Associated Press: With post-election lawsuits looming, a final push for votes

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Down to the wire with the threat of court battles looming, supporters of former Vice President Joe Biden scrambled Monday to rally swing-state voters to drop off ballots, visit precincts in person and ensure their votes are counted.

As months of President Donald Trump undercutting the legitimacy of mail-in votes gave way to promises he would challenge them in court, both sides made a final push to ensure their supporters turned out, even with the lingering threat of lawsuits aimed at invalidating ballots. …

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, insisted in an interview Monday that all votes would be counted and said he was encouraged the state prevailed in lawsuits filed by Trump and his supporters: “We have lawyers and agents fanned off all across Pennsylvania prepared to deal with whatever may come.”

The Supreme Court’s openness to revisiting its prior ruling, though, and the presence of a new Trump appointee on the high court, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, left others feeling anything but certain.

“Make sure, regardless what happens with litigation, that your vote is counted,” said Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections for Common Cause, which called for Barrett to recuse herself from any potential election litigation. “To me, it seems a clear voter-suppression tactic and an effort to invalidate ballots” that a party does not think are for them.

“I would hope the court would see that as an obvious power grab, but the reality is, we don’t know what the court would do,” Albert said.