Georgia’s Battle Over the Ballot | Darryl Pinckney/The New York Review of Books
Democracy can get a good person up in the middle of the night to read the newspapers online. When the news is bad, I fit a definition of literacy in the nineteenth century: someone has to tell me what is in the papers. Not long ago I was asking, How could Herschel Walker be one point ahead of Raphael Warnock in the race for the Georgia Senate seat? The world loves an ignorant, truculent Negro, Margo Jefferson said, especially the athletic kind. How could Brian Kemp be tied with Stacey Abrams in the contest for governor of Georgia? Some white people (and a few black men) resent a black woman whom they cannot patronize, no one had to tell me. The history of my family in Georgia is one of trying to get out of the state. When my parents were growing up there in the 1930s and 1940s, colored people couldn’t vote in the primaries; elections were just exercises in rubber-stamping. In 1946 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld in King v. Chapman a 1945 district court ruling that the segregated Georgia primaries were unconstitutional. Henry A. Wallace got 1,636 votes in Georgia when he ran for president on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948. His tally was missing two votes, because my parents were no longer residents. A cousin in the NAACP had been assaulted trying to register black people. Strom Thurmond on the racist Dixiecrat ticket came in a distant second to Harry Truman, the Democrat. My parents remembered the name of Isaiah Nixon, murdered for trying to vote in Georgia in that election. Source: Georgia’s Battle Over the Ballot | Darryl Pinckney | The New York Review of BooksWhy do Georgia’s voting stickers now say, “I secured my vote”? | Sam Worsley/Atlanta Magazine
In 2020, the stickers handed out at polling places across Georgia began showing signs of anxiety—relatable, for sure. Previously a cheery illustration of a peach beneath the phrase “I’m a Georgia voter,” the item acquired another sentence, in shoutier lettering: I SECURED MY VOTE! The update was introduced by Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger following a period of heightened attention to how Americans vote: In the past dozen years, a number of states have enacted measures making it more difficult, such as stricter voter-identification requirements. Many restrictions disproportionately affect people of color—in an effort to treat problems, experts say, that don’t meaningfully exist. The nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice, which tracks such restrictions, has calculated that onerous ID requirements, for instance, “address a sort of voter fraud more rare than death by lightning.” The origins of the “I voted” sticker are hazy, but they’ve become ubiquitous, allowing voters to sport their civic achievement while broadcasting a bit of peer pressure; in 1984, Vice President George H.W. Bush wore one that said, “I voted today—have you?” The introduction of the secret ballot in the 19th century made voting a lonelier and more somber affair than it had been previously, and may have contributed to falling turnout rates. The original “I voted” stickers offered a little good cheer and fellow feeling. In the emotional sense, then, the new ones are a departure, hinting at some darker possibility. Semantically, the message isn’t immediately clear: Is “voting” the same thing as “securing one’s vote”? What was I securing it against? “It’s bringing it up,” said Morehouse College political science professor Adrienne Jones. “Someone is leaving the polls like, Yeah, I secured my vote. They’re in that conversation about the idea that the vote is not secure.” Full Article: Why do Georgia's voting stickers now say, "I secured my vote"? - Atlanta MagazineIllinois: Federal lawsuit threatens validity of potentially tens of thousands of mail-in, military ballots | Rick Pearson/Chicago Tribune
A pending federal lawsuit, brought by a downstate Republican congressman and two GOP officials, could invalidate potentially tens of thousands of mailed general election ballots that are cast by Illinois voters, including military members serving overseas, and postmarked on or before this coming Election Day but received by election authorities afterward. The lawsuit, led by four-term U.S. Rep. Mike Bost of Murphysboro echoes some of the rejected court challenges filed by former President Donald Trump in other states in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election that he falsely contends was stolen. Bost is being assisted in the suit by a nonprofit conservative advocacy organization that has backed a number of Trump’s efforts. At issue is a 2015 state law that allows vote-by-mail ballots to be counted if they are received within 14 days after Election Day if they were postmarked on or before the final day of voting. If the ballots lack a postmark or if it is illegible, ballots can be counted if the voter dated and signed the ballot on or before Election Day. Election Day is Nov. 8 and the 14-day time period, in which provisional votes also are considered, ends Nov. 22. The suit seeks to have no vote-by-mail ballots counted that are received after Nov. 8. Full Article: Lawsuit in Illinois could invalidate thousands of mail-in ballotsMichigan Supreme Court suspends order on poll challengers | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press
The Michigan Supreme Court on Thursday suspended a Michigan Court of Claims order — celebrated by Republicans — that required revisions to the instructions for election observers that monitor polling locations and absentee ballot counting rooms. The Michigan Supreme Court's order leaves in place for the general election the same poll challenger guidelines used in the recent August primary. Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and election officials raised concerns that the last-minute revisions ordered by the lower court would cause confusion and chaos at the polls and counting rooms. Former Michigan elections director Chris Thomas worried it would potentially pave the way for intimidation against election workers. Republicans had heralded the earlier lower court order as a legal victory in response to a pair of lawsuits challenging the legality of the poll challenger manual: one from the Michigan GOP and Republican National Committee and another from GOP candidates and challengers representing organizations that deny the legitimacy of the 2020 election. Full Article: Michigan Supreme Court suspends order on poll challengersNevada ACLU asks for probe into ‘partisan’ hand count of mail-in ballots | Zach Schonfewld/The Hill
The ACLU of Nevada says it filed a complaint with the state’s secretary of state on Wednesday alleging “coordinated partisan election administration” during a hand count of ballots in Nye County. The rural county had begun hand counting early ballots late last month in response to conspiracy theories about voting machines there, but the ACLU and other groups have challenged the move in court, and Nevada’s secretary of state told the county last week it must temporarily stop the hand count. The ACLU of Nevada alleged in its new complaint that one of its observers watching the then-active hand count was removed from an observation room by an armed individual initially thought to be a county employee. The group alleged it has since discovered the individual was Laura Larsen, the vice chair of the county GOP’s central committee, who also demanded the ACLU observer turn over her notes. “Nye County’s actions during this election, including the disastrous failure that was its attempt at hand counting paper ballots, exceed the bounds of normalcy and decency,” ACLU of Nevada Executive Director Athar Haseebullah said in a statement. Full Article: Nevada ACLU asks for probe into ‘partisan’ hand count of mail-in ballots | The HillPennsylvania has seen unSusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI | Siafa Lewis/CBS
As Election Day nears, officials in Philadelphia are reminding everyone that voter intimidation and harassment is illegal. Pennsylvania is one of seven states the FBI has identified as having seen unusual threat levels against poll workers. That has led to a shortage of poll workers and resulted in Philadelphia increasing pay for poll workers. Additionally, there are concerns about voter intimidation at polling places and officials are trying to get ahead of it all. "Sometimes with extremists, it's necessary to knock on their foreheads early, and that's what we're doing now," District Attorney Larry Krasner said. "We're making sure you have the information you need so you do not get yourself into a pair of handcuffs, because believe me, if you try to interfere with or erase the votes of Philadelphians, that's exactly where you're going to be." Krasner also warned that they have handcuffs, jail cells and Philadelphia juries ready for anyone who breaks the law. "Rest assured Philadelphians, it will be safe for you to vote the same as it's always been," City commissioner Omar Sabir said. Full Article: Pa. has seen unusual threat levels against poll workers: FBI - CBS PhiladelphiaPennsylvania Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not counted | Jonathan Lai and Jeremy Roebuck/Philadelphia Inquirer
Pennsylvania counties must segregate and not count mail ballots with missing or incorrect dates, the state Supreme Court said Tuesday in a ruling that could affect thousands of votes in November’s midterm elections. The order came as the result of a 3-3 deadlock on the court over whether rejecting such ballots — which have been at the center of an ongoing political and legal fight between Democrats and Republicans — violates federal civil rights law. Three of the justices said throwing out the ballots of otherwise qualified voters over a missing or incorrect date would improperly exclude legal votes. Three others disagreed. The seventh spot on the court remains vacant after the death of former Chief Justice Max Baer. “We hereby direct that the Pennsylvania county boards of elections segregate and preserve any ballots contained in undated or incorrectly dated outer envelopes,” the court said in its brief order, which was not immediately accompanied by any opinions explaining the justices’ reasoning. The order said only that opinions would be released later. Full Article: Pa. Supreme Court says undated mail ballots should be segregated, not countedSouth Dakota: Tripp County to hand count election ballots | Eric Mayer and Rae Yost/KELO
Tripp County Commissioner Joyce Kartak made the motion and Dan Forgey seconded the motion to hand count the ballots. The motion came after an hour and 45 minute discussion was held on the concerns of the elections and the machine used to count the ballots, according to minutes from the Tripp County Commission. “It actually surprised me,” DeSarsa said of being able to find enough volunteers to help hand count the votes. “It wasn’t terrible.” The votes will counted by hand at the precinct sites, she said. “I thought that was the best way,” DeSarsa said. Roughly 80% of the site workers said they stay to help count votes, while others can’t stay to count, DeSarsa said. Given that, she needed eight to 10 additional volunteers. ... Tripp County will also be using the voting tabulation machine that night. “We were asked to do the machine count (too),” DeSersa said. The hand count will be the official count. Full Article: Tripp County to hand count election ballotsTexas GOP push to monitor voting in Harris County spurs outcry | Molly Hennessy-Fiske and Amy Gardner/The Washington Post
With a week to go before Election Day, a showdown is emerging between state and local leaders here over how to protect the security of the vote without intimidating voters and election workers. The clash is playing out in Harris County, Texas’s largest jurisdiction and home to Houston, where state and local Republicans are deploying monitors to oversee the handling of ballots in the Democratic enclave. Local Democratic officials have said the move is an effort to intimidate voters — and asked the Justice Department to send federal observers in response. The result could be a partisan showdown, in which two different sets of monitors face off on Election Day in this giant metro region. That’s not including the thousands of partisan poll watchers who are expected to fan out at voting locations across Texas. GOP officials and conservative poll watchers say heightened scrutiny is necessary to prevent election fraud and mismanagement. Voting-rights advocates and local leaders, meanwhile, say the GOP is scaring voters and election workers alike — and undermining faith in the results for a county that Republicans are pushing hard to win control of on Nov. 8. Full Article: GOP push to monitor Texas voting in Harris County spurs outcry - The Washington PostWisconsin: Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ if he wins | Martin Pengelly/The Guardian
The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin told supporters at a campaign event that if he is elected his party “will never lose another election” in the state. Tim Michels’ opponent next Tuesday, the incumbent Democrat Tony Evers, said the comment, which was released by a left-leaning group, showed the Republican was “a danger to our democracy”. Michels, a construction company owner, is endorsed by Donald Trump. He has repeated the former president’s lie that his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020 was the result of electoral fraud, and refused to say if he would certify results in a presidential election if he was governor and a Democrat won Wisconsin. In a debate with Evers last month, Michels did not say he would accept the result of his own election. He later said he would. Republican candidates in other swing states have cast doubt on whether they will accept results next week. Fred Wertheimer, president of the non-partisan group Democracy 21, told the Guardian this week: “There’s great danger that the Trump ‘big lie’ is going to spread to states all over the country. “If election deniers lose their elections by narrow margins we can expect that they will reject the results and refuse to accept them.” Full Article: Republican says party ‘will never lose another election’ in Wisconsin if he wins | Wisconsin | The GuardianNational: ‘We are a tinderbox’: Political violence is ramping up, experts warn | Melanie Mason and David Lauter/Los Angeles Times
In San Francisco’s tony Pacific Heights neighborhood, an intruder broke into House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s home and violently attacked her husband. In a New York courtroom, a man pleaded guilty to threatening to kill California Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell. In Washington, federal law enforcement warned that violent domestic extremism posed an elevated threat in the approaching midterm election. All on the same day. The targeting of the home of Speaker Pelosi, a Democrat who is second in line for the presidency, stood out on Friday for its brutality and sinister intent. But for many Americans, shock was tinged with a weary sense of inevitability. Far from a freak occurrence, the attack felt of a piece with the other threats and warnings publicized that day — the latest additions to the country’s growing sense of political menace, especially from the far right. “Unfortunately, this is a continuation of at least a 2½-year-long established pattern of violence against elected officials and local officials, including poll workers, that has been steadily ramping up,” said Erica Chenoweth, a Harvard Kennedy School professor who studies political violence. Politically motivated violence has ebbed and flowed throughout U.S. history. Currently, America is going through an upsurge in right-wing violence, according to researchers who track attacks and other incidents. They say today’s climate is comparable to that in the mid-1990s, when a similar wave of right-wing violence culminated in the 1995 bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City, which killed 168 people. Full Article: Extremist political violence is increasing, experts warn - Los Angeles TimesGeorgia: How one small-town lawyer faced down the plans of election skeptics | Stephanie McCrummen/The Washington Post
Word of the hearing had been spreading for weeks, and on a bright fall Friday, election skeptics from around northwest Georgia filed into the normally quiet Pickens County Courthouse, expecting that a victory for their movement was imminent. “Down the hall,” a security guard said to a man in an American flag golf shirt, a woman holding fliers for a possible victory rally, and others wearing stickers that read, “The machines must go,” and soon every seat was taken in Courtroom A. Of all the counties in Georgia, this was the one where the activists believed they would succeed. Pickens County is small, rural, overwhelmingly White and Republican, an under-the-radar place where election disinformation had flourished and the people who believed it had easily overtaken the establishment GOP. What they wanted now was a version of what people like them were going for at the grass-roots level all over the country: a way to question the results of a decided election. In their case, they wanted a hand recount of paper ballots cast in the May GOP primary. They wanted to make those sealed paper ballots public records. And they wanted a judge to grant their county election board broad powers to conduct elections in whatever manner it deemed necessary to assuage the doubts of people like them, a ruling that could be applied across all of Georgia’s 159 counties ahead of the midterm elections and beyond. Full Article: How Pickens County, Ga. election skeptics lost fight to make ballots open records - The Washington PostNational: Federal officials warn that domestic violent extremists pose heightened threat to midterm elections | Geneva Sands and Sean Lyngaas/CNN
Federal officials on Friday warned that domestic violent extremists pose a heightened threat to the 2022 midterm elections, in a joint intelligence assessment sent to state and local officials and obtained by CNN.The bulletin, released by the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, US Capitol Police and National Counterterrorism Center, says that perceptions of election fraud will likely result in heightened threats of violence. The bulletin did not list any specific credible threats. “Following the 2022 midterm election, perceptions of election-related fraud and dissatisfaction with electoral outcomes likely will result in heightened threats of violence against a broad range of targets―such as ideological opponents and election workers,” it states. Enduring perceptions of election fraud related to the 2020 general election continue to contribute to the radicalization of some violent extremists, and likely would “increase their sensitivity to any new claims perceived as reaffirming their belief that US elections are corrupt,” according to the assessment. The joint federal assessment comes as election workers are increasingly concerned about physical threats to themselves and election infrastructure, and foreign actors seek to widen divisions in the United States. “We assess that election-related perceptions of fraud and [domestic violent extremist] reactions to divisive topics will likely drive sporadic [domestic violent extremist] plotting of violence and broader efforts to justify violence in the lead up to and following the 2022 midterm election cycle,” the bulletin states. Full Article: Feds warn that domestic violent extremists pose heightened threat to midterm elections | CNN PoliticsNational: In 5 key battlegrounds, most GOP state legislative nominees are election deniers, report finds | Adam Edelman/NBC
Nearly 6 in 10 Republican state legislature nominees in five key battleground states deny the results of the 2020 election, according to an analysis by a group tracking the races. Of those 450 Republican nominees — including incumbents running for re-election and nonincumbents — in Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan and Minnesota, 58% of them have echoed former President Donald Trump’s lies that the 2020 election was stolen from him, according to research shared exclusively with NBC News by The States Project, a left-leaning group that tracked state legislative races in battleground states. Experts warn that if enough of these election-denying nominees are elected, Republican majorities in the state houses of these crucial battlegrounds could have the power to rewrite election laws and affect future elections, including in 2024 when Trump might run again. “When election deniers are in control, they will do whatever they can to undermine free and fair elections,” said Daniel Squadron, The States Project's executive director. “We know that the rules for elections and determining the winners are set through the legislative process, so what these folks do would have enormous impact” on “everything from who can register and who can vote to how the results are counted,” Squadron added. Full Article: In 5 key battlegrounds, most GOP state legislative nominees are election deniers, report findsNational: Election deniers hope hand count in Nevada offers a roadmap for future | Amy Gardner/The Washington Post
Jay Goldberg, a retired electrician who enjoys four-wheeling with his wife, Bonnie, in the dusty hills that loom over this desert town, sat in a tiny government office here this week counting ballots by hand because he believes the 2020 vote was rigged against Donald Trump. “If something can be manipulated, it eventually will be,” said Goldberg, 70, referring to unproven claims that tabulation machines made by Dominion Voting Systems threw the presidency to Joe Biden. “It’s that simple.” And to Goldberg, there’s a simple answer: Go back to hand counts. … Around the country, only a handful of jurisdictions count ballots by hand, mostly counties and towns with tiny populations concentrated in New England and Wisconsin, according to data provided by Verified Voting. Together, voters living in these communities represent just 0.2 percent of registered voters nationwide. But so far this year, communities in Arizona, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Nevada and New Hampshire have discussed switching to hand-counting of ballots. Just last week, the clerk of Elko County, Nev. — about the same size as Nye, with roughly 53,000 residents — announced plans to conduct a hand-counted audit after the Nov. 8 election. Experts say that if hand counting is adopted on a broad scale, election results could be thrown into chaos by errors and delays. That could give bad actors more time to sow doubts and to slow or even block certification. Time and again, post-election audits have confirmed that machine counts are accurate. No proof has emerged that the machines were hacked in 2020. “If the whole point of this is to engender more trust in the correctness of the election outcome, then I think the first thing is to understand the existing process and what is already in place to make for a trustworthy election,” Smith said. She noted that jurisdictions in Nevada already audit results by hand-counting a sample of ballots. They do so after unofficial results have been reported, encouraging confidence in the result without gumming up counting on election night.
Full Article: Election deniers hope hand count in Nevada offers a roadmap for future – The Washington Post