Live updates on the 2024 election amid head-to-head polls as Harris and Trump make inroads in battleground states

Nicole Wallace publicly called on her old boss, former President George W. Bush, to speak out against former President Donald Trump before Election Day on her MSNBC show “Deadline: White House” on Friday evening.

Wallace, who served as White House communications director during the Bush administration, said she understands better than most that after his presidency he prefers to talk about his actions, his work with veterans and his presidential library.

But after Trump's insults and use of violent language about former Rep. Liz Cheneythe daughter of his vice president, Wallace, said she contacted his office to see if “anything would change his mind about remaining silent before the election.”

An adviser told her that Bush didn't want to interfere in the election.

After playing some of Bush's own words about what Americans do to defend freedom in the face of threats, Wallace said: “We have a right to hope that those who stood for freedom and those who celebrated protected them one last time.” -minute change of heart in the final hours of this campaign.

Texas' top elections official, Secretary of State Jane Nelson, said the state will not allow federal observers into polling places in Texas.

“Texans can have confidence in the state’s strong measures to ensure election integrity,” Nelson said in a post on X, where she also published her letter to the Justice Department.

The Department of Justice enforces federal voting rights laws that protect the right of all eligible citizens to access the ballot. The department regularly deploys its staff to monitor compliance with federal civil rights laws in elections throughout the United States

When enforcing federal voting rights laws, the Justice Department regularly deploys observers to ensure compliance with voting rights. It announced plans Friday to send monitors to 86 jurisdictions in 27 states, including eight locations in Texas.

The US Supreme Court on Friday declined to freeze a decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which required election officials to count provisional ballots from people whose mail-in ballots were invalid because they lacked mandatory secrecy envelopes.

The justices' order means election officials in the battleground state must count provisional ballots submitted on Election Day by voters who returned defective mail-in ballots, either because they were not accompanied by secrecy envelopes or because they did not sign or date the outer envelope.

Donald Trump held his final Wisconsin rally of the 2024 campaign on Friday evening, returning to the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, site of the Republican convention, to deliver his final message to the Badger State. He narrowly won Wisconsin in 2016, but lost the state's 10 electoral votes to Joe Biden in 2020.

The rally was plagued by microphone problems. People in the upper sections at the back of the arena couldn't hear Trump and he expressed frustration with the technical problems.

“I’m seething. “I’m busting my ass with a stupid microphone,” Trump said.

He then made rude gestures toward the microphone stand and complained that it was too low. He held the microphone for the rest of the rally, but complained several times about how heavy it was. He also threatened not to pay the contractor.

“Do you want to see me destroy the people backstage?” Trump asked. “I don't ask for much. The only thing I ask for is a good microphone. And this is the second time today that something like this has happened.”

He blamed campaign manager Susie Wiles for the microphone problem.

By Olivia Rinaldi and Katrina Kaufman

Both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigned in the Milwaukee area on Friday evening, kicking off the final weekend of the 2024 campaign. Harris didn't deviate much from her standard speech in West Allis, Michigan, a Milwaukee suburb. She urged those who have not yet cast their vote to vote.

“No judgment, no judgment at all — but get to the point,” Harris said before running through the list of her campaign promises and the litany of complaints against Trump.

Cardi B, who spoke shortly before Harris, told the crowd that she didn't want to vote this year, but “Kamala Harris changed my mind.”

She called Trump a “bully” and said, “I can't stand a bully, but just like Kamala, I'll face one.” Cardi B repeatedly said she was nervous to speak at the rally. Women, she said, have to work ten times harder than men, “and yet people question us.”