An assault on American voters is underway

[skinsmarydu]

Breaking news per WSB-TV:  Two election workers have been fired for shredding voter registrations in Fulton County.  I haven't seen the full story yet...

 

Edit, add:  here it is

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/election-workers-accused-of-shredding-voter-applications/ar-AAPohBL?ocid=winp1taskbar

 

 

 

 

Edited October 11, 2021 by skinsmarydu

[The Evil Genius]

 

 

[China]

 

 

[China]

Why are Michigan Republicans quietly replacing key election officials?

 

Michigan Republicans are quietly moving to replace officials on key elections panels in the state with candidates who have embraced conspiracy theories about the last election, a move that could cause significant chaos in the counting of votes in the 2024 election and beyond.

 

Some of the people being nominated have voiced racist ideas and expressed support for the idea that the 2020 election was stolen. Excellent reporting in the Detroit News this week lays out how this is happening.

 

This year, Republicans have nominated new people to serve on boards of canvassers – which play an important role in the machinery of elections – in eight of Michigan’s 11 largest counties. Michigan is a key swing state in US presidential elections and Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump there by more than 154,000 votes in 2020.

 

“It’s very unusual,” Chris Thomas, who served as the state’s election director for decades, told me. “Hardcore activists aren’t necessarily the best people to be in a position that requires, frankly, a little bit of neutrality.”

 

After election day, a four-person board of canvassers in each county, split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, reviews precinct election results and makes sure that there are no abnormalities that need to be investigated. Once they check the results, they certify them, passing them to the state board of canvassers for final certification.

 

Last year, the usually under-the-radar board of canvassers became a key part of Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the election in Michigan. Facing pressure from Trump and his allies, the two Republican members of the board of canvassers in Wayne county, the most populous in the state and home to Detroit, initially refused to certify the election results before eventually backing down.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[The Evil Genius]

 

[Llevron]

Dems just letting them take it huh? 

[China]

Schumer, McConnell headed for another collision over voting rights

 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) are headed for another clash over voting rights legislation next week and it’s expected to result in another stalemate on a top Democratic priority.

 

Schumer announced in a “Dear Colleague” letter circulated Thursday morning that he will file cloture on Monday to set up a vote in the middle of next week on the Freedom to Vote legislation.

 

 But McConnell on Thursday evening slammed the door on the idea of the bill picking up enough GOP support to move forward.

 

“Another week, another effort by Washington Democrats to create fake drama over a proposed election takeover that will go nowhere,” he said in a statement. “Senator Schumer wants to stage another political stunt around the umpteenth iteration of the same partisan power grab that the Senate has already considered and rejected repeatedly.”

 

Schumer predicted in his letter to colleagues that the voting rights bill, which has been crafted by Senate Rules Committee Chairwoman Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) in consultation with centrist Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), will have the support of the entire Senate Democratic caucus.

 

Schumer noted that Manchin has reached out extensively to Senate Republican colleagues to build bipartisan support and expressed hope that at least 10 Republicans would vote to begin a floor debate on the measure.

 

“I hope that our Republican colleagues will join us in good faith, and as I have said before, if they have ideas on how to improve the legislation, we are prepared to hear them, debate them, and if they are in line with the goals of the legislation, include them in the bill,” Schumer said in his letter.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

^^^^McConnell looking to set up Trump so if he gets re-elected it will be the last true election.

 

Trump allies eye election law push should he be reelected

 

Even before he lost his reelection bid, former President Donald Trump has been obsessed with challenging and changing election laws. Should he find himself back in the White House, his allies are hoping to turn that obsession into legislative action.

 

Trump is expected to mount another bid for president in 2024. And as talk of such a campaign has grown more concrete, so too has speculation over what type of agenda he’d actually pursue.

 

Some answers can be found in the work being done by America First Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank stacked with former Trump administration officials. Among the group’s 20 main policy priorities, which include trade, immigration and education, is promoting more comprehensive voter restrictions in the name of election integrity. Officials describe it as a priority.

 

“One hundred percent yes,” AFPI President and former Trump White House Domestic Policy Council Director Brooke Rollins said of having legislation on a set of issues ready to go should Trump prevail in a 2024 election. “If we do our job right we will have a package of model legislation for the federal government and the state governments where they align.”

 

Rollins said she hoped Trump wouldn’t need to push election legislation because states would have done so themselves. But she left open the door for him to fill that void. “We have the fall, spring state legislative sessions,” Rollins said. “We have many shots at getting it right before the next presidential election.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

6 hours ago, Llevron said:

Dems just letting them take it huh? 

 

Looks to me like they stuck with county lines, where possible.  A notion I agree with.  

 

[China]

Wow, Texas has some crazy gerrymandering going on:

 

Texas House finalizes gnarled U.S. House map that gives GOP bounty from decade of Hispanic growth

 

[China]

 

 

--------------------------------------

 

Apparently democrats in Illinois are doing the same thing:

 

ILLINOIS’ ‘EXTREME’ RISK OF GERRYMANDERING BECOMES REALITY THROUGH CONGRESSIONAL MAP

 

[China]

Democrats' biggest push for voting rights is set to fail with no Republicans on board

 

Senate Democrats biggest and perhaps last push this year for major voting rights legislation is headed for near-certain defeat on Wednesday because of widespread opposition from Republicans. That's despite the Democrats' effort to craft a compromise bill led in part by Sen. Joe Manchin, legislation that the West Virginia Democrat hoped he could use to get enough GOP votes to overcome a filibuster.

 

Democrats say federal voting legislation is needed to counteract a wave of new restrictions from Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country. Critics of those laws say they are making it more difficult to vote, particularly for people of color.

 

"Democrats are ready to have this debate right now," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday, describing the legislation as a "a bill that every Senate Democrat is united behind, enthusiastically."

 

The bill would among other things establish Election Day as a national holiday, set national minimum standards for early voting and voting by mail, and create new requirements for groups not currently required to disclose their financial donors. It also includes standards for states that require voter identification, something that was a priority of Manchin.

 

The Freedom to Vote Act was negotiated by a group of Senate Democrats, including Manchin, who was his party's lone holdout on the sweeping voting rights measure that passed the House earlier this year. Parts of the House-passed voting rights bill, called the For the People Act, were scaled back to win over Manchin's support, as well as some Republicans. Manchin played a key role in courting Republican support for the compromise bill in recent weeks.

 

In the 50-50 Senate, Democrats would need support from Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster and allow the bill to be considered.

 

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, called on Republicans to at least agree to debate on the bill, saying "don't use the filibuster, the weapon of Jim Crow" to block consideration of voting rights legislation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[China]

Abbott's pick for secretary of state worked with Trump to challenge election results

 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's (R) pick for secretary of state worked with former President Trump to challenge the results of the 2020 election in Pennsylvania. 

 

Abbott appointed John Scott to fill the role of the Texas Secretary of State on Thursday, putting him in charge of election administration and publishing government rules and regulations, among other things. 

 

"John understands the importance of protecting the integrity of our elections and building the Texas brand on an international stage," Abbott said in a statement announcing Scott's appointment. "I am confident that John's experience and expertise will enhance his oversight and leadership over the biggest and most thorough election audit in the country."

 

The Texas Tribune reported Scott signed on to represent Trump in Nov. 2020 in a case to block the election results in Pennsylvania. He filed a motion to withdraw as an attorney on the case a few days later. 

 

Under pressure from Trump, Texas officials announced in September they were launching “full forensic audit” of the 2020 election in four of the state's largest counties, including three that went for President Biden. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

[China]

GOP uses voters to push voting restrictions, election reforms in unlikely states

 

Republicans have succeeded this year in passing a range of voting restrictions in states they control politically, from Georgia to Iowa to Texas. They’re not stopping there.

 

Republicans in at least four states where Democrats control the governor’s office, the legislature or both — California, Massachusetts, Michigan and Pennsylvania — are pursuing statewide ballot initiatives or veto-proof proposals to enact voter ID restrictions and other changes to election law.

 

In another state, Nebraska, Republicans control the governor’s office and have a majority in the single-house legislature, but are pushing a voter ID ballot measure because they have been unable to get enough lawmakers on board.

 

Republicans say they are pursuing the changes in the name of “election integrity,” and repeat similar slogans — “easier to vote, harder to cheat.” Democrats dismiss it as the GOP following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that widespread fraud cost him the election. They say Republicans have tried to whip up distrust in elections for political gain and are passing restrictions designed to keep Democratic-leaning voters from registering or casting a ballot.

 

“It’s depressing that this is the way that (the Trump) wing of the Republican Party thinks they have to win, instead of trying to win on issues or beliefs,” said Gus Bickford, the Democratic Party chairman in Massachusetts. “They just want to suppress the vote.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Virginia Democrats sue USPS for delays that threaten to 'disenfranchise' voters

 

The Virginia Democratic Party filed a lawsuit against the United States Postal Service (USPS) on Friday for allegedly failing to process and deliver election-related mail on time, contending the delays are “threatening to disenfranchise” thousands of voters ahead of next month’s contentious gubernatorial election.

 

The lawsuit argues that while problems are being observed throughout the commonwealth, the “significant delay in election mail” in Albemarle, Portsmouth and James City counties is “particularly egregious.”

 

The party is alleging that thousands of ballots delivered to postal facilities by general registrars in those counties are “still outstanding” and have yet to be scanned into USPS’s system.

The plaintiffs said these delays are causing uncertainty regarding whether ballots can be returned in time to be counted.

 

“Even if these voters do eventually receive their ballots before Election Day, the slowdowns promise that they will not have sufficient time to send them back with assurance that they will arrive in time to be counted,” the lawsuit reads.

 

“And even if a ballot reaches the appropriate election official before the receipt deadline, if the official identifies any issues with it that require remediation before it may be counted, the voters will have run out of time to rectify the problem,” the lawsuit adds.

 

The lawsuit — which names Frank Veal, the USPS South Atlantic division director, and Gerald Roane, the USPS Virginia district manager, as plaintiffs — comes less than two weeks before Virginians are scheduled to head to the polls and vote for the next governor of the commonwealth.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

A QAnon conspiracy theory about election fraud is becoming a pro-Trump push for traceable ballots

 

Pro-Trump contenders who maintain the 2020 presidential contest was "rigged" against the former president are shifting their focus to new election and ballot security measures anchored by online conspiracy theories.

 

One of the right's emerging favorites is traceable ballots, a combination of printed security paper and digital tracking that would allow a person to look up their ballots after being cast.

 

An "America First" coalition of secretaries of state candidates backed by former President Donald Trump are among those calling for election officials to adopt those traceable, watermarked ballots as a remedy to fraudulent or illegal voting – even in the absence of proof of widespread voter fraud.

 

The idea is especially attractive to right-leaning candidates who say it will secure U.S. elections and restore faith in the process as turnout woes plague Republicans, some of whom argue their base is being depressed by the false claims.

 

But critics warn traceable ballots have their recent roots in online conspiracy theories around an election where the current protections largely worked. Others, including election security advocates who are more sympathetic to the idea, fear it would also violate a person's right to cast a secret ballot, a mainstay of the U.S. democratic system for the last hundred years.

 

"There is this lie that's still being peddled by many of the supporters of the former president, that the election was stolen, and that's impacting the views of Republicans and conservatives," Trey Grayson, a Republican and former Kentucky secretary of state, told USA TODAY. "And there are people and there are groups that are trying to exploit this."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[mcsluggo]

On 10/20/2021 at 1:40 PM, China said:

Democrats' biggest push for voting rights is set to fail with no Republicans on board

 

Senate Democrats biggest and perhaps last push this year for major voting rights legislation is headed for near-certain defeat on Wednesday because of widespread opposition from Republicans. That's despite the Democrats' effort to craft a compromise bill led in part by Sen. Joe Manchin, legislation that the West Virginia Democrat hoped he could use to get enough GOP votes to overcome a filibuster.

 

Democrats say federal voting legislation is needed to counteract a wave of new restrictions from Republican-controlled state legislatures across the country. Critics of those laws say they are making it more difficult to vote, particularly for people of color.

 

"Democrats are ready to have this debate right now," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., told reporters Tuesday, describing the legislation as a "a bill that every Senate Democrat is united behind, enthusiastically."

 

The bill would among other things establish Election Day as a national holiday, set national minimum standards for early voting and voting by mail, and create new requirements for groups not currently required to disclose their financial donors. It also includes standards for states that require voter identification, something that was a priority of Manchin.

 

The Freedom to Vote Act was negotiated by a group of Senate Democrats, including Manchin, who was his party's lone holdout on the sweeping voting rights measure that passed the House earlier this year. Parts of the House-passed voting rights bill, called the For the People Act, were scaled back to win over Manchin's support, as well as some Republicans. Manchin played a key role in courting Republican support for the compromise bill in recent weeks.

 

In the 50-50 Senate, Democrats would need support from Republicans to reach the 60-vote threshold to break a filibuster and allow the bill to be considered.

 

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat, called on Republicans to at least agree to debate on the bill, saying "don't use the filibuster, the weapon of Jim Crow" to block consideration of voting rights legislation.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 California and New York need to go ONE HUNDRED PERCENT partisan in their maps to force the ****ing asshole republicans to the table.  I m so tired of this ****ing ****.  i used to think of myself as borderline republican... and now i honestly think that they are not very far from 1930s Germany or 1920s Italy.  

 

It is my honest fully heartfelt belief in 2021 that if you are a republican.... then both your morals and your intellect are too questionable for me to tolerate you.   I wouldn't try to balance the good points against the bad points of someone that was a proponent of pedophilia or Eugenics... and i am over dicking around with assholes that support the **** show that the GOP has become.   If you are a republican then **** the **** off and get the **** out of my life

[China]

Trump criticized Mark Zuckerberg, saying the $400 million he donated to help local election offices makes him a 'criminal'

 

Former President Donald Trump criticized Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, in a statement. Trump said the $400 million donation that Zuckerberg made to local election offices last year makes him a "criminal."

 

"Mark Zuckerberg, in my opinion, a criminal, is allowed to spend over $400 million and therefore able to change the course of a Presidential Election, and nothing happens to Facebook," Trump said in an emailed statement to supporters.

 

Trump appeared to be referring to the $400 million that Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, donated to local election offices last year.

 

The money was to help the offices adapt to changes in voting patterns that resulted from the pandemic.

 

It was spent on items such as personal protective equipment, including masks and gloves, and equipment to process mail ballots, the Associated Press reported.

 

There is no evidence that Zuckerberg's donations were criminal or even partisan, but Trump's comments echoed wider Republican fury at the move.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

[China]

Voting machine missing after Michigan clerk stripped of election power

 

Michigan State Police launched a criminal investigation Thursday after election equipment at the center of a voting tabulator conspiracy theory went missing this week in a rural, conservative community. 

 

Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, a Republican whose social media has included QAnon memes, had refused to allow a vendor to conduct routine maintenance on a Hart Intercivic Inc. voting machine.

 

Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast, a fellow Republican who the state tasked with running the local election instead of Scott, told Bridge Michigan her office attempted to retrieve the Adams Township equipment earlier this week but was unable to locate the tablet, which she described as the “brains” of the machine.

 

"I don't know where it's at or if it's been tampered with," Kast said. 

 

Scott, the Adams Township clerk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday from Bridge.

 

In a rare move, the Michigan Bureau of Elections this week stripped Scott of her election administration authority, accusing the first-term clerk of refusing to fulfill her “legal responsibilities” and spreading misinformation about the tabulators used in Hillsdale County.

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[NoCalMike]

traceable ballots?  if all they mean is that you get alerts about your ballots from once they are received and recorded?  We have that in CA already and I like it. 

42 minutes ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

So much like covid deaths, just stop reporting about it and it will go away?

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[China]

University of Florida bars professors from testifying in voting rights lawsuit

 

The University of Florida (UF) is prohibiting three professors from providing expert testimony in a lawsuit challenging a state law critics claim restricts voting rights, saying the school should not be placed in conflict with the administration of the Republican governor, Ron DeSantis.

 

Though the decision is being criticized as threat to academic freedom and free speech, the university said allowing Dan Smith, Michael McDonald and Sharon Austin to serve as paid experts for plaintiffs challenging the law would be “adverse to the university’s interests as a state of Florida institution”.

 

“The University of Florida has a long track record of supporting free speech and our faculty’s academic freedom, and we will continue to do so,” a statement said.

 

When he found out he wouldn’t be able to provide testimony, Smith tweeted an image of Hannah Arendt’s classic book The Origins of Totalitarianism.

 

“Dusting this classic off the bookshelf for some light weekend reading,” he wrote.

 

Lawyers for a coalition of civic groups challenging the law said in court papers the professors were told by the university their expert testimony would dissent from the DeSantis administration, creating a conflict.

 

“UF will deny its employees’ requests to engage in outside activities when it determines the activities are adverse to its interests,” read an email from an assistant vice-president to McDonald filed with the court documents.

 

“As UF is a state actor, litigation against the state is adverse to UF’s interests.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

If I were one of these professors I'd likely testify anyway and make them fire me.

[Cooked Crack]