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TDFP News Roundup – 11/03/26

Writer: Yossi Schmidt
Yossi Schmidt
37 minutes ago
8 min read

Today’s 20 stories from The Digital Free Press on Election Day, led by ballot scanner failures across Westchester County, the Justice Department’s disclosure that it pulled sworn officers from its election monitor pool, Judge James Boasberg’s order barring DOJ ballot demands on California officials, and the full Ninth Circuit’s overnight reversal restoring limits on DOJ warnings to election officials.



Part 1: Top 10 Stories


1. Ballot scanners fail across Westchester County on Election Day; voters told to use emergency ballots in sealed bags

Ballot scanners at polling places across Westchester County, New York, stopped accepting ballots Tuesday morning in what the county Board of Elections described as a countywide problem, The Digital Free Press reports. In a statement sent to The Digital Free Press, the board said ballots that cannot be processed will go into secured orange emergency bags and “will subsequently be counted,” and urged voters to stay in line. The board did not give a cause or say how many sites were affected.


2. Justice Department tells court it pulled ‘several’ sworn officers from its election monitor pool as 1,000 monitors deploy in all 50 states

The Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton in a status report filed early Tuesday that it removed “several sworn law enforcement officers” from its pool of volunteer Election Day monitors, The Digital Free Press reports. The filing came as the department sent roughly 1,000 monitors and observers to polling sites in all 50 states for the first time. Walton on Monday denied the NAACP’s request to block the program but ordered that monitors not be sworn officers who can make arrests.


3. Judge Boasberg bars DOJ ballot demands on California officials and rejects Democrats’ wider suit; only two states got letters, filings show

Chief U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg on Monday barred the Justice Department and DHS from demanding that California election officials set aside the ballots of voters on federal lists of suspected noncitizens, and in a separate ruling turned away a broader lawsuit from national Democratic Party committees, The Digital Free Press reports. Boasberg found the executive branch likely overstepped the Constitution’s Elections Clause. The opinions show that, as of Oct. 31, formal ballot-segregation letters had gone to only two states: California and Washington.


4. Full Ninth Circuit restores limits on DOJ warnings to California election officials hours after a panel lifted them

A three-judge Ninth Circuit panel on Monday night paused a San Francisco judge’s order barring the Justice Department from warning California election officials of possible prosecution over ballots it flagged as likely cast by noncitizens, but hours later the full court vacated that ruling and ordered the case reheard by all 11 active judges, restoring the restrictions, Fox News reported. First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli had posted that the order was “appropriately lifted” before it was restored. The reversal came the same day Justice Elena Kagan denied the administration’s emergency request to make California set aside about 20,000 mail ballots.

Source: Fox News


5. Florida moves polling places in seven counties after flooding

Voters in Brevard, Highlands, Indian River, Martin, Okeechobee, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties are being sent to temporary polling places Tuesday after heavy rain flooded parts of Florida, Fox News reported, citing the Florida Department of State’s website. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed Executive Order 26-227 on Monday, declaring an emergency in several counties and letting election supervisors seek approval for alternative voting arrangements. The state posted a list of the temporary locations.

Source: Fox News


6. D.C. attorney general tells voters to report National Guard troops near polling places

Washington, D.C., Attorney General Brian Schwalb told voters Tuesday to report any National Guard troops near voting locations, saying federal personnel at polling stations is illegal, the Washington Examiner reported. Schwalb said in an X post that his office contacted the Trump administration about the issue before the election and that service members stationed in the District have been instructed to avoid voting centers.


7. California early voting tops 6.4 million ballots, about 934,000 more than the eve of the last midterm

More than 6.4 million California ballots had been cast as of Sunday, according to the California Secretary of State’s latest report, about 934,000 more, or 17.1%, than the roughly 5.47 million recorded the day before the 2022 election, the New York Post reported. Pollster Paul Mitchell of Political Data Inc. said registered Democrats had returned about 51% of ballots in his tracker, Republicans about 28% and other voters about 21%.


8. Nebraska Senate race tightens between Sen. Pete Ricketts and independent Dan Osborn after the Democratic nominee withdrew

Polls show Sen. Pete Ricketts (R-Neb.) with an edge of less than one percentage point over independent Dan Osborn, The Daily Wire reported from Omaha. Democratic nominee Cindy Burbank dropped out shortly after winning the May primary, and the state party did not replace her, leaving Osborn as Ricketts’ main opponent; Nebraska Republicans call it a scheme, and Osborn has denied coordinating with Burbank. Republicans have not lost a Nebraska Senate seat in 20 years.


9. U.S. strikes Iranian targets on Qeshm Island after a missile is fired at an American aircraft, officials say

The United States carried out limited strikes on Iranian military targets on Qeshm Island in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday after Iranian forces reportedly fired a surface-to-air missile at an American aircraft, U.S. officials said, Breitbart News reported. Officials called the strikes defensive, and a senior official told Fox News they were “not the start of new expanded strikes by the US.” Iranian state media reported five explosions on the island.


10. DHS says ‘Operation Guardian’ arrested more than 230 illegal immigrant truck drivers

The Department of Homeland Security said a 72-hour operation from Oct. 26 to Oct. 28 arrested more than 230 illegal immigrants driving trucks, including 40 who held commercial driver’s licenses, Breitbart News reported. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin blamed states including California and New York for “issuing CDLs to individuals that are not qualified to drive.” Oklahoma and Indiana troopers took part. The figures are DHS’s own.


Part 2: 10 More Stories, Only on TDFP


11. Hegseth puts the Pentagon’s spy agencies on a ‘no-fail mission’ against foreign meddling in the midterms

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has directed the Pentagon’s entire Defense Intelligence Enterprise, beyond U.S. Cyber Command and the NSA, to “mobilize every authorized asset, capability, and partnership” against foreign threats to the 2026 elections, in what he calls a “no-fail mission,” Fox News reported on a September directive. The Department of War declined to give Fox News Digital more details, and how much the order changed existing election-security work is unclear.

Source: Fox News


12. Teamsters President Sean O’Brien endorses Republican Sen. Ashley Moody in Florida

Teamsters General President Sean O’Brien, a self-described lifelong Democrat, said Sunday he cast his first Florida ballot for Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Fla.), Fox News reported. O’Brien said Moody “has been extremely helpful working with the Teamsters to protect workers’ pensions,” and Moody said she was proud to have his endorsement. The union says it has about 1.3 million members.

Source: Fox News


13. Federal judge dismisses Trump administration’s lawsuit seeking Harvard admissions records, for now

U.S. District Judge Myong Joun on Monday dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit seeking applicant-level admissions data from Harvard University, ruling the government had not shown it followed required procedures before suing, Fox News reported. The dismissal was without prejudice, so the administration can sue again. The department sued in February over whether Harvard still considers race in admissions after the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling.

Source: Fox News


14. U.S. oil falls below $100 a barrel on hopes of an Iran deal

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 7.8% to about $95.96 a barrel Monday afternoon as the U.S. and Iran signaled openness to talks, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said President Trump “hasn’t made a decision” on new strikes and would “prefer to solve it diplomatically.” AAA put the national average for regular gas at $4.17 a gallon, down from $4.40 a month earlier.

Source: Daily Caller


15. Trump envoys pitched sending Russian gas back to Europe through Ukraine, report says

White House envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner pitched routing Russian gas to Europe through Ukraine again during September trips to Russia and Ukraine, with an American middleman selling it, The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday, according to the Daily Caller News Foundation. A U.S. official told the DCNF that Europeans have shown interest and that any deal would be part of a broader agreement to end the war. Analysts quoted by the DCNF doubted it would get far.

Source: Daily Caller


16. Lockheed Martin announces a $420 million expansion of its Arkansas missile plant as interceptor stocks run low

Lockheed Martin announced a $420 million expansion of its Arkansas missile manufacturing Monday to boost production of Patriot PAC-3 and THAAD interceptors and add 650 jobs over five years, according to the Arkansas Economic Development Commission, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. The company did not say how many more interceptors the expansion would produce or when. Lockheed’s order backlog reached a record $292 billion, its October earnings report shows.

Source: Daily Caller


17. Russian missile and drone barrage knocks out power across Ukraine on U.S. Election Day; Ukraine hits a Russian refinery

Russia launched 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles at Ukraine’s energy grid Tuesday, knocking out power in Kyiv and at least six other regions, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, according to a Reuters report published by the New York Post. Russian officials said a Ukrainian drone attack set fire to a major oil refinery in Yaroslavl overnight. “It is very telling that all of this is happening on the day of the US congressional elections,” Zelenskiy said.


18. Chinese national sentenced to 12 years for moving cocaine for the CJNG cartel

A federal judge sentenced Wenshen Xu, 52, a Chinese national who lived in Honduras, to 12 years in prison and ordered a $22 million judgment for running a network that moved more than 450 kilograms of cocaine from Colombia, mainly for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Breitbart Texas reported, citing the Justice Department. Xu pleaded guilty in June to drug trafficking, money laundering conspiracy and providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization. He was arrested in Guatemala in 2025.


19. Judge refuses Florida-NRA deal to end gun purchase waiting period and invites gun-control groups to defend it

Senior U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday declined to approve a settlement between Florida and the NRA that would have declared the state’s firearm waiting period unconstitutional, and invited Brady and Giffords, plus Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature, to weigh in by Feb. 1, 2027, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported. Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier had agreed the waiting period violates the Second Amendment. The waiting period stays in place for now.

Source: Daily Caller


20. Hackers turn up the heat on supermarket fridges across Europe, spoiling millions in food

More than 100 supermarkets and food suppliers in nine European countries were hit Sunday night by hackers who remotely set internet-connected refrigerators to defrost, spoiling millions of euros of food, Breitbart News reported. EU Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen called it a deliberate bid to sabotage Europe’s food supply. Who is behind the attacks is not known, and the EU says it will investigate.


Seeing election problems at your polling place? Contact The Digital Free Press at tips@thedigitalfreepress.com.


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