US elections live: Harris rejects criticizing Americans based on who they vote for after Biden ‘garbage’ remarks | Joe Biden

Kamala Harris said that she strongly disagrees with criticisms of people based on who they voted for.

Speaking on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on Wednesday following Joe Biden’s “garbage” remarks, Harris said that Biden had “clarified his comments”, adding, “I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they voted for.”

In response to whether she is worried that Biden’s comments could increase the country’s political divisiveness ahead of the elections, Harris said:

“I’ve been very clear with the American public – I respect the challenges that people face, I respect the fact that we all have so much more in common than what separates us.”

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the actor and former California governor, has announced he is endorsing Kamala Harris.

He joins a running list of republicans crossing party lines to vote against Trump.

“I want to tune out. But I can’t. Because rejecting the results of an election is as un-American as it gets,” Schwarzenegger wrote on X. “To someone like me who talks to people all over the world and still knows America is the shining city on a hill, calling America a trash can for the world is so unpatriotic, it makes me furious.

“And I will always be an American before I am a Republican. That’s why, this week, I am voting for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

He added that electing Trump as president would be “four more years of bullshit with no results that makes us angrier and angrier, more divided, and more hateful”.

Sam Levine

The legal dispute centers on a 7 August executive order by the Republican Virginia governor, Glenn Youngkin, ordering the state to run its voter registration rolls against DMV data on a daily basis to check for non-citizens.

The justice department and civil rights groups sued, saying that the state was violating a federal law that prohibits systematic removals of voters within 90 days of a federal election.

The US district judge Patricia Giles granted an injunction request last week to restore the voters.

Voting experts have long warned that comparing voting rolls to DMV data is not a reliable way to find non-citizens on the rolls because there may be paperwork errors and people can become naturalized after getting their driver’s license. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they had identified several people who were in fact citizens but had their registrations wrongly canceled.

Donald Trump and allies had distorted the removals, saying that the lower court decision meant that non-citizens were going to be placed back on the voter rolls. But the state had not provided conclusive evidence that many of those removed were non-citizens.

Sam Levine

The supreme court made the ruling to pause the lower court ruling on its emergency docket and did not give a rationale for its decision, which is customary for rulings on an expedited basis.

All three liberal justices on the court – Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson – said they would not have halted a lower court ruling earlier in October ordering the state to restore the voter registrations.

Virginia’s Republican attorney general Jason Miyares has also lauded the supreme court’s decision to strip away voting rights from approximately 1,600 people, saying:

“I am pleased to announce that the US Supreme Court granted Virginia’s emergency stay to keep noncitizens off our voter rolls.”

Virginia’s Republican governor Glenn Youngkin has hailed the supreme court’s ruling that allowed the state to proceed with its removal of approximately 1,600 voter registrations, calling it a “victory for common sense and election fairness”.

Youngkin, who ordered state officials to identify and cancel the voter registration of alleged non-citizens unless they could prove their citizenship in two weeks, said:

“Clean voter rolls are one important part of a comprehensive approach we are taking to ensure the fairness of our elections. Virginians also know that we have paper ballots, counting machines not connected to the internet, a strong chain of custody process, signature verification, monitored and secured drop boxes, and a ‘triple check’ vote counting process to tabulate results. Virginians can cast their ballots on Election Day knowing that Virginia’s elections are fair, secure, and free from politically-motivated interference.”

The supreme court has paused the ruling by a lower court that would have restored voting rights to approximately 1,600 voters in Virginia.

In its brief order, the supreme court wrote:

“The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The October 25, 2024 order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia … is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of the Court.”

Last week, Virginia was asked to permit more than 1,600 people to the vote after a federal judge ruled that the state had illegally revoked those rights.

The Guardian’s voting rights reporter Sam Levine reported then that the plaintiffs who brought forth the lawsuit said that many people were being incorrectly identified as non-citizen by the Department of Motor Vehicles by checking the wrong box on a form.