A soothing read It’s hard to believe it, but it’s finally here: National Sandwich Day. Oh right, today is also Election Day in the U.S. So listen, the election result may be delayed. That’s OK. AP News’ Nicholas Riccardi explains that, even if we don’t know who won the presidential election tonight, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is broken, fraudulent, corrupted or wrong. Riccardi has a closer look at why the count could take longer than usual, and why that might mean you go to bed tonight without knowing the winner.  It’s all very calm and sensible, and that's exactly why, In a Hot Election, the Cool-Headed Associated Press Takes Center Stage. As Katie Robertson writes at The New York Times. “The Associated Press will not predict a winner of the presidential election. It will not even name an apparent or likely winner. The A.P. will make the call only when it is certain — just as it has in every U.S. election since 1848, when Zachary Taylor won the White House.”
“Lots of people ask me what the @AP is. This explains about calling elections, and more,” notes Andrew Selsky. Adam Clark calls it “A soothing read: The AP enlists 4,000 local reporters to collect vote counts from clerks nationwide and only calls a race when it is absolutely certain who won.” In a looking-on-the-bright-side take, Steve Inskeep points out, “By mis-describing the basic workings of elections, from mail-in ballots to election night calls, the president tricked the media into repeatedly describing these things accurately. I doubt we‘d normally see as many helpful stories on the process.” More of what you don’t like Nate Silver has FiveThirtyEight’s final presidential forecast, and basically, it has everything: Biden’s Favored In Our Final Presidential Forecast, But It’s A Fine Line Between A Landslide And A Nail-Biter. “All eyes on Pennsylvania- #Biden given 84% chance of winning. #ElectionNight could be landslide, could be on knife-edge. Not much between the two,” tweets Jon Williams. There’s also the Needle Update from Nate Cohn, Josh Katz and the rest of the Upshot team at The New York Times. The Times won’t be doing the “needle” election night forecast like in 2016, but it will do needle forecasts of three states: Georgia, Florida and North Carolina. “Oh, thank God. They listened,” says Mat Honan.  However, reactions vary: On the one hand, “DIRECTLY INTO THREE OF MY VEINS,” tweets Matt Gertz. On the other, “GOD FUCKING DAMMIT HERE COME THE NEEDLES JUST KILL ME NOW,” tweets Jesse Singal. And Patrick LaForge is “expecting to read that the upshot now has the technology to just put the needles in my eyes.” Essentially, “we know you didn’t like the needle, so now our solution is ... three needles,” tweets Josh Kramer.
Voting in 2020  Check out Robert Cohen’s photos in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of COVID-19 positive voters casting ballots curbside on the eve of the election. This is really something to see.
Or maybe you’d rather watch a livestream of Philadelphia’s mail votes being counted. And in some surprisingly good news, Michael Wines of The New York Times reports that Fewer Early Ballots Are Being Rejected Than Expected. “Massive voter education.....maybe worked?” tweets Anne Helen Petersen, who quotes from the piece, “The share of ballots being rejected because of flawed signatures and other errors appears lower — sometimes much lower — than in the past.” “This is the most hopeful story you start your election day with,” says Garrett M. Graff. “America appears to be rising to the challenge of democracy.” John Light calls it the “November Surprise.” The #toddlerinchief  Maybe less surprising, As Election Day Arrives, Trump Shifts Between Combativeness and Grievance. That’s the latest from Maggie Haberman, Alexander Burns and Jonathan Martin of The New York Times, who note that “by enclosing himself in the thin bubble of his own worldview, Mr. Trump may have further severed himself from the political realities of a country in crisis.” Also, “So apparently part of the reason Trump thinks things would have to be rigged for him to lose is because the people around him keep telling him he’s winning,” Jessica Roy notices.
Another telling tidbit: “In unguarded moments, Mr. Trump has for weeks told advisers that he expects to face intensifying scrutiny from prosecutors if he loses.” And of course, you know this is coming: “PLEASE STAND BY: multiple additions to the #toddlerinchief thread are coming from this story,” tweets Daniel Drezner.  Meanwhile, “Courage!” tweets Shibley Telhami, and by “Courage,” we mean...not. As Ryan Lizza and Daniel Lippman of Politico write, Republicans are publicly silent, but privately disgusted by Trump’s election threats. As you’ll see from that piece, Lizza and Lippman tried mightily to get some on-the-record comments from key Republicans, but were met with mostly silence outside of the Never Trump camp. “Republicans’ refusal to comment on the record as Trump openly discusses murky schemes to prevent legitimate ballots from being counted is peak ‘I didn’t see the tweet’ territory,” says Vera Bergengruen.
In another New York Times piece, Michael Shear, Michael Crowley, Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Edward Wong look at how the sustained effort by Trump, members of his cabinet and other officials to use the powers of incumbency has gone far beyond anything done by his predecessors. Tweets Wong, “NEW: Top Trump officials are accused of using taxpayer resources to campaign for Trump — Pompeo, O’Brien, Barr, Wolf, Ratcliffe. Office of Special Counsel is investigating @SecPompeo for 2 potential illegal acts.” And before we move on, “So about those Trump caravans popping up everywhere.” George Zornick links to the story by Jessica Schulberg, Nick Robins-Early and Jesselyn Cook of HuffPost, QAnon Backers Behind Pro-Trump Caravans Blocking Roads And Disrupting The Election. Yes, those self-described “grassroots assemblage of patriots” were organized by QAnon believers using Facebook groups. Joe Biden’s moment In an essay for Esquire, Ryan D'Agostino reveals, This Is Joe Biden When No One Is Watching. On Twitter, he shares, “When my son got very sick a few years ago, @JoeBiden called. He wanted to help. I haven’t written about it, but I think now is the time.” Dan Pfeiffer thinks, “This story is why we so desperately need Joe Biden to be our President at this exact moment in our country’s history.” Adds Dan Rather, “Sometimes politicians reveal the most when the cameras aren’t rolling. This recollection from @rhdagostino paints a personal portrait of Joe Biden and is worth the read.” Meanwhile, the scoop from Mike Allen and Margaret Talev of Axios is that Biden plans to assert control if he’s declared president-elect. Advisers tell them that if news organizations declare Joe Biden the mathematical president-elect, he plans to address the nation as its new leader, even if President Trump continues to fight in court. How’s this for timing Looks like Dr. Birx is fed up. Lena Sun and Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post have details on an internal White House report in which Deborah Birx pleads for ‘more aggressive action’ against Covid-19 to avert a crisis, even as Trump downplays the threat. While Trump says we’re “rounding the turn,” Birx predicts the US will see more than 100,000 new cases a day this week. Bill Grueskin points out, “It’s not often that a highly charged internal memo dated Nov. 2 leaks on... Nov. 2.”  Also fed up, Donald Trump’s longtime lender, Deutsche Bank. In an exclusive for Reuters, Matt Scuffham, Tom Sims and John O’Donnell report that Deutsche Bank is looking for ways to end its relationship with Trump after the elections, as it tires of the negative publicity stemming from the ties, according to three senior bank officials with direct knowledge of the matter. Eli Yokley calls that scoop “Election Day news that hits the president at home.”
 Remember the Mueller report? Well, well, well, “HOW’S that for TIMING! NEW UNREDACTED sections of the Mueller report just arrived — thanks to @BuzzFeedNews lawsuit. Read for yourself how investigators dug in on Assange, Wikileaks, and Stone.” Ariel Kaminer links to that piece from Jason Leopold and Ken Bensinger of BuzzFeed News, Mueller Investigated Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, And Roger Stone For DNC Hacks And Election Law Violations.
As Alex Howard tweets, “Mueller investigated Assange, @WikiLeaks, & Roger Stone for the hacking of @TheDemocrats servers & campaign finance violations, but did not charge them because of insufficient evidence. Rack that up to chats & deletions. Didn’t follow the $. Mistakes made.” Elsewhere There are some big stories outside the US today, too. Lulu Yilun Chen of Bloomberg reports that China has stopped Jack Ma’s $35 billion Ant IPO from going ahead. “Two. days. before. the. debut,” Justina Lee emphasizes. Ryan Mcmorrow and Hudson Lockett cover the story at the Financial Times, China halts $37bn Ant Group IPO, citing ‘major issues.’ Ian Smith wonders, “You ever get that feeling it’s going to be a nice quiet week?” Nope! “Hong Kong police arrested a prizewinning journalist whose work had exposed the authorities’ delayed response to a mob attack on protesters last year, intensifying concerns about a crackdown on press freedom. Our story here.” Austin Ramzy links to his reporting with Elaine Yu at The New York Times, RTHK’s Bao Choy Arrested After Investigations Into Hong Kong Police. In the UK, “One reason that the government response to the #Covid_19 pandemic has been so catastrophic is sheer sleaze,” Diane Abbott explains. As an example, she shares this story by Mark Harris and David Pegg of The Guardian, £45m deal for NHS masks collapses amid fraud claims. Jack Kennedy puts it this way: “The UK government is the Eliot Ness of organising a piss up in a brewery.” (Seems bad.) In an exclusive for El Diario, Ignacio Escolar and Pedro Águeda report that the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office is investigating King Juan Carlos, Queen Sofía and several of their relatives for the use of opaque credit cards. Raphael Minder says, “If correct, this fraud investigation into offshore credit cards used by King Juan Carlos, his wife and other royal relatives is serious because: 1) it concerns payments after his abdication and 2) it seems unrelated to his Saudi gift hidden in Switzerland.” In Vienna, gunmen opened fire on people enjoying a last night out before a coronavirus lockdown Monday in what authorities said was a terrorist attack that left at least two dead — including one of the assailants — and 15 wounded. Philipp Jenne and Frank Jordans have the details at AP News. “The motive was under investigation, but [Austria’s Chancellor Sebastian] Kurz said the possibility it was an anti-Semitic attack cannot be ruled out, given that the shooting began outside Vienna’s main synagogue,” they write. “It was closed at the time.” Think about something else Here’s a topic: A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can’t Crack, by Nicholas Thompson of Wired. As Thompson reveals, an Appalachian Trail hiker who went by the name “Mostly Harmless” was discovered dead in his tent in 2018. He carried no ID and no phone. Internet sleuths converged to crack the case, but more than two years later, no one can figure out who he was. “I asked her what motivated her to spend so much time looking for a man she’d never met. ‘He’s got to be missed. Someone must miss this guy,’” Sarah Scire quotes from this “incredible @nxthompson story.” Jason Nark offers a “Thanks to @nxthompson from @WIRED for going to down the rabbit hole of the deceased hiker known as Mostly Harmless/Denim/Ben Bilemy and giving me a shout-out for the year I spent in that hole.” As Arielle Pardes says, “This story really has it all: mystery, intrigue, genetic testing, web sleuthing, and a truly commendable demonstration of the hiker credo ‘leave no trace.’” Make it, eat, relax and come back  Lastly today, as we mentioned, it’s not just another Tuesday; it’s National Sandwich Day. So take Dennis Lee’s advice: “Hey. It’s a really big day, and you’re going to want to take a break at some point. My mom’s got a french toast grilled cheese sandwich that takes 10 minutes max, and it’s basic warm comfort food. Shut everything off, make it, eat, relax, and come back.”
He’s got you covered at The Takeout with My mom’s French toast grilled cheese is a big fat hug. (For what it’s worth, today is also your Muck Rack Daily writer’s birthday, but we have our sights set on something that’s slightly higher in octane.) | 
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