Politics

By Luc Cohen

NEW YORK (Reuters) -President-elect Donald Trump will be sentenced on Jan. 10 in the criminal case in which he was convicted on charges involving hush money paid to a porn star, but is unlikely to face jail time or other penalties, a judge said on Friday.

Justice Juan Merchan’s ruling means Trump will be required to appear at a court hearing just 10 days before his Jan. 20 inauguration – an unprecedented scenario in U.S. history. Before Trump, no U.S. president – former or sitting – had been charged with or convicted of a crime.

The judge said Trump, 78, may appear at his sentencing either in person or virtually.

He wrote that he was not inclined to sentence Trump to jail, and that a sentence of “unconditional discharge” – meaning no custody, monetary fine, or probation – would be “the most viable solution.”

The imposition of the sentence would pave the way for Trump to appeal. Merchan acknowledged in his ruling that Trump has made clear he intends to appeal.

In a statement, Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said there should be no sentencing in the case.

“This lawless case should have never been brought, and the Constitution demands that it be immediately dismissed,” Cheung said.

Merchan announced his plan for the sentencing in denying Trump’s motion to dismiss the case due to his presidential election victory. Trump’s defense lawyers had argued that having the case hang over him during his presidency would impede his ability to govern.

Merchan rejected that argument, writing that setting aside the jury’s verdict would “undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways.”

“Defendant’s status as President-elect does not require the drastic and ‘rare’ application of (the court’s) authority to grant the (dismissal) motion,” Merchan wrote in the decision.

Merchan also rejected Trump’s argument in a Dec. 3 court filing that dismissal was warranted because his “civic and financial contributions to this city and the Nation are too numerous to count.”

While acknowledging Trump’s service as president, the judge said Trump’s public statements excoriating the justice system were also a factor for him in determining how Trump’s character would factor into the decision.

Merchan criticized what he called Trump’s “unrelenting and unsubstantiated attacks” against the integrity of the criminal proceeding, and noted that he had found him guilty of 10 counts of contempt during the trial for repeatedly violating an order restricting out-of-court statements about witnesses and others.

“Defendant has gone to great lengths to broadcast on social media and other forums his lack of respect for judges, juries, grand juries and the justice system as a whole,” Merchan wrote.

“Defendant’s character and history vis-a-vis the Rule of Law and the Third Branch of government must be analyzed,” the judge said, referring to the judiciary. “In that vein, it does not weigh in his favor.”

‘EXTREME REMEDY’

The case stemmed from a $130,000 payment that Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The payment was for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she has said she had a decade earlier with Trump, who denies it.

A Manhattan jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up the payment. He had pleaded not guilty and called the case an attempt by Manhattan District Attorney Bragg, the Democratic prosecutor who brought the charges, to harm his 2024 campaign.

Trump’s sentencing was initially scheduled for July 11, 2024, but has been pushed back several times. On Thursday, Merchan said Trump’s request in August that the sentencing be pushed back until after the election implied that he consented to being sentenced during the transition period.

“Any claim Defendant may have that circumstances have changed as a result of Defendant’s victory in the Presidential election, while convenient, is disingenuous,” Merchan wrote.

Bragg did not oppose delaying the sentencing until after the election. Merchan in September pushed it back to Nov. 26.

After Trump defeated Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election, the judge delayed the sentencing indefinitely to figure out next steps.

Bragg’s office had argued there were measures short of the “extreme remedy” of overturning the jury’s verdict that could assuage Trump’s concerns about being distracted by a criminal case while serving as president, such as delaying the sentence until after Trump leaves the White House in 2029.

Merchan wrote on Thursday he found that alternative “less desirable” than sentencing Trump before the inauguration.

PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY

Trump on Dec. 16 lost a separate bid to toss the hush money conviction in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July 1 decision that presidents cannot be criminally prosecuted over their official actions, and that evidence of their official actions cannot be presented in criminal cases over personal conduct.

In denying Trump’s motion to dismiss, Merchan said the prosecution over “decidedly personal acts of falsifying business records poses no danger of intrusion on the authority and function of the executive branch.”

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison, but incarceration is not required. Before his election victory, legal experts said it was unlikely Trump would be locked up due to his lack of a criminal history and advanced age.

Trump was charged in three other state and federal criminal cases in 2023: one involving classified documents he kept after leaving office and two others involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

He pleaded not guilty in all three cases. The Justice Department moved to dismiss the two federal cases after Trump’s election victory.

Trump’s state criminal case in Georgia over charges stemming from his effort to overturn his 2020 election loss in that state is in limbo.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Daniel Wallis)

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A majority of Republicans say they are confident in the 2024 vote count after Donald Trump’s win, according to a new poll that finds a sharp turnaround from GOP voters’ skepticism about U.S. elections after the president-elect spent four years lying about his loss to President Joe Biden.

About 6 in 10 Republicans said they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that the votes in last year’s presidential election were counted correctly nationwide, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That’s a sharp rise from about 2 in 10 Republicans who were confident in an AP-NORC poll in October. And about two-thirds of Republicans in the new survey said they were confident in their state’s vote count, up from about 4 in 10 before the election.

That helped drive up the share of Americans saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence in the accuracy of the election to about 6 in 10. That’s higher than in October, when roughly half of Americans said they were highly confident the votes would be counted accurately.

The mood is substantially different than it was four years ago, when Trump’s supporters, fueled by his false claims of a stolen election, assaulted police and smashed their way into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, to interrupt the certification of Biden’s victory. Weeks later, an AP-NORC poll found that about two-thirds of Republicans said Biden was not legitimately elected president.

That belief persisted throughout Biden’s presidency and until last year’s election, as Trump continued to sow doubt about the accuracy of U.S. elections. He even did so on Election Day in the hours before it was clear he would win.

But since Trump’s victory in November, Republicans’ suspicions about election security at all levels — including confidence in their own local election officials — have ebbed substantially.

There were no indications of trouble before the election despite Trump’s attempts to lay the groundwork to challenge the accuracy of the count if he lost the vote. Nor were there any real questions over the integrity of the 2020 count, which was confirmed by a wide range of state audits,recounts and reviews, some of which were led by Republicans, including Trump’s own Department of Justice.

Threats toward local election officials soared after 2020, leading to a wave of veteran administrators leaving office. In a potential sign that those hostilities might ease, the poll found that about 7 in 10 Americans have “a great deal” or “quite a bit” of confidence that votes in the 2024 presidential election were counted accurately by their local election officials, up from about 6 in 10 in October.

That movement was almost entirely driven by Republicans: About 7 in 10 were highly confident in local officials’ counts in December, compared with about half in October.

One group’s confidence in the integrity of the election ticked down — Democrats. Their confidence in the national vote count declined from about 7 in 10 to about 6 in 10, although their certainty in the accuracy of state vote counts remained stable.

Still, the dip in Democratic confidence is nowhere near the scale of skepticism among Republicans after Trump’s defeat in 2020. The Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, conceded her loss to Trump the day after Election Day and there has been no organized Democratic effort to prevent the handover of the presidency to Trump, as there was among some conservatives in 2020 to try to block Biden from ascending to the presidency.

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Riccardi reported from Denver.

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The AP-NORC poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.

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The Associated Press receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — When the 119th Congress is sworn in Friday, House Speaker Mike Johnson will fight for his political life — again.

While the Louisiana Republican has the support of President-elect Donald Trump, it will be House Republicans who will decide whether to reelect him to his post as Speaker of the House. Far-right Republicans have at times grown frustrated with Johnson’s leadership and are prone to demanding concessions when their votes become essential.

A flop by Johnson could throw Monday’s congressional certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory into turmoil without a House speaker.

Here’s the latest:

Johnson commands one of the slimmest majorities in modern times, 220-215, having lost seats in the November election. That leaves him relying on almost every Republican for support in the face of Democratic opposition.

Here’s a look at some of the Republicans who’ve signaled they may vote against him:

1. Texas Rep. Chip Roy: Roy is an unflinching member of the Freedom Caucus who lashed into Republican leadership’s handling of the year-end spending bill for failing to cut spending and adhere to House rules. He said he was undecided on the speaker’s vote for Johnson, but added “my desire is to give him grace” in hopes they can deliver on the GOP agenda.

2. Indiana Rep. Victoria Spartz: Spartz said on Tuesday that she was still undecided and doubted Johnson’s ability to deliver on Trump’s agenda. “I would give him a chance, but I would like to hear from him on what plan he has,” she told Fox News.

3. Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie: Massie is a near-certain no. “You can pull all my fingernails off, you can shove bamboo up them, you can start cutting off my fingers, I am not voting for Mike Johnson tomorrow,” Massie said in an interview on One America Network that aired last night.In a Friday morning post on X, he reiterated that stance, saying “Johnson isn’t the right guy.”

The speaker’s election is set to dominate the opening of the new Congress, but the day will also bring a roster of history-making members.

In the Senate, two Black women — Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland — will be sworn in, the first time in the nation’s history two Black women senators will serve at the same time.

Sen.-elect Andy Kim of New Jersey also is making history as the first Korean American to join the chamber.

In the House, Sarah McBride is the first openly transgender person in the Congress.

And Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, who recently suffered a fall overseas and underwent hip replacement surgery, will make her own return to Washington, a reminder of the power she wielded when Democrats last held the majority.

The speakership has been vacant only 13 times in U.S. history, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. No speaker had ever been removed until eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust McCarthy.

Barring those instances, a speaker is normally elected at the start of a new Congress and serves in the job for the full two-year session.

House Speaker Mike Johnson walked into the Capitol on Friday morning seemingly optimistic about his chances of being reelected speaker by his conference despite growing frustrations amongst far-right members of the party.

When asked by a reporter what his message was to his holdouts, the Louisiana Republican said, “We need to unify,” adding that the speaker election “is not just about one person but about moving forward with the America First agenda, the mandate given forward by the American people.”

Johnson denied that he was making any back-door deals.

“There is no quid pro quo here. I don’t do anything in exchange for a vote other than commit to make this institution work as effectively and efficiently as possible,” he said.

President-elect Donald Trump called the U.S. House speaker “a fine man of great ability” and wished him good luck on Friday, when the new Congress convenes and Republican lawmakers will decide whether to reelect Mike Johnson to lead their party.

Trump endorsed the Louisiana Republican earlier this week, but whether that support will be enough is unclear. Trump said Johnson “is very close to having 100% support,” but some members of the far right have grown increasingly frustrated with Johnson’s leadership and his handling of funding fights such as the recent short-term spending bill.

“A win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Johnson’s weak grip on the gavel threatens not only his own survival but Trump’s ambitious agenda of tax cuts and mass deportations as Republicans sweep to power in Washington.

A flop by Johnson could throw Monday’s congressional certification of Trump’s 2024 election victory into turmoil if there is no Speaker.

Johnson commands one of the slimmest majorities in modern times, having lost seats in the November election, leaving him relying on almost every Republican for support and with nearly no votes to spare.

Electing a speaker is the first order of business for the U.S. House after a new session of Congress begins at noon. It’s a vote that members take even before being sworn into office.

The House cannot organize until it has a speaker because that person effectively serves as the House’s presiding officer and the institution’s administrative head. The House can elect a new speaker at any time if the person occupying that role dies, resigns or is removed from office.

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Most of the U.S. holds its major primary and general elections in even-numbered years, but there are a handful of places where competitive congressional, state and local-level contests will be happening in 2025.

Here are the races that The Associated Press will be tracking this year:

January 7: Virginia holds a special general election to fill two legislative seats, state Senate District and state House District 26. Both seats, which opened up after their current occupants won congressional races, have been spotlighted by national Democrats.

February 18: Wisconsin holds primary elections for a seat on the state Supreme Court and the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.

April 1: Florida holds two special elections for U.S. House seats. The 1st District — considered a safe Republican seat — is vacant following the resignation of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, who was nominated by President-elect Donald Trump as attorney general but later withdrew. Former Rep. Mike Waltz resigned from the 6th District after Trump appointed him to serve as national security adviser.

Also on April 1, Wisconsin holds general elections for a seat on the state Supreme Court and the state’s Superintendent of Public Instruction.

May 20: Pennsylvania holds primary elections for the state Supreme Court, Superior Court, the Pittsburgh’s mayor’s race and municipal contests in Philadelphia.

June 10: New Jersey holds its primary elections for gubernatorial and legislative races. On Tuesday, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bill moving the state’s primary from June 3 to June 10 in light of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot, which coincided with the schedule election date.

June 17: Virginia has primaries in races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and House of Delegates.

June 24: New York City has primaries in its mayoral race, as well as other municipal offices.

November 4: General elections are held in the New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia contests that had primaries earlier in the year.

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Meg Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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Mike Catalini in Trenton, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Voters in Virginia will begin the new year filling state Senate and House vacancies on Tuesday in a trio of special elections that could determine control of the narrowly divided chambers.

In the Washington suburbs of Loudoun County, Democratic state Sen. Suhas Subramanyam’s election to Congress in November has triggered a special election for his seat in state Senate District 32, as well as in state House District 26, where the Democratic incumbent resigned after winning the nomination to fill the state Senate vacancy.

The nominees to replace Subramanyam are Democratic state Del. Kannan Srinivasan and Republican Tumay Harding. Running to replace Srinivasan in the House of Delegates are Democrat JJ Singh and Republican Ram Venkatachalam.

In state Senate District 10 to the west of Richmond, voters will elect a replacement for Republican state Sen. John McGuire, who was elected to Congress. In August, McGuire defeated U.S. Rep. Bob Goode in the Republican primary in Virginia’s 5th Congressional District. The nominees are Republican Luther Cifers and Democrat Jack Trammell.

The state Senate and House seats in Loudoun County are both reliably Democratic. Former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe carried the overlapping districts with more than 60% of the vote in his failed 2021 reelection bid. In presidential elections, President Joe Biden carried Loudoun County with about 62% of the vote in 2020, while Vice President Kamala Harris received about 57% of the vote in 2024. Meanwhile, voters in state Senate District 10 preferred Republicans Donald Trump and Gov. Glenn Youngkin in previous elections. McGuire ran unopposed for this seat in 2023.

Democrats hold slim majorities in both the state Senate and state House of Delegates. Assuming Republicans hold McGuire’s Senate seat, Democratic losses in either Loudoun County seat could throw control of the state Senate to Republicans or force a power-sharing agreement in the state House of Delegates, where Democrats had reclaimed control after the 2023 elections.

The AP does not make projections and will declare a winner only when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap. If a race has not been called, the AP will continue to cover any newsworthy developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory. In doing so, the AP will make clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explain why.

Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:

Virginia’s state legislative special elections will be held Tuesday. Polls close at 7 p.m. ET.

The Associated Press will provide vote results and declare winners in three contests in state Senate Districts 10 and 32 and state House District 26.

Voters registered in state Senate Districts 10 and 32 and state House District 26 may participate in the special election in their district.

As of November, there were about 177,000 registered voters in Senate District 10, 155,000 in Senate District 32 and 58,000 in House District 26. Voters in Virginia do not register by party.

In the last state legislative elections in 2023, turnout was 38% of registered voters in Senate District 10, 42% in Senate District 32 and 40% in House District 26.

In the 2024 presidential election, the AP first reported results at 7:11 p.m. ET, or 11 minutes after polls closed. The election night tabulation ended at 3:56 a.m. ET with about 95% of total votes counted.

As of Tuesday, there will be 301 days until Virginia’s general elections for governor and state House of Delegates.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Mike Johnson is fighting for his political life, again.

The Louisiana Republican’s hold on the House speaker’s gavel and his position as second in line to the presidency will be tested Friday when a new Congress convenes and House Republicans weigh whether to reelect him to the post.

The challenge, as always, is that Johnson will need almost every Republican vote to win.

Johnson has a singular asset in his favor: President-elect Donald Trump endorsed him for speaker in a social media post at the start of the week. But it’s uncertain whether Trump’s blessing will be enough to persuade conservative Republicans who have at times grown frustrated with Johnson’s leadership and who are prone to demand concessions when their votes become essential.

Johnson, 52, ascended to the speakership in October 2023 almost by accident after Republicans struggled to replace Kevin McCarthy following the unprecedented removal of the California Republican from the job. Several contenders tried and failed before Republicans settled on Johnson, who is well liked across the conference.

But Johnson’s handling of major funding fights, including passage of aid to Ukraine last spring and, most recently, a short-term spending bill, has turned at least a few allies into detractors.

With Republicans holding a narrow 220-215 majority in the House, it would take only two GOP lawmakers voting for other candidates to deny Johnson a majority for the speakership, forcing more rounds of voting.

Here’s what to know about how the House elects a speaker:

Electing a speaker is the first order of business for the House after a new session of Congress begins at noon. It’s a vote that members take even before being sworn into office.

The House cannot organize until it has a speaker because that person effectively serves as the House’s presiding officer and the institution’s administrative head. The House can elect a new speaker at any time if the person occupying that role dies, resigns or is removed from office. The speakership has been vacant only 13 times in U.S. history, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. No speaker had ever been removed until eight Republicans joined with Democrats to oust McCarthy.

Barring those instances, a speaker is normally elected at the start of a new Congress and serves in the job for the full two-year session.

The House clerk presides over the speaker’s election. Lawmakers call out the name of their choice for speaker from the floor, a rare and time-consuming roll call that heightens the drama on the floor. Members often liven up the proceedings by shouting or standing when casting their vote.

Any name can be called out from the House floor. While it has been the tradition for the speaker to be a member of the House, it is not required.

In past years, Democratic President Joe Biden, Trump and even a senator, Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky, have received votes for House speaker. None received the majority of the vote. And generally, a party’s official nominee for speaker is who ends up with the gavel.

Republicans chose Johnson as their nominee for speaker in a closed-door vote in November. A week later, Democrats unanimously chose Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to remain their leader despite the party’s electoral losses.

Lawmakers are not obligated to vote for their party’s nominated candidate. And that is why the process can quickly get messy.

Once the House is in a quorum — meaning the minimum number of members are present to proceed — nominating speeches will be made on behalf of the nominees for speaker. The clerk appoints lawmakers from each party as tellers to tally the votes before the roll call begins.

To become speaker, a candidate needs a majority of the votes from House members who are present and voting.

Historically, the magical number has been 218 out of the 435 members of the House. But many previous speakers, including McCarthy, have won with fewer votes because members sometimes vote “present” instead of calling out a name. Every lawmaker voting “present” lowers the overall tally needed to reach a majority.

It remains to be seen whether Johnson will reach a majority to become speaker on the first ballot. Should he come up short, it is likely the clerk will move to start another roll call vote.

McCarthy went through a grueling 15 ballots over four days before he gained enough support to become the 55th speaker in January 2023.

Once a speaker candidate wins a majority of those present and voting, the clerk will announce the results of the election.

A bipartisan committee, usually consisting of members from the home state of the chosen candidate, will escort the speaker-elect to the chair on the dais where the oath of office is administered. The oath is identical to the one new members will take once a speaker is chosen.

The outgoing speaker usually joins the successor at the speaker’s chair, where the gavel is passed as a nod to the peaceful transition of power from one party leader to another. But this time around, given that Johnson is already the speaker, it will likely be Jeffries who would once again hand Johnson the gavel.

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The FBI now says the New Orleans truck attacker acted alone in an “act of terrorism” when he drove a pickup truck into a crowd of New Year’s revelers early Wednesday, killing 14 people. The driver had posted videos on social media hours before the carnage saying he was inspired by the Islamic State group and expressing a desire to kill, President Joe Biden said.

The FBI identified the driver as 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar.

Officials have not yet released the names of the people killed in the attack, but their families and friends have started sharing their stories. About 30 people were injured.

Here is the latest:

Mark Tabor, 61, the manager of a Willie’s Chicken Shack on Bourbon, said it was strange to feel the disconnect between the normal hustle of the French Quarter outside and the violence he had witnessed less than 48 hours earlier.

“I’m glad they cleaned up the streets, but it’s like everything’s forgotten. It’s sad,” he said in an interview Thursday afternoon.

He had been getting ready to close up when the violence started early on New Year’s Day, but there were still diners at every table, he said. Gun shots rang out, everybody started running inside, and he locked the doors and hid in the back of the restaurant with his employees and customers until police said it was safe to come out.

He said officers tried to lead people so they could avoid seeing the bodies in the street.

“It looked like a nightmare,” he said.

Tabor sounded calm as he talked about the events, but he said he was still feeling jumpy. While he said he is used to dealing with the reality of violence in the city, there were some images he just couldn’t get out of his head.

He said one of the victims was a girl his daughter had gone to school with.

“She lost her life right in front,” he said.

Outside, tourists strolled down the street past groups of armed police officers. The bars were filling up just as the sun began to set. A woman danced in the street in front of a daiquiri shop, closing her eyes as she swallowed a sugary beignet.

“They always come back,” said Tabor. “Unfortunately, it’s business as usual.”

The FBI has released photos of surveillance footage that the agency says shows Shamsud-Din Jabbar an hour before he drove a truck down Bourbon Street, killing 14 people and injuring dozens of others.

In the surveillance footage, Jabbar is dressed in a long light brown coat, a button-down shirt, blue jeans, and what appears to be brown dress shoes. He is wearing glasses.

The footage captures Jabbar walking down Dauphine Street, a block away from Bourbon Street, shortly after 2 a.m.

Biden’s days in office are numbered, with the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump on Jan. 20 approaching fast.

Biden is expected to eulogize former President Jimmy Carter next week before he travels to Rome for several days to meet with Pope Francis and Italian government officials.

Asked at the White House on Thursday if he planned on visiting New Orleans, Biden said: “I’m going to try.”

Along the same block of Bourbon Street where the truck rampaged, a brass band plays to a large crowd. Across the street, a bouquet of white flowers rests on the brick sidewalk.

“Rest in peace, y’all,” one of the drummers shouts after the band finishes a song.

Trombone player and lifelong New Orleans resident Jonas Green, 22, said it was important for his band to be out on Bourbon Street the day after the attack.

“I know with this music, it heals, it transforms the feelings that we’re going through into something better,” Green said. “Gotta keep on going.”

While the historic street has reopened to the public, a group of heavily armed Homeland Security troops still walked in the area alongside tourists.

As Bourbon Street reopened to the public Thursday afternoon, people strolled past temporary yellow bollards placed in the street.

In addition to tourists, locals, reporters, local law enforcement and heavily armed Homeland Security officers walked along the typically raucous stretch of street.

At a morning news conference, officials had promised additional resources and safety details as thousands of people attended the Sugar Bowl at the Superdome, about a mile (1.6 kilometers) away from where Wednesday morning’s attack occurred.

Chris Pousson, of Beaumont, Texas, said he became friends with Shamsud-Din Jabbar in middle school and recalled him as quiet and reserved.

“This is a complete shock,” Pousson said. “Everyone I spoke with, all of our classmates, we’re all just in disbelief really.”

He said that after high school, they reconnected on Facebook around 2008 or 2009 and would message back and forth until around 2018 or 2019.

“He was always like glory to God and all that stuff, praise to the highest,” Pousson, 42, said. “He was always promoting his faith in a positive manner. It was never anything negative.”

Pousson, who is retired after serving 16 years in the Air Force, where he worked in anti-terrorism, said,

“I never saw this coming.”

“If any red flags would have popped off, I would have caught them and I would have contacted the proper authorities,” he said. “But he didn’t give anything to me that would have suggested that he is capable of doing what happened.”

“It can’t keep it down. It really can’t, and we’re seeing that today. The Sugar Bowl is back on,” President Joe Biden said at an unrelated White House event. He noted that Bourbon Street had reopened with reinforced security the day after the attack.

“The people of New Orleans are sending an unmistakable message. They will not let this attack or the attacker’s deluded ideology overcome us,” Biden said.

The president spoke about the two incidents at an unrelated White House event on Thursday.

He says he ordered accelerated investigations “so we have answers to our unanswered questions.” He said he also has ordered that every single federal resource be provided “to get the job done.”

The FBI earlier Thursday said there is no “definitive link,” as of now, between the events in New Orleans and Las Vegas.

Ohio residents Jeffrey and Briana Tolle, both in their fifties, strolled down Bourbon Street for their very first time shortly after it reopened, with Mardi Gras beads around their necks and beverages in hand.

They had spent the morning enjoying beignets and remained determined to enjoy their trip.

“We’re like, well we’re going, we’re not stopping,” Jeffrey Tolle said. “They ain’t gonna kill our good time.”

Ticketed fans in Georgia and Notre Dame gear packed a plaza adjacent to the Superdome and enjoyed music under clear skies — and the watch of snipers on rooftops — before filtering into the stadium for Thursday’s College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl.

“It was a lot of fun. It felt safe,“ said Shannon Horsey, a Georgia fan in her 40s who lives Austin, Texas.

”Coming in they searched by bag thoroughly. So I felt like, ‘OK, they’re really paying attention.’”

Joe Horsey, a Georgia graduate, found the pre-game crowd larger than he expected, but the “energy lower than a normal football game.”

Meanwhile, Horsey found opposing fans were being somewhat more polite to one another than usual.

“SEC football can get nasty on game day and can get a little raucous,” he said. “But there’s a little different sense of civility and that there’s bigger things than football.”

The mood was patient and upbeat at 2609 Canal Street. Donors stood in line or sat on fold-out chairs, chatting cheerfully and snacking on potato chips as they waited.

Billy Weales, CEO of The Blood Center, said the last time he had seen similar turnout was for 9/11.

“I think we need a bigger parking lot,” he said, looking out at about 60 people who were waiting to give blood at one of the donation trucks parked outside.

Mandy Garrett, a 34-year-old engineer, said she heard about the blood drive on Instagram.

“It’s what I can do. There’s really not much else we can do … where you feel like you have a little bit of control of the outcome,” she said.

The New Year’s Day attack on Bourbon Street injured dozens and killed 14 people. The attacker also died.

Officials have reviewed surveillance video showing people standing near an improvised explosive device that Jabbar placed in a cooler along the city’s Bourbon Street, where the attack occurred.

Following the review, authorities “do not believe at this point these people are involved … in any way,” said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.

“I believe New Orleans is very secure,” Attorney General Liz Murrill said Thursday in a post on the social platform X. “We can honor the lives that were lost by not bowing down to fear brought on by a cowardly terrorist attack.”

The College Football Playoff quarterfinal is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. CST on Thursday, 36 hours after the deadly attack on Bourbon Street.

Crowds are already flocking to the Caesars Superdome ahead of the Sugar Bowl. Alongside food trucks and foot traffic, a fleet of armored vehicles maintains a watchful presence.

Heaven Sensky-Kirsch says her father, Jeremi Sensky, endured 10 hours of surgery for injuries from the truck attack that included two broken legs. He was taken off a ventilator Thursday.

Jeremi Sensky was ejected from the wheelchair he has used since a 1999 car accident and had bruises to his face and head, Sensky-Kirsch said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

Sensky, 51, had driven from his home in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, to New Orleans to celebrate the holiday.

He and his wife, his daughter, his son-in-law and two friends stopped for a few days in Nashville before arriving in New Orleans.

Before the attack, Sensky and the two friends had been having pizza, his daughter said. Sensky left them to return to his hotel on Canal Street because he felt cold, she said.

Sensky-Kirsch said others could see the attacker coming and were able to run out of the way, but her father “was stuck on the road.”

When he didn’t return to the hotel, they went to look for him, ending up in an emergency room, she said.

“We thought he was dead,” Sensky-Kirsch said. “We can’t believe he’s alive.”

As New Orleans approaches the start of its carnival season on Monday, a monthslong period leading up to Mardi Gras, the city normally celebrates with parades and king cake.

But Kim Do, 47, whose Hi-Do bakery is a beloved supplier of the carnival treat, says she worries that orders for the biggest moneymaker of her family-run business will be significantly down.

“The mood in the city, we feel it today, I don’t know how we’re going to move forward after this tragedy,” Do said.

“I personally would be scared to even go out there, to be in the parades — I think there’s going to be a lot less people, a lot less activities,” she said. “I think the city will try to go back to the normal stuff as much as possible but I think we’re all going to be a little more cautious.”

Fifteen people were killed in the attack, said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division. That number includes the 14 victims killed plus the assailant, Shamsud-Din Jabbar.

“We know that he specifically picked out Bourbon Street, not sure why,” said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division.

“He was 100 percent inspired by ISIS,” he added.

“The city of New Orleans, we’re resilient,” New Orleans Mayor Latoya Cantrell said.

“The confidence is there to reopen Bourbon Street to the public before game time today,” Cantrell added.

The FBI obtained surveillance video of Shamsud Din Jabbar placing the explosive devices where they were found, said Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division.

The FBI also found “no definitive link” between the New Orleans attack and the Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas.

The FBI has received more than 400 tips from the public, some from New Orleans and others from other states, Christopher Raia, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counter-terrorism division, said at a news conference on Thursday.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Wednesday evening the FBI was looking into whether an explosion outside a Las Vegas hotel owned by President-elect Donald Trump was connected to the New Orleans attack.

Fireworks and camp fuel canisters were found in a Tesla Cybertruck that blew up outside the Trump International Hotel early Wednesday, killing a suspect inside the vehicle.

The person who died in the explosion was an active-duty U.S. Army soldier who spent time at the base formerly known as Fort Bragg, three U.S. officials told The Associated Press on Thursday. The officials also spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of his service.

The truck explosion came hours after a driver, 42-year-old Shamsud-Din Bahar Jabbar, rammed a truck into a crowd in New Orleans. Jabbar, a U.S. Army veteran, also spent time at Fort Bragg, a massive Army base in North Carolina that is home to Army special forces command. An official told the AP that there is no apparent overlap in their assignments there.

The investigation so far has not shown the incidents are related, and authorities don’t think the men knew each other, two law enforcement officials said. The officials were not authorized to discuss details of the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

▶ Read more about the Las Vegas Cybertruck explosion

The FBI says it recovered the black banner of the Islamic State group from the truck that smashed into New Year’s partygoers. The investigation is expected to look in part at any support or inspiration that driver Shamsud-Din Jabbar may have drawn from that violent Middle East-based group or from any of at least 19 affiliated groups around the world.

Routed from its self-proclaimed caliphate in Syria and Iraq by a U.S. military-led coalition more than five years ago, IS has focused on seizing territory in the Middle East more than on staging massive al-Qaida-style attacks on the West.

But in its home territory, IS has welcomed any chance to behead Americans and other foreigners who come within its reach. The main group at peak strength claimed a handful of coordinated operations targeting the West, including a 2015 Paris plot that killed 130 people. It has had success, although abated in recent years, in inspiring people around the world who are drawn to its ideology to carry out ghastly attacks on innocent civilians.

▶ Read more about IS and what attacks it has inspired

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry will be joined at the news conference by officials from the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Louisiana State Police and the New Orleans Police Department.

The conference is scheduled to begin around 10:15 a.m. CST.

“The Superdome is completely secure,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry said on Fox News. “Again, the FBI continues to pour resources into the state.”

Landry said he plans to attend Thursday afternoon’s college football playoff game between the University of Georgia and the University of Notre Dame.

“We need not let fear paralyze us,” Landry added. “That’s the problem in this country. When we do that, the terrorists win.”

ROME — A telegram of condolences, addressed to Archbishop Gregory Aymond, said Francis was saddened to learn of the attack in New Orleans and was spiritually close to the city.

Francis “prays for healing and consolation of the injured and bereaved,” said the telegram, which was signed by the Vatican secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Separately, Italian President Sergio Mattarella also sent condolences to President Joe Biden, whom he will see during Biden’s visit to Rome next week, saying all of Italy was mourning the loss of life.

“At this time of sorrow for the American people, I would like to reaffirm the firm resolve of the Italian Republic to oppose in the strongest terms all forms of terrorism, on the basis of those values of civilization, democracy and respect for human life that have always been shared with the United States,” he said in a statement.

The College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame was postponed by a day because of the truck attack, which unfolded about a mile away.

The game, originally scheduled for 7:45 p.m. CST at the 70,000-seat Superdome on Wednesday, was pushed back to 3 p.m. Thursday. The winner advances to the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl against Penn State.

“Public safety is paramount,” Sugar Bowl CEO Jeff Hundley said at a media briefing alongside federal, state and local officials, including Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell. “All parties all agree that it’s in the best interest of everybody and public safety that we postpone the game.”

The decision to postpone the game meant numerous traveling fans with tickets would not be able to attend. Ticket prices online plummeted in some cases to less than $25 as fans with plans to depart on Thursday tried to unload them.

The Superdome was on lockdown for security sweeps on Wednesday morning. Both teams spent most of the day in their hotels, holding meetings in ballrooms.

▶ Read more about the decision to postpone the Sugar Bowl

Officials have not yet released the names of the 15 people killed in the New Orleans New Year’s Day truck attack, but their families and friends have started sharing their stories.

Here’s a look at some of what we know:

1. Nikyra Dedeaux: Zion Parsons of Gulfport, Mississippi, had been celebrating New Year’s Eve on his first night on Bourbon Street when a vehicle appeared and plowed into his friend, 18-year-old Nikyra Dedeaux, who he said had dreamed of becoming a nurse. Dedeaux was a responsible daughter — shorter than all her siblings but the one who helped take care of everyone, Parsons said.

2. Reggie Hunter: A 37-year-old father of two from Baton Rouge, Hunter had just left work and headed to celebrate New Year’s with a cousin when the attack happened, his first cousin Shirell Jackson told Nola.com.

3. Nicole Perez: A single mother to a 4-year-old son, Perez was working hard to make life better for her family, according to her employer. Perez, who was in her late 20s, was recently promoted to manager at Kimmy’s Deli in Metairie, Louisiana, and “was really excited about it,” deli owner Kimberly Usher said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

▶ Read more about the victims of the New Orleans truck attack

Authorities say the driver of a pickup truck sped through a crowd of pedestrians gathered in New Orleans’ bustling French Quarter district early on New Year’s Day, killing at least 15 people and injuring about 30 others. The suspect was killed in a shootout with police.

The FBI is investigating the attack as an act of terrorism and said it does not believe the driver acted alone.

Wednesday’s attack unfolded on Bourbon Street, known worldwide as one of the largest destinations for New Year’s Eve parties. Large crowds had also gathered in the city ahead of the College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl, which had been scheduled for later Wednesday at the nearby Superdome. The game was postponed until Thursday afternoon following the attack.

▶ Catch up on what we know about the New Orleans truck attack

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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Former Florida Gov. Buddy MacKay, who lost to Jeb Bush in 1998 but still served 23 days in office after the sudden death of Gov. Lawton Chiles, has died. He was 91.

The former Democratic governor took a nap after lunch at his home in Ocklawaha, Florida, on Tuesday and never woke up, his son Ken MacKay told The Associated Press. All of the governor’s adult children were present at the time, he said.

“It was a very peaceful end to a great life,” said MacKay, who hopes his father is remembered as a defender of Florida’s environment and an advocate for minorities.

Floridians honored MacKay not just for his brief service as governor, but his time as a state legislator, Congressman and diplomat.

“We mourn the passing of Buddy MacKay,” Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X. “A U.S. Air Force veteran and lifelong public servant, MacKay was dedicated to our country and our state. May he rest in peace.”

In a social media post, Bush offered his condolences to MacKay’s family, saying that his one-time competitor had served the state “with honor and distinction.”

MacKay, Chiles’ lieutenant governor for two terms, had been trounced by Bush in the 1998 gubernatorial election when Chiles died six weeks later on Dec. 12, 1998, at the governor’s mansion. That put MacKay in the top job for three weeks, where he focused on overseeing the final stages of the transition to Bush’s administration.

“It was overwhelmingly sad,” MacKay recalled in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press. “(Chiles had) gotten that far through his term and it all just stopped. For me, there was nothing but to be a caretaker and try to help with the transition. The main thing we could do was stay out of the way.”

The MacKays never moved into the mansion and Florida hasn’t had a Democrat in the governor’s office since.

“He was very, very sensitive to the fact he was there as the final caretaker,” the late Democratic political strategist and MacKay adviser Jim Krog once said. “He was clearly conscious of the fact that he was governor and there were some loose ends that needed to be tied up.”

MacKay was out of politics in 1990 when he persuaded Chiles, who had retired from the U.S. Senate two years earlier, to run for governor against incumbent Republican Bob Martinez. The Chiles-MacKay team was elected that November and again in 1994.

MacKay, who also served in the Florida Legislature and U.S. House of Representatives, ran statewide three times and lost each time, but never lost his quiet sense of humor.

“I got out of politics because of illness,” he said the day after being defeated by Bush. “The voters got sick and tired of me.”

An inveterate policy wonk, MacKay finished his political career as a special envoy to Latin America for President Bill Clinton before retiring to his central Florida home near Ocala. MacKay stood by the former president when many Democrats distanced themselves from Clinton in the wake of the Monica Lewinsky scandal. He kept busy in the final years of his life doing pro bono work for the Southern Legal Counsel and also serving in a mediation role in the juvenile court system.

MacKay narrowly missed winning election to the U.S. Senate race in 1988 when he lost to Republican Connie Mack III by less than 1 percentage point. It was the closest statewide race in the state’s history until the 2000 presidential contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

In a Democratic primary field that at one time included former governors Claude Kirk — a one-time Republican — and Reubin Askew, who withdrew before the election, MacKay rebounded from a runner-up finish in a six-way primary to win a runoff against then-Insurance Commissioner Bill Gunter.

With Democrats still largely in control of Florida politics, MacKay was expected to sweep past Mack and hold Chiles’ seat.

But Mack, who had also been in the U.S. House, came up with a “Hey Buddy, you’re a liberal,” catchphrase that MacKay couldn’t shake at a time moderate Florida was moving away from traditional Democratic politics.

It took two days after the 1988 election before the official vote count showed Mack had won, by fewer than 34,000 votes out of more than 4 million cast.

Like many of Florida’s leading Democratic politicians of the second half of the 20th century, MacKay began his political career at the height of the state’s integration movement.

MacKay had grown up working in the fields with Black laborers but went to segregated schools and ate in segregated restaurants.

“It was fairly wrenching,” he said. “It was always very awkward. My family was involved with agriculture and I worked many days in the field with African American crews and some of those adults were part of our family and raised me.”

MacKay’s views on race and the potential for desegregation changed dramatically during his time in the U.S. Air Force between 1955 and 1958.

“Not until I went into the military did I see the potential for getting this behind us,” MacKay said. “I walked in there and from the first day it was totally integrated and there wasn’t a problem. It was a very freeing experience.”

Kenneth H. MacKay Jr. was born March 22, 1933, in Ocala.

“In the old South, which I was born into, ‘Buddy’ means junior,” MacKay said. “Judges and school teachers called me Kenneth, but nobody else did. I’m more of a Buddy than a Kenneth.”

He became an attorney and citrus grower after leaving the service. He won election to the state House in 1968, the state Senate in 1974 and to the U.S. House in 1982 before losing his U.S. Senate bid.

MacKay spent his final years at the home he shared with his wife, Anne, on Lake Weir. According to his son Ken, MacKay remained active in his church, and enjoyed tending to his camellias and spending time on the family farm, where they raise citrus and cattle.

___ Kate Payne is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Kallestad is a former Associated Press journalist.

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Nearly 200 absentee ballots somehow went uncounted in Wisconsin’s liberal capital after the Nov. 5 election, prompting state election officials to launch an investigation Thursday into whether the city clerk broke the law.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission voted unanimously to investigate whether Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl failed to comply with state law or abused her discretion. Commission members said they were concerned the clerk’s office didn’t inform them of the problem until late December, almost a month and a half after the election. Commission Chair Ann Jacobs certified Wisconsin’s election results on Nov. 29.

Witzel-Behl’s office said in a statement that the number of uncounted votes didn’t affect the outcome of any race or referendum on the ballots. But Jacobs said the oversight was “so egregious” that the commission must determine what happened and how it can be prevented as spring elections approach.

“We are the final canvassers,” Jacobs said. “We are the final arbiters of votes in the state of Wisconsin and we need to know why those ballots weren’t included anywhere.”

Witzel-Behl said in an email to The Associated Press that her office looks forward to working with the commission to determine what happened and how to prevent the same issues in future elections.

It’s another misstep for Witzel-Behl, who announced in September that her office mistakenly sent out up to 2,000 duplicate absentee ballots. She blamed it on a data processing error.

According to election commission documents, the commission learned of the uncounted ballots on Dec. 18, when Witzel-Behl’s staff told the commission that they recorded more absentee ballots as received than ballots counted in three city wards.

The commission asked Witzel-Behl to provide a detailed statement, which she did two days later. The memo stated that on Nov. 12, the clerk’s office discovered 67 unprocessed ballots for Ward 65 and one unprocessed ballot for Ward 68 in a courier bag found in a vote tabulating machine.

The memo also stated that her office was reconciling ballots for Ward 56 on Dec. 3 when 125 unprocessed ballots were discovered in a sealed courier bag. Reconciliation is a post-election process in which officials account for every ballot created. That work begins immediately after an election. Clerks have 45 days to complete it.

The memo does not offer any explanation, saying only that the clerk’s office planned “to debrief these incidents and implement better processes.”

The clerk’s office issued a statement on Dec. 26 saying it had informed the elections commission and would send an apology letter to each affected voter.

Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway released her own statement the same day saying the clerk’s office didn’t tell her staff about the problem until Dec. 20. She said her office plans to review the city’s election procedures. The mayor issued a new statement Thursday saying she appreciates the election commission’s investigation and the city will cooperate with the probe.

Wisconsin is a perennial battleground state in presidential elections. Republican Donald Trump won the state this past November on his way to reclaiming the White House, beating Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris by about 29,000 votes.

Madison and surrounding Dane County are well-known liberal strongholds. Harris won 75% of the vote in the county in November.

___

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Madison City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl’s last name.

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HONOLULU (AP) — As with many voters on Maui, Joshua Kamalo thought the race for president wasn’t the only big contest on the November ballot. He also was focused on a hotly contested seat for the local governing board.

He made sure to return his ballot in the virtually all vote-by-mail state early, doing so two weeks before Election Day. A week later, he received a letter telling him the county couldn’t verify his signature on the return envelope, jeopardizing his vote.

And he wasn’t the only one. Two other people at the biodiesel company where he works also had their ballots rejected, as did his daughter. In each case, the county said their signatures didn’t match the ones on file.

“I don’t know how they fix that, but I don’t think it’s right,” said Kamalo, a truck driver who persevered through traffic congestion and limited parking options to get to the county office so he could sign an affidavit affirming that the signature was indeed his.

He said he probably wouldn’t have bothered to fix it if the South Maui county council race wasn’t so close. The co-founder of his employer, Pacific Biodiesel, was the candidate who ended up on the losing side.

Kamalo’s experience is part of a broader problem as mail voting rises in popularity and more states opt to send ballots to all voters. Matching signatures on returned mail ballot envelopes to the official ones recorded at local voting offices can be a tedious process, sometimes done by humans and sometimes through automation, and can lead to dozens, hundreds or even thousands of ballots being rejected.

If the voter can’t correct it in time, the ballot won’t count.

“There’s been a big push toward mail voting over the last few years, and I think the tradeoffs aren’t always clear to voters,” said Larry Norden, an elections and government expert at the Brennan Center for Justice.

He said it’s important for states and local governments to have procedures that ensure large numbers of eligible mail ballot voters aren’t being disenfranchised.

The use of mail ballots exploded in 2020 as states looked for ways to accommodate voters during the COVID-19 pandemic. Eight states and the District of Columbia now have universal mail voting, in which all active registered voters are mailed a ballot unless they opt out.

At least 30 states require election officials to notify voters if there is a problem with their mail ballot and give them a chance to fix — or “cure” — it. Some have complained that the timeframe allowed to do that is too short.

Nevada, a key presidential battleground, is among the states that mails a ballot to all registered voters. In November, county election offices rejected about 9,000 mail ballots primarily because of signature problems.

That didn’t affect the outcome of the state’s presidential race, which Donald Trump won by 46,000 votes, but it could have changed the outcome in some down ballot races. Some state legislative seats in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas and had more than half of the rejected mail ballots, were decided by just several hundred votes. The North Las Vegas City Council race, also in Clark County, was decided by just nine votes.

“We’ve had signature curing problems since we adopted universal mail-in voting during the pandemic in 2020, and it seems to be getting worse,” said Sondra Cosgrove, history professor at the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas and executive director of Vote Nevada, a civic organization. “This is something that’s a crisis level that needs to get fixed.”

The potential for signature match problems to affect closes races has led some voting rights groups in the the state to call for an overhaul of the verification process.

“We have to find the best option going forward for people that is more accessible, that gets their votes and ballots counted on time, because it’s crazy when you think about the difference-maker being eight or nine votes,” said Christian Solomon, the state director of Rise Nevada, a youth-led civic engagement group.

Nevada voters already took one step toward a potential fix in November when they approved — by 73% — a constitutional amendment that will require voters to present identification to vote. When voting with a mailed ballot, a driver’s license or Social Security number will be required in addition to the signature. Voters will need to approve the amendment a second time in two years for it to take effect.

Dave Gibbs, president of the Repair the Vote PAC, which wrote the amendment, said he was inspired by a a law passed in 2021 in another presidential swing state, Georgia.

That state ended its signature check process and instead now requires voters to submit their driver’s license number or state identification card number when returning a mailed ballot, said Mike Hassinger, spokesman for the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. Most voting there is done early but in-person.

Critics say such ID requirements would be too burdensome for states, like Hawaii, where mailed ballots account for the vast majority of voting.

On Maui, the number of rejected mail ballots prompted a lawsuit challenging the results of the local county council election, where the winning margin was just 97 votes.

The lawsuit alleges that hundreds of ballots weren’t counted because the county clerk wrongly claimed they arrived in envelopes with signatures that didn’t match the one on file. Attorney Lance Collins said his clients wanted a new election in the race between Tom Cook and his client, Kelly King.

Six voters submitted declarations saying they were told their ballot envelope signature was deficient when, in their view, there was nothing wrong with it.

Collins said under the state’s administrative rules, a returned ballot envelope is presumed to be that of the voter and should be counted unless there is evidence to suggest it’s not the voter’s. He also said the county’s rejection rate was significantly higher than the national average.

Maui County’s attorneys responded in a court filing that its signature verification process followed the law. On Dec. 24, the state Supreme Court unanimously agreed and declared Cook the winner. The justices said the clerk provided voters with reasonable notice and opportunity to correct the deficiency on their ballot envelopes.

Even so, many voters on Maui have shared similar stories about being informed their signatures didn’t match. Resident Grace Min, who was not part of the lawsuit, was among those who received one of the letters.

“I just find it highly unusual that my (ballot) signature would not have matched my signature,” she said.

She had been paying particular attention to the county government race that she knew would be close, so it was important for her to make sure her vote was counted. She emailed an affidavit confirming the ballot was hers, but also had questions about the verification process and was concerned the time allowed for curing ballots was so short.

“I just have to imagine there had to have been people who didn’t fix their signature,” Min said, “and that doesn’t seem very fair.”

___

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