Power to the people

Detroiters were not about to let their votes be disqualified. When Republican appointees on the board of canvassers in Wayne Co.—Michigan's most populous county, which includes Detroit—refused to certify the county's vote tallies yesterday, protesters made their voices heard. President Trump celebrated the refusal to certify the vote as "a beautiful thing" on Twitter. His campaign has repeatedly alleged "irregularities" in the vote count and sought to disenfranchise voters in the majority-Black city. The president's delight was short-lived however, as the decision was ultimately reversed and the count certified. Trump is unlikely to overturn President-elect Joe Biden's 148,000-vote lead in the state. —The Washington Post

• — Georgia. Georgia's Republican secretary of state believes he has fallen victim to "clear retaliation" by the GOP. Long before the death threats and the pressure from fellow Republicans, Brad Raffensperger declined offers to serve on the Trump campaign or publicly endorse the president. He said he believed it would be a conflict of interest for him, as most secretaries of state remain officially neutral in elections. "It is not the job of the secretary of state's office to deliver a win," he said. —ProPublica
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• — Nevada. Trump is mounting a fresh legal bid to prevent the certification of votes in Nevada. Filed jointly by the Trump campaign and the Nevada Republican Party, a new lawsuit names the state's Democratic presidential electors as defendants and seeks to award the state's six electoral college votes to the president or annul the election result. If successful, the suit would invalidate tens of thousands of votes. —Newsweek
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• — Pennsylvania. Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani unsuccessfully argued in federal court in Pennsylvania yesterday that the state's Democrats took advantage of the flood of mail-in votes to count ballots that should have been disqualified. Judge Matthew Brann was not impressed. "At bottom, you're asking this court to invalidate more than 6.8 million votes, thereby disenfranchising every single voter in the commonwealth. Can you tell me how this result can possibly be justified?" he asked. In a separate ruling, the state Supreme Court ruled that Philadelphia's accommodations for observers did not violate state law, in another loss for the Trump campaign. —Politico

Trump ghosts the medical community

While President-elect Joe Biden meets virtually today with healthcare workers, President Trump has no public events scheduled. He also hasn't attended a coronavirus task force meeting in months. The timing of his disappearing act couldn't be worse for the nation's hospitals. New data released by the Department of Health and Human Services show that 1,109 of the nation's hospitals—or 22%—expect to face a staffing shortage this week. In eight states, the situation is even more dire. More than 35% of hospitals in Arkansas, Missouri, North Dakota, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wisconsin are facing a staffing shortage, due to a surge in COVID-19 patients and staff members who are ill or who have been exposed to the virus and must quarantine. —The Atlantic

• — Public health leaders urge action. Leaders of the American Medical Association, the American Nurses Association, and the American Hospitals Association have urged Trump in a letter to share critical pandemic data with Biden's team to prevent needless, deadly lags in tackling the pandemic. "Real-time data and information on the supply of therapeutics, testing supplies, personal protective equipment, ventilators, hospital bed capacity, and workforce availability to plan for further deployment of the nation's assets needs to be shared to save countless lives," they wrote. —Reuters
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• — Vaccine pilot prepares for takeoff. Pharmaceutical company Pfizer has launched a pilot delivery program for its experimental COVID-19 vaccine in four U.S. states—New Mexico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas—taking into account their differences in overall size, diversity of populations, immunization infrastructure, and need to reach individuals in varied urban and rural settings. The four states will not receive vaccine doses earlier than other states or any differential consideration. The Pfizer vaccine is reportedly 95% effective with no major safety concerns. —Reuters
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• — Grassley tests positive. After Monday's testy exchange between Sens. Sherrod Brown and Dan Sullivan about mask-wearing in the Senate, another senator has tested positive for COVID-19. The second oldest member of the Senate, Sen. Chuck Grassley is 87 years old, putting him in a higher risk bracket for severe infection. As president pro tempore of the Senate, the Iowa Republican is third in the line of succession to the presidency. —Axios

MORE: Trump Administration cancels COVID-19 celebrity ad campaign —Politico

Tucker: Krebs' firing is an attack on democracy

"Amid the worst global health crisis in living memory, a record number of Americans successfully and safely cast their vote in the U.S. presidential election. That they were able to do so, and that officials across the country could testify to the integrity of the vote, is due in no small part to the efforts of Christopher Krebs, who was fired [last night] as director of the Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency. Krebs ran afoul of Donald Trump by refusing to let the president's lies and baseless assertions about the election go unchallenged." —Patrick Tucker in Defense One

Patrick Tucker is technology editor for Defense One and the author of "The Naked Future: What Happens in a World That Anticipates Your Every Move?"

MORE: Trump fires agency head who vouched for 2020 vote security —Associated Press

Biden's staff takes shape

President-elect Joe Biden has begun naming his White House staff, and so far, he seems to be making good on his promise to hire a team that "looks like America." Yesterday, he announced the appointment of nine White House counselors and senior advisers, including several women and people of color. 

• — "I am proud to announce additional members of my senior team who will help us build back better than before," Biden said in a statement. "America faces great challenges, and they bring diverse perspectives and a shared commitment to tackling these challenges and emerging on the other side a stronger, more united nation." 
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• — The announcements include Jen O'Malley Dillon as deputy chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti as counselor, Rep. Cedric Richmond as senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement, Mike Donilon as senior adviser, Dana Remus as counsel, Julie Rodriguez as director of the Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, and Annie Tomasini as director of Oval Office operations. Julissa Reynoso Pantaleon and Anthony Bernal were named senior advisers to future First Lady Jill Biden.
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• — Yesterday's announcements follow Biden's naming of Ron Klain as his chief of staff last Wednesday. Biden is expected to nominate Cabinet members in the coming days. —USA Today

Legrain: What Trump's loss means for global populism

"Biden has demonstrated that populism can be defeated—and not just with more populism. Far from employing populists' tactics, endorsing their worldviews, or pandering to their prejudices, Biden built a broad electoral coalition around a promise of positive change, sober moderation, and competent governance. This holds a crucial lesson for center-left and center-right political parties in Europe, which have at times succumbed to the populist temptation—such as by echoing their socially conservative, anti-immigrant views—to try to win votes. Trump's loss also amounts to a warning for other far-right populists, such as Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán." —Philippe Legrain on Project Syndicate

Philippe Legrain, a former economic adviser to the president of the European Commission, is a visiting senior fellow at the London School of Economics' European Institute.

MORE: Peter Lewis: From Queensland to the US, the antidote to surging populism is competent government —The Guardian

Alaska to adopt ranked-choice voting

Following Maine's lead, Alaska has become the second state to authorize a ranked-choice voting system for its elections. The state's voters approved a measure that will introduce primaries open to candidates with any or no political parties. The top four primary finishers will then advance to the general election, in which voters will be able to rank their choices.

• — It was a close vote. The voters of Alaska passed Ballot Measure 2 by just 1%. Though votes are still being tabulated, after yesterday's count, the number of votes approving the measure versus opposing surpassed the number of ballots left to count.
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• — In the new system, candidates will win if they receive a majority of the first-preference votes. If none receives a majority on the first count, the votes for trailing candidates will be redistributed until a candidate receives a majority, or all ballots are exhausted. —KTOO

Roth: The movement that saved the election

"Votes are still being counted, but turnout in this month's election is expected to reach over 66%. That's higher than it's been since 1900, when President William McKinley was re-elected. The chance to render a verdict on Donald Trump clearly drew out voters on both sides, but it isn't the only reason for the surge. Also deserving credit is the broad-based movement that over the last five years has transformed access to voting in many states, both through policies that make it easier to cast a ballot, and through on-the-ground organizing drives. Put differently, in an election in which our democracy itself really was on the ballot, the democracy reform movement had a major impact—especially in pushing back against voter suppression targeting racial minorities." —Zachary Roth at The Brennan Center 

Zachary Roth is a fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice. He is the author of "The Great Suppression: Voting Rights, Corporate Cash, and the Conservative Assault on Democracy."

"This isn't going to work, but the fact that there is a concerted effort by Republicans to overturn the election just because Trump didn't win bodes very poorly for the future of American democracy, which needs both of its main parties to value basic things like election results." —Steven White, assistant professor of political science at Syracuse University (@notstevenwhite)

Somehow, a Trump campaign email from Newt Gingrich made it past my spam filter. Following the plea for financial contributions, the language in the closing statement reveals the core lie undermining our democracy right now: "The Democrats have absolute contempt for the American people and believe we are so spineless, so cowardly, so unwilling to stand up for ourselves that they can try to steal the Presidency."

Implicit in the choice of wording: that Democrats are not Americans. Carrying out this logic, then all votes for the Democratic candidate amount to an attempt to steal the election. From its inception, Trumpism has set itself up as a gatekeeper of who is and is not a valid American. This is anti-democracy. More deeply, this is a failure to recognize the humanity of those with whom we might disagree. This is a dangerous recipe for stoking hatred and violence. —Katherine F., Pennsylvania

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