US elections live: judge rejects legal challenge against Musk’s $1m giveaways; Harris vows to be ‘a president for all Americans’

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JD Vance is once again being condemned for misogyny after repeatedly calling Kamala Harris ‘trash’ at campaign rallies.

The Republican vice presidential nominee compared Harris to trash at a New Hampshire rally yesterday, then did it again today in Flint, Michigan, and Atlanta, Georgia:

Mainstream political commenters have not been complimentary to Vance’s choice to make the closing argument for the Trump campaign so explicitly “nasty.”

“Oh, JD Vance, you just effed up in a way that I’ve never seen in my political life, and I worked for Sarah Palin,” msnbc’s Nicole Wallace said.

Hours before Election Day, a crowd has amassed at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, where Kamala Harris will hold the last rally of her lightning-fast presidential campaign.

The 72 “Rocky Steps” were illuminated in blue lights with scrolling LED signs that say Vote for Freedom and Vote. The DJ is spinning Taylor Swift’s Cruel Summer.

The lines to get in wrapped for ages and people came prepared for a long night. Harris will appear at a rally in Pittsburgh before landing in the city of Brotherly Love for what is expected to be a star-studded event.

After Kamala Harris became the Democratic candidate, TikTok and Instagram saw the emergence of a particularly vicious kind of misinformation – that Harris stole someone’s husband, specifically Willie Brown, a former mayor of San Francisco.

This is false. But these rumors were soon translated into Chinese and posted on X, with the language becoming “even more inflammatory”, according to the Chinese factchecking group, PiYaoBa. One Chinese influencer, whose tweet garnered more than 60,000 views, translated “stole a woman’s husband” as “mistress”.

This translation spread to other Chinese platforms like WeChat, accumulating more than 100,000 views and leading some users to refer to her using the word “chicken”, which in Mandarin is often a slur for sex workers.

It suggests how English-language misinformation is not only spreading in other languages – it also takes new, culturally specific forms.

Read the full story here: Chinese Americans targeted with ‘misogynistic and insulting’ election misinformation

Trump ally Nigel Farage says ex-president should accept result and 'play golf' if he loses

Nigel Farage, the leader of the UK’s Reform Party, said Donald Trump should accept the result of the election and “go play golf” if he loses decisively to Kamala Harris.

In an interview with The Telegraph at Trump’s home in Palm Beach, Florida, Farage said: “If it was clear and decisive then maybe it’s time [for Trump] to go and play golf at Turnberry.”

Farage said he has “never gone along with” Trump’s 2020 stolen election narrative, adding that “let’s hope and pray that is not an issue this time. If it [the outcome] was clear then Republicans have to accept the result.”

He suggested that Harris could move to quell any potential unrest if she wins the election by pardoning Trump once in office. “If she gets in on Tuesday I hope she pardons him. She could look magnanimous and it would dampen down potential tensions,” he said.

However, he added: “It’s all hypothetical and I still think he is going to win.”

Farage attended Trump’s rally earlier today in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he hailed his “special relationship” with the Republican presidential candidate.

As Shasta county, California, grapples with a thriving election denialism movement that has amplified conspiracy theories about voter fraud and made life increasingly difficult for election workers, residents of one of California’s most conservative counties are bracing for a contentious election.

In recent weeks, some residents of Shasta county, home to 180,000 people in the state’s far north, have urged the county not to certify the election results while one official warned that if Donald Trump is “cheated” out of the election, there would be “a price” to pay.

The first Muslim woman elected to public office in North Carolina has shared a thread on why she is voting for Kamala Harris, and how the tone of her brief conversations with Harris about Gaza have changed over the course of this year.

Nida Allam, the chair of the Durham Board of county commissioners, and an organizer in the state Democratic party, wrote today about why she is voting for Harris over Jill Stein.

Allam’s engagement with politics began when three Muslim college students, her friends, were murdered by a white man in a horrific 2015 shooting in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Here are some of the latest images from the newswires on election eve from across the country.

Election supplies are loaded into a voting tent set up by FEMA the day before the US Presidential election, 4 November 2024, in Burnsville, North Carolina. Photograph: Allison Joyce/AFP/Getty Images

Kamala Harris prepares to speak at a campaign rally on the eve of Election Day in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA, 04 November 2024. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Donald Trump leaves the the Santander Arena following a campaign rally on 04 November 2024 in Reading, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Residents wait in line to cast their ballots at the Pinellas County Supervisor of Elections Office in Largo, Florida, U.S., 4 November 2024. Photograph: Octavio Jones/Reuters

First lady Jill Biden speaks to supporters at an election event for Democratic presidential nominee vice-president Kamala Harris, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Durham, N.C. Photograph: Grant Halverson/AP

Women for Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump show their support as he arrives to speak during a campaign rally at J.S. Dorton Arena, Monday, Nov. 4, 2024, in Raleigh, N.C. Photograph: Evan Vucci/AP

Nevada county puts panic buttons in polling places after threats

After threats, one county in Nevada has put panic buttons in all polling places

Threats against election workers have gotten so bad that all polling places in Washoe County, Nevada, have a “panic button” that workers can hit to automatically call 911, the Associated Press reports.

But Andrew McDonald, the deputy registrar of voters in the swing county of half a million people, says there’s only been one incident in nearly two weeks of in-person early voting that required someone to hit the panic button.

That incident, McDonald said at a press conference, involved a voter at one of the county’s 24 early voting sites who would not remove his hat when asked by a worker, who was following state law prohibiting campaign signs or paraphernalia within 100 feet (30 meters) of a polling station.

“A few other voters in line sort of ganged up on the site manager,” McDonald said. But when police arrived, he added, “they calmed down and were able to vote.”

Washoe has become a hotbed for election conspiracy theorists who believe Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him. Still, McDonald noted that the panic button incident is the only significant one that’s happened during the early vote period, when 90,000 people cast their ballots.

“I get an incident report daily,” McDonald said, “and there haven’t been that many incidents.”

The intense international attention on Maricopa county, Arizona – one of the few swing counties in a swing state – was made clear during a press conference today, when officials said they had given media credentials to more than 600 journalists from around the world and a reporter from Estonia asked about democracy issues.

The county’s elections officials detailed how they would count a long, two-page ballot and report results, reminding voters that as more ballots are tabulated, leaders in races can change.

Given the close nature of races here and large amounts of lengthy ballots, it’s likely we’ll be watching results from Maricopa well beyond election night.

It’s also no stranger to mis- and disinformation campaigns. Several of the county’s elections officials have seen threats against them prosecuted by the federal government.

Knowing this environment, assistant county manager Zach Schira said the county would be aggressive in correcting any bad information that affects a person’s ability to vote, but that overall, “we will not be playing whack-a-mole” with every piece of misinformation.

The county has nearly 2.6 million registered active voters and has received more than 1.5m early ballots turned in already, most of which came by mail though others voted in person early at the polls.

Jon Ralston, a Nevada journalist with a track record of accurately predicting state election results, says he believes Kamala Harris will narrowly win Nevada, but that the results will not be clear until after election night.

Ralston’s full explanation here:

US readers: share which issues have shaped your vote the most in this election

As we cover the outcome of the 2024 election, we’re interested in hearing from Guardian readers across the US about what issues influenced how you think about voting, and what decisions you’ve made when it comes to your vote.

Have recent developments or events – in the world or in your personal life – affected your thinking? Have your existing views hardened? Have you become more ambivalent about certain issues?

Whatever your politics and how they’ve changed, we want to know.

Philadelphia rapper and prison reform activist Meek Mill released a track saying he will vote for Kamala Harris, even as he invoked her record as a prosecutor in an unjust criminal justice system, the Associated Press reports.

Meek Mill surprise released the new track, “Who You Voting For” on Monday afternoon, sharing a snippet of the song with the caption, “I made this last night … who you voting for???” on TikTok.

“My homie say vote for Trump / You want that stimulus / I wanted two from him but the way he movin’ venomous,” he starts the song. “I’m going probably vote Kamala.”

“It ain’t fair when your lawyer look like Trump / DA lookin’ like Kamala,” he continues, critiquing Harris’s past as a prosecutor. “We Thanksgiving to the system / They’ve been eating us for lunch / And it’s the last supper / Hope you be with us for once, Mrs Harris.”

The $1m-a-day voter sweepstakes that Elon Musk’s political action committee is hosting in swing states can continue through Tuesday’s presidential election, a Pennsylvania judge ruled on Monday.

Common pleas court Judge Angelo Foglietta – ruling after Musk’s lawyers said the winners are not chosen by chance – did not immediately give a reason for the ruling.

More details on this news from my colleague Richard Luscombe:

Georgia’s highest court on Monday ruled ballots in the state’s third-largest county must be returned by election day, the Associated Press reports.

A previous lower court ruling would have allowed certain voters in Cobb county who received their absentee ballots late to return them after the deadline as long as they were postmarked by Tuesday.

The county, just north of Atlanta, didn’t mail out absentee ballots to some voters who had requested them until late last week. Georgia law says absentee ballots must be received by the close of polls on election day.

The Georgia supreme court ruling means the affected residents must vote in person on election day, or get their absentee ballots to the county elections office by 7 p.m. that day.

The high court ruling instructs county election officials to notify the affected voters by email, text message and in a public message on the county election board’s website. And it orders officials to keep separate and sealed any ballots received after the election day deadline but before 5pm on Friday.

Donald Trump brought some of his children on stage during his rally in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he said “this is our last time now, for forever”.

Trump’s children Don Jr, Eric and Tiffany, as well as Eric’s wife and Republican National Committee co-chair, Lara Trump, and Tiffany’s husband, Michael Boulos, all appeared on stage on Monday.

Donald Trump Jr. speaks next to Eric Trump, Tiffany Trump and Lara Trump during a campaign rally for Donald Trump at Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania. Photograph: Andrew Kelly/Reuters

The Republican presidential candidate’s youngest daughter, Tiffany, made a rare speech during the Reading event, hours after she posted to X that her father “will NOT sign a national abortion ban”.