National

The House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday included $500 million for election security grants in one of the proposed appropriations bills for next year. The proposed fiscal 2022 Financial Services and General Government bill would give $500 million to the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) to distribute to states and territories to help address election security concerns. This includes moving to voting machines with voter-verified paper ballots and improving election administration. The EAC would be given 45 days to distribute the funds once the bill is signed into law. The election security grant is $400 million above the $100 million the EAC requested as part of its fiscal 2022 funding request. Congress has approved more than $800 million in election security grants since 2018, and the coronavirus stimulus bill signed into law by former President Trump in early 2020 included $400 million to help election officials address voting challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. The House Appropriations Committee last year attempted to do more, and included $500 million in the fiscal 2021 EAC funding, which the House approved along party lines. The funding was not approved by the Senate amid Republican opposition.

Full Article: House panel includes $500 million election security grant in proposed appropriations bill | TheHill

National: Senate Republicans block debate on elections bill, dealing blow to Democrats’ voting rights push | Mike DeBonis/The Washington Post

Senate Republicans banded together Tuesday to block a sweeping Democratic bill that would revamp the architecture of American democracy, dealing a grave blow to efforts to federally override dozens of GOP-passed state voting laws. The test vote, which would have cleared the way to start debate on voting legislation, failed 50-50 on straight party lines — 10 votes short of the supermajority needed to advance legislation in the Senate. It came after a succession of Democrats delivered warnings about what they said was the dire state of American democracy, accusing former president Donald Trump of undermining the country’s democratic system by challenging the results of the 2020 election in a campaign that prompted his supporters in numerous state legislatures to pass laws rolling back ballot access. “Are we going to let reactionary state legislatures drag us back into the muck of voter suppression? Are we going to let the most dishonest president in history continue to poison our democracy from the inside?” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said before the vote. “Or will we stand up to defend what generations of Americans have organized, marched, fought and died for — the sacred, sacred right to vote?” But Republicans stood firmly together in opposition, following the lead of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who on Tuesday lambasted the Democrats’ bill, known as the For the People Act, as “a transparently partisan plan to tilt every election in America permanently in [Democrats’] favor” and as “a recipe for undermining confidence in our elections.”

Full Article: Senate Republicans filibuster voting rights bill – The Washington Post

National: Senate voting and ethics overhaul stalls, but Democrats united in vote | Kate Ackley and Katherine Tully-McManus/Roll Call

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin III voted with his party Tuesday in favor of debating Democrats’ signature overhaul of elections, campaign finance and ethics laws, but the measure’s path to enactment still remains improbable. Republicans, as expected, opposed a procedural vote that would have let the Senate begin debate and given Manchin a chance to change a sweeping bill he had said earlier this month he would vote against. Senators voted 50-50 along party lines, leaving the motion short of the needed 60 votes for adoption. GOP senators called the bill a power grab by the other side of the aisle and argued it would give too much control to the federal government over elections. Democrats said they planned to press ahead, as allied outside interest groups mounted a fresh round of pressure campaigns, including to end the legislative filibuster. “This is the beginning and not the end,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, chairwoman of the Rules and Administration panel, which has jurisdiction over election and campaign issues. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said that anyone who views the debate over the bill, known as the For the People Act, as just another partisan fight between Republicans and Democrats is missing the larger point.

Full Article: Senate voting and ethics overhaul stalls, but Democrats united in vote

National: Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen | Rosalind S. Helderman, Emma Brown , Tom Hamburger and Josh Dawsey/The Washington Post

The slickly produced movie trailer, set to ominous music, cuts from scenes of the 2020 election to clips of allies of former president Donald Trump describing a vast conspiracy to steal the White House. “The Deep Rig,” a film financed by former Overstock.com chief executive Patrick Byrne for $750,000, is set to be released online this weekend — the latest production by a loosely affiliated network of figures who have harnessed right-wing media outlets, podcasts and the social media platform Telegram to promote the falsehood that the 2020 election was rigged. The baseless assertion, backed by millions of dollars from wealthy individuals, is reverberating across this alternative media ecosphere five months after Trump and many of his backers were pushed off Facebook and Twitter for spreading disinformation that inspired a mob to attack the U.S. Capitol. While largely unnoticed by Americans who have accepted the fact of President Biden’s victory, the deluge of content has captured the attention of many who think the election was rigged, a belief that is an animating force inside the Republican Party. In this world, ballot reviews like a Republican-commissioned recount now underway in Arizona are about to begin in other key swing states. Conspiracy theories that grow more dizzyingly complex by the day will soon be proven, showing that China or other foreign powers secretly flipped votes for Biden. Trump will be restored as president in months.

Full Article: Inside the ‘shadow reality world’ promoting the lie that the presidential election was stolen – The Washington Post

National: Trump allies ask judge to dismiss lawsuits over false claims Dominion voting machines were rigged | Ann E. Marimow/The Washington Post

President Donald Trump’s former lawyers and allies urged a federal judge in Washington on Thursday to throw out a trio of billion-dollar defamation lawsuits filed by Dominion Voting Systems over false claims that the company’s technology was used to rig the 2020 presidential election. Dominion says the falsehoods spread by former Trump attorneys Sidney Powell and Rudolph W. Giuliani, in addition to MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, amounted to a “viral disinformation campaign” that damaged the company’s reputation and its business and led to death threats against employees. In each of the lawsuits, Dominion uses the defendants’ words against them, citing dozens of public statements they made in media appearances and at public events spreading the lie that the voting-machine company helped steal the election from Trump. U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols seemed skeptical Thursday of the argument from Lindell’s attorney that the Republican donor was merely opining on the important issue of election security. “The public debate about election security is not the same as saying a particular company intentionally committed voter fraud,” Nichols said.

Full Article: Trump allies ask judge to dismiss lawsuits over false claims Dominion voting machines were rigged – The Washington Post

National: Rick Scott blocks Senate vote on top cyber nominee until Harris visits border | Maggie Miller/The Hill

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) on Wednesday blocked a proposed unanimous consent vote on President Biden’s nominee to lead the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) until Vice President Harris visits the U.S.-Mexico border later this week. Scott made clear on the Senate floor that he is not opposed to Jen Easterly serving as CISA director but said the block is meant to hold the Biden administration accountable for addressing migration concerns at the southern border. “This isn’t about Ms. Easterly. This isn’t about cybersecurity,” Scott said. “I am here today because families in my state of Florida and across our nation deserve accountability, and President Biden has shown a total lack of accountability when it comes to addressing the border crisis.” Scott voted in favor of approving Easterly following her nomination hearing before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee but announced at the time that he would place a hold on Senate votes on all nominees for Department of Homeland Security (DHS) positions until Biden visited the U.S.-Mexico border.

Full Article: Rick Scott blocks Senate vote on top cyber nominee until Harris visits border | TheHill

National: How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections | Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein/The New York Times

Lonnie Hollis has been a member of the Troup County election board in West Georgia since 2013. A Democrat and one of two Black women on the board, she has advocated Sunday voting, helped voters on Election Days and pushed for a new precinct location at a Black church in a nearby town. But this year, Ms. Hollis will be removed from the board, the result of a local election law signed by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican. Previously, election board members were selected by both political parties, county commissioners and the three biggest municipalities in Troup County. Now, the G.O.P.-controlled county commission has the sole authority to restructure the board and appoint all the new members. “I speak out and I know the laws,” Ms. Hollis said in an interview. “The bottom line is they don’t like people that have some type of intelligence and know what they’re doing, because they know they can’t influence them.” Ms. Hollis is not alone. Across Georgia, members of at least 10 county election boards have been removed, had their position eliminated or are likely to be kicked off through local ordinances or new laws passed by the state legislature. At least five are people of color and most are Democrats — though some are Republicans — and they will most likely all be replaced by Republicans.

Full Article: How Republican States Are Expanding Their Power Over Elections – The New York Times

National: Democrats scramble to unify before election bill brawl | Jordain Carney/The Hill

Democrats are racing against the clock as they try to strike an internal deal on a sweeping election overhaul that can unify their 50 members. The Senate will vote Tuesday on the For the People Act, legislation that is guaranteed to hit a Republican filibuster and fall short of the 60 votes needed to advance. But Democrats hope that by banding together they can shift the public spotlight on GOP opposition after weeks of headlines about their own divisions. Speaking from the Senate floor on Thursday, Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) previewed the strategy, arguing that the Republican Party had become a “hornet’s nest of conspiracy theories and voter suppression in the states” and that “the Democratic Party is the only party standing up for democracy right now.” “Next week, the Senate will have this debate. Democrats will bring forward legislation to protect voting rights and safeguard our democracy. And we are going to see where everyone stands. Everyone,” Schumer said.

Full Article: Democrats scramble to unify before election bill brawl | TheHill

National: Senate Democrats brace for bill’s defeat amid GOP resistance | Clare Foran and Lauren Fox/CNN

Senate Democrats are on track to suffer a stinging defeat Tuesday with Republican opposition expected to sink a voting and election bill that Democrats have made a signature priority, an outcome that will underscore the limits of the party’s power with the narrowest possible Senate majority. Democrats have set up a key test vote on the bill that they have pitched as a necessary counter to state-level efforts to restrict voting access, but Republicans have united against it, decrying it as a partisan power grab and a federal overreach into state voting and election systems. Democrats have also faced pushback over the legislation from a member of their own caucus: pivotal swing vote Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Failure of the bill to move forward would be a major blow for Democrats that will likely trigger a fresh outpouring of calls from progressives to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which requires most bills to get the votes of at least 10 Republicans given the current Senate makeup. But the votes are not there to eliminate the filibuster with Manchin and several other moderate Democrats opposed. The effort by Democrats to pass the voting legislation comes in the aftermath of former President Donald Trump’s “Big Lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and as Republican-controlled legislatures have pressed ahead with new state laws imposing limits on voting. As of May, state legislators in 48 states had introduced more than 380 bills with restrictive voting provisions, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

Full Article: Voting rights: Senate Democrats brace for bill’s defeat amid GOP resistance – CNNPolitics

National: ‘Unreasonably’ long lines to vote would be eliminated under proposal from Democratic lawmakers | Alex Woodward/The Independent

In the wake of Republican election losses and the GOP’s unfounded narrative of widespread voter fraud, more than a dozen states have passed sweeping elections reform laws that make it harder to vote, including criminalising handing out food and water to people waiting in long lines to cast their ballot at the polls. Democratic US Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley have introduced a bill that intends to push back on those efforts. The legislation would “end hours-long lines at polling places that suppress hundreds of thousands of American votes, and to restore our Constitutional rights to vote in free and fair elections”. Scenes of long lines at voting precincts across the US have dominated Election Day coverage in recent years. Roughly 3 million voters waited 30 minutes or longer to cast their ballot in the 2018 elections, surpassing the acceptable threshold for wait times set by the Presidential Commission on Election Administration, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. With the widespread closures of Election Day polling locations and the consolidation of voting precincts, voting rights advocates have warned that longer wait times could suppress voters who now face diminishing options to vote early or by mail to avoid crowded in-person voting.

Full Article: ‘Unreasonably’ long lines to vote would be eliminated under proposal from Democratic lawmakers | The Independent

National: ‘Italygate’ election conspiracy theory was pushed by two firms led by woman who also falsely claimed $30 million mansion was hers | Jon Swaine and Emma Brown/The Washington Post

Full Article: ‘Italygate’ election conspiracy theory was pushed by two firms led by woman who also falsely claimed $30 million mansion was hers – The Washington Post

Late last December, as President Donald Trump pressed senior officials to find proof of election fraud, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows emailed acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen a letter detailing an outlandish theory of how an Italian defense contractor had conspired with U.S. intelligence to rig the 2020 presidential contest. The letter, which was among records released by Congress this past week, was printed under the letterhead of USAerospace Partners, a little-known Virginia aviation company. In early January, a second Virginia firm, the Institute for Good Governance, and a partner organization released a statement from an Italian attorney who claimed that a hacker had admitted involvement in the supposed conspiracy. According to the conspiracy theory known as “Italygate,” people working for the Italian defense contractor, in coordination with senior CIA officials, used military satellites to switch votes from Trump to Joe Biden and swing the result of the election. Though her name was not mentioned in either document, both Virginia organizations are led by Michele Roosevelt Edwards, according to state corporate filings reviewed by The Washington Post. Edwards is a former Republican congressional candidate who built a reputation as an advocate for the Somali people and as someone who could negotiate with warlords and pirates in the war-torn region.

Arizona election review is not simply an exercise in ‘transparency’ | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

There’s a guy at work who doesn’t like you. Who has never liked you. He sees you as a threat and is convinced that you’ve been able to succeed because you’ve done something underhanded — what, he can’t say, but that doesn’t stop him from spreading rumors around your workplace anyway. Last year, you were both up for promotion. The new position was an important role in the company and both of you went through repeated interviews with company officials scrutinizing your work records. You emerged on top. Your nemesis’s crusade against you suddenly went into overdrive. Worse, he got his best friend, who works in human resources, to open an investigation of your bid for the role — an investigation led by your nemesis’s friend, someone who in the past has publicly agreed with your nemesis’s allegations. The H.R. guy gets to work, assuring everyone that he’ll explore every rumor anyone has raised about you — solely, he assures you with solemnity, to be able to rule everything out. The claim your nemesis made about your having worked remotely from the International Space Station for a month? He has a device that will detect the presence of jet fuel residue. The H.R. guy asks that you step out of your workspace for a week or two and he takes possession of your work computer and all of your files so that he can examine every aspect of how you’ve performed. He has never done this sort of investigation before, but he insists that he will be objective in his review.

Full Article: Why the Arizona election review is not simply an exercise in ‘transparency’ – The Washington Post

Biden links Juneteenth to voting rights as he signs new federal holiday into law | Alex Woodward/The Independent

President Joe Biden has signed a bill into law creating Juneteenth – the nation’s oldest annual commemoration of slavery’s end – as a national holiday. Following the proposal’s swift passage in Congress, from a unanimous vote in the Senate on Tuesday and debate and passage with overwhelming bipartisan support in the House of Representatives on Wednesday, the president signed the measure into law on Thursday, two days before 2021’s Juneteenth celebrations. Effective this week, federal workers will receive a paid holiday on 19 June, or, if it falls on a weekend, the closest Friday or Monday. In remarks from the White House before a bill signing, the president said Juneteenth “will join the others of our national celebrations” for “our independence, our labourers who built this nation, our service members” but he underscored the nation’s urgent and ongoing duty to live up to its promise of equality. He pointed to his administration’s efforts to combat and prosecute discrimination, promote equity in healthcare and education, and protect voting rights against “an assault that offends our very democracy” from partisan legislation undermining ballot access across the US.

Full Article: Biden links Juneteenth to voting rights as he signs new federal holiday into law | The Independent

National: New emails detail Trump’s efforts to have Justice Department take up his false election-fraud claims | Karoun Demirjian and Matt Zapotosky/The Washington Post

President Donald Trump’s staff began sending emails to Jeffrey Rosen, the No. 2 official at the Justice Department, asking him to embrace Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election at least 10 days before Rosen assumed the role of acting attorney general, according to new emails disclosed Tuesday by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform. On the same day the electoral college met to certify the election results — which was also the day Trump announced that William P. Barr would be stepping down as attorney general — the president’s assistant sent Rosen an email with a list of complaints concerning the way the election had been carried out in Antrim County, Mich. The file included a “forensic analysis” of the Dominion Voting Systems machines the county employed, alleging they were “intentionally and purposefully” calibrated to create fraudulent results. It also included “talking points” that could be used to counter any arguments “against us.” “It’s indicative of what the machines can and did do to move votes,” the document Trump sent to Rosen reads. “We believe it has happened everywhere.” The claims were false, based on a report compiled by Allied Security Operations Group, a company led by a Republican businessman who pushed baseless allegations that the 2020 election was stolen. The email — one of several previously undisclosed records released by the Oversight Committee — sheds light on the type of pressure Trump put on the Justice Department to take up his crusade against Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.

Full Article: New emails detail Trump’s efforts to have Justice Department take up his false election-fraud claims – The Washington Post

National: We’re learning more about how Trump leveraged his power to bolster his election fantasies | Philip Bump/The Washington Post

On Dec. 14, 2020, about 2,500 people died of covid-19, the disease for which a vaccine was just beginning to be deployed. On that day, more than 200,000 people contracted the coronavirus, a number equal to 13 out of every 20,000 Americans. But in the White House, President Donald Trump’s focus was largely elsewhere: on his desperate effort to overturn the results of the presidential election that had been settled more than a month before. At 5:39 p.m., Trump announced that his attorney general, William P. Barr, would be leaving his administration. The timing was odd, given that Trump had only a month left in office. But Trump, we learned on Tuesday, wasted no time in getting Barr’s replacement up to speed on the president’s primary concern. About 40 minutes before Trump’s announcement about Barr, the president “sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers,” the New York Times’s Katie Benner reported. Trump had been publicly focused on the results in Antrim County, Mich., a few hours earlier. “WOW,” he tweeted at about 3 p.m. “This report shows massive fraud. Election changing result!” The report to which he was referring — and which was forwarded to Rosen — was compiled by an activist named Russell Ramsland, who was central to the false claims about the election that were floating around, The Washington Post reported in May. There was a misreporting of results in the county, a function of an error that occurred when some ballots were updated to include new candidates. The error was caught and explained within 48 hours of the election — but Antrim became a focal point of conspiracy theories about voting machines and fraud anyway. (An audit completed a few days after Trump’s tweet validated the corrected results.)

Full Article: We’re learning more about how Trump leveraged his power to bolster his election fantasies – The Washington Post

National: The sycophantic inner circle egging on Trump – and fueling his big lie | Adam Gabbatt/The Guardian

On 7 November 2020, after several days of vote-counting, Donald Trump lost the US presidential election. More than 60 unsuccessful lawsuits and one insurrection later, Trump has still lost the election, but the former president refuses to accept defeat. Egged on by a group of sycophants and fantasists, including a small-time Pennsylvania politician, a host on a far-right news network, and the CEO of a pillow company, Trump now plans to hold rallies at the end of June where he is likely to continue his fraudulent claims of a stolen election. Despite the election having been repeatedly investigated and declared “the most secure in American history” by a group of experts, the former president is said to be convinced the election result will be overturned. Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and a Trump confidant who claims to have evidence that shows voting machines were hacked by China, told the Guardian Trump would be returned to office by August or – at the latest – September. “With me they just keep saying: ‘It’s a conspiracy, Mike Lindell – he’s crazy, blah blah blah,’ all this stuff,” Lindell said. “But I think it gives the whole country hope because they know me and they know I wouldn’t be out there if I wasn’t 100%.” As are those in his close circle fighting a series of quixotic battles on his behalf.

Full Article: The sycophantic inner circle egging on Trump – and fueling his big lie | Donald Trump | The Guardian

National: ‘Potential crisis for democracy’: Threats to election workers could spur mass retirements | Zach Montellaro/Politico

State and local election offices fear they are set to face a wave of retirements and resignations after confronting the dual burdens of a pandemic and a rise in conspiracy-fueled threats. A new survey of over 200 local election officials — the people responsible for running polling places, maintaining voter rolls and counting and certifying the results of elections — found that roughly one-third were either very or somewhat concerned about “being harassed on the job” or “feeling unsafe” at work during the 2020 election cycle. Nearly 4-in-10 respondents in the survey, which was conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice and Bipartisan Policy Center, reported the same level of concern about “facing pressure to certify election results.” Election workers and watchdogs say that after these officials preserved the integrity of the 2020 election despite enormous pressure from former President Donald Trump and allies, the climate could kick off a “brain drain” in their field that would pose a threat to the administration of future elections if longtime election workers are replaced by those with less experience — or by believers in the conspiracy theories about the 2020 results Trump and his allies promote.

Full Article: ‘Potential crisis for democracy’: Threats to election workers could spur mass retirements – POLITICO

National: GOP crushes Manchin’s hopes for elections compromise | Burgess Everett/Politico

Senate Republicans spent months praising Joe Manchin for his insistence on cross-party compromise. Next week they will almost surely end his hopes for a bipartisan deal on elections. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he believed all 50 Republicans would oppose Sen. Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) slimmed-down elections compromise, which focuses on expanding early voting and ending partisan gerrymandering in federal elections. And it’s not clear there’s a single Republican vote to even begin debate on the matter, potentially dooming Manchin’s proposals before they can even make it into the bill. Both Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said they would likely oppose a procedural vote next week that would bring Democrats’ massive elections reform bill to the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that the Senate could amend the bill to adopt Manchin’s changes. But Romney said supporting that strategy “doesn’t make a lot of sense to me” and Murkowski said “Joe hasn’t briefed me on any of this.” “It needs to be blocked,” said Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who praised Manchin last week for “saving our country” in encouraging bipartisanship. “I’m not optimistic that they could make enough changes to that to make it a fair bill. It would usurp the rights of the states.”

Full Article: GOP crushes Manchin’s hopes for elections compromise – POLITICO

National: Voting in America: The Urgency of Legitimacy | Clay S. Jenkinson/Governing

“The voters, the courts and the states have all spoken. They’ve all spoken.” That from then Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Jan. 6, 2021, in remarks intended to push back against those who were attempting to stop the certification of the 2020 election results. “If we overrule them, it would damage our republic forever.” Here we are, six months later. The 2020 national election has been certified in all fifty states. Recounts, audits and more than sixty court challenges have been adjudicated and resolved, and nothing in any of those post-election checks and balances has revealed any significant voter fraud. Joe Biden won the election. He is the 46th president of the United States. Republican political leaders now routinely speak of Joe Biden as the legitimate president and work with his administration every day, every week, to address national concerns. And yet …. Some of those same Republican leaders pander to the most ardent Trump supporters by seeming to agree with them that the election was stolen, or that there were enough irregularities to justify skepticism that the election was legitimate. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on May 24 indicated that more than 60 percent of Republican respondents continue to assert that the election was stolen. Perhaps more alarming, according to the same poll, 23 percent of Republican respondents agreed that “the government, media and financial worlds in the U.S. are controlled by a group of Satan-worshipping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation,” that “there is a storm coming soon that will sweep away the elites in power and restore the rightful leaders,” and that “because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” You know the Chinese curse: May you live in interesting times!

Full Article: Voting in America: The Urgency of Legitimacy

Garland announces expansion of Justice Department’s voting rights unit, vowing to scrutinize GOP-backed voting restrictions and ballot reviews | Amy Gardner and Sean Sullivan/The Washington Post

Full Article: Garland announces expansion of Justice Department’s voting rights unit, vowing to scrutinize GOP-backed voting restrictions and ballot reviews – The Washington Post

Attorney General Merrick Garland pledged Friday to double the size of the Justice Department’s voting rights enforcement staff to combat efforts to restrict ballot access and prosecute those who threaten or harm election workers. In an expansive speech that invoked the nation’s long and, at times, faltering progress toward ensuring every American’s right to vote, Garland likened the fight against efforts to curtail ballot access to past campaigns enshrining voting rights for Black Americans in the Constitution and the seminal Voting Rights Act of 1965. Garland said the additional trial attorneys, which he plans to hire over the coming 30 days, will scrutinize new laws and existing practices across the nation for potential discrimination against Americans of color, including in new measures GOP state lawmakers are pushing. They will enforce provisions of the Voting Rights Act by challenging such laws or practices in court — and prosecute anyone found to intimidate or threaten violence against election officials. The expanded unit will also monitor the growing number of post-election ballot reviews being called for around the country by supporters of former president Donald Trump in search of signs of violations of federal laws, Garland said, and will watch over upcoming redistricting efforts to call out discriminatory practices. “To meet the challenge of the current moment, we must rededicate the resources of the Department of Justice to a critical part of its original mission: Enforcing federal law to protect the franchise of all eligible voters,” Garland said in his address to department employees. He added: “Where we see violations, we will not hesitate to act.”

National: How Republicans came to embrace the big lie of a stolen election | Sam Levine/The Guardian

Just a few days after the polls closed in Florida’s 2018 general election, Rick Scott, then the state’s governor, held a press conference outside the governor’s mansion and made a stunning accusation. Scott was running for a US Senate seat, and as more votes were counted, his lead was dwindling. Targeting two of the state’s most Democratic-leaning counties, Scott said there was “rampant fraud”. “Every person in Florida knows exactly what is happening. Their goal is to mysteriously keep finding more votes until the election turns out the way they want,” he said, directing the state’s law enforcement agency to investigate. “I will not sit idly by while unethical liberals try to steal this election from the great people of Florida.” Scott eventually won the election, and his comments eventually faded. But the episode offered an alarming glimpse of the direction the Republican party was turning. A little over two years later, fanned repeatedly by Donald Trump throughout 2020, the myth of a stolen American election has shifted from a fringe idea to one being embraced by the Republican party. The so-called big lie – the idea that the election was stolen from Trump – has transformed from a tactical strategy to a guiding ideology. For years, civil rights groups and academics have raised alarm at the way Republican officials have deployed false claims of voter fraud as a political strategy to justify laws that restrict access to the ballot. But the way Republicans have embraced the myth of a stolen election since Trump’s loss in November, is new, they say, marking a dangerous turn from generalized allegations of fraud to refusing to accept the legitimacy of elections.

Full Article: How Republicans came to embrace the big lie of a stolen election | Republicans | The Guardian

Congress likely won’t take action on the growing threats to election integrity, leaving election workers vulnerable to criminal prosecution and results open to partisan tampering | Grace Panetta/Business Insider

Congress will almost certainly sit out the ongoing high-stakes fight within states over how people vote, and who has power over how elections are run. The Senate is gearing up for a showdown over voting rights and the filibuster at the end of June, amid the backdrop Republican state legislators passing an unprecedented number of laws tightening rules for voters and election officials. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is bringing the For The People Act (known as HR. 1 in the House and S. 1 in the Senate), Democrats’ 800-plus page flagship voting rights and democracy reform bill, up for a floor vote the week of June 21. The chances of Congress passing that legislation went from extraordinarily slim to none after moderate Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin formally came out against the bill in a June 6 op-ed in the Charleston Gazette-Mail. Within the current Senate filibuster rules (which Manchin also supports), the bill, which has no GOP support, would need Manchin and at least 10 Republican votes to pass the US Senate. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also threw cold water on H.R. 4, Manchin and Sen. Lisa Murkowski’s proposed bipartisan alternative to the For The People Act that would restore a key provision of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court in 2013.

Full Article: Congress Likely Won’t Take Action on GOP Election Subversion

National: G.O.P. Bills Rattle Disabled Voters: ‘We Don’t Have a Voice Anymore’ | Maggie Astor/The New York Times

It was 1991, she recalled, and she was a 21-year-old learning to live independently with cerebral palsy, which she has had since birth. She waited in line at her polling place in Austin, Texas, for hours. Then she waited for a poll worker who could help her complete her ballot. Finally, the worker refused to take her aside, making her name her preferred candidates in full view and earshot of other voters. Ms. Angel, who has limited use of her limbs and a speech impairment and uses a foot-operated power wheelchair, left understanding that, unlike other Americans, she couldn’t vote privately. It was only when she began working for the Coalition of Texans With Disabilities in 2010, and learned about the adaptive equipment available to her, that she was able to vote independently — an experience that brought her to tears. Now, Ms. Angel is watching the Texas Legislature pursue sweeping voting restrictions, afraid that she and others with disabilities might again be deterred from voting. “They’re really making it so we don’t have a voice anymore,” she said. “And without that, we can’t get the things that we need to survive.” The Texas legislation Democrats blocked but Republicans in a special session, is one of a series of Republican voting bills that would disproportionately affect people with disabilities. The Wisconsin Senate approved three last week with more to come, though unlike in Texas, the governor there is a Democrat and is expected to veto them. Georgia and Florida have enacted similar measures.

Full Article: G.O.P. Bills Rattle Disabled Voters: ‘We Don’t Have a Voice Anymore’ – The New York Times

National: In Congress, Republicans Shrug at Warnings of Democracy in Peril | Jonathan Weisman/The New York Times

Senator Christopher S. Murphy concedes that political rhetoric in the nation’s capital can sometimes stray into hysteria, but when it comes to the precarious state of American democracy, he insisted he was not exaggerating the nation’s tilt toward authoritarianism. “Democrats are always at risk of being hyperbolic,” said Mr. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut. “I don’t think there’s a risk when it comes to the current state of democratic norms.” After the norm-shattering presidency of Donald J. Trump, the violence-inducing bombast over a stolen election, the pressuring of state vote counters, the Capitol riot and the flood of voter curtailment laws rapidly being enacted in Republican-run states, Washington has found itself in an anguished state. Almost daily, Democrats warn that Republicans are pursuing racist, Jim Crow-inspired voter suppression efforts to disenfranchise tens of millions of citizens, mainly people of color, in a cynical effort to grab power. Metal detectors sit outside the House chamber to prevent lawmakers — particularly Republicans who have boasted of their intention to carry guns everywhere — from bringing weaponry to the floor. Democrats regard their Republican colleagues with suspicion, believing that some of them collaborated with the rioters on Jan. 6. Republican lawmakers have systematically downplayed or dismissed the dangers, with some breezing over the attack on the Capitol as a largely peaceful protest, and many saying the state voting law changes are to restore “integrity” to the process, even as they give credence to Mr. Trump’s false claims of rampant fraud in the 2020 election. They shrug off Democrats’ warnings of grave danger as the overheated language of politics as usual. “I haven’t understood for four or five years why we are so quick to spin into a place where part of the country is sure that we no longer have the strength to move forward, as we always have in the past,” said Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of Republican leadership, noting that the passions of Republican voters today match those of Democratic voters after Mr. Trump’s triumph. “Four years ago, there were people in the so-called resistance showing up in all of my offices every week, some of whom were chaining themselves to the door.”

Full Article: In Congress, Republicans Shrug at Warnings of Democracy in Peril – The New York Times

National: Trump Pressed Official to Wield Justice Department to Back Election Claims | Katie Benner/The New York Times

An hour before President Donald J. Trump announced in December that William P. Barr would step down as attorney general, the president began pressuring Mr. Barr’s eventual replacement to have the Justice Department take up his false claims of election fraud. Mr. Trump sent an email via his assistant to Jeffrey A. Rosen, the incoming acting attorney general, that contained documents purporting to show evidence of election fraud in northern Michigan — the same claims that a federal judge had thrown out a week earlier in a lawsuit filed by one of Mr. Trump’s personal lawyers. Another email from Mr. Trump to Mr. Rosen followed two weeks later, again via the president’s assistant, that included a draft of a brief that Mr. Trump wanted the Justice Department to file to the Supreme Court. It argued, among other things, that state officials had used the pandemic to weaken election security and pave the way for widespread election fraud. The draft echoed claims in a lawsuit in Texas by the Trump-allied state attorney general that the justices had thrown out, and a lawyer who had helped on that effort later tried with increasing urgency to track down Mr. Rosen at the Justice Department, saying he had been dispatched by Mr. Trump to speak with him. The emails, turned over by the Justice Department to investigators on the House Oversight Committee and obtained by The New York Times, show how Mr. Trump pressured Mr. Rosen to put the power of the Justice Department behind lawsuits that had already failed to try to prove his false claims that extensive voter fraud had affected the election results. They are also the latest example of Mr. Trump’s frenzied drive to subvert the election results in the final weeks of his presidency, including ratcheting up pressure on the Justice Department. And they show that Mr. Trump flouted an established anticorruption norm that the Justice Department acts independently of the White House on criminal investigations or law enforcement actions, a gap that steadily eroded during Mr. Trump’s term. The documents dovetail with emails around the same time from Mark Meadows, Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, asking Mr. Rosen to examine unfounded conspiracy theories about the election.

Full Article: Trump Pressed Official to Wield Justice Dept. to Back Election Claims – The New York Times

National: As hope for federal voting rights rescue dims, state Democrats, advocates turn up the heat | Jane C. Timm/NBC

The Texas Democrats who blocked a Republican-backed voting restrictions bill from becoming state law at the eleventh hour last month will head to the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to lobby senators as part of a broader, last-ditch effort to rally support for a major voter rights bill. Nearly two dozen state Democrats plan to lobby senators in behalf of the For the People Act, a broad bill that would create a federal floor of voting rights access and kneecap laws like the one proposed in Texas and already enacted in other Republican-led states. The schedule is still in flux, but a source with knowledge of the plans said the Texas legislators are scheduled to meet with Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Republican Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn, both of Texas. They will also meet with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and hope to meet with Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., in their push for federal voting rights legislation. They will head to the White House for a previously announced meeting Wednesday with Vice President Kamala Harris, who is leading the Biden administration’s push to protect voting rights. “This is, in my mind, a now-or-never moment. It’s an all-hands-on-deck moment,” state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer said Sunday. “On that last day” of the Texas House session, “on that gloomy Sunday, we knew we didn’t have the votes, but we found a will, and we found a way.”

Full Article: As hope for federal voting rights rescue dims, state Democrats, advocates turn up the heat

National: Exodus of election officials raises concerns of partisanship | Anthony Izaguirre/Associated Press