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Amid mounting desperation about his reelection odds, President Trump has increasingly come to rely on an unorthodox campaign tool: the Department of Health and Human Services. As the Nov. 3 election draws closer, HHS and the agencies within it have rolled out several initiatives clearly motivated as much by the election as by policy considerations. Most notably, the administration has announced plans to spend billions of taxpayer dollars on seemingly political projects like a mass marketing campaign to “inspire hope” about Covid-19 and a pending plan to mail $200 pharmacy gift certificates to millions of seniors. (Facher, 10/21)

California Attorney General Xavier Becerra is pursuing a court order to wring more information from the California Republican Party about its unofficial ballot collection boxes. Becerra wants the California GOP to share the locations of the boxes and the identity of voters who have used them. In a court filing, Becerra argued that such information is critical to ensuring that votes are counted and that the California Republican Party is abiding by election laws governing how it collects ballots. The filing says the Republican Party has refused to share the information requested. (White, 10/20)

A bitterly divided federal appeals court has denied an attempt by Republicans to block an agreement by North Carolina state officials allowing absentee ballots in next month’s election to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received up to nine days later. (Gerstein, 10/21)