Good morning, and welcome to the last day of 2020! President Donald Trump's push for $2,000 COVID-19 relief checks is all but dead after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked another attempt by Democrats to force a vote — declaring Congress has provided enough pandemic aid, The Associated Press reports.
"We just approved almost a trillion dollars in aid a few days ago," McConnell said, referring to the year-end package Trump signed into law.
The showdown has made for a chaotic year-end session, with new lawmakers set to be sworn into office soon. Along with a new president.
President-elect Joe Biden also supports the payments and wants to build on what he calls a “downpayment” on relief.
“In this moment of historic crisis and untold economic pain for countless American families, the President-elect supports $2,000 direct payments as passed by the House," said Biden transition spokesperson Andrew Bates.
Due to the pandemic, many more people voted by mail this fall. It had election officials worried that because of this, more ballots would be rejected. Instead, ballot rejection rates went down across the country in the general election.
NPR reports: "Daniel Smith, a political scientist at the University of Florida, says out of almost five million mail-in ballots cast in his state this fall, fewer than 9,000 were rejected, a much lower rate than in previous elections. He said it wasn't because voters made fewer mistakes.
'The rates of ballots being flagged for problems wasn't any lower than in past elections. It's just that individuals were able to cure their ballots in a timely fashion to make sure that their ballots would count,' said Smith."
The Census Bureau plans to announce it will miss a year-end deadline for handing in numbers used for divvying up congressional seats.
It will be the first time that the Dec. 31 target date is missed since the deadline was implemented more than four decades ago by Congress. A census official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter confirmed the delay to the Associated Press on Wednesday.
If the figures aren’t turned in before President-elect Joe Biden takes office, Biden could rescind President Trump’s presidential memorandum directing the Census Bureau to exclude people in the country illegally from numbers used for divvying up congressional seats among the states.
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