NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly three years after rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, the false election conspiracy theories that drove the violent attack remain prevalent on social media and cable news: suitcases filled with ballots, late-night ballot dumps, dead people voting.

Experts warn it will likely be worse in the coming presidential election contest. The safeguards that attempted to counter the bogus claims the last time are eroding, while the tools and systems that create and spread them are only getting stronger.

Many Americans, egged on by former President Donald Trump, have continued to push the unsupported idea that elections throughout the U.S. can’t be trusted. A majority of Republicans (57%) believe Democrat Joe Biden was not legitimately elected president.

Meanwhile, generative artificial intelligence tools have made it far cheaper and easier to spread the kind of misinformation that can mislead voters and potentially influence elections. And social media companies that once invested heavily in correcting the record have shifted their priorities.

“I expect a tsunami of misinformation,” said Oren Etzioni, an artificial intelligence expert and professor emeritus at the University of Washington. “I hope to be proven wrong. But the ingredients are there, and I am completely terrified.”

Manipulated images and videos surrounding elections are nothing new, but 2024 will be the first U.S. presidential election in which sophisticated AI tools that can produce convincing fakes in seconds are just a few clicks away.

The fabricated images, videos and audio clips known as deepfakes have started making their way into experimental presidential campaign ads. More sinister versions could easily spread without labels and fool people days before an election, Etzioni said.

“You could see a political candidate like President Biden being rushed to a hospital,” he said. “You could see a candidate saying things that he or she never actually said.”

Faced with content that is made to look and sound real, “everything that we’ve been wired to do through evolution is going to come into play to have us believe in the fabrication rather than the actual reality,” said misinformation scholar Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

The Federal Election Commission and Republicans and Democrats in Congress are exploring steps to regulate the technology, but they haven’t finalized any rules or legislation.

A handful of states have passed laws requiring deepfakes to be labeled or banning those that misrepresent candidates. Some social media companies, including YouTube and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have introduced AI labeling policies. It remains to be seen whether they will be able to consistently catch violators.

It was just over a year ago that Elon Musk bought Twitter and began firing its executives, dismantling some of its core features and reshaping the social media platform into what’s now known as X.

Since then, he has upended its verification system, leaving public officials vulnerable to impersonators. He has gutted the teams that once fought misinformation on the platform, leaving the community of users to moderate itself. And he has restored the accounts of conspiracy theorists and extremists who were previously banned.

The changes have been applauded by many conservatives who say Twitter’s previous moderation attempts amounted to censorship of their views. But pro-democracy advocates argue the takeover has shifted what once was a flawed but useful resource for news and election information into a largely unregulated echo chamber that amplifies hate speech and misinformation.

In the run-up to 2024, X, Meta and YouTube have together removed 17 policies that protected against hate and misinformation, according to a report from Free Press, a nonprofit that advocates for civil rights in tech and media.

In June, YouTube announced that while it would still regulate content that misleads about current or upcoming elections, it would stop removing content that falsely claims the 2020 election or other previous U.S. elections were marred by “widespread fraud, errors or glitches.” The platform said the policy was an attempt to protect the ability to “openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions.”

X, Meta and YouTube also have laid off thousands of employees and contractors since 2020, some of whom have included content moderators.

The shrinking of such teams “sets the stage for things to be worse in 2024 than in 2020,” said Kate Starbird, a misinformation expert at the University of Washington.

Meta explains on its website that it has some 40,000 people devoted to safety and security. It also frequently takes down networks of fake social media accounts that aim to sow discord.

Ivy Choi, a YouTube spokesperson, said the platform has recommendation and information panels, which provide users with reliable election news.

The rise of TikTok and other, less regulated platforms such as Telegram, Truth Social and Gab, also has created more information silos online where baseless claims can spread. Some apps such as WhatsApp and WeChat, rely on private chats, making it hard for outside groups to see the misinformation that may spread.

“I’m worried that in 2024, we’re going to see similar recycled, ingrained false narratives but more sophisticated tactics,” said Roberta Braga, founder and executive director of the Digital Democracy Institute of the Americas. “But on the positive side, I am hopeful there is more social resilience to those things.”

Trump’s front-runner status in the Republican presidential primary is top of mind for misinformation researchers who worry that it will exacerbate election misinformation and potentially lead to election vigilantism or violence.

The former president still falsely claims to have won the 2020 election.

Without evidence, Trump has already primed his supporters to expect fraud in the 2024 election, urging them to intervene to “ guard the vote ” to prevent vote rigging in diverse Democratic cities. Trump has a long history of suggesting elections are rigged if he doesn’t win and did so before the voting in 2016 and 2020.

That continued wearing away of voter trust in democracy can lead to violence, said Bret Schafer, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks misinformation.

“If people don’t ultimately trust information related to an election, democracy just stops working,” he said.

Election officials have spent the years since 2020 preparing for the expected resurgence of election denial narratives.

In Colorado, Secretary of State Jena Griswold said informative paid social media and TV campaigns that humanize election workers have helped inoculate voters against misinformation.

“This is an uphill battle, but we have to be proactive,” she said. “Misinformation is one of the biggest threats to American democracy we see today.”

Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon’s office is spearheading #TrustedInfo2024, a new online public education effort by the National Association of Secretaries of State to promote election officials as a trusted source of election information in 2024.

His office also is planning meetings with county and city election officials and will update a “Fact and Fiction” information page on its website as false claims emerge. A new law in Minnesota will protect election workers from threats and harassment, bar people from knowingly distributing misinformation ahead of elections and criminalize people who non-consensually share deepfake images to hurt a political candidate or influence an election.

In a rural Wisconsin county north of Green Bay, Oconto County Clerk Kim Pytleski has traveled the region giving talks and presentations to small groups about voting and elections to boost voters’ trust.

“Being able to talk directly with your elections officials makes all the difference,” she said. “Being able to see that there are real people behind these processes who are committed to their jobs and want to do good work helps people understand we are here to serve them.”

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Fernando reported from Chicago. Associated Press writer Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The agreement between the Montgomery County Office of Voter Services and NPC Inc., of Claysburg, Blair County, covered “ballot printing and mailing services,” according to the contract.

As the fourth of five renewal options, the contract covered election services concerning the North Penn area, with the previously issued request for proposal concerning the “2024 North Penn special, primary and general elections.”

There was $45,000 will be designated for the upcoming special election, according to the contract. There’s also $450,000 stipulated for the primary election and $450,000 allocated for the general election. Funds were obtained through the county’s general-operational budget.

“Election costs will be fully reimbursed by North Penn School District,” the contract states.

A special election is slated to take place on Jan. 16, 2024. Eligible residents will have the opportunity to cast their vote in a referendum about borrowing roughly $97 million to move ninth-graders to the high school.

North Penn School District school board members set the date during an October school board meeting. Lansdale resident Margaret Burke advocated that matriculating ninth graders into the high school is crucial.

Burke brought up the matter during the public comment of a Montgomery County Board of Commissioners meeting on Dec. 14. She told county commissioners she was “embarrassed to say” that North Penn School District was the “only school district in the county that doesn’t have their ninth graders up at the high school.”

She added that the move would take a major step toward renovating the educational facility built back in the early 1970s to be more inclusive and accessible for students.

“The building is old and too tight and unsafe with people with disabilities,” she said, adding “I hope everybody will vote yes so that our ninth graders can be brought up to the high school environment, and so that the entire building can be renovated, and made appropriate for everybody so there’s more space to move around.”

“With just refurbishments, that’s not sufficient to widen the hallways, and make it safe for people with disabilities like my child, who roam(s) the halls of North Penn High School,” Burke continued. “So please, everybody vote yes.”

Along with moving ninth graders onto the campus at 1340 S. Valley Forge Road, other proposed redevelopment plans would include adding another driveway to create access to nearby Sumneytown Pike, as well as a new gym and commons area —if the referendum goes forward.

Two options were presented by the Schrader Group earlier this fall. The first is a more than $400 million undertaking that would include roughly 313,000 square feet worth of additions for the ninth graders and the renovation of roughly 496,000 square feet of the existing school. A second option focusing solely on renovations would cost roughly $236 million.

Referencing the upcoming referendum, outgoing Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr. stressed that those residing within the geographic boundaries of the North Penn School District are permitted to vote. There were 105,455 people considered residents of the district as of 2020, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“I just want to note too that is only for residents of the North Penn School District,” Lawrence said. “Residents of North Penn, and I’m of course a proud North Penn Knight, but do not live in the school district.”

WATERLOO, Iowa (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Tuesday defended his comments about migrants crossing the southern border “poisoning the blood” of America, and he reinforced the message while denying any similarities to fascist writings others had noted.

“I never read ‘Mein Kampf,’” Trump said at a campaign rally in Waterloo, Iowa, referencing Adolf Hitler’s fascist manifesto.

Immigrants in the U.S. illegally, Trump said Tuesday, are “destroying the blood of our country, they’re destroying the fabric of our country.”

In the speech to more than 1,000 supporters from a podium flanked by Christmas trees in red MAGA hats, Trump responded to mounting criticism about his anti-immigrant “blood” purity rhetoric over the weekend. Several politicians and extremism experts have noted his language echoed writings from Hitler about the “purity” of Aryan blood, which underpinned Nazi Germany’s systematic murder of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” before and during World War II.

As illegal border crossings surge, topping 10,000 some days in December, Trump continued to blast Biden for allowing migrants to “pour into our country.” He alleged, without offering evidence, that they bring crime and potentially disease with them.

“They come from Africa, they come from Asia, they come from South America,” he said, lamenting what he said was a “border catastrophe.”

Trump made no mention of the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision Tuesday to disqualify him from the state’s ballot under the U.S. Constitution’s insurrection clause, though his campaign blasted out a fundraising email about it during his speech.

The former president has long used inflammatory language about immigrants coming to the U.S., dating back to his campaign launch in 2015, when he said immigrants from Mexico are “bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime, they’re rapists.”

But Trump has espoused increasingly authoritarian messages in his third campaign, vowing to renew and add to his effort to bar citizens from certain Muslim-majority countries, and to expand “ ideological screening ” for people immigrating to the U.S. He said he would be a dictator on “day one” only, in order to close the border and increase drilling.

In Waterloo on Tuesday, Trump’s supporters in the crowd said his border policies were effective and necessary, even if he doesn’t always say the right thing.

“I don’t know if he says the right words all of the time,” said 63-year-old Marylee Geist, adding that just because “you’re not fortunate enough to be born in this country,” doesn’t mean “you don’t get to come here.”

“But it should all be done legally,” she added.

It’s about the volume of border crossings and national security, said her husband, John Geist, 68.

“America is the land of opportunity, however, the influx — it needs to be kept to a certain level,” he said. “The amount of undocumented immigrants that come through and you don’t know what you’re getting, things aren’t regulated properly.”

Alex Litterer and her dad, Tom, of Charles City said they were concerned about migrants crossing the southern border, especially because the U.S. doesn’t have the resources to support that influx. But the 22-year-old said she didn’t agree with Trump’s comments, adding that immigrants who come to the country legally contribute to the country’s character and bring different perspectives.

Polling shows most Americans agree, with two-thirds saying the country’s diverse population makes the U.S. stronger.

But Trump’s “blood” purity message might resonate with some voters.

About a third of Americans overall worry that more immigration is causing U.S.-born Americans to lose their economic, political and cultural influence, according to a late 2021 poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Jackie Malecek, 50, of Waterloo said she likes Trump for the reasons that many people don’t — how outspoken he is and “that he’s a little bit of a loose cannon.” But she thought Trump saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood” took it a little too far.

“I’m very much for cutting off what’s happening at the border now. There’s too many people pouring in here right now, I watch it every single day,” Malecek said. “But that wording is not what I would have chosen to say.”

Malecek supports allowing legal immigration and accepting refugees, but she is concerned about the waves of migrants crossing the border who are not being vetted.

Sen. JD Vance, a Republican from Ohio, lashed out at a reporter asking about Trump’s “poisoning the blood” comments, defending them as a reference to overdoses from fentanyl smuggled over the border.

“You just framed your question implicitly assuming that Donald Trump is talking about Adolf Hitler. It’s absurd,” Vance said. “It is obvious that he was talking about the very clear fact that the blood of Americans is being poisoned by a drug epidemic.”

At a congressional hearing July 12, James Mandryck, a Customs and Border Protection deputy assistant commissioner, said 73% of fentanyl seizures at the border since the previous October were smuggling attempts carried out by U.S. citizens, with the rest being done by Mexican citizens.

Extremism experts say Trump’s rhetoric resembles the language that white supremacist shooters have used to justify mass killings.

Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, pointed to the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooter and the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooter, who he said used similar language in writings before their attacks.

“Call it what it is,” said Lewis. “This is fascism. This is white supremacy. This is dehumanizing language that would not be out of place in a white supremacist Signal or Telegram chat.”

Asked about Trump’s “poisoning the blood” comments, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell replied with a quip about his own wife, an immigrant, who was an appointee in Trump’s administration.

“Well, it strikes me that didn’t bother him when he appointed Elaine Chao Secretary of Transportation,” McConnell said.

Trump currently leads other candidates, by far, in polls of likely Republican voters in Iowa and nationwide. Trump’s campaign is hoping for a knockout performance in the caucuses that will deny his rivals momentum and allow him to quickly lock up the nomination. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has staked his campaign on Iowa, raising expectations for him there.

“I will not guarantee it,” Trump said of winning Iowa next month, “but I pretty much guarantee it.”

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This story has been corrected to change a reference to this year’s Texas mall shooting to the 2019 El Paso Walmart shooting.

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Associated Press reporters Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

School board members reappointed board President Tina Stoll and Vice President Christian Fusco to fill those roles for 2024 in their annual reorganization meeting on Monday night.

“Thanks to everyone for entrusting me with this position again, for another year. I really appreciate the vote of confidence, I love our team, and thank you for the honor,” Stoll said.

Both Stoll and Fusco were first elected to the board in 2017 and reelected in 2021 to second four-year terms; Stoll was appointed board president starting in 2018 and Fusco has held the VP spot since 2019. In the reorganization meeting Monday night, Stoll temporarily ceded the gavel and center seat in the board’s meeting room to fellow member Jonathan Kassa, whom the rest of the board elected as temporary president to administer the start of the meeting and ask for nominations.

Kassa then read the vote totals certified earlier Monday by Montgomery County officials, announcing the reelection of incumbent board members Cathy Wesley, Juliane Ramic, Tim MacBain, Elisha Gee, and the election of newcomer Kunbi Rudnick, taking the seat previously held by Wanda Lewis-Campbell on the all-Democrat board. District CFO Steve Skrocki then announced that Gee had sworn her oath earlier that day, and “I am in receipt of that oath of office,” before District Judge Ed Levine administered oaths in person to Ramic, Wesley and MacBain.

One listed action item was tabled for a future meeting: the appointment of a new member to represent the district on the North Montco Technical Career Center Joint Operating Committee, filling a seat that had been held by Lewis-Campbell. A new board committee member assignment list was then approved, with Rudnick being appointed to the board’s budget, policy, and safe schools committees, and the remaining committee appointments largely identical to the prior year.

The board also approved 2024 calendars for both full board and committee meetings, both of which are posted in their online board documents. For a full meeting schedule or more information visit www.NPenn.org.

The meeting began with public comment from Goldstein Law Partners attorney Britain Henry, who spoke on behalf of “a collective of petitioners who filed a petition this morning contesting the certification of the Towamencin Township supervisor race.”

“We do not at this time have a recount or a re-canvass petition,” said county Senior Assistant Solicitor John Marlatt. “A petition of an election contest is a petition of a different type and not one that should delay the board moving forward to vote on certification … this afternoon.”

While ballot counting and tabulation proceedings wrapped up on Nov. 14, a Nov. 22 ruling from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania delayed the certification of the 2023 general election results in Montgomery County. The order required “undated and improperly dated mail-in ballots” be counted.

There were 349 ballots impacted locally, according to a Montgomery County spokesperson. Marlatt said the “canvas and tabulation board reconvened on Nov. 27” and completed their work on Nov. 28, which was followed by a mandatory five-day waiting period “for any parties to file recount petitions.”

Concerning the Towamencin Township race, updated vote totals posted Nov. 27 showed Towamencin supervisor Rich Marino, a Republican incumbent, and challenger Kofi Osei, a Democrat, tied with 3,035 votes each in the race for the seat currently held by Marino.

Marino and Osei then participated in the drawing of lots held on Nov. 30 in Norristown. The proceedings, mandated by state law, dictated the candidate who chose the lower number would be deemed the winner. Osei chose number 15 and Marino chose 28.

“It’s crazy. There’s been a lot happening in Towamencin. So to end on a drawing of lots is definitely crazy,” Osei told MediaNews Group following the drawing.

“My feeling is at this point is that I did not lose the election…I just picked the wrong number,” Marino said last week.

Marlatt told county election board members the Republican National Committee also filed litigation on Friday, requesting “a stay of certification of the Towamencin race from the district court.”

“As of the time of this meeting a stay has not been ordered,” Marlatt said. “Mr. Marino has filed an election contest in the court of common pleas and has also requested a stay there. Again, as of the time of this meeting, a stay has not been ordered.”

In addition to the Towamencin Township race, Marlatt said a recount petition was filed for the Ward 5 seat on the Lower Moreland Township Board of Commissioners. He said there was no change recorded in the vote total. County election results revealed Republican Dennis J. Mueller won the race with 363 votes over Democrat Dharshini Chakkaravarthi’s 358 votes. One write-in vote was also recorded.

The election results were certified in a 2-1 roll call vote. Montgomery County Board of Elections Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr. and Vice Chairman Judge Daniel Clifford voted in favor of the action, while Commissioner Joe Gale opposed it.

Each participated in Montgomery County’s drawing of lots on Thursday at One Montgomery Plaza in Norristown. Proceedings are mandated by state law in the event of a tied race. Candidates approached Senior Assistant Solicitor John Marlatt, who held a small basket filled with numbers written on slips of paper. Marlatt explained the candidate who chose the lower number would be deemed the winner.

Marino picked 28 and Osei selected 15. Claps and cheers could be heard from audience members who came to the county seat to witness the post-election proceedings.

“It’s crazy. There’s been a lot happening in Towamencin. So to end on a drawing of lots is definitely crazy,” Osei told MediaNews Group following the drawing.

“My feeling is at this point is that I did not lose the election…I just picked the wrong number,” Marino said.

In addition to the Towamencin Township race, an Upper Perkiomen School District board seat was decided by drawing.

Republican Trina Schaarschmidt selected eight, while Montgomery County Chief Operating Officer Lee Soltysiak, representing her fellow Republican opponent Michael Long, picked 14.

“It feels great. I’m excited. I’m excited to get on the board and to see what we can make happen with everybody who’s on the board, the whole new makeup of the board,” Schaarschmidt told MediaNews Group.

Updated vote totals posted by Montgomery County on Monday, Nov. 27 2023 showed Towamencin supervisor Rich Marino and challenger Kofi Osei tied with 3,035 votes each in the race for the seat currently held by Marino. The Upper Perkiomen School District school board race had Long and Schaarschmidt tied at 3,150 each, with figures comprised from both Berks and Montgomery counties.

It’s unclear when the last time Montgomery County officials conducted a drawing of lots, but Montgomery County Commissioners’ Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr., who also serves as chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Elections, said it was a first for him.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Lawrence told MediaNews Group. “Candidates work very hard to get to this point, but it shows that every vote counts. I think it’s incredible that we had two races that ended up being tied after everything was counted and verified.”

Sewer sale at center of contest

Thursday’s selection marks the next step in the township’s long-running debate over selling the township’s sewer system, between proponents led by Marino and opponents led by Osei.

A one-term incumbent Republican, U.S. Marine, and head of a local road construction company, Marino was one of the four supervisors who voted to sell the system and cited a need to fund road repair and infrastructure projects across the township.  Democrat challenger and actuarial analyst Osei founded the “Towamencin NOPE” resident group that has mobilized to stop the sale, then was one of the residents who sued the supervisors this summer to take the dispute to court.

Opponents of the sale won an election victory in November 2022 authorizing the establishment of a “government study commission” that Osei chaired, which wrote a new township charter with provisions they argue make the sale illegal, and that charter was approved by township voters this past May and took effect July 1.

The divide in the township has been mirrored in the race results: election night unofficial vote totals posted by Montgomery County had Osei ahead by a margin of 1,167 votes to 510 for Marino from only mail ballots, then later that night the lead had flipped, with Marino leading the election day votes by 711 to Osei’s lead in mail votes of 657 ballots cast. Updated county vote totals the morning after election day showed Marino totaling 3,019 votes to 3,001 for Osei, and continued counting by the county had narrowed that lead to just five votes by the week after the election.

Osei laughed as this election hit close to home for him.

“My dad’s overseas right now and I kept telling him to get an overseas ballot but he said it doesn’t matter because I’m going to win. So I’m glad he had the trust,” he said.

Marino said Thursday afternoon that the selection may not be the end of the process: “From the feedback I am getting, this court decision changing the rules after election day and after voters had cast their ballots does not sit well with a lot of people.”

“I feel I owe it to them as well as those that supported me to pursue the options that are available to me. In addition, there is strong sentiment that this is an issue that needs to be resolved before the 2024 election. Given that, I see an appeal of some sort down the road,” he said.

Lawrence underscored the importance of voter participation in all elections.

“It’s what the law requires,” Lawrence said of the drawing of lots process. “When you get to the point when you’re not going to have another election, but I think it shows again when someone says my vote doesn’t matter — one vote would have made a difference in both of these races. One more voter.”

Both candidates had earlier sounded off on social media about the tight race, and a federal court ruling regarding undated ballots that led to the most recent count showing both candidates tied. In a Facebook post Sunday, Marino said he felt he had won based on the rules in place at the time of the election, heard concerns about mail voting, and thought the rules should not be changed after the election had been held. Osei said he thought the close margins for this race were due in part to Marino’s personal popularity, and in part due to personal attacks against himself, while already eyeing the township’s next round of supervisor seat elections in 2025.

“It’s always hard running against an incumbent, and I was really happy to get all the support in Towamencin … it was a pretty contentious race, and it seemed like people who voted on both sides had a really strong opinion,” Osei said. “Hopefully when I get seated, we can start to close some of those divisions.”

Looking ahead, Osei said he plans to “take a break” and study up in order to “to do the office as best I can do” before the results are officially certified and he’s sworn in. Osei added delving into the township’s comprehensive plan will be a top priority once he settles into office.

“We’re starting our comprehensive plan process and that is a big campaign point of mine, especially being one of the younger residents in Towamencin … I think it is very exciting,” he said.

All results are considered unofficial until certified by the Montgomery County Board of Elections. The process was delayed last week following a federal ruling, and a vote to certify is expected to take place Monday afternoon. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an alternate reality, the prime-time showdown between California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday could have been a preview of a 2024 general election debate.

Instead, it was a hard-to-explain 90-minute clash that pitted one struggling Republican presidential hopeful against a Democratic rival who may or may not seek the presidency in four years.

But for a night, at least, the big-state governors were eager to represent their parties on the national stage as they battled over the economy, pandemic restrictions and President Joe Biden’s leadership in a Fox News faceoff peppered with fiery policy disputes and personal insults.

“This is a slick, slippery politician whose state is failing,” DeSantis said of Newsom.

The California Democrat defended his state, but was equally eager to shift the discussion to DeSantis’ stagnant 2024 presidential bid.

“How’s that going for you, Ron? You’re down 41 points in your own home state,” said Newsom, who is backing Biden for president. “Neither of us will be the nominee for a party in 2024.”

The host, Fox News Channel, billed the event hosted by Sean Hannity as “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.” Yet it was held in a television studio with no audience in Georgia, a location chosen for its key swing-state implications in national politics. And it played out in the heart of presidential primary season with voters in both parties paying closer attention to their 2024 options heading into next fall’s general election.

As leaders of two of the three most populous states, DeSantis and Newsom have spent much of the past year poking each other’s policy choices and leadership style from afar. But on Thursday night, they got their first chance to challenge each other on the same national stage.

It was hard to watch at times.

The two participants, standing at podiums alone onstage, accused each other of lying repeatedly and talked over each other throughout. And while they largely focused on policy differences, the debate was also deeply personal at times.

DeSantis called Newsom “a liberal bully.” Of DeSantis, Newsom said, “I don’t like the way you demean and humiliate people you disagree with.”

Hannity struggled to control the action. Over and over, he encouraged the men to give each other “breathing room.”

DeSantis, a 45-year-old Republican governor elected to his second and final term last fall, is grasping for momentum in a 2024 campaign plagued by missteps in his bid to defeat former President Donald Trump, who remains the overwhelming front-runner in the GOP primary.

Newsom, California’s 56-year-old term-limited Democratic governor, has positioned himself to seek the presidency someday, but like the rest of his party’s most ambitious leaders, he declined to challenge Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024. Instead, he’s emerged as a leading defender of Biden and a formal campaign adviser.

He embraced that role Thursday night after DeSantis said he was “joined at the hip with Biden and (Vice President Kamala) Harris.” Later, the Florida governor said Biden, at 81 years old, is ”in decline” and represents “a danger to the country.”

“I’m proud of the work Biden and Harris have done,” Newsom said, ticking through unemployment statistics. “I will take Joe Biden at 100 rather than Ron DeSantis any day of the week at any age.”

Throughout the event, the Biden campaign was sending out video clips of Newsom’s performance. And afterward, Newsom issued a fundraising appeal on Biden’s behalf. DeSantis’ team, too, issued a steady stream of his own highlights, just as it would during a traditional presidential debate.

Indeed, both Newsom and DeSantis saw Thursday night’s meeting as a real opportunity to strengthen their political standing in the short and longer term.

DeSantis’ allies talked up the event in recent days as a rare opportunity to prove his strength against one of the nation’s most prominent Democrats — a sharp contrast from recent Republican presidential debates where he’s struggled to break through on a stage where the candidates agree on most issues. And even some of DeSantis’ Republican rivals privately acknowledged he would likely raise a significant amount of money through online donations as a result of the appearance.

Just minutes after the event concluded, DeSantis’ campaign sent out a statement from his campaign manager with the headline, “DeSantis Crushes Newsom and Biden, Unites Republicans in Debate Win.”

Meanwhile, Newsom, who, like DeSantis, will be out of a job come January 2027, has been eager to broaden his political profile ahead of a possible presidential bid in 2028 — or sooner, should the 81-year-old Biden unexpectedly drop out. But as he has for much of the year, Newsom on Thursday reiterated his support for the Democratic president’s reelection.

He was certainly not speaking to the Democratic base by appearing on the conservative-friendly Fox News, although the move was in line with his recent political strategy. In March, Newsom launched the “Campaign for Democracy” committee, which has allowed him to travel to red states that Democrats typically avoid.

When Thursday’s conversation turned to the pandemic, DeSantis called Newsom “a lockdown governor” who hurt working people in California while his own kids went to private school.

Newsom was ready for the attack.

Echoing a criticism from Trump, the California Democrat reminded viewers that DeSantis initially backed many of the same pandemic restrictions that he now condemns. He also said DeSantis’ later opposition to public health restrictions led to unnecessary deaths in Florida.

“Tens of thousands of people lost their lives. And for what, Ron?” Newsom asked.

Trump’s campaign, aware that the unusual event was drawing national attention, unleashed a slew of fresh insults at DeSantis, one of his strongest Republican primary rivals, shortly before it began.

“Ron DeSanctimonious is acting more like a thirsty, third-rate OnlyFans wannabe model than an actual presidential candidate,” the Trump campaign wrote, using one of the many nicknames the former president has given his rival. “Instead of actually campaigning and trying to turn around his dismal poll numbers, DeSanctus is now so desperate for attention that he’s debating a Grade A loser like Gavin Newsom.”

Towamencin supervisor Rich Marino and challenger Kofi Osei are now tied in their race for the seat currently held by Marino, after an update to county vote totals Monday.

“After counting mis-dated ballots, the election is now tied. There will be five days to challenge the results and if it remains tied, we get to draw lots,” Osei said Monday.

“Regardless of the outcome, I will be consulting with my team on how next to proceed. I feel, and I believe a lot of others feel strongly that election rules should not be changed in the middle of an election,” Marino said the night before.

Over the past two years, incumbent Republican Marino and Democrat challenger Osei have sparred at numerous township meetings over Towamencin’s long-running sewer sale debate, with proponents including Marino arguing both before and after the sale vote in May 2022 that selling the public sewer system to a private owner could pay down debt, lower taxes, and fund projects around the township, while opponents including Osei have argued the sale leaves residents vulnerable to steep sewer rate hikes from a private firm instead of under municipal control.

Sale opponents won a ballot box victory in November 2022 authorizing the establishment of a “government study commission” that Osei chaired, which wrote a new township charter with provisions they claim make the sale illegal, and that charter was approved by township voters this past May and took effect July 1.

On election night, early  unofficial vote totals posted by Montgomery County had Osei ahead by a margin of 1,167 votes to 510 for Marino with only mail ballots counted at that point, and roughly an hour and a half later, the margins had flipped, with Marino leading the election day votes by 711 to Osei’s lead in mail votes of 657 ballots cast. Updated county vote totals posted early Wednesday, the morning after election day, showed Marino totaling 3,019 votes to 3,001 for Osei, and continued counting by the county had narrowed that lead to just five votes by the week after the election.

Sunday night, Marino posted a lengthy update on his campaign Facebook page addressing the latest vote totals, and a county certification meeting that was cancelled last week due to a federal court ruling regarding undated ballots.

“From the information I have, there are six ballots in the Towamencin Township Supervisors race that are affected by this decision. These ballots were not counted in the original vote count because by Pennsylvania Law, they were not dated and therefore invalid. By order of Judge Baxter of the US 3rd Circuit Court, these ballots now have to be counted,” and added to the count Monday, Marino said.

“Since the County was prepared to certify the election and only delayed certification because of this court decision, based on Pennsylvania Law at the time of the election – I won,” he said.

Throughout his time campaigning, Marino added, he heard from “numerous voters about concerns they had with mail-in balloting,” and told those voters that “it is here to stay and I believe they have a lot of bugs worked out of it. Apparently I was premature.”

“After reading the decision, my feeling is that the Judge places too great an emphasis on counting ballots and waiving procedure to avoid disenfranchising voters. No one wants to exclude anyone from voting – but for the public to have confidence in election outcomes, there needs to be established procedures that are followed uniformly. If anything goes – we will never get back to the confidence we had in elections prior to mail-in balloting,” Marino said.

He then used an example to prove the point, asking what would happen if a voter arrived after the polls close at 8 p.m. on election day.

“By the logic employed by this judge, a voter who shows up at the polls at 8:45 pm on Election Day should be allowed to vote. The poll workers are still there, ballots are available….. why not let them cast a ballot…? Why keep someone from voting over a silly little thing like the time of day (or date for that matter). Procedures matter,” he said.

“While I disagree with this ruling, if rules are to be changed they should apply to the next election — not one that is competed but not finalized,” Marino said.

Osei also addressed the latest count Monday, in posts on his campaign Facebook page, and in comments on the “Towamencin NOPE” group he founded to oppose the sewer sale.

“If it stays tied we get to draw numbers from a hat and whoever has the lowest number is supervisor,” Osei said, in response to comments on his initial post announcing the tied vote counts. “My perspective is that I should have won by a big margin if I didn’t want luck involved. Runoffs are expensive.”

In response to questions from other group members, Osei said Monday he was unsure of when the draw would take place, and said doing so would likely take place at the county’s board of elections. Group member Mike Miller suggested another tiebreaker: “Instead of drawing numbers, you should draw sewer bills. Whoever has the lower bills wins. You draw Towamencin township bills and Marino draws PA American Water bills. I bet Marino won’t like that idea,” an idea that drew laughing emojis as responses from several group members, including Osei.

On Tuesday, Montgomery County Interim Director of Elections Francis Dean announced that per state election code, the drawing would be done at noon on Thursday, Nov. 30, in the county commissioners’ boardroom in Norristown, and said each candidate could appear or designate a representative to appear for them.

“If the candidate or their representative is not present at the designated start time, the county board will select someone to draw on the candidate’s behalf,” Dean said.

The Montgomery County Board of Elections had planned to certify its results, according to a Montgomery County spokesperson, but paused proceedings following a decision from the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania requiring the inclusion of “undated and improperly dated mail-in ballots.”

“The provision protects a citizen’s right to vote by forbidding a state actor from disqualifying a voter because of their failure to provide or error in providing some unnecessary information on a voting application or ballot,” Judge Susan Baxter wrote in an opinion issued on Tuesday.

There were 349 ballots impacted in Montgomery County, according to a county spokesperson. Canvassing and tabulation efforts are set to begin at 10 a.m. on Monday at the Montgomery County Office of Voter Services’ Warehouse at 1006 W. Washington St. in Norristown.

“In Montgomery County, we have consistently taken the position that the Election Code should be interpreted broadly in favor of voters’ rights. All eligible voters should have their ballots counted,” said Montgomery County Election Board Chairman Ken Lawrence Jr. in a statement on Wednesday. “We will take the additional time needed to ensure that these ballots are included in the official results of the 2023 general election.”

A five-day waiting period will take place after counting concludes, according to a county spokesperson. All results are considered unofficial until the county election board convenes to certify them.

Disqualifying such ballots is a violation of the federal Civil Rights Act, according to the opinion filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania.

The ruling is in response to NAACP v. Schmidt, a lawsuit filed in November 2022 by six voting rights advocacy organizations and joined by five individual voters. The plaintiffs are represented by legal counsel from the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, ACLU National and the law firm Hogan Lovells.

“Every eligible person who casts a ballot should have their vote counted,” said Witold Walczak, legal director of the ACLU of Pennsylvania. “The handwritten-date requirement is completely irrelevant and unnecessary because elections officials know whether the ballot was received on time.”

The question of whether undated or incorrectly dated ballots should count has been the center of a lengthy legal tug-of-war, including a court case that played a critical role in the victory by Democrat Zachary Cohen over Republican David Ritter in a 2021 Lehigh County judicial contest.

Cohen won by just five votes in a closely watched race in which results were delayed because of a dispute over hundreds of undated mail ballots. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled those ballots should be counted, reversing the decision of a federal judge in Allentown.

The NAACP lawsuit was filed by the group’s Pennsylvania state conference, the Black Political Empowerment Project, Common Cause Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, Make the Road Pennsylvania, and POWER Interfaith.

Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said the ruling “ensures that Pennsylvanians who vote by mail, including senior citizens and voters with disabilities, will not face disenfranchisement because of a trivial mistake in handwriting an irrelevant date on the outer return envelope … Federal law requires nothing less, as the court’s decision makes crystal clear.”

Diana Robinson, civic engagement director for Make the Road Pennsylvania, said the ruling “affirmed what is already common sense: a minor, meaningless technicality shouldn’t disenfranchise eligible voters. As long as your ballot is received on time, the date written on the paper is irrelevant and your vote counts.”