An assault on American voters is underway

[Larry]

Well, duh. 
 

Stupid system might expose more actual voter fraud. Being committed by Republicans. 

[mcsluggo]

democrats are crappy at prioritization.    

 

Mitch McConnell 100% prioritized blocking Democratic appointments and packing all levels of courts with ****bag judges....  because it has a lasting effect on EVERYTHING

 

democrats took power and concentrated efforts on things like renaming Lee Highway and transgender rights... because it made their constituents feel good.

 

 

100 percent of Democratic effort should be pointed at 1) establishing lasting legislative protections of voters rights that reduce state and local jursidictions and packed courts ability to dilute those rights; and 2) national level anti-gerrymandering rules with lasting protections from the same dilutions.

 

when compared to those two.... NOTHING ELSE MATTERS (except maybe judges).     

Edited February 9, 2022 by mcsluggo

[Larry]

26 minutes ago, mcsluggo said:

100 percent of Democratic effort should be pointed at 1) establishing lasting legislative protections of voters rights that reduce state and local jursidictions and packed courts ability to dilute those rights; and 2) national level anti-gerrymandering rules with lasting protections from the same dilutions.

Yeah. I think the Dem reaction to SCOTUS throwing out (a big part of) the Voting Rights Act, (on the grounds that it doesn't apply equally), should have been to introduce legislation to make it apply nation wide. 
 

Under the fact that minority voter suppression doesn't just happen in Alabama any more. It happens in Wisconsin, too. 
 

And I could see the notion that DC can't tell WI how to draw districts for their state house. But they can tell them how to draw them for the US House. 

[EmirOfShmo]

2 hours ago, mcsluggo said:

democrats are crappy at prioritization.    

 

Mitch McConnell 100% prioritized blocking Democratic appointments and packing all levels of courts with ****bag judges....  because it has a lasting effect on EVERYTHING

 

democrats took power and concentrated efforts on things like renaming Lee Highway and transgender rights... because it made their constituents feel good.

 

 

100 percent of Democratic effort should be pointed at 1) establishing lasting legislative protections of voters rights that reduce state and local jursidictions and packed courts ability to dilute those rights; and 2) national level anti-gerrymandering rules with lasting protections from the same dilutions.

 

when compared to those two.... NOTHING ELSE MATTERS (except maybe judges).     

 

Pretty good start...

 

President Joe Biden (D) has appointed and the Senate has confirmed 40 Article III federal judges through Jan. 1 of his second year in office. This number is the second-most Article III judicial appointments through this point in all presidencies since President Ronald Reagan (R). The Senate had confirmed 19 of President Donald Trump’s (R) appointees at this point in his term.

The average number of judicial appointees per president through this period is 26.

 

https://news.ballotpedia.org/2022/01/04/biden-has-appointed-second-most-federal-judges-through-jan-1-of-a-presidents-second-year-in-office/

[Simmsy]

10 hours ago, EmirOfShmo said:

 

[China]

Ray Dalio thinks we’re headed for civil war, and a shocking fact about new legislation shows why

 

America has a growing democracy problem, and the 2022 midterm elections could be the moment where it all collapses. 

 

Experts, elected officials, and even a titan of industry have been ringing the alarm bells about what they see as a real threat of civil war as voters lose faith in America’s electoral system and, subsequently, the legal authority of their leaders. 

 

Billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater, the world's biggest hedge fund, took to LinkedIn to warn that moderates would lose seats while extremists and populists in both parties will gain them in the upcoming election. 

 

“Hopefully, but not certainly, we will get through this election with the election rules prevailing without a fight over them,” he wrote. 

 

But that seems increasingly unlikely. 

 

A record-breaking 440-plus bills with provisions that restrict voting access were introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. The bills range from allowing any citizen to conduct new election audits to imposing criminal penalties on election officials for making unintended errors.  During the first two weeks of this year alone, another 96 bills have been introduced and pre-filed that would make it harder to vote in 12 states, a 39% increase from this time last year.

 

“Equally worrying, lawmakers also aim to increase partisan interference in election administration. Legislators in 13 states have pre-filed or introduced 41 such bills,” Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center, wrote in the report. “Some would give the state legislature the ultimate power to reject election results. Others threaten election officials with civil or criminal penalties or place partisan actors in charge of vote counting.”

 

Click on the link for the full article

[mcsluggo]

On 2/10/2022 at 7:32 PM, China said:

Ray Dalio thinks we’re headed for civil war, and a shocking fact about new legislation shows why

 

America has a growing democracy problem, and the 2022 midterm elections could be the moment where it all collapses. 

 

Experts, elected officials, and even a titan of industry have been ringing the alarm bells about what they see as a real threat of civil war as voters lose faith in America’s electoral system and, subsequently, the legal authority of their leaders. 

 

Billionaire Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater, the world's biggest hedge fund, took to LinkedIn to warn that moderates would lose seats while extremists and populists in both parties will gain them in the upcoming election. 

.....

 

Click on the link for the full article

 

 

taking that discussion a bit farther....  as always the Economist gives a great concise overview

 

(and points out that Democrats have gerymandered to absolutely screw themselves if the republicans get a temporary backlash surge in voters in 2022 midterms....)

 

Quote

Read in browser     Checks and Balance is now available only to subscribers. Our go-to newsletter for American politics is now exclusively for subscribers like you. Thank you for reading.     February 11TH 2022   Checks and Balance The best of our coverage of American politics     America’s new congressional districts will be fairer but less responsive to voters   Elliott Morris is a data journalist and correspondent who typically writes this newsletter’s data note. Today, he takes over the full newsletter to talk about partisan fairness in congressional redistricting.  In many ways, democracy is the biggest story in America today. The republic's centuries-old experiment in representative, competitive politics is under siege from many sides. On the right, Donald Trump and his Republicans pose a serious threat to the legitimacy and fairness of elections. The country’s political institutions, traditions and practices, especially the filibuster, can accentuate the difficulties; they magnify the power of rural voters at the expense of everyone else and slow policymaking to a snail’s pace.  Another threat can be found in partisan gerrymandering—the rigging of legislative boundaries to give one party an advantage over the other. After the census of 2010, Republicans amended the electoral map for the House of Representatives to deprive Democrats of over a dozen seats. So in 2012, the Democrats won the popular vote for the House but only 46% of its seats. This week, we published a data-driven investigation of America’s congressional redistricting for the 2020s. Our findings show an increase in rigging on both sides of the aisle; Democrats have managed to flip close seats in blue states such as Illinois, New Mexico and New York while Republicans have padded their margins, making red districts in Texas and Georgia even redder. As a result, this decade’s map will be much fairer—though still slightly biased towards the Republicans. In hypothetical elections in which the parties’ shares of the popular vote are evenly split, we calculate that Democrats would be favoured to win approximately 211 seats, up from 198 in 2012. But this new gerrymandering will also result in fewer competitive congressional districts than at any point in the past three decades. The number of seats that both Republicans and Democrats have a good chance of winning will shrink from 44 to about 40, according to our analysis of the new maps. This will make the House less responsive to changes in national voter behaviour; as the number of close seats declines, each party has to win by larger and larger margins to win the same share of seats they would under fairer maps. The pieces we published this week focus on the fairness of the new maps, so we are devoting this newsletter to explaining the lower responsiveness of the chamber. Different slopes for different folks After new census data were released in 2010, Republican state legislators prioritised gerrymanders which took close seats away from the Democrats. They targeted close districts, where the party won with vote shares three or four percentage points higher than their nationwide popular vote—such as those represented by ideologically moderate “blue-dog” Democrats. The new lines simultaneously packed Democratic voters into fewer, bluer districts in urban areas and divided them among redder suburban and rural seats, splitting left-leaning coalitions into seats dominated by the right. This created a dip in the number of seats where neither party had a large advantage (see chart). The way in which they gerrymandered, however, created many new seats that could be won with slight changes in voters’ preferences. A swing in the national popular vote towards Democrats by even a few points would result in their winning a larger cache of Republican seats than they would have under fairer maps with more competitive districts. And Republicans also stood to gain if they won the national popular vote by four or five percentage points, pushing the districts with more “packed” Democrats back in their direction. It was an unfair map, but it was a responsive map; the impact of the gerrymander would be weaker if either party won by a very high margin. The parties have approached redistricting in a new way this year. Blue states have focused on gaining back those competitive red seats they lost in 2012, creating a lot of close seats which they are likely to win in a close, left-leaning election. But Republicans have chosen a different tactic. Instead of taking close blue districts away from the Democrats, they have padded their margins in seats where they were already favoured. This decreases the number of seats Democrats could win in an election where voters are decisively in their favour (see chart). The resulting asymmetry in the competitiveness of districts means a landslide victory for Democrats would earn them about 30 more seats. Republicans would gain about 50 in a similar landslide. These strategies show how, when gerrymandering new maps, parties tend to fight the last battle. After 2010 Republicans were looking to create an era of dominance: Democrats had been in power for four years, and the previous decade of elections had produced slim House majorities for both parties. So they got rid of as many Democratic districts as they could. But they did not consider that the maps’ bias would decrease in contests that were more lopsided nationally. This year, Republicans are looking to insulate themselves from the losses they suffered in 2018, when Democrats won the national House vote by nearly 10 points; and Democrats want to avoid a repeat of 2012, when they won the popular vote but lost the House.  Lines in the sand Data provided to The Economist by YouGov, an online pollster, show that over 60% of Americans favour various reforms to make districting fairer. A broad majority of Republicans and Democrats want to give map-making power to independent commissions of citizens, for instance, which tend to draw fairer maps. Most also want to ban lobbyists from participating in map-drawing and want officials to listen to public comments on proposed boundaries. Mass support for such reforms makes one thing clear: the unfair maps being drawn up by politicians do nothing to improve democracy for their constituents. G. Elliott Morris Data journalist

 

[mcsluggo]

Quote

ChinaDec 4th 2021 edition

Chaguan
China says it is more democratic than America

Western dysfunction tempts the Communist Party to make risky boasts

The leaders of China’s Communist Party have spent a long time waiting for liberal democracy to look as fragile as it does today. Now, filled with scorn for a dysfunctional West, they think that their moment has come. Angered, specifically, by President Joe Biden’s summoning of over 100 countries to a virtual Summit for Democracy on December 9th and 10th—including Taiwan, an island that China claims as its territory—China is responding with fighting talk. Officials are seizing every chance to explain why their always-controlling, sometimes-ruthless political system is not just a good fit for a large country trying to become prosperous and strong: the party’s defensive line for four decades. Increasingly, they are on the offensive. They insist that China’s political model is so effective, and so responsive to the people’s wishes, that it is more perfectly democratic than America’s.

In the words of a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, American democracy is in a “disastrous state”, calling into doubt that country’s legitimacy as host of such a summit. In a video call, China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, commiserated with his counterpart from Hungary, whose increasingly autocratic government is also not invited. Mr Wang condemned America for excluding some countries, adding that the yardstick of a democracy should be whether a government “meets the people’s needs, and gives them enough of a sense of participation, satisfaction and gain”.

The free world—meaning, broadly, societies in which governments can lose elections, and in which even the rich and powerful are (sometimes) held to account by independent judges, uncensored news outlets, opposition politicians and civic groups—should not underestimate this Chinese challenge.

 

<more at link... but i am unsure if it is behind paywall or not>>?  >>

 

https://www.economist.com/china/2021/12/04/china-says-it-is-more-democratic-than-america

 

 

here are some arguments that appear all too familiar when dealing with Trump-enabling wannabe-autocrats.   if you KNOW you cannot win an argument based on the simple fact that you are wrong... just co-opt the "nouns and verbs" that are being used against you.   

 

Trump knows he is corrupt... and wildly accuses everyone of corruption.   you can easily identify almost all of his glaring flaws by just listening to his accusations against others.  It is one of the easiest tells in the history of losers that are bad at "the deal" (but think that they are good).

 

and all the other autocrats play the same semantics games..... it really is repulsive that the current mainstream GOP sounds more like a dictator's authoritarian-mouthpiece-media than an actual party making ANY attempt to win debates on effective policy.... 

[mcsluggo]

and the repulsive tactics that Americans that hate democracy use are corrosive.  they erode support for the very fundamentals that underpin democracy... it is convenient for the moment that a politician wants to spew lies to say that the media always lies to the public (the media is by lying pointing out the politician's lies) , and that scientists and schools and government institutions do the same...... but that crap STICKS.   it reduces the ABILITY of a society to be democratic.   it breaks down the very fibers and cohesiveness of society, for personal gain.    

 

and... the countries that are already dictators rub their hands gleefully.... it reinforces THEIR arguments that the western press is always lying about their abuses against their own citizens, and it bolsters their bull**** "we are just as free as the west" animal-farm pig-speak.   

 

i read what the GOP mouth-pieces say.. ( not even the KNOWN trump-crony criminals that are trying to cover their criminal behavior.... but the Jordan/Cruz/Hawley/98% of republicans today) and it sickens me to the core.   I am a small c-conservative economist... i SHOULD be tempted by the big c Conservative party's platform... but there isn't one.    It has degraded to a circled wagon of defense against un-democratic principals to just try to eek out the next election.  it is repulsive, and really seems like a cartoonishly un-subtle parody of the run-up to authoritarianism in the 1930s....         

[NoCalMike]

Who are the left-wing "extremists" though? Not counting activists/pundits/online personalites. Actual elected officials that qualify as left-wing extremists?  It's like we still have this warped sense of what that word even means.  It's another sign that we as a nation still can't shake how much a monumental shift Reagan/Neo-Libs caused in the political spectrum.  I am not saying there aren't left-wing extremists out there, but I tend to be more concerned with who actually has any kind of power to make changes.  When I hear articles like this one try to "bothsides" the extremism issue it makes me think that ultimately they are saying, "those right-wing loons are pretty crazy, but I do like my low taxes"

 

EDIT: Forgot to click the quote button on the article warning of "on-coming civil war"

Edited February 15, 2022 by NoCalMike

[China]

 

[China]

Colorado elections clerk is sued after passing on voting data

 

A Colorado elections clerk was sued on Thursday after he copied data from voting machines with the help of two men with ties to groups supporting the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from former Republican President Donald Trump.

 

Dallas Schroeder, who oversees elections in Elbert County, east of Denver, was sued by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold for making two copies of his county's voting system hard drives and then handing the images to "unauthorized people", according to the lawsuit.

 

In the civil lawsuit, filed in Elbert County District Court, Griswold demands that Schroeder return the copies and hand over the device he used to make them.

 

Schroeder did not immediately respond to a Reuters email for comment.

 

Schroeder is the second Colorado elections clerk to come under scrutiny for allegedly breaching voting systems as part of an "election integrity" effort by Trump supporters who falsely claim the 2020 election was marred by fraud. Suspected breaches are under investigation in other states, including in Michigan, where authorities last week said an unnamed third party had been given unauthorized access to a county voting system.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Texas’ Largest County Asks DOJ For Help As SB1 Causes Thousands Of Ballots To Be Rejected

 

Texas’ largest county has rejected thousands of absentee ballots and ballot applications due to Republicans’ restrictive new voting law — and now, officials there have asked the Department of Justice for help. 

 

The new law, SB1, is “achieving exactly what its authors set out to do: erect more hurdles in front of the ballot box and systematically suppress the vote in Harris County,” wrote the county judge, county attorney and county elections administrator in a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland flagged Thursday by Houston Public Media. 

 

Harris County, home to Houston, has for weeks sounded the alarm about early warning signs that SB1 is resulting in unusually large rates of rejected ballot applications.

 

The trouble comes from Republicans’ new ID requirements for people eligible to vote by mail: The form of that required ID number (whether a driver’s license number, Social Security number, or state ID number) must match what the voter used to register with the state, sometimes decades earlier. Previously, absentee voters’ identities were confirmed by comparing their signatures to government records. 

 

The results speak for themselves: Out of 33,270 mail ballot applications received by Harris County as of Feb. 15, 14% were flagged for rejection due to SB1’s new voter ID requirements, according to the county officials’ letter. And among 9,809 ballots received by the county by that date, a whopping 35.5%, or 3,491 votes, have been flagged for rejection for the same reason. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

GOP lawmakers are pushing high-tech 'fraud-proof' ballots. A Texas company could be the only supplier.

 

Holographic foil. Special ink designed to be sensitive to temperature changes. Nearly invisible "stealth numbers" that can be located only using special ultraviolet or infrared lights.

 

Those are among the high-tech security features that would be required to be embedded on ballots under measures proposed in at least four states by Republican lawmakers - all promoters of false claims that the 2020 election was marred by mass fraud - in an attempt to make the ballots as hard to counterfeit as passports or currency.

 

But the specialized inks and watermarks also would limit the number of companies capable of selling ballot paper - potentially to just one Texas firm with no previous experience in elections that consulted with the lawmakers proposing the measures.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Some signatures of Florida voters whose registration changed to Republican different than prior samples

 

Signatures of some voters in apartment buildings and high-rise towers in South Florida whose registration was changed to Republican appeared noticeably different than on paperwork those same voters signed earlier, according to a new review of voting records.

 

The signature comparisons, performed this week in Miami as journalists from the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications investigated possible voter registration fraud, found that some past and present signatures showed obvious differences in size of letters, and strokes and flourishes of individual elements of names.

 

The review focused on paperwork for a small sample of a dozen voters who said in interviews that their party affiliation was changed to Republican despite never submitting the changes themselves, not approving anyone else to do so or not realizing it was done.

 

The differing signatures add to mounting circumstantial evidence of shady political tricks, suggesting that unidentified canvassers during the weeks around Thanksgiving may have changed the party affiliation without permission of mostly elderly, Hispanic voters living in public housing in the area to make them Republicans.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

7 hours ago, China said:

 

Some signatures of Florida voters whose registration changed to Republican different than prior samples

 

1). Recall somebody on here, a decade or more ago, mentioning a kind of voter fraud that they could see happening. 
 

Say I'm Snydely McFraud, an evil villain who wants the Republican Party to win the election. 
 

What I do is, during the offseason, I submit a whole lot, thousands, of voter registration cards, for real, existing, Democrat voters. All of the voter registration is true and accurate. (It's easy for me to do this, because as a political Party, I have legal access to the existing database). 
 

But the signatures on the registrations are actually signed by somebody else. 
 

Election Day comes. And when those real people cast real votes, I challenge the votes. On the grounds that the voter's signature doesn't match the voter registration. (And they don't. Because the signature on the registration is fake.). 
 

2). Everybody remember ACORN?  Group hired to get minority (Dem) voters registered. 
 

They paid people to go register people. But they can't really have time clocks or things. So they paid them based on how many registrations they got. 
 

Some of the workers filled out fake registrations, so they could get paid. One famous one talked Mickey Mouse into registering. 
 

ACORN spotted the fakes. Fired the worker. Separated out that worker's registration cards. Handed over the cards to election officials, along with the explanation that hey, this worker was defrauding us. And he's been fired, but it's illegal for us to destroy these cards, so we seperated out the frauds for you, so you folks can throw them out. 
 

Election officials waited four days. Then conducted a police raid on ACORN, (inviting the media to film it). Announcing that the workers had spotted ACORN operating a scam to create fake voter registrations. (And therefore we need more voter restrictions.)

 

3). Now. Having said that?  
 

Remember ACORN. It's possible that what's going on here is simply some field workers who are stealing from the company, producing fake paperwork so they can get paid. 

 

[China]

U.S. judges are narrowing voting protections. Some fear lasting damage

 

The nation's premier tool to protect voting rights is in mortal danger, threatened on multiple fronts by the Supreme Court and lower-ranking federal judges, scholars and civil rights advocates say.

 

The latest blow to the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965 came this week in Arkansas, where a federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump dismissed a case over new statehouse maps. The NAACP and the American Civil Liberties Union argued that the maps diluted the power of Black voters. But the judge said he found no way for the outside advocates to proceed.

 

"Only the Attorney General of the United States can bring a case like this one," wrote Judge Lee Rudofsky.

 

The ACLU said the decision flouts decades of precedent and vowed to appeal.

 

"This ruling was so radical that there was no choice but to appeal it," said Sophia Lin Lakin, deputy director of the ACLU's Voting Rights Project. "Private individuals have brought cases under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act to protect their right to vote for generations."

 

The Arkansas ruling followed comments made by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch only seven months ago in an unrelated case over the scope of the Voting Rights Act, where he expressed doubts about private rights to sue.

 

"They are teeing up statutory and constitutional questions for the Court with the justifiable belief that the Court will welcome the narrow interpretation and the opportunity to further narrow the statute," said Guy-Uriel Charles, an election law professor at Harvard Law School.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Judge orders new trial for US woman sentenced to six years for trying to register to vote

 

A Memphis judge has ordered a new trial for Pamela Moses, a woman who was sentenced to six years in prison for trying to register to vote.

 

The case attracted national attention following a Guardian report, because of the severity of the sentence. Moses said she had no idea she was ineligible.

 

Moses has been in prison since December, when her bond was revoked. On Thursday, the Guardian revealed new evidence in the case that was not produced at trial. Moses was released from custody on Friday, according to Claiborne Ferguson, her attorney.

 

“We are so excited that the motion for new trial was granted for Pamela Moses today and that she is able to return home to her family while she awaits trial. We hope that she receives justice and is found not guilty for the admitted mistakes of the state of Tennessee,” said Dawn Harrington, the executive director of Free Hearts, a criminal justice organization in Tennessee that supported Moses.

 

Moses was convicted last year for submitting a document in 2019 indicating she was eligible to vote. Prosecutors said she knew that this was false, because just months before a judge issued an order telling Moses she was still on probation for a 2015 felony. In Tennessee, people on felony probation cannot vote.

 

When she turned in the form, Moses believed that the probation for her 2015 felony had expired, and a probation officer signed a certificate indicating that this was the case and that she was eligible. Prosecutors said Moses deceived the officer into signing the certificate.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The fate of American elections is in Amy Coney Barrett’s hands

 

A pair of cases are currently pending before the Supreme Court that could fundamentally rewrite the rules of US elections.

 

Both cases are redistricting cases. In Moore v. Harper, the North Carolina Supreme Court struck down gerrymandered congressional maps drawn by the state’s Republican legislature. In Toth v. Chapman, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court selected a congressional map for the state after its Republican legislature and Democratic governor deadlocked on what that map should look like.

 

In both cases, Republicans claim that state courts are not allowed to intervene in redistricting cases because something called the “independent state legislature doctrine” forbids them from doing so.

 

In the worst-case scenario for democracy, should the Court embrace this doctrine, state constitutions would cease to provide any constraint on state lawmakers who wish to skew federal elections in their party’s favor. State courts would also lose their power to strike down anti-democratic state laws. And state governors, who ordinarily have the power to veto new state election laws, would lose this veto power.

 

As Justice Neil Gorsuch described this approach in a 2020 concurring opinion, “the Constitution provides that state legislatures — not federal judges, not state judges, not state governors, not other state officials — bear primary responsibility for setting election rules.”

 

This worst-case scenario isn’t a foregone conclusion, but it’s decidedly within the realm of possibility. The Court might also implement the doctrine selectively, holding, for example, that state supreme courts typically cannot toss out gerrymandered maps, but that state governors can veto these maps.

 

Four members of the Court have already endorsed this doctrine, despite the fact that the Supreme Court has repeatedly rejected it over the course of more than a century. Along with Gorsuch, Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh all embraced it in lawsuits seeking to alter which rules would govern the 2020 election.

 

Meanwhile, the three liberal justices plus Chief Justice John Roberts have all signaled that they will not overrule the more than 100 years’ worth of Supreme Court decisions rejecting the independent state legislature doctrine. So, unless Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, or Kavanaugh has an unexpected change of heart, the fate of American democracy is now in Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s hands.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[LD0506]

[China]

This just in... Biden beats Trump:

 

Michigan Election Audit Debunks Trump & Confirms Biden Win

 

Officials in the state of Michigan, which was among those won by Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, have once again confirmed the systematic integrity of the 2020 presidential election process, at least in their own jurisdiction (and there’s never been any real-world indication of systematic fraud elsewhere in the process). As summarized by the office of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in a press release, “An audit of the Michigan Bureau of Elections released… by the Michigan Office of the Auditor General confirmed the effectiveness of the post-election audits carried out after the 2020 presidential election.” Benson remarked as follows:

 

Quote

‘BY CONFIRMING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE POST-ELECTION AUDIT IN STATE HISTORY, THE AUDITOR GENERAL AFFIRMED WHAT HAS BEEN DEMONSTRATED TIME AND TIME AGAIN – MICHIGAN’S 2020 ELECTION WAS SECURE AND THE OUTCOME ACCURATELY REFLECTS THE WILL OF THE VOTERS. THE AUDITORS RECOGNIZED THE TREMENDOUS WORK THE MICHIGAN BUREAU OF ELECTIONS AND LOCAL ELECTION OFFICIALS DID TO CARRY OUT MORE THAN 250 SUCCESSFUL POST-ELECTION AUDITS BY RATING THE BUREAU’S PERFORMANCE PERHAPS BETTER THAN EVER.’

 

Click on the link for the full article

[NoCalMike]

The Good news: Biden won.....still.

 

The Bad news: It might be the last Presidential election where the votes matter.

[China]

Florida House passes bill creating election police force

 

The Republican-controlled Florida House on Wednesday night passed a voting overhaul bill that would create a new security office to investigate election crimes and increase penalties for violating the state's elections laws.

 

The legislation would establish a scaled-back version of an elections police force first proposed last year by Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis. The House vote completes legislative action on the measure, which is now headed to DeSantis for his signature.

The bill would establish an Office of Election Crimes and Security within the Department of State with a staff of 15 to conduct preliminary investigations of election fraud. In addition, the measure calls for DeSantis to appoint up to 10 law enforcement officers to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to probe election crimes.

 

The bill passed Wednesday would make it a felony to collect and submit more than two vote-by-mail ballots on behalf of other voters. It's currently a misdemeanor to do so. It also increases the fine from $1,000 to $50,000 on organizations that violate election registration laws.

Critics said it was overreach.

"We're going to convict people of a felony because they helped three instead of two elderly neighbors?" Democratic state Rep. Joseph Geller said, as he argued against the bill on Wednesday evening.

The new elections security force and increased penalties could "deter people from participation in the democratic process," said Daniel Griffith, policy director at Secure Democracy USA, a nonprofit organization that works to boost access to the ballot.

Griffith said there appear to be few guardrails on the activity of the new elections investigations unit. "We don't know exactly what they are investigating: Are they investigating election officials? Are they investigating voters?"

Democrats in the Florida House raised concerns during this week's debate that increased penalties could ensnare voter registration groups for making mistakes, such as misplacing a voter's registration card, and chill their activity in the state.

Responded Perez: "If the third-party voter organization doesn't commit fraud, they're never going to have to be concerned about paying fines or fees."

Cecile Scoon, the president of the Leagure of Women Voters of Florida, called the new $50,000 fine a "direct threat" to her organization. "When you couple the increased fines with the new election investigators, it doesn't give you a warm or cozy feeling," she told CNN.

The bill also mandates that election supervisors conduct maintenance of voter lists more frequently and expands a ban on private funding of election administration to include "the cost of any litigation."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

AG: Former Flint Township Clerk broke seal on ballot container so votes inside couldn’t be recounted

 

A former Flint Township Clerk is facing felony charges for ballot tampering related to the August 2020 Primary Election, according to Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel .

 

Kathy Funk has been charged with ballot tampering and misconduct in office -- both are 5-year felonies.

 

Nessel said Funk purposely broke a seal on a ballot container so that the votes inside, under Michigan Election Law, could not be counted in an anticipated recount. Funk was running for re-election and narrowly prevailed in the unofficial count.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Long n Left]

On 3/10/2022 at 1:30 AM, China said:

Florida House passes bill creating election police force

 

The Republican-controlled Florida House on Wednesday night passed a voting overhaul bill that would create a new security office to investigate election crimes and increase penalties for violating the state's elections laws.

 

The legislation would establish a scaled-back version of an elections police force first proposed last year by Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis. The House vote completes legislative action on the measure, which is now headed to DeSantis for his signature.

The bill would establish an Office of Election Crimes and Security within the Department of State with a staff of 15 to conduct preliminary investigations of election fraud. In addition, the measure calls for DeSantis to appoint up to 10 law enforcement officers to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to probe election crimes.

 

The bill passed Wednesday would make it a felony to collect and submit more than two vote-by-mail ballots on behalf of other voters. It's currently a misdemeanor to do so. It also increases the fine from $1,000 to $50,000 on organizations that violate election registration laws.

Critics said it was overreach.

"We're going to convict people of a felony because they helped three instead of two elderly neighbors?" Democratic state Rep. Joseph Geller said, as he argued against the bill on Wednesday evening.

The new elections security force and increased penalties could "deter people from participation in the democratic process," said Daniel Griffith, policy director at Secure Democracy USA, a nonprofit organization that works to boost access to the ballot.

Griffith said there appear to be few guardrails on the activity of the new elections investigations unit. "We don't know exactly what they are investigating: Are they investigating election officials? Are they investigating voters?"

Democrats in the Florida House raised concerns during this week's debate that increased penalties could ensnare voter registration groups for making mistakes, such as misplacing a voter's registration card, and chill their activity in the state.

Responded Perez: "If the third-party voter organization doesn't commit fraud, they're never going to have to be concerned about paying fines or fees."

Cecile Scoon, the president of the Leagure of Women Voters of Florida, called the new $50,000 fine a "direct threat" to her organization. "When you couple the increased fines with the new election investigators, it doesn't give you a warm or cozy feeling," she told CNN.

The bill also mandates that election supervisors conduct maintenance of voter lists more frequently and expands a ban on private funding of election administration to include "the cost of any litigation."

 

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Dick Sandwich (name a lady told me is “what we call him in Florida”) is trying to become The Sunshine State’s own fat, little Putin.