More than 134 billionaires are currently trying to influence the outcomes of the United States presidential election, many of them so far have spent hundreds of millions to achieve their target.
The US which is home to over 800 billionaires, some are using their vast weath to try and influence the result of the election.
Billionaires have so far donated about 18 percent of the $3.8bn raised by Trump’s and Harris’s campaigns.
Eighty-two (82) billionaires are supporting Harris, making up 6 percent of her campaign funds, while fifty-teo (52) are backing Trump, making up 34 percent of his campaign funds. Most of Trump’s funds are coming from just four donors, including Elon Musk and Israeli-American Miriam Adelson.
Harris’s billionaire donors include Bill Gates, who is said to have given $50m to a political action committee supporting her, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Report says, a total of over 78 million has so far casted their votes.
That’s according to a tally by the Election Lab at the University of Florida.
The figure represents nearly half of the total votes cast in the 2020 presidential election.
Meanwhile, Officials in the states of Florida and Texas have said they will not allow Justice Department election monitors into polling sites tomorrow while Missouri also has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to block federal observers.
In a letter to the Justice Department, Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson wrote that “Texas law is clear: Justice Department monitors are not permitted inside polling places where ballots are being cast or a central counting station where ballots are being counted.”
“Texas has a robust processes and procedures in place to ensure that eligible voters may participate in a free and fair election,” Nelson wrote.
In the Missouri lawsuit, Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft accused the federal government of “attempting to illegally interfere in Missouri’s elections”.
The moves to push out federal observers in the Republican-led states challenges federal authorities’ longstanding role in watching for violations of voting laws.
The Justice Department plans to send its monitors to 86 jurisdictions across 27 states on Election Day tomorrow. They include Maricopa County, Arizona and Fulton County, Georgia, which in 2020 became the centres of election conspiracy theories spread by Trump and other Republicans.
Source: Aljazeera