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The Guardian - US
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Maanvi Singh (now), Joan E Greve, Joanna Walters and Martin Belam (earlier)

Trump and Biden ready for first TV showdown – as it happened

Summary

We’re closing down this blog, but Joan E Greve and I will be covering the presidential debate tonight. Follow along here:

  • The debate will start at 9 pm ET tonight, and it will take place at the Samson Pavillion, an academic building shared by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.
  • Seven former FDA commissioners have issued a sharp rebuke of the Trump administration for politicizing the approval and development process for Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. “At risk is the FDA’s ability to make the independent, science-based decisions that are key to combating the pandemic and so much more,” they wrote, in an op-ed published by the Washington Post.
  • A federal appeals court has upheld a deadline extension for counting ballots in Wisconsin. National and state Republican leaders have been fighting efforts to count every vote, challenging a provision that would allow votes postmarked by election day to get counted even if they arrive up to 6 days late. Even as the administration seeks to undermine the post office, Republicans are expected to fight this provision to count delayed ballots in the Supreme Court.
  • Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination was officially sent to the Senate. The announcement comes on the same day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose seat Barrett would be filling, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell met with Barrett earlier today.
  • Biden and Kamala Harris released their 2019 tax returns. The move was clearly meant to criticize Trump for not yet having released any of his tax returns. The documents showed Biden and his wife paid nearly $300,000 in federal income tax last year. According to the New York Times, Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017.
  • New York City plans to impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering, as it was announced that the rate of positive tests for coronavirus climbed above 3% in the city for the first time in months.
  • Former special counsel Robert Mueller responded to criticism from one of his former colleagues. In his new book, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor in the special counsel’s office, argues Mueller’s team did not do enough to hold Trump accountable in the Russia investigation. Mueller said in a statement that he made his investigation-related decisions “without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences”. Mueller added, “I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”

Updated

A federal appeals court upheld a ruling – contested by Republicans - that extends the deadline for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin.

The decision means that ballots postmarked by 3 November will be so long as they arrive before 9 November. The Republican National Committee and state Republican leaders and legislators had argued against the extension - arguing that people would have plenty of time to return their ballots.

But the state this year is expecting as many as 2m people to vote by mail. The sheer volume of ballots that election officials are expecting, combined with the fact that the Trump administration has sought to undermine the postal service means that a 3 November cutoff could disenfranchise thousands of voters.

Republicans are expected to challenge this decision in the Supreme Court - which the party is currently rushing to fill following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Updated

Seven former Food and Drug commissioners have written an op-ed in the Washington Post, rebuking the Trump administration.

The commissioners accuse Trump of politicizing the Covid-19 vaccine and drug approval process, asserting: “At risk is the FDA’s ability to make the independent, science-based decisions that are key to combating the pandemic and so much more.”

The former commissioners include Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan, who serve on the boards of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson – which are both developing a Covid-19 vaccine. Robert Califf, Margaret Hamburg, Jane Henney, David Kessler and Andy von Eschenbach have also signed the op-ed. Kessler is an adviser for the Biden campaign.

They write:

In 1906, when President Theodore Roosevelt signed a bill to create what is now the FDA, one of his first actions was to delegate the oversight of food and drug safety to the agency’s scientists. In the 114 years since, FDA professionals have created a consumer safety net that has been a worldwide model for evidence-based public health policy. Indeed, for decades, when we and our predecessors spoke as FDA commissioners about issues of regulation and people’s health, the public knew we were speaking on behalf of experts whose judgments were grounded in science.

That is changing in deeply troubling ways. The White House has said it might try to influence the scientific standards for vaccine approval put forward by the FDA or block the agency from issuing further written guidance on its criteria for judging the safety and benefits of a potential Covid-19 vaccine. This pronouncement came just after key leaders at the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health all publicly supported that guidance.

Trump has promised a vaccine before the elections, despite CDC director Robert Redfield’s suggestion that it wouldn’t be available widely until “late second quarter, third quarter 2021”.

The first presidential debate is tonight, and we’ll be covering it live.

But Donald Trump’s campaign team may have missed that memo...

Tensions and insults in the battle for Florida lay bare America’s divisions

Decisions in this vital swing state are made in two different realities, one adherent to facts and science, the other rooted in conspiracies and political dogma

If you wanted a symbol for Donald Trump’s complete takeover of the Republican party, you could do little better than a nondescript shopping mall on the outskirts of Largo in west Florida.

This is a usually quiet intersection in Florida’s quintessential bellwether county, Pinellas, which has voted for the winning presidential candidate in every election since 1980 (bar the disputed 2000 race won by George W Bush).

But eight months ago Cliff Gephart, an enthusiastic Trump supporter and local entrepreneur, transformed a vacant lot – formerly a strip club – into a thriving coffee shop devoted to the president. Business at Conservative Grounds is roaring, despite the pandemic, with hundreds and, they claim, occasionally over a thousand customers, dropping by each day for a cup of coffee, a chat about politics and to purchase from a plethora of Trump themed merchandise. No-one is social distancing or wearing a facemask.

In 2016, the narrative of the so-called “secretive Trump voter” went part of the way to explaining the billionaire property magnate’s unexpected pathway to the White House. But now, in Pinellas as in many parts of the country, Trump supporters are out in force, unafraid, empowered and organised.

Read more:

The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed the Department of Homeland security, as part of an ongoing investigation into whether top officials at the agency pressured DHS officials to modify intelligence reports to fit the president’s agenda.

A whistleblower has accused Trump appointees at the agency of downplaying Russian interference and white supremacist threats.

The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed the Department of Homeland Security over documents and testimony related to an ongoing investigation into the agency’s intelligence office, the panel’s chairman, congressman Adam Schiff, announced Tuesday.

Adam Schiff, the California representative who heads the intelligence committee, accused the agency of blocking the whistleblower from testifying and failing to provide key documents.

Updated

Hi, there - It’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.

This weekend, Donald Trump is scheduled to hold two events in Wisconsin as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations in the state are surging.

In Green Bay, which Trump will visiting on Saturday evening, a major hospital reported that Covid-19 patients are occupying three-fourths of intensive care unit beds, and is at 94% capacity.

The Green Bay Press-Gazette reported that last week, the Bellin Hospital emergency room was so overwhelmed that workers were treating patients in gurneys in the hospital hallways.

Bellin Health nurses asked residents to “show compassion and concern for your fellow human beings, especially those at high risk, by staying home” and requested the locals wear masks to slow the spread of disease.

Today so far

That’s it from me for now. I’ll be back later tonight to cover the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Trump has arrived in Cleveland, Ohio, and Biden is en route. The debate will start at 9 pm ET tonight, and it will take place at the Samson Pavillion, an academic building shared by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.
  • Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination was officially sent to the Senate. The announcement comes on the same day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose seat Barrett would be filling, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell met with Barrett earlier today.
  • Biden and Kamala Harris released their 2019 tax returns. The move was clearly meant to criticize Trump for not yet having released any of his tax returns. The documents showed Biden and his wife paid nearly $300,000 in federal income tax last year. According to the New York Times, Trump paid only $750 in federal income tax in 2016 and 2017.
  • New York City plans to impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering, as it was announced that the rate of positive tests for coronavirus climbed above 3% in the city for the first time in months.
  • Former special counsel Robert Mueller responded to criticism from one of his former colleagues. In his new book, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor in the special counsel’s office, argues Mueller’s team did not do enough to hold Trump accountable in the Russia investigation. Mueller said in a statement that he made his investigation-related decisions “without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences”. Mueller added, “I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”

My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Updated

Trump has arrived at the debate venue in Cleveland, Ohio, to conduct the traditional walk-through of the site.

Each presidential candidate is allowed to walk through the venue to get a sense of the debate stage before the event begins.

Tonight’s debate, which will begin at 9 pm ET, is being held at the Samson Pavillion, an academic building shared by Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the suggestion that Amy Coney Barrett would vote to scrap the Affordable Care Act.

“This mother of seven, including multiple children who were born or adopted facing preexisting condition medical challenges, is just itching to block families like hers from accessing medical care. What a joke,” McConnell said, per an NBC News reporter.

However, Barrett has previously criticized the decision to uphold the ACA, saying chief justice John Roberts “pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute” when the issue came before the supreme court in 2012.

Democrats have consistently warned that, if Barrett is confirmed, the ACA could be on the chopping block, which could cause healthcare costs to soar for those with preexisting conditions.

Updated

Barrett's nomination officially sent to Senate

The supreme court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett has been officially sent to the Senate, with five weeks to go until election day.

The announcement comes on the same day that Barrett met with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill.

Senate Republicans are seeking to get Barrett confirmed before the November 3 elections, representing a far tighter timeline than other recent supreme court confirmations.

The nomination was also sent to the Senate on the same day that Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose death opened up the supreme court seat Republicans are rushing to fill, was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Ginsburg’s reported dying wish was that her supreme court seat not be filled until after the presidential election, a request that Republicans have ignored.

In another bitter symbol for rattled liberals, on the morning that arch conservative Amy Coney Barrett paid a visit to Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill, prior to her expected swift confirmation and ascension to the supreme court, the woman she will replace was laid to rest.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka the Notorious RBG, feminist and left-leaning icon, was buried this morning in Arlington National Cemetery, in Virginia, just on the outskirts of Washington.

She was to be buried next to her late husband, Marty, who died in 2010, and the event took place four days after Ginsburg was afforded the honor last Friday of being the first woman to lie in state in the US Capitol.

Meanwhile, demonstrations continue in Washington, DC.

A group of clergy, rabbis and imams march from the US Capitol to the Dirksen Senate Office Building during a demonstration to remember Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, earlier today. The group was led by Reverend Dr William Barber.
A group of clergy, rabbis and imams march from the US Capitol to the Dirksen Senate Office Building during a demonstration to remember Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, earlier today. The group was led by Reverend Dr William Barber. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

A group of clergy, rabbis and imams marched from the US Capitol to the Dirksen Senate Office Building during a demonstration to remember Supreme Court Ginsburg, earlier today. The group was led by Reverend Dr William Barber and they urged Americans to vote in her memory and that of Kentucky police shooting victim Breonna Taylor.

Reverend William Barber II, center, leads leaders of various faiths gathered near the US Capitol and march silently to the supreme court and towards the Dirksen Senate office building to remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Kentucky police shooting victim Breonna Taylor. They urged Americans to vote in their memory.
Reverend William Barber II, center, leads leaders of various faiths gathered near the US Capitol and march silently to the supreme court and towards the Dirksen Senate office building to remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Kentucky police shooting victim Breonna Taylor. They urged Americans to vote in their memory. Photograph: Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Air Force One has arrived in Cleveland, with just hours to go until the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden.

According to the White House press pool, a senior Trump campaign official spoke to reporters during the short flight to Cleveland.

The official said the president is ready for the debate and would not be doing any last-minute prep work on the plane. “He’s ready to go,” the official said.

The person added that the president’s team expects his tax returns to be mentioned at the beginning of the debate. The New York Times reported Sunday that Trump only paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency.

Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, will also be one of the president’s guests for the debate, the official said.

Joe Biden is now en route to Cleveland as well, having boarded his campaign plane in Wilmington, Delaware, moments ago.

The Democratic nominee appears to have a new campaign plane with the Biden/Harris logo on its side.

Several of Trump’s family members joined him on Air Force One for the trip to Cleveland, Ohio, where the first presidential debate will be held tonight.

Two of the president’s children, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump, were spotted boarding the plane.

The White House press pool also saw Alice Johnson boarding Air Force One. In 2018, Trump commuted Johnson’s prison sentence for a non-violent drug offense. Johnson spoke at the Republican convention last month and then received a full pardon from Trump.

Speaking to reporters shortly before takeoff, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Trump had completed his debate preparations and was in a good mood.

According to CNN, Trump did less than two hours of debate prep total to prepare for tonight’s event.

Mueller responds to former colleague's criticism

Former special counsel Robert Mueller has released a statement responding to criticism from one of his former colleagues.

In his new book, Andrew Weissmann, a former prosecutor in the special counsel’s office, argues Mueller’s team did not do enough to hold Trump accountable in the Russia investigation.

“It is not surprising that members of the Special Counsel’s Office did not always agree, but it is disappointing to hear criticism of our team based on incomplete information,” Mueller said in the statement, per the Washington Post.

“When important decisions had to be made, I made them,” Mueller added. “I did so as I have always done, without any interest in currying favor or fear of the consequences. I stand by those decisions and by the conclusions of our investigation.”

Mueller concluded his investigation last year and released a report on the team’s findings, which included significant evidence that Trump obstructed justice but did not come to an explicit conclusion on the matter.

Trump is now en route to Cleveland, Ohio, for the first presidential debate, which is about six hours away.

Hundreds of White House staffers gathered on the South Lawn to see Trump off, creating an unusual, made-for-television moment as he departed.

Leaving the White House with the first lady, the president ignored a question about to whom he owed money and whether the American people deserved to know the answer.

The Trump and Biden campaigns are engaging in some bitter squabbling before tonight’s presidential debate.

The Trump campaign attacked Biden for refusing to take a drug test or undergo inspection for ear pieces before the debate.

The Biden campaign accused Trump of trying to distract from the president’s debate performance by kicking up baseless accusations against his opponent.

Biden’s team also denied that the candidate had requested multiple breaks in tonight’s debate, as Fox News had reported.

“If we’re playing that game, then you know, the Trump team asked Chris Wallace not to mention the number of deaths from Covid once during the debate,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said. “You can consider that confirmed from the Biden campaign. See how easy that was to try to throw up a distraction?”

The most noteworthy aspect of this squabbling may be the Trump campaign’s efforts to preempt a potentially poor debate performance by the president.

Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report said this of the Trump team’s strategy:

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Joanna Walters.

A new poll of Georgia voters shows Trump and Biden locked in a close race in the traditionally Republican state.

According to the Quinnipiac University poll, Biden has the support of 50% of Georgia’s likely voters, while Trump is 3 points behind at 47%.

This is the best polling result that Biden has seen in Georgia in recent weeks, so it may represent an outlier. According to the RealClearPolitics average of Georgia polls, Trump has a 1.2-point advantage in the state.

The Quinnipiac poll also offered some encouraging signs for Democratic Senate candidates. Republican incumbent David Perdue is 1 point behind Democrat Jon Ossoff, 49%-48%, representing a virtual tie.

In the special Senate election, Raphael Warnock appears to be consolidating the Democratic vote, attracting the support of 31% of likely voters. Senator Kelly Loeffler and congressman Doug Collins appear to be splitting the Republican vote in the race, with Loeffler at 23% and Collins at 22%. If no candidate hits 50% in this race, it will go to a January runoff between the top two finishers.

Early afternoon summary

Stay tuned for a lively afternoon of more US political news followed by this evening’s presidential debate with its own special live coverage. Guardian US will be blogging throughout and I’ll hand you over after this interim summary to our blogger-in-chief, Joan E Greve.

Here are the main developments so far today:

  • Joe Biden and Kamala Harris just released their latest tax returns in a pointed exercise to show up Donald Trump, who has been hiding his tax figures - and for good reason according to recent bombshells.
  • New York City plans to impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as it was announced that the rate of positive tests for the coronavirus climbed above 3% in the city for the first time in months.
  • Donald Trump’s latest supreme court pick, Amy Coney Barrett, and Vice President Mike Pence paid a call on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
  • Opinion polls show Biden leading Trump nationally but with very vulnerable margins in six key battleground states.

Updated

Biden & Harris release tax returns

Hours before his first debate with Donald Trump, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden today released his 2019 tax returns, as did vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris, and the Biden campaign called on the president, who has come under fire for not releasing his returns, to do the same.

Biden, due to share the stage with Trump tonight in Cleveland, Ohio, took the step two days after the New York Times reported that Trump had paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 - and none in 10 of the previous 15 years, Reuters writes.

Trump had long sought to keep his personal financial records secret.

Biden’s taxes showed that he and his wife Jill paid more than $346,000 in federal taxes and other payments for 2019 on an income of nearly $985,000 before seeking a refund of nearly $47,000 they said they had overpaid the government.

The 2019 tax returns for Biden’s running mate, California Senator Harris, also were released.

Supporters of Democratic vice presidential nominee and Senator Kamala Harris gathered near one of her campaign events in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday.
Supporters of Democratic vice presidential nominee and Senator Kamala Harris gathered near one of her campaign events in Raleigh, North Carolina, yesterday. Photograph: Jonathan Drake/Reuters

“This is a historic level of transparency meant to give the American people faith once again that their leaders will look out for them and not their own bottom lines,” Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, said on a call with reporters.

“Mr. President, release your tax returns or shut up,” Bedingfield added.

With more than a million Americans already casting early ballots and time running out to change minds or influence the small sliver of undecided voters, the stakes are enormous as the two White House candidates take the stage five weeks before the November 3 election.

The 90-minute debate, with a limited and socially distanced in-person audience because of the pandemic, will begin at 9pm Eastern Daylight Time today.

Biden has now released information for the past 22 years of tax returns, Harris 16 years.

Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell’s take on Donald Trump’s tax chicanery.
Guardian cartoonist Steve Bell’s take on Donald Trump’s tax chicanery. Illustration: Steve Bell/The Guardian

Updated

Early mail-in voting began last week in the vital swing state of Michigan.

This afternoon, Jill Biden, wife of Joe and Chasten Buttigieg, husband of former presidential nominee Pete, are joining forces to get out the vote around the northern Michigan area that includes Traverse City, where Chasten is from.

Jill and Chasten are both teachers. According to USA Today, Chasten calls Pete “Peter”. It was odd to swing past a Barnes & Noble bookstore in New York City the other day and see Chasten Buttigieg’s face staring out from the window display, with his memoir “I have something to tell you”.

The newspaper mentions that Chasten “does indeed have something – many things, from the hilarious to harrowing – to tell us that go beyond his prolific Twitter account” and include accounts of sexual assault and domestic violence, which some people don’t imagine goes on in same-sex couples or households, but of course does.

Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (L) and his husband Chasten Buttigieg as Pete ended his campaign for president, in South Bend, Indiana, in March.
Former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg (L) and his husband Chasten Buttigieg as Pete ended his campaign for president, in South Bend, Indiana, in March. Photograph: Michael Caterina/AP

Jill Biden is going to attend a voter mobilization event in Traverse City with Chasten Buttigieg. Before that, the prospective Flotus will tour a farm in Central Lake to hear about how climate change is impacting farmers, the Biden campaign told the Detroit Free Press.

Then it’s all eyes on Cleveland, Ohio, as Joe Biden faces off with Donald Trump in person for the first presidential debate.

Jill Biden speaks about Covid-19 fatalities while promising a nationwide strategy to end the pandemic in the United States under a Biden administration during a drive-in rally for her husband in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the weekend.
Jill Biden speaks about Covid-19 fatalities while promising a nationwide strategy to end the pandemic in the United States under a Biden administration during a drive-in rally for her husband in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the weekend. Photograph: Andy Abeyta/AP

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio spoke today on his concern about an uptick in coronavirus cases in parts of the Big Apple.

“For the first time in months, you’re going to see a daily number over 3%,” he said. “Obviously, everyone is concerned about that. That is something we all have to work on together to address and something that says to us we have to be on high alert to make sure we fight back this challenge.”

There are rising numbers of cases in parts of Brooklyn and Queens that have reached a positivity rate, amid testing, of an alarming 17% in certain hotspots.

New York state governor Andrew Cuomo gave an overview in a briefing, where he said that statewide the rate of positive cases was 1.1%. Over 20 hotspot zipcodes the average rate has risen to 5%.

There were 571 hospitalizations for Covid-19 in the last 24 hours, and two deaths.

There were times in the spring when New York was experiencing the nightmare scenario of more regularly recording more than 800 deaths from coronavirus a day. Many hospitals were overwhelmed, health care workers were massively overworked and traumatized, acutely short of personal protective equipment and with staff also catching coronavirus in high numbers and often dying themselves.

So many people died in a short space of time in New York in April that refrigerated mobile morgue trucks were parked outside some hospitals and even funeral homes, presenting haunting sights and some grisly incidents, as well as the need for some mass graves.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo had to battle with the federal government and an argumentative Donald Trump for help with extra ventilators for hospitals and simple mask supplies.

On Tuesday Cuomo said New York would rely on facts, logic and action to go forward into the rest of the fall and winter, when experts fear a double-whammy of a coronavirus surge and influenza.

Meanwhile, NYC health commissioner Dave Chokshi said private schools and day cares in city hotspots will have to follow health department protocols of maintaining at least six feet of distance, wearing face coverings in school buildings at all times and coordination with health department on investigations.

“Any school found to be out of compliance will be issued a violation,” he said.

De Blasio said health officials are reaching out to the communities, which have large Orthodox Jewish populations. He said the city will amp up testing and other outreach.

“It is a situation at this point that is very serious and all options are on the table,” he said, Patch.com reported.

Updated

Coronavirus rates on the rise again in New York

New York City plans to impose fines on people who refuse to wear a face covering as it was announced on Tuesday that the rate of positive tests for the coronavirus climbed above 3% in the city for the first time in months, mayor Bill de Blasio said.

Officials will first offer free masks to those caught not wearing one. If the person refuses, they will face an unspecified fine, de Blasio told reporters

“Our goal, of course, is to give everyone a free face mask,” de Blasio said. “We don’t want to fine people, but if we have to we will.”

In the first surge of the pandemic in March and April, New York became not just the US hotspot but the world hotspot for coronavirus cases and the city and state are anxious not to see the low level of cases that has prevailed in recent months getting back out of hand.

The new rule on masks extends across the city and echoes a policy imposed earlier this month by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, controlled by New York state governor Andrew Cuomo, in which commuters who refuse to wear a mask on public transit such as buses, trains and the city Subway system face a $50 fine.

The citywide daily positive test rate was 3.25%, De Blasio said, which the mayor attributed in part to nine zip codes that city health officials say have seen a worrying increase in cases. The seven-day rolling Covid-19 positivity average remained at 1.38% but this week the citywide average has risen to 3%.

There are some worrying hotspots with higher rates.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, right, greets students as they arrive for in-person classes outside Public School 188 The Island School, today in Manhattan. Hundreds of thousands of elementary school students are heading back to classrooms.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio, right, greets students as they arrive for in-person classes outside Public School 188 The Island School, today in Manhattan. Hundreds of thousands of elementary school students are heading back to classrooms. Photograph: John Minchillo/AP

Mail-in voting has gotten off to a rocky start in New York City, where election officials sent out a large number of absentee ballots with the wrong names and addresses on the return envelopes.

The faulty ballots were sent to an unknown number of voters in the city’s Brooklyn borough and could result in ballots being voided if voters sign their own name on return envelopes bearing different names, Reuters writes.

More than 140,000 ballots have already been sent out so far across the borough. It was unclear how many people got the wrong envelopes.

The New York City Board of Elections blamed the problem on the vendor hired to print and mail the ballots for voters in Brooklyn and Queens.

“We are determining how many voters have been affected but we can assure that the vendor will address this problem in future mailings, and make sure people who received erroneous envelopes receive new ones,” Board of Elections Executive Sirector Michael J. Ryan said in a written statement.

He said the proper ballots and envelopes would get to voters before the Nov. 3 election. Ryan didn’t immediately describe how that would happen, how much it would cost or what would happen if voters had already mailed their completed ballot back in the provided envelopes.

A message seeking comment was sent to the printer the city blamed for the error, Phoenix Graphics.
Meanwhile, the city elections board was also dealing with confusion regarding another printing anomaly on absentee ballots.

Ordinarily, absentee ballots in the city are sent out with a heading identifying them as an “Official Absentee / Military Ballot.” This year, the slash between “absentee” and “military” was left out, leading some voters to believe they had mistakenly been mailed a ballot for use only by members of the military.
The board tweeted that the ballot was still good for use by any registered voter.
The pair of mishaps took place despite intense scrutiny of mail-in voting nationwide.

“The public doesn’t need to see everything. Don’t forget your secrecy envelope!”

Pennsylvania elected official Bethany Hallam wants the voting public in her state to make sure their votes are counted this November. That’s what is says with her picture on social media, where she noted: “Desperate times call for desperate measures! So your favorite elected officials got naked so that you remember to make sure that your mail-in ballot is NOT submitted without its secrecy envelope!! #nonakedballots #dressyourballot.

It’s all about pandemic mass mail-in voting, a new phenomenon in Pennsylvania.

Hallam and Allegheny county council colleague Liv Bennett spoke to me for Guardian US last night to tell me how they decided to doff their duds in the hope of really getting the message across to voters that if they forget to put their election ballots into an extra, inner secrecy envelope before mailing it this election, it will be deemed a “naked ballot” and not counted.

They’ve had some backlash, of course, as well as lots of support. And for the sporting and politics story behind councilwoman Bennett’s tatt, read the full story here.

Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger features in a new ad attacking Donald Trump, 11 years after Sully saved all aboard against the odds when the passenger plane he was piloting was downed by bird strikes shortly after take off from New York and he landed it safely on the Hudson River.

In the ad, Sullenberger, a former Air Force pilot, says that the highest calling for an individual is serving a cause greater than oneself.

“It’s in that highest calling of leadership that Donald Trump has failed,” Sullenberger booms.

Following footage of Sully flying a plane and archive footage of the passenger jet floating in the river after the perilous emergency landing, the ad shows images from the coronavirus pandemic, the right-wing violence in Charlottesville, environmental disasters and Trump cozying up to Russian president Vladimir Putin.

“Now it’s up to us to overcome his attacks on our democracy,” Sully says, ending the ad with a booming: “Vote him out.”

British MP nominates Biden for Nobel Peace Prize

Well, diolch yn fawr iawn* A British member of parliament has announced that he’s nominated US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for the Nobel peace prize.

Chris Bryant, the member for Rhondda, in Wales, made the extraordinary move and told London’s Evening Standard of Biden that: “When others have resorted to violent solutions, he has argued that the best force is the force of argument. Because guns can stop a heart but well-placed words can change many hearts, and many hearts can change a world.”

Chris Bryant (pointing) visiting residents in Pentre, Wales, this summer after some bad flooding.
Chris Bryant (pointing) visiting residents in Pentre, Wales, this summer after some bad flooding. Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian

Any head of state or national politician can nominate someone for the prize. As The Hill notes, the far-right member of the Norwegian Parliament, Christian Tybring-Gjedde, has nominated Donald Trump for the honor in both 2018 and 2020. Unsuccessfully, in case anyone needed clarification.

Barack Obama and Al Gore have both won the prize. What are Biden’s chances? At this point one would say negligible, but the nomination can’t hurt, coming just before the first presidential debate of 2020, tonight.

*Diolch yn fawr iawn means thank you very much, in Welsh. Bryant is a former vicar, a former shadow leader of the House of Commons, born in Cardiff, who married his husband at the Palace of Westminster (aka the Houses of Parliament) in 2010.

As it happens, Joe Biden was deemed instrumental, when Vice President, in pushing president Barack Obama to back the legalization of gay marriage in the US, a right accorded by the supreme court in a landmark ruling in 2015 - and which some liberals fear will be under threat if Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the supreme court and tips it firmly to the right with a 6-3 conservative majority.

Jill and Joe Biden and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Capitol Hill last week.
Jill and Joe Biden and vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris on Capitol Hill last week. Photograph: Reuters

Updated

Trump supreme court pick meets leading Republicans in Washington

Amy Coney Barrett, Donald Trump’s controversial nominee for the US supreme court, just met with Vice President Mike Pence and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill.

Barrett was officially nominated on Saturday.

Pence moments ago said that Barrett “represents the best of America”, lauding her “great intellect and background”.

Arch-conservative Barrett, in a plain blue dress and a string of pearls, looked somehow simultaneously impassive and resolute as she stared at the assembled press.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Vice President Mike Pence walk up the steps of the Capitol to meet with Senators this morning.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett and Vice President Mike Pence walk up the steps of the Capitol to meet with Senators this morning. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AFP/Getty Images

Pence said: “We believe the Senate has the opportunity for a fair and respectful consideration. We urge our Democratic colleagues in the Senate to meet with the justice....we look forward to a vote in the Senate in the near future.”

Word has it that the Republican-controlled Senate will schedule Barrett’s confirmation hearing for the week beginning October 12 in an effort to seat her to the bench before the presidential election on November 3.

Reporters called out questions but no questions were taken. Barrett’s nomination is controversial coming so soon after the death earlier this month of liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who’s dying wish, which chimes with a Republican decision on an open court seat back in 2016, was that she not be replaced until the new president has been inaugurated in January 2021.

Barrett is controversial herself because of her ultra-conservative track record and apparent adherence to a Federalist Society-style philosophy that interpretation of the US Constitution doesn’t move with the times to relate to society today but is frozen in the outlook of the older white men Founding Fathers when they drafted it in the 18th Century.

And as my colleague Stephanie Kirchgaessner reported, Barrett has drawn attention to a secretive Catholic “covenant community” called People of Praise that counts her as a member and faces claims of adhering to a “highly authoritarian” structure.

Updated

Warning shot for Democrats in latest polls

In a new national Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Monday and Tuesday among all likely US voters, Democratic candidate for the White House Joe Biden has a lead over Republican incumbent Donald Trump of eight percentage points.

Many people have decided. The survey found 79% of Americans who said they favored Biden were “completely certain” of their candidate.

However in certain battleground states, the presidential race is much closer than national surveys suggest, Reuters reports, according to its Reuters/Ipsos opinion polls there.

They show Biden with only a slim lead over Trump in three highly competitive states and in a dead heat in three others.

The online state polls, conducted earlier in September and released this week, found Biden and Trump tied among likely voters in Florida and North Carolina. Biden led by 1% in Arizona, 3% in Pennsylvania and 5% in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Polling in a pandemic. Poll workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in April.
Polling in a pandemic. Poll workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in April. Photograph: Coburn Dukehart/AP

All six are critical to determining who wins the November 3 election, given their population size and potential to swing to either party. In each of the states, the difference between the two candidates was near or within the poll’s sampling error, meaning that neither candidate has a clear advantage.

Taken together, the state and national surveys show the 2020 election may wind up with the same mixed result as 2016, with the Democrats receiving a majority of the votes but the Republicans winning the Electoral College and, therefore, the White House.

Updated

Hello everyone, Joanna Walters here taking over from my colleague Martin Belam in London. Martin will fire up the US live blog extra early tomorrow to catch the news fall-out from the first presidential debate, so do please look out for that from around 4am ET/9am BST on Wednesday.

We’ll have our top team covering the debate tonight. Guardian US will livestream the event from Cleveland, Ohio.

And here’s our staff line-up and what you can expect.

US blog skipper Joan E Greve will be helming the special debate live blog tonight, from 8pm ET, keeping you abreast and appraised on the event in real time. Our west coast politics reporter Maanvi Singh, who blogs regularly and sharply in the evenings, will also work on the blog tonight. And online audience expert Max Benwell will contribute from New York by swiftly retrieving extra video clips and social media entries to slip into the blog.

Outside the blog, on our US and global online pages and for the daily Guardian newspaper, published in Britain, senior politics reporter Lauren Gambino will cover the main news story. Senior politics reporter Daniel Strauss will carve out the key takeaway points from the night and Washington, DC, bureau chief David Smith will bring you analysis.

Also working from the west coast, senior reporter Lois Beckett will be remotely attending an online Republican watch party, where voters congregate to watch the debate online or on TV. And tech reporter Kari Paul will attend a remote Democratic watch party.

Normally, of course, our politics team would be in Cleveland to cover the event in person and at this stage of the election cycle they’d be living out of suitcases, whizzing around the US on the campaign trails. But with limited in-person campaigning and reporting, you can still rely on the Guardian US top team to bring you all the drama and, ahem, the FACTS.

Updated

Jonathan Allen has had a go at teeing up tonight’s debate for NBC News. He writes:

Usually, it’s an incumbent who is up in the polls at this point and promising stability. But Trump, who bills himself as a change agent, needs to shake up the race, and Biden, who vows to bring a steady hand to the White House, would prefer that the dynamics don’t change.

“There’s really no debate performance by either candidate that will fundamentally shift the race,” one Biden campaign aide said, in an effort to lower the stakes.

But polls can move noticeably in the immediate aftermath of a debate, as they did when Republican Mitt Romney pulled from about three points back to take a small lead over President Barack Obama following their first matchup in October 2012. And in a closely-contested race likely to be defined by a relatively small number of voters in a limited set of swing states, marginal shifts may land larger than they appear.

Read it here: NBC News – The soft bigotry of Trump’s low expectations may give Biden a debate edge

That is it from me, Martin Belam, in London today. I am handing the baton on to Joanna Walters. Have a good day, and I will see you tomorrow…

Annie Linskey at the Washington Post this morning looks at what Joe Biden is planning to do after tonight’s debate – and the answer is catch a train.

The Biden “Build Back Better Train Tour” departs from Cleveland on Wednesday and will make five stops, including in Alliance, Ohio; Pittsburgh; Greensburg, Pa.; and Latrobe, Pa., and ending in Johnstown, Pa., according to the campaign.

The trip is meant to help Biden connect with voters who supported Trump in 2016 and to give the Democratic nominee a chance to “talk about what he will do as president to create jobs, support working families and build our economy back better,” according to the Biden campaign.

It also sets up a packed day of public events for Biden, who has been criticized for running a low energy campaign that rarely includes more than one public event per day. And it provides the former vice president with time for a victory lap if the debate Tuesday night goes well for him or for multiple chances to change the conversation if it goes poorly for him.

This train tour will help Biden drive home the “Scranton vs. Park Avenue” contrast that he’s been trying to draw to highlight his humble roots and Trump’s privileged upbringing. During the tour, Biden is set to meet with workers, including union members, to hear “how they have struggled to get ahead in Trump’s economy,” according to the campaign.

Earlier the Post reported a new poll keeping Biden ahead in battleground Pennsylvania.

Read it here: Washington Post – Inside Joe Biden’s whistle-stop tour of Ohio and Pennsylvania

Olivia Troye, a former top adviser to vice president Mike Pence, confirmed to CNN last night that the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was pushed to play down the risks of the coronavirus pandemic in reopening schools for in-person classes.

“Unfortunately, this was an effort, you know, at times where I would get blindsided, where there would be junior staffers being tasked to find different data for charts to show that the virus wasn’t as bad for certain populations, ages or demographics” she said.

She recalled an incident in June when Pence’s chief of staff Marc Short pushed her and others to go behind the CDC’s back to try get alternative data that would better support the Trump stance that schools needed to re-open and that children were at little risk from the virus.

“I think it put these task force members and doctors in a very challenging position, what was going on behind the scenes. I think you’ve seen from the beginning the President’s narrative has been ‘everything’s fine. Everything’s OK. Time to get back to normal. Let’s get the economy going again,” the whistleblower said.

Read it here: CNN – CDC was pushed to play down the risks of Covid-19 in reopening schools, former Pence staffer says

Updated

Tom McCarthy has a scene-setter for tonight’s debate, with a view on the tactics the two candidates might employ.

“Trump will go after Biden hard, to deflect attention away from his own troubles, including the reports on his tax evasion and business failures,” said Brad Bannon, a Washington-based Democratic strategist. “Much of Biden’s support is based on his calm demeanor, which contrasts well with the president’s erratic personality.

“So, it’s important for Biden to respond to Trump without losing his cool, and smile while he surgically cuts the president down to size.”

Advisers to Biden, meanwhile, say that a great debate result for the Democratic candidate would be for not much to happen at all. The challenge as they see it is for Biden to appear steady and draw a contrast with Trump – and to resist being drawn into a mudfight.

Biden himself appears to recognize the dangers of meeting Trump on his preferred turf of insult and mockery.

“I hope I don’t get baited into a brawl with this guy, because that’s the only place he’s comfortable,” Biden told donors at a fundraiser in Delaware earlier this month. “This is a guy who is absolutely tasteless. Completely tasteless. So pointing it out doesn’t do much.”

Read it here: Debate offers Trump chance to yank stubbornly stable 2020 race his way

Talking of the supreme court and Amy Coney Barrett, Reuters have this on her plans for today at the US Capitol.

She will meet with Republican senate majority leader Mitch McConnell in the morning in what will be a day packed with informal visits, part of a long-standing tradition leading into multi-day confirmation hearings set to begin on 12 October.

Judge Amy Coney Barrett will be back in DC today to meet senior Republicans who are pushing for her fast-track confirmation to the supreme court.
Judge Amy Coney Barrett will be back in DC today to meet senior Republicans who are pushing for her fast-track confirmation to the supreme court. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters

Barrett is also scheduled today to meet Senate judiciary committee chairman Lindsey Graham at 5:30pm, as well as other Republican judiciary committee members, including senators Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and Mike Crapo.

Graham has said that his committee will likely vote on the nomination on 22 October, setting up a final vote on the Senate floor by the end of the month.

Shira A Scheindlin served as a United States district judge for the southern district of New York for 22 years. She writes for us today on what she considers to be Trump and the Rpublicans’s assault on the supreme court:

In a naked acknowledgment of his true motivation, Trump recently said that the country needs a ninth justice because the pending election could well end up before the court and a 4-4 court would be a bad thing. Yet, in 2016, the Republicans were content with a 4-4 court with an election around the corner. Indeed, Republicans threatened that if Hillary Clinton won the election, no new justice would be confirmed, leaving the court with only eight justices throughout her term.

This election is already in progress with thousands (and soon millions) of Americans voting during what will inevitably be a highly contentious confirmation process. This process will inevitably affect the election and thereby politicize the supreme court as never before. The political branches of our government – the executive and legislative branches – are elected by voters; the court, on the other hand, is supposed to be non-partisan. While appointed by the president and confirmed by Congress, the justices are not beholden to any political party but rather to the rule of law.

This is no longer the case. Public confidence and public perception that the courts are non-partisan has eroded. The Republican boycott of Garland, together with Trump’s unprecedented nomination of Barrett and her likely confirmation, will seal the Republican theft of two supreme court seats, at least in the eyes of more than half the electorate, and will ensure conservative control of the court for decades to come.

Read it here: Shira A Scheindlin – Conservatives’ assault on the supreme court is a judicial tragedy in the making

Poll: Biden leads Trump in battleground state of Pennsylvania

The Washington Post have a new poll this morning showing that Joe Biden Biden leads Donald Trump in battleground state of Pennsylvania. They report that Biden is running strong in the Philadelphia suburbs and is competitive in western Pennsylvania, while Trump leads in central and northeastern parts of the state.

Biden’s support stands at 54 percent to Trump’s 45 percent among the Keystone State’s likely voters and 54 percent to 44 percent among its registered voters. Biden’s current edge among likely voters appears sizable but is not definitive, given the five-point margin of error that applies to each candidate’s support. Other polls of Pennsylvania this month have found Biden leading Trump by an average of eight points.

The poll finds that 53 percent of Pennsylvania’s registered voters approve of Trump’s management of the economy, but 57 percent disapprove of his handling of the coronavirus outbreak, and that issue appears to sway more voters than does the economy.

Pennsylvania is the most populous of three Rust Belt states that proved decisive in the 2016 election. Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania as well as Wisconsin and Michigan by less than one percentage point each.

Read it here: Washington Post – Biden leads Trump in battleground state of Pennsylvania

Can we trust the polls this year, though? Tom McCarthy had a look at this vexed issue for us yesterday. In the meantime, our election polls tracker will help you keep on top of who is leading in the swing states.

Special election being held in Atlanta to decide temporary replacement for the late Rep. John Lewis

Primary season may – finally – be over, but there’s actually a special election going on today in Georgia, as seven candidates are facing off to become the short-term successor to the late Rep. John Lewis.

November’s general election will decide the full two-year congressional term, which begins in January, but in the meantime voters will get a temporary replacement.

None of the candidates in the special election are on the ballot for November, but all say the vote is still important, citing the symbolism of having someone occupying the 5th congressional district seat as well as practical concerns about making sure the district has a voice in any action Congress might take on Covid-19 relief and other issues, report the Associated Press.

Civil rights icon congressman John Lewis had served 17 terms before his death from pancreatic cancer earlier this year.
Civil rights icon congressman John Lewis had served 17 terms before his death from pancreatic cancer earlier this year. Photograph: Christopher Aluka Berry/Reuters

Five Democrats are running in the Atlanta area district, including former Morehouse college president Robert Franklin, retiring state Rep. Mable Thomas, former state Rep. Keisha Waites, former Atlanta City Council member Kwanza Hall and Barrington Martin II, a teacher who lost the Democratic primary to Lewis earlier this year.

Independent Steven Muhammad and Libertarian Chase Oliver are also running in a district that covers parts of Fulton, DeKalb and Clayton counties. If no one wins a majority Tuesday, a runoff will be held 1 December. The winner will serve only until early January.

Figures from Georgia’s secretary of state show more than 16,000 people cast ballots early for today’s election, with nearly three-quarters voting in person. There are about 630,000 registered voters in the district.

Waites called turnout “super low” on Monday. “Given all of the misinformation and confusion, the voters have no clue the special election is tomorrow.”

A quick snap from Reuters here about secretary of state Mike Pompeo. He’s on a mini-tour to Europe which takes in visits to Greece, Italy, the Vatican and Croatia. He arrived in Greece yesterday.

This morning he has stated that the US strongly supports the dialogue between Greece and Turkey, after meeting Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis on the island of Crete.

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, left, and Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hold a meeting during their visit at the Naval Support Activity base at Souda, on the Greek island of Crete.
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, left, and Greek prime minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hold a meeting during their visit at the Naval Support Activity base at Souda, on the Greek island of Crete. Photograph: Aris Messinis/AP

NATO allies Greece and Turkey have been increasingly at loggerheads on a range of issues, but have agreed to resume exploratory talks over contested maritime claims. “We hope that these talks can continue in a serious way,” Pompeo said.

Slightly more contentiously, Pompeo called Russia a destabilising influence in the eastern Mediterranean region.

The secretary of state may have been impressed with the naval facilities as Souda Bay, but the trip hasn’t gone entirely smoothly, with reports that Pope Francis declined to meet him after a row over the church’s relations with China.

Donald Trump’s presidency has changed American society. With weeks until the most important election in a generation, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone are crossing the US to uncover the fault lines that underpin American politics. In the vital swing state of Florida, where disinformation on Covid-19 has spread unchecked, the race for the White House is tightening by the day. Watch their video report here:

Janie Har for Associated Press has the latest on the new outbreak of wildfires in California.

She reports that firefighters say they are hopeful that dying winds would enable them to bear down on a wildfire that exploded in the Northern California wine country, prompting tens of thousands of evacuations while a second blaze killed at least three people.

The Glass Fire raged through Napa and Sonoma counties on Monday, tripling in size to around 56.6 square miles (146.59 square kilometers) without any containment. Some two dozen homes had burned, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

Smoke billows into the sky as the Glass Fire burns in the hills of Calistoga, California.
Smoke billows into the sky as the Glass Fire burns in the hills of Calistoga, California. Photograph: Jose Carlos Fajardo/AP

The dry winds that gave the flames a ferocious push appeared to have eased by Monday evening and firefighters were feeling “much more confident,” said Ben Nicholls, a division chief with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire.

“We don’t have those critical burning conditions that we were experiencing those last two nights,” he said.

Eagle Field Fire Department firefighter Mark Jones extinguishes hot spots during the Glass Fire in St. Helena, California.
Eagle Field Fire Department firefighter Mark Jones extinguishes hot spots during the Glass Fire in St. Helena, California. Photograph: Jose Carlos Fajardo/AP

The Glass Fire is one of nearly 30 wildfires burning around California and the National Weather Service warned that hot, dry conditions with strong Santa Ana winds could remain a fire danger in Southern California into Tuesday.

So far in this year’s historic fire season, more than 8,100 California wildfires have killed 29 people, scorched 5,780 square miles (14,970 square kilometers), and destroyed more than 7,000 buildings.

A home on Crystal Ranch Road is destroyed by the Glass Fire in St. Helena, California.
A home on Crystal Ranch Road is destroyed by the Glass Fire in St. Helena, California. Photograph: Jose Carlos Fajardo/AP

Sonoma County supervisor Susan Gorin, who lives in the Oakmont area of Santa Rosa, heeded the order to flee late Monday night. It took her nearly two hours of crawling along a jammed road to reach safety.

Gorin’s home was damaged in another fire three years ago and she was rebuilding it. She saw three neighboring houses in flames as she fled.

“We’re experienced with that,” she said of the fires. “Once you lose a house and represent thousands of folks who’ve lost homes, you become pretty fatalistic that this is a new way of life and, depressingly, a normal way of life, the megafires that are spreading throughout the West.”

Gorin said it appeared the fire in her area was sparked by embers from the Glass Fire.

Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable.

Those voting problem in New York add to concerns around how the election will be conducted – and perhaps more importantly, how it might end up being litigated.

Julian Borger reports for us this morning that there will be far fewer international election observers than planned at this year’s election, because of a combination of health concerns during the pandemic and the lack of an invitation from the state department for Latin American observers.

The electoral arm of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has had to scale down its ambitions because of Covid-related precautions and travel restrictions. It is sending 30 observers, instead of the 500 that had been recommended in view of the scale of concern about the US election.

The Organization of American States (OAS) has yet to receive an invitation to send observers to the 3 November vote, which is threatening to be the most contentious in modern US history as Donald Trump himself repeatedly claims it will be rigged and refuses to say whether he will leave the White House if defeated at the polls.

Read it here: US election to have far fewer international observers than planned

Trump’s overnight tweets have also focused on a story emerging in New York about Brooklyn voters receiving absentee ballot envelopes with wrong voter names and addresses. The Gothamist reported yesterday evening that:

Multiple voters in Brooklyn told Gothamist / WNYC that they have received a mislabeled “official absentee ballot envelope.” Normally, the voter inserts their completed ballot into the envelope and signs the outside. But in these cases, their ballot envelopes bear the wrong name and address. If a person signs their own name to this faulty ballot envelope, the ballot would be voided. So far, voters in Park Slope, Prospect Heights, Carroll Gardens, Crown Heights, Clinton Hill, Bushwick, Flatbush, Brooklyn Heights, and Sunset Park have already reported the issue.

They added that Michael Ryan, the Board of Elections’s executive director, attributed the problem to an error made by a vendor.

At this point, the BOE does not know how many voters may be affected or how it will remedy the problem. But Ryan said they will make sure the vendor addresses this problem in future mailings, and by determining the best way to make sure people who received erroneous envelopes receive new ones. “We will ensure on behalf of the voters in Brooklyn that the proper ballots and ballot envelopes are in the hands of the voters in advance of Election Day so they can vote” Ryan said.

The president has also overnight denied a claim that he had wanted his daughter Ivanka Trump as running mate in 2016.

Trump wrongly attributes the claim to CNN. It actually originates in a forthcoming book written by the president’s own former campaign deputy Rick Gates, and we also covered it yesterday.

Wisconsin supreme court to hear case that could purge 130,000 from voter rolls

The Wisconsin supreme court is scheduled to hear arguments today in a case that could result in the purging of about 130,000 people from voter rolls in the hotly contested battleground state.

It’s the latest in a long series of court battles around November’s election, but it isn’t clear if the court would rule in time to affect an election that is just five weeks away. Attorneys for both sides didn’t expect a decision until after the election.

President Donald Trump won Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes in 2016, making the fight over any change to the process of voting and who is able to vote all the more significant.

On Sunday, a federal appeals court temporarily put on hold a ruling that would expand the time that absentee ballots can be counted in Wisconsin.

Associated Press report that a conservative law firm was asking the Supreme Court to overturn a state appeals court’s ruling earlier in February that stopped the purging of the voters who had been identified as potentially having moved. A circuit court judge had ruled that the voters must be removed immediately, but the appeals court overturned that.

Because voters who moved were concentrated in more Democratic areas of the state, they argued that the lawsuit was meant to lower turnout on their side. Republicans countered that it was about reducing the likelihood of voter fraud and making sure that people who moved are not able to vote from their previous addresses.

In the voter purge lawsuit, conservatives argue that the state elections commission broke the law when it did not remove voters from the rolls who did not respond within 30 days to a mailing last year indicating they may have moved. The commission wanted to wait until after the presidential election before removing anyone because of inaccuracies found while previously attempting to identify voters who may have moved. No voters have been deactivated while the legal fight continues.

In Georgia, a federal judge ruled yesterday that polling places must have at least one paper backup list of eligible voters in case the electronic pollbooks used to check voter registration malfunction.

And overnight, the president has once again claimed that the forthcoming US election will be rigged against him. He retweeted a video from James O’Keefe’s Project Veritas, which has been targeting Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar with claims of voting irregularity.

Adam Gabbatt has got you covered for all you need to know about tonight’s debate, including these gems about the guy running it:

Fox News host Chris Wallace will be the man in charge. The Fox News channel has been fawning in its coverage of Trump for the past four years, but Wallace is seen as a relatively independent, straight journalist.

Wallace won praise for an interview with Trump in July, when he challenged Trump over the coronavirus death count and memorably dug into Trump’s claim to have aced a cognitive test. He’s no favourite of Trump – who on Thursday baselessly claimed Wallace is “controlled by the radical left”.

Wallace said he’s hoping to let the debate flow. He isn’t expected to factcheck either candidate – it would be a mammoth, time-consuming task – and has said he will strive to be as “invisible as possible”.

Read it here: US presidential debate: all you need to know about the face-off in Cleveland

Good morning. All roads lead to Cleveland today, as the presidential election campaign gears up for the first televised debate. Here’s a catch-up on where we are, and what we can expect from today:

I’m Martin Belam, and you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

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