* Intelligence agencies warn of Russian interference in election campaigns
*Supreme Court dismisses Republicans’ suit on Pennsylvania voting case
CHIGOZIE AMADI
With just two days before the United States presidential election, the Governor of Washington State, Jay Inslee, has activated some members of the National Guard to be on standby in case of election-related unrest.
This is just as intelligence agencies in Washington are warning Russia against interference in election campaigns.
The U.S. Supreme Court has also dismissed the suit filed by some Republicans seeking rules for postal voting in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
A statement issued by the office of the Governor of Washington State said some members of the National Guard have been activated to be on standby in case of election-related violence.
“This is a purely precautionary measure,” a statement from Governor Jay Inslee’s office said at the weekend.
A ballot drop box for early voting was set on fire with incendiary devices in Vancouver, Washington at the start of the week. Hundreds of ballots were destroyed.
A similar incident occurred in the nearby city of Portland, Oregon around the same time.
Inslee’s office said the governor, a Democrat, was responding to these incidents as well as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s nationwide warnings regarding threats to election infrastructure.
The National Guard is a state-based military force that answers both to governors and the president and is frequently deployed in response to natural disasters and other emergencies.
The guard will be on stand-by for four days in Washington State, beginning Monday, and ending just after midnight on Thursday.
Election Day is Tuesday but millions of early votes have already been cast.
Meanwhile, intelligence agencies in Washington have warned of targeted disinformation from Russia.
The agencies blamed Russia for a video that “falsely depicted individuals claiming to be from Haiti and voting illegally in multiple counties in Georgia.”
Another fabricated video falsely accused “an individual associated with the Democratic presidential ticket of taking a bribe from a US entertainer.”
The agencies did not elaborate in their statement. But US media said the video that began circulating late this week suggested Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband received a $500,000 bribe from the performer, Sean “Diddy” Combs.
In the joint statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the FBI, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency blamed “Russian influence actors” for the videos.
These instances were part of a “broader effort” by Moscow “to raise unfounded questions about the integrity of the U.S. election and stoke divisions among Americans,” the agencies said.
Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, who is responsible for elections in the swing state, said the video about Georgia “is false and is an example of targeted disinformation we’ve seen in this and other elections.
“It is likely foreign interference attempting to sow discord and chaos on the eve of the 2024 presidential election,” Raffensperger said.
Raffensperger called on X owner, Elon Musk and the leaders of other social media platforms to remove the video.
The clip was originally posted by an anonymous account that had previously been reported to have spread disinformation of suspected Russian origin.
The video has since been deleted.
In a related development, the U.S. Supreme Court has dismissed the suit filed by some Republicans seeking rules for postal voting in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
The justices rejected a request not to count provisional ballots used in the state when a voter’s mail-in ballot is flagged as potentially defective.
These provisional ballots are kept separately and counted only after verification.
The Republicans had asked for these votes not to be counted.
This could have potentially invalidated thousands of absentee ballots, which often tend to favour Democratic voters.
The court’s decision allows these votes to be counted for the time being, but the Supreme Court could still revisit the issue later.
Further legal disputes are possible in the coming days.
Some expectation fights over the validity of votes will continue after the November 5 election, especially in states where the margin between the winner and loser could be only thousands of votes.
Republican presidential candidate, former President Donald Trump has already raised baseless allegations of vote manipulation after his election defeat in 2020 and is now casting doubt on the integrity of the upcoming election.
The Supreme Court’s decision has particular significance in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state in the election campaign.
With its 19 electors, the most populous of the seven so-called swing states could be decisive for the outcome of the election.
