CBS News
What Iran’s leaders and citizens are saying as the U.S. plans strikes on Iranian targets in Iraq and Syria
The world was still waiting to see on Thursday, four days after the drone attack in Jordan that killed three American service members, exactly how the U.S. would respond. President Biden blamed the strike on “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” and an umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq later appeared to claim responsibility.
Mr. Biden vowed the U.S. would “hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner our choosing,” and U.S. officials tell CBS News strikes against targets in Iraq and Syria have been approved — including against Iranian personnel and facilities in those countries. It’s now just a matter of when, the officials say.
Iran’s reaction to the looming threat of American retaliation against what the Biden administration calls Iranian proxy groups has been a consistent denial of any responsibility for the attacks on American forces — and a warning that any strike on Iranian territory or personnel would escalate tension in the tumultuous region, not make U.S. forces safer.
Iranian officials insist the country does not have proxies, and that the loosely affiliated collection of armed groups it supports across the Mideast, which it calls the “axis of resistance,” act independently.
Iranian officials issue warnings and dismiss America’s
The head of Iran’s mission at the United Nations, Ambassador Amirsaead Irvani, has said there have been no direct messages exchanged between Iran and the U.S. over the Jordan attack. He’s warned that Iran would respond “strongly” to any strike by the U.S. on Iran or Iranians inside or outside of the country.
A top military commander issued a similar warning.
“We are telling the Americans that you have tried us before, and we know each other well — we will not leave any threat unanswered,” said Gen. Hossein Salami, commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard force (IRGC).
Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu/Getty
Esmail Kosari, a former IRGC commander who’s now an Iranian lawmaker, dismissed the rhetoric from U.S. officials as “psychological warfare.” He said this week that the Biden administration was “bluffing about the military attack to scare our people.”
Iranian civilians react to threat of U.S. strikes
But price hikes on foreign currency and commodities in Iran show there is anxiety over how the U.S. will respond and what it could lead to, and many Iranians citizens are deeply concerned about the potential financial impact of a conflict with the U.S.
Many Iranian civilians, just like top Biden administration officials, say they don’t want a war with the U.S.
“I hope it doesn’t happen,” Ali, who works for a private company in Tehran and didn’t want to use his full name, told CBS News. “It will mostly affect ordinary people, as the economy is already in a bad enough situation and people are struggling to make ends meet. So, getting into a war with America, even if it’s not a full-scale war, will make life worse than it already is, and I think people don’t want it.”
More fervent supporters of Iran’s government tend to echo their leaders’ more bullish rhetoric.
Somayeh, a Tehran resident who works as a clerk in the government sector told CBS News she supports President Ebrahim Raisi, and believes “the U.S. is afraid of Iran’s strong retaliation if they strike inside Iran.”
“They have some military bases near Iran that are easy targets for Iran, so they will not cross the red line,” she predicted.
What happened before, and what comes next
U.S. strikes have already targeted Iran-backed groups in the region, and those attacks have drawn little response from Tehran.
It isn’t clear how Iran would respond to an attack on its nationals or military personnel in Iraq or Syria, but just days after the U.S. killed a senior Iranian commander in Iraq in 2020, almost a dozen Iranian cruise missiles razed the U.S. military’s Al Asad Air Base in Iraq to the ground.
Nobody was killed, thanks to a remarkable evacuation effort, but some U.S. troops suffered traumatic brain injury.
With more than 3,000 U.S. troops based at dozens of sites across Iraq and Syria, all within easy reach of Iranian missiles and the weapons held by its associated groups, the next move taken by the U.S. could have serious ramifications, even if people on both sides say they don’t want a war.
Throughout Election Day and night, CBS News’ Confirmed team will be fact checking reports of threats around voting today, voter fraud, election hacking, and more as the nation votes and waits to see whether Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States., CBS News’ full coverage of the election is here.
False: Elon Musk claimed Google intentionally manipulating search results in favor of Harris
X owner Elon Musk posted, then deleted, a screen recording comparing the Google searches. The post reached over 2.5 million views before its removal, with other posts garnering thousands of views.
Details: Google said searches for “where to vote for Harris” yielded a polling location map because Harris is also the name of a county in Texas, not because of bias for the Democratic candidate.
Searching for “where to vote for Trump” returned news articles and standard search results, while “where to vote for Vance” produced a similar polling locations map because Vance is the name of a county in North Carolina.
Google adjusted its algorithm Tuesday to prevent candidate-related queries from returning polling maps. Google trends data show that searching “where to vote” is a much more common query than searching where to vote for either Trump or Harris.
By Julia Ingram and Layla Ferris
False: Social media posts claim Milwaukee mayor, a Democrat, said the city’s votes would not be counted on election night
On X, users claimed that the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee said at a news conference that Milwaukee would not be counting ballots tonight.
Details: Votes in Milwaukee will be tabulated tonight despite posts on the social media platform X that have pushed a false claim that Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson said votes in the city won’t be counted on election night.
In reality, vote counting started Tuesday morning and will continue late into Tuesday night or early Wednesday morning at the city’s so-called “central count” location, according to Johnson’s communications director, Jeff Fleming.
“They’ve already started tabulating, and had tabulated thousands of ballots by this afternoon,” Fleming said. “The vote totals exceeded our original projections, so the workload at central count is higher than expected.”
Milwaukee’s votes can take longer to count for several reasons, Barry Burden, Director of the University of Wisconsin’s Elections Research Center, said.
“It’s the biggest city, and it has the most ballots, and it also counts absentee ballots at a central location,” Burden said. “That’ll be after midnight, 1 (a.m.) or 2 a.m.”
The city’s more than 200 election workers started counting votes at 9 a.m. Tuesday morning, Fleming said. They’ll continue the tabulation overnight, and ballots will be delivered to county clerks either the next day or the day after, depending on local rules.
By Chris Hacker
Spreadsheet error corrected: GOP U.S. House candidate says Harris County, Texas, early vote results showed big drops and spikes in early voting
U.S. House candidate Caroline Kane, a Republican running in Texas’ 7th District, posted on X Monday that Harris County’s early vote results showed significant drops and spikes in the number of early voters for several voting locations between Sunday and Monday, which should not be possible.
Details: Election officials said a misaligned spreadsheet caused the publicly reported early vote totals in Harris County to appear incorrectly. Local officials have corrected the document posted online by Kane. They noted the spreadsheet was labeled “unofficial” and said the error would not impact the official vote tally.
In a statement, the Office of the Harris County Clerk said, “In the process of updating the daily record of early vote totals for two vote centers (Baytown Community Center and Mission Bend Center), the formatting of the spreadsheet inadvertently misaligned, causing cells to shift and reflect incorrect numbers for other locations. Our office is aware and is actively working to correct the report.”
“I assure you that every vote that was cast will be accurately tallied,” the statement from the clerk’s office concluded.
By Jui Sarwate
Software malfunction prevented some voters from scanning ballots in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. Voting hours extended to 10 p.m. in the county.
Details: Local courts have extended voting hours from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. in Cambria County, Pennsylvania after local officials said a “software malfunction” prevented voters from scanning their ballots early Tuesday morning.
Voters are using paper ballots as technicians review the issue.
“All votes will be counted and we continue to encourage everyone to vote,” the county commissioner’s office said in a press release.
According to the county’s petition to extend voting hours, the malfunction “caused voter confusion, long lines of voters, and many individuals left the polling locations without casting a ballot.
“The Pennsylvania Department of State said it is in contact with Cambria County and is “committed to ensuring a free, fair, safe, and secure election.”
Cambria County, located in southwestern Pennsylvania, has a population of approximately 131,000. Trump won the county 68% to 31% in 2020, and he won by a similar margin in 2016.
By Steve Reilly, Julia Ingram, Layla Ferris
False: Non-citizens encouraged to vote in Philadelphia
Conservative commentator James O’Keefe claimed non-citizens are being encouraged to vote in Philadelphia.
Details: Philadelphia officials said allegations by commentator James O’Keefe that non-citizens are being encouraged to vote are incorrect. O’Keefe posted a new video on Monday claiming Election Clerk Milton Jamerson and Ceiba, a local non-profit, advised voting with an ITIN number, regardless of citizenship.
The video received 1.6 million views on X as of Tuesday, and was reposted by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who said it was “the smoking gun of attempted election theft.”
Philadelphia City Commissioner Seth Bluestein said the report was incorrect and non-citizens are not eligible to vote in Philadelphia. ITINs are for tax purposes and not linked to voting eligibility. Ceiba called O’Keefe’s claims “unfounded and based on harmful stereotypes.”
By Joanne Stocker and Emmet Lyons
Watch CBS News
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.
If the election in Pennsylvania is close, new challenges made to over 3,500 voters, many of whom live overseas and cast ballots by mail, could prove to be a pivotal part of the effort to undermine confidence in the 2024 election.
“Throughout the day Friday, several bad-faith mass challenges were filed in a coordinated effort in counties across the Commonwealth to question the qualifications of thousands of registered Pennsylvania voters who applied to vote by mail ballot,” the Pennsylvania Department of State said in a statement.
Most of the voters are individuals who live overseas and vote absentee under the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a federal law that has allowed certain citizens living overseas to vote since 1986. This group of voters includes active military members, people who work abroad, and expats.
Additional challenges were filed questioning voters’ residency because they had a permanent mail forwarding address with the U.S. Postal Service.
“These challenges are based on theories that courts have repeatedly rejected,” the Pennsylvania Department of State said.
Josh Maxwell, chair of the Board of Commissioners in Chester County, said the elections office received hundreds of challenges from activists in his community based off USPS mail forwarding data. He believes the effort was made in an effort to deprive legitimate voters their right to vote.
“It’s about disenfranchising voters in a swing state and overturning the outcome of an election,” he said.
Many of these challenges arise from activists associated with organizations that say they focus on election integrity. In Chester County, the activist challenging votes claimed to be affiliated with the group PA Fair Elections in a video hearing last week. PA Fair Elections is part of a broader national initiative to scrutinize voter registrations and ballots, according to the progressive watchdog group Documented.
According to a report released to CBS News by Documented, PA Fair Elections is run by Heather Honey, an activist whose organization is known for her work to change elections procedures around the country.
Honey is the head of the Election Research Institute, and was involved in the controversial petition to the Georgia State Elections Board that would have made it easier for county boards to block the certification of elections, according to ProPublica. The rule has since been blocked by a Fulton County judge. Honey denies involvement in pushing the Georgia rule.
“Heather Honey is working as part of a well funded, nationally organized effort to manufacture election conspiracy theories, drum up thinly-sourced voter challenges and call the results into requisition when MAGA Republicans lose,” said Brendan Fisher, Documented’s deputy executive director.
PA Fair Elections denied any involvement in voter challenges in an email to CBS News. Heather Honey did not respond to a request for comment as of publication.
Aside from activist groups, several of the challenges to individual voters came from Republican State Senator Jarrett Coleman, who submitted challenges in Bucks and Lehigh Counties. The letter also says he submitted a $10 fee per voter challenge as required. Coleman’s office did not respond to CBS News for comment.
Now, counties with challenged voters must hold a hearing before the certification deadline on Nov. 12 about the status of these voters, which legal groups say is cause for concern. The ACLU sent an email to 67 county solicitors in Pennsylvania asking the officials to throw out the challenges to both groups of voters.
“Counties should formally dismiss or deny the challenges as quickly as possible to minimize any delay or disruption to the canvassing process,” the ACLU letter stated.
Both York and Chester counties have already rejected all the challenges.
Concern over overseas absentee voting has been amplified by former President Donald Trump, who posted on Truth Social in September that Democrats “are getting ready to CHEAT! They are going to use UOCAVA [Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act]
to get ballots, a program that emails ballots overseas without any citizenship check or verification of identity, whatsoever.”
Overseas absentee voting has become a rallying cry for self-described “election integrity” activists who claim individuals living overseas could be submitting fraudulent voter information. In the last few weeks, two lawsuits about overseas absentee voting have been thrown out in North Carolina and Michigan.
With the Pennsylvania challenges, election boards are the arbitrators, not judges.
Fact checking Election Day 2024 claims about voter fraud, ballot counting and more
South Dakota is deciding whether to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana
Sen. Laphonza Butler on Harris campaign on Election Day 2024
Fact checking Election Day 2024 claims about voter fraud, ballot counting and more
South Dakota is deciding whether to protect abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana