House Democrats are seeking information from officials in key battleground states about their efforts to combat “lies and conspiracy theories” that could damage the integrity of federal elections as part of a broader investigation into the “weaponization of misinformation and disinformation” in the electoral process. The leaders of the House Oversight and Reform and House Administration committees sent letters on Wednesday to election officials in Florida, Arizona, Texas and Ohio — all Republican-led states — requesting the information while noting their concern about new laws affecting election administration. “The Committees are seeking to understand the scope and scale of election misinformation in your state, the impact that this flood of false information has had on election administration, the risks it poses for upcoming federal elections, and the steps that your organization and local election administrators have taken in response,” Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) and House Administration Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) wrote to state election officials in the letters obtained by The Washington Post. “Our investigation also aims to identify steps that federal, state, and local governments can take to counter misinformation and prevent these lies from being used to undermine the legitimate vote count in future elections.”
Editorial: Big Lie pushes rural Nevada to make their elections slow, expensive and error-prone | Sheila Leslie/Reno Gazette Journal
As a 45-year Nevadan by choice, I’ve spent many happy days in our rural areas, working in human services and recreating in the gorgeous remote basin and range lands around Table Mountain, Mt. Jefferson and the Twin Rivers area of the Arc Dome Wilderness. I’ve worked with ranchers in frontier Eastern Nevada to fight various iterations of the Las Vegas water grab which threatened their land and livelihoods. I’ve helped small communities set up family resource centers to support their residents, financed with lots of local ingenuity and pride, and I’ve helped rural judges access resources for defendants living with a severe mental illness while simultaneously reducing their jail populations. Over these decades, I always found local officials and community leaders to be generous with their time and creative with their solutions. Even as an urban-based Nevadan from a much more liberal political perspective, I found plenty of common ground and genuine respect for different points of view. That’s why it’s been so incredibly disheartening to see the vast majority of rural Nevadans refuse to believe their own eyes when they saw violent insurrectionists invade the U.S. Capitol. It’s been hard to see them continually vote for climate change deniers even as they suffer from megadroughts and wildfires. And it’s been painful to watch our rural neighbors succumb to the lies and nonsense of Trumpism, buying into wild conspiracy theories that make no sense.
Full Article: Big Lie pushes rural Nevada to make their elections slow, expensive and error-prone