Kamala Harris will hold an election eve rally outside the Art Museum; Bucks County extends mail ballot deadline following Trump lawsuit

Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda and Vice President Kamala Harris' sister Maya Harris were the headliners at a get out the vote campaign event for Harris, at the Taller Puertorriqueño in North Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon.

The event took place in the wake of the racist remarks made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday in which he called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage in the middle of the ocean.”

It drew a few hundred supporters of the Democratic presidential candidate who carried "Vota Latina" and “La Presidenta” posters. Before the speakers began, the attendees were entertained by the percussionists and dancers of Tony’s Bomba y Plena Band.

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court injected new uncertainty into the long-running debate over undated mail ballots Wednesday with a ruling that prompted predictions of chaos from some of the court’s judges and left the fate of thousands of ballots once again in question a week before Election Day.

In a 3-2 decision, the court’s judges ruled that failure to count mail ballots that are missing dates or have the wrong date on their outer envelope risks violating the rights of the voters who submitted them.

On its face, the decision applied only to roughly six dozen ballots cast in a special election in Philadelphia last month. But the court’s reasoning — that excluding them from official tallies amounted to a violation of rights guaranteed under the state constitution — left elections officials uncertain of the decision’s implications for the Nov. 5 vote.

Vice President Kamala Harris will hold a rally in front of the Art Museum in Philadelphia on Monday, the eve of the presidential election, according to a source familiar with the planning.

The Harris-Walz campaign declined to respond to questions about timing or who else might attend.

It is fitting that an election so laser-focused on Pennsylvania will conclude in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner has asked for additional security at an upcoming hearing in his lawsuit challenging Elon Musk’s $1 million daily giveaway to voters, saying that in the days since the suit was filed, users on social media have published “an avalanche” of inflammatory posts about him, including “antisemitic attacks” and, in one instance, sharing his home address and “inviting political violence.”

In a document filed in the case Wednesday, Krasner’s attorneys said the wave of activity began Monday, shortly after Musk — who owns the social media site X — promoted a post on the site from another user that questioned Krasner’s motives for filing the suit.

Krasner, a Democrat, has argued that Musk’s controversial sweepstakes — which is run by the tech billionaire’s America PAC and is supporting Republican nominee Donald Trump — amounts to an illegal lottery that skirts state requirements and violates consumer protection laws. Krasner has asked a city judge to stop the giveaway from being awarded in Pennsylvania before next week’s election.

Vice President Kamala Harris took the time to hammer home the risk she said another Donald Trump presidency would pose to abortion rights and reproductive health at a rally in Harrisburg Wednesday.

She said that when Trump was president, he chose three conservative justices with the intention that they’d overturn abortion protections in Roe v. Wade.

“Now, in America, one in three women in America lives in a state with a Trump abortion ban. Many, with no exceptions even for rape and incest, which is immoral,” she said as the crowd began to boo in agreement.“He would ban abortion nationwide — yes, even here in Pennsylvania — if he was successful,” she continued.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ Harrisburg rally was interrupted several times by protesters. Some interruptions lasted nearly five minutes, even as Harris supporters shouted them down. The protests prompted Harris to utter her famous line: “Everybody has a right to be heard, but right now I am speaking.” she said.

While it was unclear to hear what protesters were saying, moments after the first interruptions, a whistle blew and a man began screaming.

“We love our democracy,” Harris said in response. “It can be complicated at times but it is the best system in the world.”

Vice President Kamala Harris spoke at a rally in Harrisburg on Wednesday afternoon at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex in her first visit to the region this election cycle.

Harris made her closing argument at the Susquehanna Valley rally, introduced by a marching band and former Harlem Globetrotter and Harrisburg native Chris “Handles” Franklin, to a boisterous, impassioned crowd.

The suburbs around Harrisburg have been shifting left, and the Democratic Party has been making gains in a region that’s been historically more conservative.

The number of mail ballots in Pennsylvania returned six days before the election is down compared to 2020 — except for Republicans.

With COVID-19 no longer considered a public health emergency, Pennsylvania is seeing dramatically fewer mail ballot requests this year than the last presidential election. At this point in 2020, 2,117,300 mail ballots had been returned across the state, compared to 1,550,128 that have now been returned.

But as mail voting has overall become less popular in the state, it’s become more popular for Republicans. Trump and his allies like Elon Musk have been encouraging voters to cast ballots by mail after Trump fearmongered about the practice and severely diminished trust in the process in 2020.

The Pennsylvania Democratic Party on Wednesday sued Erie County’s board of elections over mail ballot issues that may have affected between 10,000 and 20,000 voters in the bellwether county known to choose the presidential winner statewide — and chose President Joe Biden in 2020 by only 1,400 votes.

Erie County’s mail ballot issues have been unfolding for weeks.

The county announced earlier this month that about 300 voters received ballots intended for others in addition to their own because of an error by its Ohio-based vendor, ElectionIQ.

A Pennsylvania judge has extended the deadline until 5 p.m. Friday for Bucks County residents to apply for and receive their mail ballots in-person, following a legal challenge from Donald Trump’s campaign.

Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey G. Trauger ruled that county officials had violated state election laws by turning away residents who had queued outside government offices for hours to apply for and cast their mail ballots in person all week.

Though the state deadline for mail ballot applications was 5 p.m. Tuesday, some voters said they were told as early as 2:40 p.m. that afternoon that election workers were so overwhelmed that they would not be able to process their request and allow them to cast their vote before 5 p.m.

After delivering her closing argument in Washington, D.C., Tuesday night, Vice President Kamala Harris will return to Pennsylvania Wednesday with just six days until the election.

Harris is scheduled to hold a rally in Harrisburg at the Pennsylvania Farm Show Complex & Expo Center. Doors open at 12:30 p.m., and the campaign is telling attendees to arrive no later than 3:30 p.m.

C-SPAN will carry live coverage beginning at 4:10 p.m. You can also stream Harris' comments live here:

Former President Donald Trump suggested a crude joke about Puerto Rico told by a speaker at his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday was not “a big deal.”

Speaking to Fox News host Sean Hannity Tuesday night, Trump claimed he had “no idea” and “never heard” of comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage” in a joke leading up to Trump's speech Sunday.

The comments have drawn widespread criticism from both parties, and Trump’s own campaign issued a statement saying the joke “does not reflect the views of President Trump.”

Former (fictional) president Martin Sheen spent the morning stumping with U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D, Pa.) at the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 8 in South Philadelphia Wednesday.

“If you grew up in a very large, poor immigrant family, chances are you were either Irish Catholic or Hispanic, and I was lucky enough to be both,” Sheen joked. “So I had a leg up when it comes to social justice activism.”

Sheen, who said he belongs to six unions and is an honorary member of IATSE, regaled the fifty or so in the crowd with jokes and a story of how he got fired as a caddy for trying to start a union when he was 14 years old before getting down to brass tacks and rallying the group for the fight ahead.

A large gold statue of former President Donald Trump with his right hand held out in a crude gesture appeared behind the "Maja" statue at Maja Park on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway this morning.

The body of the Trump statue was solid and of an unknown material, but his clothes were real. The entire thing was spray painted gold.

While the work was not signed and no artist immediately took credit, similar statues have appeared around the country recently in cities like Portland, Ore., and were also placed near nude female statues.

The message at a Philadelphia event geared toward Black male voter engagement was that Black men need to support Black women by voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Ryan Boyer said it’s the duty of Black men to support Black women at a Pennsylvania Black Men for Harris event held at the Laborers’ District Council training facility on Wednesday.

“We lean on them, now they’re leaning in us, Boyer said. “Are we gonna let someone call our best and brightest out their name? We are the protectors, maintainers and providers for our sisters.”

America PAC, a political action group funded by Elon Musk, has aired a campaign ad in Philly calling Kamala Harris the “C-word.”

The crude wordplay is featured prominently in an ad attacking Harris, alluding to the vulgar term for a women before calling her a “Communist.”

The ad has aired at least twice in the Philadelphia media market beginning this week, both times on CNN, according to AdImpact, an ad tracking firm.

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday allowed Virginia to resume its purge of voter registrations that the state says is aimed at stopping people who are not U.S. citizens from voting.

The high court, over the dissents of the three liberal justices, granted an emergency appeal from Virginia’s Republican administration led by Gov. Glenn Youngkin. The court provided no rationale for its action, which is typical in emergency appeals.

The justices acted on Virginia’s appeal after a federal judge found that the state illegally purged more than 1,600 voter registrations in the past two months. A federal appeals court had previously allowed the judge’s order to remain in effect.

As of Wednesday, more than 1.5 million mail ballots have been returned in Pennsylvania — that's nearly 71% of approved mail ballot applications in the state. Of those returned ballots, nearly 57%, or 881,779, are from registered Democrats and a little over 32%, or 501,736, are from registered Republicans. Nearly 11%, or 166,613, are from people who are not registered with either major party.

In Philadelphia, nearly 65% of mail ballots have been returned, which is 153,481 ballots, and more than 82% of those, or 126,592, are from registered Democrats.

Democrats tend to vote by mail more than Republicans in Pennsylvania, so the results of the mail ballots can be skewed. But Republicans are voting by mail in higher numbers than in the past now that former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies have encouraged early voting despite Trump’s fear mongering against the practice.

Vice President Kamala Harris said she “strongly” disagreed about criticizing her opponent’s supporters after former President Donald Trump called out remarks from President Joe Biden.

“Let me be clear, I strongly disagree with any criticism of people based on who they vote for,” Harris told reporters Wednesday morning. “I believe that the work I do is about representing all the people, whether they support me or not.”

During a Zoom call with a Latino advocacy group, Biden targeted a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at a Trump rally about Puerto Rico being a “floating island of garbage.”

Former President Donald Trump, who continues to falsely claim he won the 2020 election, is once again spreading untrue claims about the 2024 election in Pennsylvania.

On Truth Social Wednesday morning, Trump falsely claimed “Pennsylvania is cheating, and getting caught,” without making any specific allegations of voter fraud.

"They already started cheating," Trump told his supporters at a rally in Allentown Tuesday night.

Former President Donald Trump invoked Hillary Clinton’s infamous comment referring to his supporters as “deplorable” when he learned Tuesday night that President Joe Biden seemingly called the same group “garbage.”

“Remember Hillary? She said ‘deplorable’... ‘garbage,’ I think, is worse, right?” Trump told a rally crowd in Allentown as he learned of the comments in real time. He added of Biden: “But he doesn’t know… Please forgive him, for he not knoweth what he said.”

Biden made the comment during a Zoom call with a Latino advocacy group and his comments came after comedian Tony Hinchcliffe spoke during a Trump rally Sunday and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

 Kamala Harris on Tuesday sought to remind Americans what life was like under Donald Trump and then offered voters a different path forward if they send her to the White House, in a speech billed as her campaign’s closing argument.

“I will always listen to you, even if you don’t vote for me,” she said, speaking before a massive crowd that spilled from the grassy Ellipse near the White House to the Washington Monument.

Some key moments from her half-hour speech:

Former President Donald Trump tried to win over voters in one of Pennsylvania’s largest Puerto Rican communities Tuesday, just two days after a comedian drew national outrage for making crude remarks about the island during a campaign rally.

During Tuesday’s rally in Allentown, a majority Latino city in the Lehigh Valley, Trump said he was offering “a message of hope for all Americans.”

“Our country will be bigger, better, bolder, richer, safer, stronger than ever before,” he said.

As crowds gathered for Donald Trump’s rally Saturday at Pennsylvania State University, a red, white, and blue pickup truck rolled in, decorated with an image of the former president as an impossibly ripped young man, wearing a gold MAGA chain and packing two tattooed revolvers.

Men wore T-shirts that read “You Missed,” with an illustration of Trump flipping both middle fingers to his would-be assassin.

“He’s speaking on our behalf. It’s not just men, but we relate to him,” said Dennis Fallon, 70, who owns an auto-repair shop in State College. “Listen, I want the best quarterback I can put on the field. And he looks like the best quarterback to me. … And once we get him in, I want him to have the balls to do what he said.”

The 2024 presidential election is just around the corner, and The Inquirer’s voters guide is bringing you key information about your ballot in Pennsylvania.

General elections — this year’s held on Nov. 5 — determine which candidates will be elected for their respective offices. The major party candidates on the ballot are typically chosen through the primary elections held in the spring. Voters can pick any candidate in the general election, regardless of their political party. This guide provides key points for all federal and statewide races as well as state legislative races in Philadelphia and its four collar counties.

The ballot will be crowded this year. Pennsylvanians will vote for U.S. president; their representatives in the U.S. Senate and House; representatives in the Pennsylvania General Assembly, including members of the state House and state Senate; as well as auditor general, attorney general, and treasurer.