November 18 political news briefs

Here are today’s political news briefs.

The Trump campaign will spend $3 million for a recount in two counties in Wisconsin — Milwaukee and Dane. The Trump campaign alleged that clerks illegally altered absentee ballots that were incomplete so they could be counted. Fox News reported that the Trump campaign has transferred $3 million to the state of Wisconsin to cover the estimated cost of the recounts.

In Wayne County, Michigan, a 4-member canvassing board that has the authority to certify election results caused some controversy on Tuesday night because it was split 2-2 on a vote to certify about 850,000 votes. The board has two Democratic and two Republican members, and the split was alone partisan lines, with Democrats voting to certify and Republicans voting against. Wayne County includes Detroit. 587,000 votes went Biden’s way, while 264,000 votes went Trump’s way. The board was split at 6 p.m, but after hearing public comments, they unanimously voted to certify the votes at 9 p.m., but with a stipulation that the Michigan Secretary of State’s office is to audit “unbalanced precincts,” which are areas where there were more ballots cast than the number of people who signed into polling locations. Michigan’s state-level board of canvassers will meet on Monday to vote on certifying statewide results.

In Floyd County, Georgia, there were 2,600 votes that were discovered uncounted because officials forgot to upload data from a ballot scanning machine’s memory card. This was found during an audit. President Trump will get 800 more votes in statewide totals. Biden has a lead of about 13,000 votes. There is a statewide recount with a deadline today with the results to be certified by Friday.

President Trump fired Chris Krebs, who was the Department of Homeland Security’s cyber chief. Krebs issued a statement last week saying there was no evidence that the 2020 election had deleted, lost, or changed votes. Trump tweeted that Krebs’ statement was highly inaccurate and that he’s terminated.

House Democrats re-elected Nancy Pelosi to serve another term as the Speaker of the House. She will be in that position until 2022.

President-elect Joe Biden is building his team in preparation for his presidency. He said on Tuesday that he is still unable to have access to classified briefings. The head of the General Services Administration has not yet recognized Biden as the election winner. Today Biden had an online livestream with health care workers on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

That’s all the political news briefs for today.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-campaign-partial-recount-two-wisconsin-counties

https://www.wsj.com/articles/michigan-ballot-count-uncertain-after-board-action-11605660687

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/17/trump-ousts-homeland-security-chris-krebs-called-election-secure/6276676002/

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/526234-vote-recount-in-georgia-finds-over-2600-ballots-in-floyd-county

https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/18/joe-biden-trump-transition-live-updates/

https://www.axios.com/nancy-pelosi-reelected-house-democratic-leader-018a9a4d-ad6d-4d87-9a96-96aeae2337a9.html

https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/business/boeing-737-max-approval/index.html