US election: Biden prepares for White House and task force on coronavirus during transition limbo

The team helping Joe Biden prepare for the White House and a nonpartisan institution are asking President Donald Trump to cooperate with an orderly transition of power, despite his false claims the election was stolen

Election 2020 Biden Photo Gallery (Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Here’s what’s happening Monday in Election 2020:

TODAY’S TOP STORIES:

TRANSITION LIMBO: The team helping Joe Biden prepare for the White House and a nonpartisan institution are asking President Donald Trump to cooperate with an orderly transition of power, despite his false claims that the election was stolen. Those requests have thrust into the spotlight a little-known agency called the General Services Administration, which is tasked with formally beginning the transition from one administration to another based on all available facts.

REFERENDUM ON TRUMP: The 2020 presidential election has officially hit the highest turnout in more than 50 years. The turnout rate in last week’s presidential election eclipsed the 61.6% of voting age Americans who voted in the 2008 election. It has the highest turnout rate since 1968 — 62% as of Sunday. As new votes are still slowly tallied, that rate will continue to creep higher.

BIDEN'S NEW FIGHT: As he begins his transition to the presidency, Biden is pivoting from a bitter campaign battle to a more pressing fight against the coronavirus pandemic, which has hit the world’s most powerful nation harder than any other. The U.S. is now averaging more than 100,000 new infections a day, and the death toll is soaring. Biden will announce Monday a task force of public health experts to help his administration prepare to take on the virus.

MANGLED ECONOMY: Biden will inherit a mangled U.S. economy — one that never fully healed from the coronavirus and could suffer again as new infections are climbing. It will in some ways be a reprise of when Biden became vice president at the depths of the financial crisis in 2008-09, with possibly fewer tools and less political leverage to press an agenda to corral the virus and stoke economic growth.

QUOTABLE: “We cannot and will not take plaintiff’s word for it — in an election where every vote matters, we will not disenfranchise potentially eligible voters based solely upon the allegations of a private foundation.” —- Federal Judge John Jones, who has said he was doubtful of claims that there were dead people on voter rolls in Pennsylvania.

ICYMI:

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