Biden, meanwhile, urged people in North Carolina to cast ballots as early as possible. At least 20 per cent of the state’s registered voters had already cast their votes. In 2016, Trump had won North Carolina by 3.66 percentage points.

"We gotta keep the incredible momentum going; we can't let up," Biden said during a "drive-in rally" in Durham. "Don't wait - go vote today."

Biden also launched an attack on Trump for his claims over the weekend. Trump had said that the US had “turned the corner” in terms of the pandemic. Biden noted how the cases continue to increase to highest levels in many parts of the country.

"As my grandfather would say: 'This guy's gone around the bend if he thinks we've turned the corner. Things are getting worse, and he continues to lie to us about circumstances”, Biden said.&nbsp;

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/my-fathers-relationship-with-pm-modi-is-incredible-donald-trump-jr-336468" hreflang="en">My father's relationship with PM Modi is incredible: Donald Trump Jr</a>

Trump had recently contracted COVID-19, and had mocked Biden for being too cautious about the pandemic.

"Listen to the scientists!" Trump said, while mocking Biden. “If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression”, Trump added.

In response, Biden campaign said - “New coronavirus cases are surging and layoffs are rising”.

Both are set to debate for the final time on Thursday in Tennessee. The second debate was cancelled because Trump refused to attend a virtual debate.

US Election 2020: United States Republican President Donald Trump, and his Democratic rival Joe Biden may not agree on much, but both recently urged supporters to vote as early as possible.

US Election 2020: United States Republican President Donald Trump, and his Democratic rival Joe Biden may not agree on much, but both recently urged supporters to vote as early as possible. In Nevada, Trump asked voters to cast ballots early, while Biden asked voters in North Carolina to “go vote today”. Also read: US Supreme Court to review legality of Trump's 'remain in Mexico' asylum policy Ahead of the November 3 election, 27.9 million Americans have already cast their votes, either by mail or in person, based on data from the US Elections Project at the University of Florida, setting a new record. Many are voting early to avoid last minute rush at polling stations given the severity of the pandemic in the US. Trump was heard saying in Carson City, Nevada - "Early voting is under way, so get out and vote." Trump had lost Nevada in 2016. Biden, meanwhile, urged people in North Carolina to cast ballots as early as possible. At least 20 per cent of the state’s registered voters had already cast their votes. In 2016, Trump had won North Carolina by 3.66 percentage points. "We gotta keep the incredible momentum going; we can't let up," Biden said during a "drive-in rally" in Durham. "Don't wait - go vote today." Biden also launched an attack on Trump for his claims over the weekend. Trump had said that the US had “turned the corner” in terms of the pandemic. Biden noted how the cases continue to increase to highest levels in many parts of the country. "As my grandfather would say: 'This guy's gone around the bend if he thinks we've turned the corner. Things are getting worse, and he continues to lie to us about circumstances”, Biden said. Also read: My father's relationship with PM Modi is incredible: Donald Trump Jr Trump had recently contracted COVID-19, and had mocked Biden for being too cautious about the pandemic. "Listen to the scientists!" Trump said, while mocking Biden. “If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression”, Trump added. In response, Biden campaign said - “New coronavirus cases are surging and layoffs are rising”. Both are set to debate for the final time on Thursday in Tennessee. The second debate was cancelled because Trump refused to attend a virtual debate.

US election 2020: Trump and Biden finally agree on something as November 3 nears

In Georgia, the state’s voting machines have malfunctioned in three consecutive elections this year alone.

In Pennsylvania, election officials are staring down possibly the biggest ballot processing backlog in the country, with no means of even touching the ballots until polls open on Election Day.

And in North Carolina, thousands of submitted absentee ballots are currently in purgatory, neither rejected nor accepted but “under review,” amid a back-and-forth court battle over so-called ballot curing.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-trump-and-biden-finally-agree-on-something-as-november-3-nears-336482">US election 2020: Trump and Trump finally agree on something as Nov 3 nears</a>

Short on money, overworked and under enormous pressure, many battleground states are still in the process of standing up their electoral systems, a building-a-plane-midflight reality for a democratic process that is being challenged daily by court cases, new laws and surges in the coronavirus.

The New York Times assessed the readiness of seven battleground states, and will continue to do so up to Nov. 3. Each of these states was won by Donald Trump in 2016. Joe Biden is now ahead or effectively tied with Trump in most polls in all seven.

After spring and summer primary elections that were undermined by a host of issues — ballot delays in the mail, polling location consolidation resulting in long lines, voter confusion and lengthy lags in counting — officials have mounted a fall sprint to recruit poll workers, scout safe poll locations, seek more time to process ballots, and start a significant education campaign to help voters navigate the pandemic-muddled process.

Now, the readiness of states chiefly involves two distinct challenges: processing the tens of millions of absentee ballots that are already flooding election offices, and maintaining an Election Day operation that as closely as possible resembles normalcy.

Here’s where the seven states stand with just 15 days before Election Day, ranked in order of preparedness.

1. Arizona

Of all the battleground states, none is expected to have as smooth an election as is Arizona. In the midterm elections in 2018, 79% of Arizonans voted before Election Day — a figure that jumped to 88% for the primary this August.

After 2018, when it took a week for Arizona to count enough ballots for a winner to be declared in its Senate race, the state changed its laws to allow absentee ballots to be counted beginning 14 days before Election Day.

Maricopa County, which includes 60% of Arizona’s population, acquired new ballot-counting machines that officials expect will allow the vast majority of the voting results to be known on election night.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-donald-trump-claims-his-campaign-is-doing-very-very-well-336290" hreflang="en">Donald Trump claims his campaign is doing 'very, very well'</a>

“I somewhat jokingly say that we are prepared for everything except Godzilla,” said Adrian Fontes, the Maricopa County recorder, who is responsible for running the county’s elections. “Nowadays that includes a global pandemic and possible terrorism.”

Fontes and other Arizona officials have more experience with absentee ballots than any other battleground state in the country. Arizona created a permanent absentee voter list in 2007, and by 2010, 60% of the state’s voters cast ballots before Election Day, a figure that has increased every two years since.

2. Michigan

Michigan has had a successful poll worker recruitment program, with more than 30,000 having signed up and no regional restrictions preventing them from going anywhere in the state.

That same pool of workers could also be asked to serve on the counting boards, which are the election workers assigned to sift through, verify and tally the absentee ballots. While thousands will be needed for the task, which Michigan law allows to start only 10 hours before Election Day, the secretary of state’s office is confident that staffing will not be a problem.

Because of that late start to counting, Michigan anticipates being one of the last states to report full results, with election officials estimating that the vast majority will be announced through Nov. 6. An appeals court ruled Friday that ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, though it is possible the decision is appealed to the state Supreme Court.

The secretary of state’s office has begun a voter education campaign as if it has lost the decision in court, telling voters that the last day to safely mail back their ballots is Oct. 19. After that, they should be hand-delivered to an election office or one of the state’s 1,000 drop boxes.

Also weighing on the minds of election officials is the threat of polling place intimidation. Armed right-wing protesters entered the Statehouse earlier this year to denounce the coronavirus lockdowns of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and law enforcement officials are anticipating a similar presence at the polls.

On Friday, the secretary of state in Michigan issued an order banning firearms at polling places and any areas within 100 feet of a voting center.

3. Wisconsin

In the past decade, Wisconsin Republicans enacted laws that have made voting tougher:

— It now has one of the nation’s strictest voter-identification mandates. Voters who apply for an absentee ballot online or through the mail must include a photograph for their identification, which requires both equipment and technical sophistication.

— They also must have a witness sign their ballots, a hurdle made more difficult by a pandemic that is hitting Wisconsin nearly as hard as anywhere in the country.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-key-states-that-will-likely-decide-fate-of-donald-trump-and-joe-biden-336311" hreflang="en">US election 2020: Key states that will likely decide fate of Trump and Biden</a>

Some Wisconsinites have taken it upon themselves to help their neighbors navigate an absentee voting process that is new for the vast majority of voters. Lori Miller, a retired dietitian from rural Arkansaw, Wisconsin, spent $59 on eBay for a portable photocopy machine to tote to tables set up this summer by the League of Women Voters so she could make copies of people’s driver’s licenses for them to include in absentee ballot applications.

“What used to be a fairly simple process now has new steps to it,” Miller said. “With every election, and especially this year, there have been proposals made to change deadlines and then those get challenged and changed and appealed. People lose track.”

Unlike most states, Wisconsin does not have a single office responsible for voting statewide, nor do county officials oversee elections. Instead, more than 1,800 municipalities manage their own elections. In scores of rural townships, a part-time town clerk is responsible for conducting elections and counting the votes.

The municipal clerks are forbidden from feeding the ballots through counting machines until the polls open Nov. 3. But Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday that he expects the state to have its results completed by the end of Election Day or, at the latest, by the day after.

4. Florida

On Sept. 30, Peter Antonacci, the elections supervisor in Broward County, was scrambling: The vendor his office had hired to pick up and drop off voting equipment to the polls had canceled the county’s order, leaving Broward hunting for trucks 34 days before Election Day.

It was one of the myriad challenges faced daily by the 67 county supervisors in Florida, who run elections in the nation’s largest and often closest presidential battleground. Winning by “1.5% in the state of Florida is a landslide,” said Wesley Wilcox, the elections supervisor in Marion County.

The supervisors say they are ready to handle problems small and large. Of utmost concern is the crush of mail ballots already arriving. More than 2.4 million ballots had been returned as of Sunday afternoon, led by a stunning return rate from Democrats, who are typically outpaced by Republicans in mail voting. So far, 400,000 more Democrats have returned mail ballots than Republicans, though Republicans are expected to turn out en masse to vote in person.

Florida has years of experience with voting by mail — an effort led largely by Republicans — which should mean the state is better positioned to deal with this year’s surge. State law allows counties to start processing mail ballots 22 days before Election Day. An executive order signed during the pandemic by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, allowed for the processing to begin even sooner: 30 days before Election Day once counties had conducted public tests of their voting equipment.

Supervisors in the state’s largest counties say their goal is to process the ballots — remove them from the envelopes, verify signatures and tabulate the vote — on the day they arrive, to avoid a backup building up as Election Day nears. That would leave only the mail ballots that arrive on Nov. 3 to be processed that day.

“Our focus is getting it right,” said Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County, home to Tallahassee, the state capital. “Not getting it done as fast as possible.”

5. North Carolina

Election officials in North Carolina were increasingly confident in the state’s electoral apparatus earlier in the fall, with no reported poll worker shortages in any county and more than 500,000 absentee ballots already returned and being processed.

But two forthcoming court decisions threaten to disrupt the elections. In one, the state Republican Party is pushing to be allowed to send partisan citizen inspectors into the county boards of elections before absentee ballots are approved by election officials, with the ability to start challenging those ballots that they see as potentially not meeting requirements.

If the court sides with the Republicans, it could severely delay the counting of absentee ballots to well beyond Election Day. And with officials estimating that roughly 25% of the vote in North Carolina will be cast through absentee ballots, a lengthy delay would most likely mean no statewide results in the presidential election or the contested Senate race for days, if not weeks.

In the second case, the state is keeping at least 7,000 absentee ballots with potential issues in limbo while a court sorts out a legal challenge on whether the North Carolina State Board of Elections can contact voters and allow them to fix, or “cure,” any issues with their ballots.

In that case, a federal judge on Wednesday blocked officials from allowing voters to “cure,” or address a missing witness signature but said that deficient information, like a missing or incomplete address, could still be cured. Appeals from both sides are pending. So now, thousands of voters whose ballots are in limbo — roughly about 40% of which belong to Black voters statewide — are awaiting word from county election officials as to how to proceed.

While that ruling is likely to draw an appeal, any prolonged legal uncertainty for the absentee ballots could threaten a voter’s opportunity to cure the ballot in time.

“The longer a voter says, ‘Oh I turned in my ballot, it must be good,’ when they do finally hear from the county, they might be more suspicious about it, considering how much disinformation there is going around,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a voting rights group.

6. Georgia

No state had a worse voting experience in the 2020 election primaries than Georgia.

Absentee ballots either failed to arrive on time or showed up damaged. Poll workers, scared by the virus, bailed at the last minute, forcing the consolidation of thousands of voters into a single location in Midtown Atlanta. Lines stretched for hours, with some voters not able to cast ballots until nearly 1 a.m. And sometimes the state’s new voting machines malfunctioned.

When Georgia’s in-person early voting began Oct. 12, voters and elections officials braced for a repeat. Lines stretched for hours in suburban Gwinnett County, a predicament the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, initially attributed to high turnout but later admitted was because of technical difficulties related to the state’s new machines. As wait times fell, Raffensperger’s office took credit, saying it had requested the state’s elections software vendor increase bandwidth to its devices.

By Sunday, more than 1.4 million Georgians had voted, a figure that accounts for more than 34% of the state’s 2016 turnout. Lines on Friday still stretched for up to three hours at some locations in Cobb County, a rapidly diversifying suburb that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 but is still run by Republican officials.

In Fulton County, which experienced the worst delays during the June primary, wait times have largely been alleviated by opening Atlanta’s pro basketball arena as a mega early-voting site. With more than 300 voting machines, the facility has managed to move voters through without a delay.

Election Day, which will require far more poll workers given the larger number of voting locations, will present another stress test for the state’s voting system.

7. Pennsylvania

Few states are still facing more litigation-driven uncertainty than Pennsylvania.

The state has had its plans to install drop boxes hung up in the courts for months. The question of whether it will be able to accept ballots that arrive after Election Day has been similarly stalled. The state Legislature still hasn’t decided on allowing election officials to begin processing ballots early. And Kathy Boockvar, the secretary of state, is still awaiting guidance from the state Supreme Court as to whether election officials have to perform signature matching checks on absentee ballots.

“Pennsylvania is the one everyone is worried about,” said Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who runs the university’s Election Data and Science Lab.

While all of this uncertainty might seemingly depress enthusiasm for mail ballots, Pennsylvania voters are still requesting them at a record clip. More than 2.7 million ballots have been requested, and about 683,000 have been returned. Yet at the moment, election officials in the state’s 67 counties cannot touch the ballots until Election Day, raising the likelihood that full results will not be known for days.

By law, Pennsylvania does not offer any form of in-person early voting. But Boockvar has worked with county officials to set up satellite elections offices where voters can come and vote by absentee ballot in person (as in, request a ballot in person, receive it, fill it out there and then drop it off). The offices are intended to expand voting options and help decrease an expected surge on Election Day. But so far, only five of the state’s 67 counties — Philadelphia, Centre, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery — have set up offices.

The lack of true in-person voting means Pennsylvania will most likely have a large Election Day turnout. Though the statewide poll worker recruitment effort was successful — more than 56,000 raised their hands — Pennsylvania has strict rules stating that a poll worker can serve only in the county in which they are registered to vote.

The city is also bracing for a potentially contentious Election Day, and Lawrence S. Krasner, the district attorney for Philadelphia, is expanding the regular Election Day task force.

“We have probably at this point over 60 of our 300 attorneys who are volunteering to handle these duties on top of their other duties,” Krasner said. “And it’s my expectation, in light of the conversation I’ve had with the Philadelphia Police Department, that they are going to ramp that up for Election Day.”

In Georgia, the state’s voting machines have malfunctioned in three consecutive elections this year alone. In Pennsylvania, election officials are staring down possibly the biggest ballot processing backlog in the country, with no means of even touching the ballots until polls open on Election Day.

In Georgia, the state’s voting machines have malfunctioned in three consecutive elections this year alone. In Pennsylvania, election officials are staring down possibly the biggest ballot processing backlog in the country, with no means of even touching the ballots until polls open on Election Day. And in North Carolina, thousands of submitted absentee ballots are currently in purgatory, neither rejected nor accepted but “under review,” amid a back-and-forth court battle over so-called ballot curing. Also read: US election 2020: Trump and Trump finally agree on something as Nov 3 nears Short on money, overworked and under enormous pressure, many battleground states are still in the process of standing up their electoral systems, a building-a-plane-midflight reality for a democratic process that is being challenged daily by court cases, new laws and surges in the coronavirus. The New York Times assessed the readiness of seven battleground states, and will continue to do so up to Nov. 3. Each of these states was won by Donald Trump in 2016. Joe Biden is now ahead or effectively tied with Trump in most polls in all seven. After spring and summer primary elections that were undermined by a host of issues — ballot delays in the mail, polling location consolidation resulting in long lines, voter confusion and lengthy lags in counting — officials have mounted a fall sprint to recruit poll workers, scout safe poll locations, seek more time to process ballots, and start a significant education campaign to help voters navigate the pandemic-muddled process. Now, the readiness of states chiefly involves two distinct challenges: processing the tens of millions of absentee ballots that are already flooding election offices, and maintaining an Election Day operation that as closely as possible resembles normalcy. Here’s where the seven states stand with just 15 days before Election Day, ranked in order of preparedness. 1. Arizona Of all the battleground states, none is expected to have as smooth an election as is Arizona. In the midterm elections in 2018, 79% of Arizonans voted before Election Day — a figure that jumped to 88% for the primary this August. After 2018, when it took a week for Arizona to count enough ballots for a winner to be declared in its Senate race, the state changed its laws to allow absentee ballots to be counted beginning 14 days before Election Day. Maricopa County, which includes 60% of Arizona’s population, acquired new ballot-counting machines that officials expect will allow the vast majority of the voting results to be known on election night. Also read: Donald Trump claims his campaign is doing 'very, very well' “I somewhat jokingly say that we are prepared for everything except Godzilla,” said Adrian Fontes, the Maricopa County recorder, who is responsible for running the county’s elections. “Nowadays that includes a global pandemic and possible terrorism.” Fontes and other Arizona officials have more experience with absentee ballots than any other battleground state in the country. Arizona created a permanent absentee voter list in 2007, and by 2010, 60% of the state’s voters cast ballots before Election Day, a figure that has increased every two years since. 2. Michigan Michigan has had a successful poll worker recruitment program, with more than 30,000 having signed up and no regional restrictions preventing them from going anywhere in the state. That same pool of workers could also be asked to serve on the counting boards, which are the election workers assigned to sift through, verify and tally the absentee ballots. While thousands will be needed for the task, which Michigan law allows to start only 10 hours before Election Day, the secretary of state’s office is confident that staffing will not be a problem. Because of that late start to counting, Michigan anticipates being one of the last states to report full results, with election officials estimating that the vast majority will be announced through Nov. 6. An appeals court ruled Friday that ballots must be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day, though it is possible the decision is appealed to the state Supreme Court. The secretary of state’s office has begun a voter education campaign as if it has lost the decision in court, telling voters that the last day to safely mail back their ballots is Oct. 19. After that, they should be hand-delivered to an election office or one of the state’s 1,000 drop boxes. Also weighing on the minds of election officials is the threat of polling place intimidation. Armed right-wing protesters entered the Statehouse earlier this year to denounce the coronavirus lockdowns of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and law enforcement officials are anticipating a similar presence at the polls. On Friday, the secretary of state in Michigan issued an order banning firearms at polling places and any areas within 100 feet of a voting center. 3. Wisconsin In the past decade, Wisconsin Republicans enacted laws that have made voting tougher: — It now has one of the nation’s strictest voter-identification mandates. Voters who apply for an absentee ballot online or through the mail must include a photograph for their identification, which requires both equipment and technical sophistication. — They also must have a witness sign their ballots, a hurdle made more difficult by a pandemic that is hitting Wisconsin nearly as hard as anywhere in the country. Also read: US election 2020: Key states that will likely decide fate of Trump and Biden Some Wisconsinites have taken it upon themselves to help their neighbors navigate an absentee voting process that is new for the vast majority of voters. Lori Miller, a retired dietitian from rural Arkansaw, Wisconsin, spent $59 on eBay for a portable photocopy machine to tote to tables set up this summer by the League of Women Voters so she could make copies of people’s driver’s licenses for them to include in absentee ballot applications. “What used to be a fairly simple process now has new steps to it,” Miller said. “With every election, and especially this year, there have been proposals made to change deadlines and then those get challenged and changed and appealed. People lose track.” Unlike most states, Wisconsin does not have a single office responsible for voting statewide, nor do county officials oversee elections. Instead, more than 1,800 municipalities manage their own elections. In scores of rural townships, a part-time town clerk is responsible for conducting elections and counting the votes. The municipal clerks are forbidden from feeding the ballots through counting machines until the polls open Nov. 3. But Gov. Tony Evers said Thursday that he expects the state to have its results completed by the end of Election Day or, at the latest, by the day after. 4. Florida On Sept. 30, Peter Antonacci, the elections supervisor in Broward County, was scrambling: The vendor his office had hired to pick up and drop off voting equipment to the polls had canceled the county’s order, leaving Broward hunting for trucks 34 days before Election Day. It was one of the myriad challenges faced daily by the 67 county supervisors in Florida, who run elections in the nation’s largest and often closest presidential battleground. Winning by “1.5% in the state of Florida is a landslide,” said Wesley Wilcox, the elections supervisor in Marion County. The supervisors say they are ready to handle problems small and large. Of utmost concern is the crush of mail ballots already arriving. More than 2.4 million ballots had been returned as of Sunday afternoon, led by a stunning return rate from Democrats, who are typically outpaced by Republicans in mail voting. So far, 400,000 more Democrats have returned mail ballots than Republicans, though Republicans are expected to turn out en masse to vote in person. Florida has years of experience with voting by mail — an effort led largely by Republicans — which should mean the state is better positioned to deal with this year’s surge. State law allows counties to start processing mail ballots 22 days before Election Day. An executive order signed during the pandemic by Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, allowed for the processing to begin even sooner: 30 days before Election Day once counties had conducted public tests of their voting equipment. Supervisors in the state’s largest counties say their goal is to process the ballots — remove them from the envelopes, verify signatures and tabulate the vote — on the day they arrive, to avoid a backup building up as Election Day nears. That would leave only the mail ballots that arrive on Nov. 3 to be processed that day. “Our focus is getting it right,” said Mark Earley, the elections supervisor in Leon County, home to Tallahassee, the state capital. “Not getting it done as fast as possible.” 5. North Carolina Election officials in North Carolina were increasingly confident in the state’s electoral apparatus earlier in the fall, with no reported poll worker shortages in any county and more than 500,000 absentee ballots already returned and being processed. But two forthcoming court decisions threaten to disrupt the elections. In one, the state Republican Party is pushing to be allowed to send partisan citizen inspectors into the county boards of elections before absentee ballots are approved by election officials, with the ability to start challenging those ballots that they see as potentially not meeting requirements. If the court sides with the Republicans, it could severely delay the counting of absentee ballots to well beyond Election Day. And with officials estimating that roughly 25% of the vote in North Carolina will be cast through absentee ballots, a lengthy delay would most likely mean no statewide results in the presidential election or the contested Senate race for days, if not weeks. In the second case, the state is keeping at least 7,000 absentee ballots with potential issues in limbo while a court sorts out a legal challenge on whether the North Carolina State Board of Elections can contact voters and allow them to fix, or “cure,” any issues with their ballots. In that case, a federal judge on Wednesday blocked officials from allowing voters to “cure,” or address a missing witness signature but said that deficient information, like a missing or incomplete address, could still be cured. Appeals from both sides are pending. So now, thousands of voters whose ballots are in limbo — roughly about 40% of which belong to Black voters statewide — are awaiting word from county election officials as to how to proceed. While that ruling is likely to draw an appeal, any prolonged legal uncertainty for the absentee ballots could threaten a voter’s opportunity to cure the ballot in time. “The longer a voter says, ‘Oh I turned in my ballot, it must be good,’ when they do finally hear from the county, they might be more suspicious about it, considering how much disinformation there is going around,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, a voting rights group. 6. Georgia No state had a worse voting experience in the 2020 election primaries than Georgia. Absentee ballots either failed to arrive on time or showed up damaged. Poll workers, scared by the virus, bailed at the last minute, forcing the consolidation of thousands of voters into a single location in Midtown Atlanta. Lines stretched for hours, with some voters not able to cast ballots until nearly 1 a.m. And sometimes the state’s new voting machines malfunctioned. When Georgia’s in-person early voting began Oct. 12, voters and elections officials braced for a repeat. Lines stretched for hours in suburban Gwinnett County, a predicament the Republican secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, initially attributed to high turnout but later admitted was because of technical difficulties related to the state’s new machines. As wait times fell, Raffensperger’s office took credit, saying it had requested the state’s elections software vendor increase bandwidth to its devices. By Sunday, more than 1.4 million Georgians had voted, a figure that accounts for more than 34% of the state’s 2016 turnout. Lines on Friday still stretched for up to three hours at some locations in Cobb County, a rapidly diversifying suburb that backed Hillary Clinton in 2016 but is still run by Republican officials. In Fulton County, which experienced the worst delays during the June primary, wait times have largely been alleviated by opening Atlanta’s pro basketball arena as a mega early-voting site. With more than 300 voting machines, the facility has managed to move voters through without a delay. Election Day, which will require far more poll workers given the larger number of voting locations, will present another stress test for the state’s voting system. 7. Pennsylvania Few states are still facing more litigation-driven uncertainty than Pennsylvania. The state has had its plans to install drop boxes hung up in the courts for months. The question of whether it will be able to accept ballots that arrive after Election Day has been similarly stalled. The state Legislature still hasn’t decided on allowing election officials to begin processing ballots early. And Kathy Boockvar, the secretary of state, is still awaiting guidance from the state Supreme Court as to whether election officials have to perform signature matching checks on absentee ballots. “Pennsylvania is the one everyone is worried about,” said Charles Stewart III, a professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who runs the university’s Election Data and Science Lab. While all of this uncertainty might seemingly depress enthusiasm for mail ballots, Pennsylvania voters are still requesting them at a record clip. More than 2.7 million ballots have been requested, and about 683,000 have been returned. Yet at the moment, election officials in the state’s 67 counties cannot touch the ballots until Election Day, raising the likelihood that full results will not be known for days. By law, Pennsylvania does not offer any form of in-person early voting. But Boockvar has worked with county officials to set up satellite elections offices where voters can come and vote by absentee ballot in person (as in, request a ballot in person, receive it, fill it out there and then drop it off). The offices are intended to expand voting options and help decrease an expected surge on Election Day. But so far, only five of the state’s 67 counties — Philadelphia, Centre, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery — have set up offices. The lack of true in-person voting means Pennsylvania will most likely have a large Election Day turnout. Though the statewide poll worker recruitment effort was successful — more than 56,000 raised their hands — Pennsylvania has strict rules stating that a poll worker can serve only in the county in which they are registered to vote. The city is also bracing for a potentially contentious Election Day, and Lawrence S. Krasner, the district attorney for Philadelphia, is expanding the regular Election Day task force. “We have probably at this point over 60 of our 300 attorneys who are volunteering to handle these duties on top of their other duties,” Krasner said. “And it’s my expectation, in light of the conversation I’ve had with the Philadelphia Police Department, that they are going to ramp that up for Election Day.”

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President Donald Trump will try to put his bout with COVID-19 behind him when he returns to the campaign trail on Monday, beginning a three-week sprint to the November&nbsp;3 US&nbsp;election with a rally in the battleground state of Florida.

The event at an airport in Sanford, Florida, will be Trump's first campaign rally since he disclosed on Oct. 2 that he tested positive for COVID-19. Trump, who spent three nights in the hospital for treatment, said on Sunday he had fully recovered and was no longer infectious, but did not say directly whether he had tested negative for the coronavirus.

The Republican president, 74, is seeking to change the dynamics of a race that national opinion polls and some state polls show he is losing to Democratic challenger Joe Biden, 77.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/opinions-blogs/donald-trumps-alternate-constitutional-reality-334422" hreflang="en">Donald Trump’s alternate constitutional reality</a>

For months, Trump had worked furiously to shift public attention away from the virus and his handling of the pandemic, which has infected nearly 7.7 million people in the United States, killed more than 214,000 and put millions out of work.

His own illness has put the spotlight squarely on his coronavirus response during the closing stretch of the race.

In a sign of fresh optimism, Biden heads on Monday to Ohio, a state Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016 and almost certainly must carry again to win. It is Biden's second campaign trip in as many weeks to Ohio, which was once thought out of reach but where polls now show a tight race.

Trump's rally in Florida, and planned rallies in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Iowa on Wednesday and North Carolina on Thursday, will be watched closely to see whether the president has reshaped his campaign approach since contracting the virus.

Critics fault him for failing to encourage supporters at campaign events, and even White House staff, to wear protective masks and abide by social-distancing guidelines. At least 11 close Trump aides have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Standing alone on a White House balcony on Saturday, a maskless Trump urged hundreds of largely Black and Latino supporters to help get out the vote. Most in the crowd wore masks but ignored social-distancing guidelines.

Also read:&nbsp;<a href="http://13.235.153.162/world/for-trump-defying-mideast-truisms-produced-breakthroughs-and-backfires-334656" hreflang="en">For Trump, defying Mideast truisms produced breakthroughs and backfires</a>

Biden, who has said it is irresponsible for any candidate to hold events where attendees are not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing, lashed out at the president's approach.

"President Trump comes to Sanford today bringing nothing but reckless behavior, divisive rhetoric, and fear mongering," Biden, the Democratic former vice president said in a statement.

FLORIDA UP FOR GRABS

Trump told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that he felt good and pointed to his physician's memo from Saturday saying he had taken a test showing he was no longer infectious.

"I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I'm in great shape," Trump told "Sunday Morning Futures."

Trump also said, without producing evidence, that he was now immune, an assertion that drew a flag from Twitter for violating the social media platform's rules about misleading information related to COVID-19.

The scientific research has been inconclusive on how long people who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies and are protected from a second infection.

Most recent polls in Florida, where a Trump loss would dramatically narrow his path to re-election, show Biden with a small lead. Trump won Florida over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 by just 1.2 percentage points, which helped propel him to the White House.

On his visit to Ohio, Biden will deliver a speech in Toledo meant to undermine what polls show is Trump's last greatest strength, the view among some voters that the former real estate entrepreneur is better on handling the economy.

Biden also will attend a get-out-the-vote event in Cincinnati, his campaign said.

Trump has pulled back his advertising in Ohio in recent days, while Biden has increased his, another sign of the opportunity he and his fellow Democrats see to make more states competitive than they initially imagined.

President Donald Trump will try to put his bout with COVID-19 behind him when he returns to the campaign trail on Monday, beginning a three-week sprint to the November 3 US election with a rally in the battleground state of Florida.

President Donald Trump will try to put his bout with COVID-19 behind him when he returns to the campaign trail on Monday, beginning a three-week sprint to the November 3 US election with a rally in the battleground state of Florida. The event at an airport in Sanford, Florida, will be Trump's first campaign rally since he disclosed on Oct. 2 that he tested positive for COVID-19. Trump, who spent three nights in the hospital for treatment, said on Sunday he had fully recovered and was no longer infectious, but did not say directly whether he had tested negative for the coronavirus. The Republican president, 74, is seeking to change the dynamics of a race that national opinion polls and some state polls show he is losing to Democratic challenger Joe Biden, 77. Also read: Donald Trump’s alternate constitutional reality For months, Trump had worked furiously to shift public attention away from the virus and his handling of the pandemic, which has infected nearly 7.7 million people in the United States, killed more than 214,000 and put millions out of work. His own illness has put the spotlight squarely on his coronavirus response during the closing stretch of the race. In a sign of fresh optimism, Biden heads on Monday to Ohio, a state Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2016 and almost certainly must carry again to win. It is Biden's second campaign trip in as many weeks to Ohio, which was once thought out of reach but where polls now show a tight race. Trump's rally in Florida, and planned rallies in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Iowa on Wednesday and North Carolina on Thursday, will be watched closely to see whether the president has reshaped his campaign approach since contracting the virus. Critics fault him for failing to encourage supporters at campaign events, and even White House staff, to wear protective masks and abide by social-distancing guidelines. At least 11 close Trump aides have tested positive for the coronavirus. Standing alone on a White House balcony on Saturday, a maskless Trump urged hundreds of largely Black and Latino supporters to help get out the vote. Most in the crowd wore masks but ignored social-distancing guidelines. Also read: For Trump, defying Mideast truisms produced breakthroughs and backfires Biden, who has said it is irresponsible for any candidate to hold events where attendees are not wearing masks or engaging in social distancing, lashed out at the president's approach. "President Trump comes to Sanford today bringing nothing but reckless behavior, divisive rhetoric, and fear mongering," Biden, the Democratic former vice president said in a statement. FLORIDA UP FOR GRABS Trump told Fox News in an interview on Sunday that he felt good and pointed to his physician's memo from Saturday saying he had taken a test showing he was no longer infectious. "I passed the highest test, the highest standards, and I'm in great shape," Trump told "Sunday Morning Futures." Trump also said, without producing evidence, that he was now immune, an assertion that drew a flag from Twitter for violating the social media platform's rules about misleading information related to COVID-19. The scientific research has been inconclusive on how long people who have recovered from COVID-19 have antibodies and are protected from a second infection. Most recent polls in Florida, where a Trump loss would dramatically narrow his path to re-election, show Biden with a small lead. Trump won Florida over Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 by just 1.2 percentage points, which helped propel him to the White House. On his visit to Ohio, Biden will deliver a speech in Toledo meant to undermine what polls show is Trump's last greatest strength, the view among some voters that the former real estate entrepreneur is better on handling the economy. Biden also will attend a get-out-the-vote event in Cincinnati, his campaign said. Trump has pulled back his advertising in Ohio in recent days, while Biden has increased his, another sign of the opportunity he and his fellow Democrats see to make more states competitive than they initially imagined.

Trump resumes campaign with Florida rally 10 days after COVID-19 disclosure

Kamala Harris gave a blunt refresher on President Donald Trump's finances in the vice-presidential debate. Watch report.

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In the US vice presidential debate, Mike Pence said that the Donald Trump administration wants to improve its relationship with China but it is going to hold Beijing "accountable" for what it did to America with the deadly coronavirus.

Mike Pence: Joe Biden opposed Trump's decision to suspend travel

The two vice-presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence debated today on the Vice Presidential Debate. They debated on coronavirus impact on the US economy and unemployment.

Harris: Trump judges economy on how many rich around him

The two vice-presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Mike Pence debated today on the Vice Presidential Debate. They debated on racial unrest, coronavirus, and much more.

Kamala Harris: In America, voters deserve better

In American politics, it was Mike Pence vs Kamala Harris. The two vice-presidential candidates who went toe-to-toe as they debated about Donald Trump's performance over the last four years. Watch report.

Harris vs Pence on the Vice Presidential Debate: Discuss Trump's response on pandemic

It was a face-off between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris for the Vice Presidential Debate. No physical contact was there between the two leaders and they discussed a variety of issues amongst first was the coronavirus pandemic.

US Elections 2020: Vice Presidential Debate, Harris and Pence's first and only face-off of election 2020

Joe Biden and his wife have tested negative for the coronavirus, his primary care doctor confirmed on Friday.

Joe Biden and wife tests negative for coronavirus: Shared stage with Donald Trump

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday tested negative for coronavirus just hours after US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania tested positive.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-tests-positive-us-vice-president-mike-pence-tests-negative-for-coronavirus-332022">Also Read:&nbsp;Trump tests positive: US Vice President Mike Pence tests negative for coronavirus</a>

Biden, 77, now plans to travel to Grand Rapids which Trump won in 2016. Biden was quick to declare "wear a mask" after Trump contracted the virus.

Watch:

<div class="videoWrapper trancodeVideo"><iframe allowfullscreen="" autoplay="1" class="includeVideo" frameborder="0" height="350" src="https://www.wionews.com/videos/coronavirus-pandemic-trump-largest-driver-of-misinformation-says-study-331932/embed" style="width:100%;max-width:560px;" width="560"></iframe></div>

"I'm happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID-19," Biden said, adding, "I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands."

Biden's doctor Kevin O'Connor in a statement said: "Vice President Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden underwent PCR testing for Covid-19 today and Covid-19 was not detected."

"Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery," Biden tweeted.

"We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family," he said.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday tested negative for coronavirus just hours after US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania tested positive.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday tested negative for coronavirus just hours after US President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania tested positive. Also Read: Trump tests positive: US Vice President Mike Pence tests negative for coronavirus Biden, 77, now plans to travel to Grand Rapids which Trump won in 2016. Biden was quick to declare "wear a mask" after Trump contracted the virus. Watch: "I'm happy to report that Jill and I have tested negative for COVID-19," Biden said, adding, "I hope this serves as a reminder: wear a mask, keep social distance, and wash your hands." Biden's doctor Kevin O'Connor in a statement said: "Vice President Joe Biden and Dr Jill Biden underwent PCR testing for Covid-19 today and Covid-19 was not detected." "Jill and I send our thoughts to President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump for a swift recovery," Biden tweeted. "We will continue to pray for the health and safety of the president and his family," he said.

Biden tests negative for coronavirus, set on campaign trail

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