SUPREME COURT RULES 5-3 TO NOT INTERVENE IN NC BALLOT DEADLINE EXTENSION: North Carolina voters will have more than a week for their ballots to reach election officials and still be counted after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene Wednesday night. The new deadline for mail-in ballots to be received is Nov. 12, though ballots must still be postmarked on or before Nov. 3, Election Day. The previous deadline for ballots to be received by local boards was Nov. 6, as set by state lawmakers. The Supreme Court declined to overturn lower court rulings in a 5-3 decision. New Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in the consideration or decision. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals permitted the Nov. 12 deadline on Oct. 27.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article246660368.html

TILLIS AND BURR GUSH OVER UNQUALIFIED SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: “I think Judge Amy Coney Barrett is going to go down in history as one of the great justices on the Supreme Court,” Tillis said in a seven-minute speech Monday on the Senate floor. “Judge Barrett has proven to be an exceptionally qualified and well-respected jurist. Throughout her distinguished career, she has demonstrated that she will faithfully serve as an impartial judge to defend the Constitution and rule of law,” Burr said in a statement after the vote. Barrett, a former law professor at the University of Notre Dame, has been an appellate court judge in the 7th U.S. Circuit since 2017, when she was nominated by Trump. Barrett is a mother of seven, including two adopted children from Haiti. In June, Burr and Tillis signed a brief asking the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v. Wade, the 1973 law that allowed women the right to seek an abortion nationwide.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article246726701.html

PANDEMIC SHOWS FREEDOM IS NOT AFFIRMATION OF SELFISH ENTITLEMENT: Callous and frivolous notions of acceptable casualties, particularly among the old and infirmed ignore the obvious: None of those who die of COVID-19 have been fated to it. Each is loved by someone – as a parent, child, sibling, spouse relative or friend. The ways to deal with controlling the spread are not about limiting freedom, but rather affirm the notions of freedom that inspired our nation’s founders. Freedom is “doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow, without impediment from our fellow creatures, as long as what we do does not harm them even though they should think our conduct foolish, perverse or wrong,” said John Stuart Mill in “On Liberty.” It is selfish entitlement that gives anyone license to, by choice or purposeful neglect, ignore and put at risk the liberty and life of others. No society that values freedom can survive on these terms.
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/editorial-covid-19-pandemic-shows-freedom-is-not-affirmation-of-sel...

FOREST CONTINUES TO DODGE MEDIA QUESTIONS ABOUT HOW HE WOULD PROTECT ELDERLY FROM VIRUS: The lieutenant governor hasn’t released a plan, and he wouldn’t respond to WRAL News' questions about it this week. He hasn’t reached out to advocacy groups that work in that space, including the North Carolina Assisted Living Association, the North Carolina Senior Living Association, the AARP and Friends of Residents in Long Term Care, which advocates for people in nursing homes and assisted living facilities. As for Forest’s plans, his campaign website gives more information about his plan to improve coastal fishing than his promise to protect senior citizens. Forest said on the radio show that protecting the vulnerable is "not that difficult to do," but "we’re not being told the truth." He also complained about being asked for his pandemic response plan. “The media wants to come back now, now that we’re two weeks away, and say, 'Well, what would Dan Forest do to protect nursing homes?'" he said. "Why don’t you ask Gov. Cooper what Gov. Cooper would do to protect nursing homes, because he’s not doing it? That’s the story. He’s the governor. The weight falls on his shoulders while he’s the governor.”
https://www.wral.com/coronavirus/from-forest-a-promise-to-protect-senior-citizens-from-covid-but-no-...

2.1 MILLION VOTES CAST SO FAR IN NORTH CAROLINA: With two weeks to go until Election Day, more than a quarter of all voters in North Carolina have already cast their ballots. More than 1.4 million people have cast early, in-person votes since last Thursday, and elections officials statewide have accepted another 658,000 absentee ballots that have been mailed in, according to the State Board of Elections. The combined total of nearly 2.1 million is 28.4 percent of the state's 7.3 million registered voters. With so many votes coming in before Election Day, North Carolina will be far ahead of other states on what could be a long election night. State law allows absentee ballots cast both by mail and in person to be approved over the course of five weeks at each county’s elections board meetings. Those ballots are scanned into a tabulator and recorded, but the vote totals aren't counted up.
https://www.wral.com/nc-will-be-ahead-of-curve-on-tallying-votes-on-election-night/19345797/