Let's blame it on the Jews. Trump prepares for his impending loss. Trump Preemptively Blames the Jews If He Loses: ‘The Jewish People Would Really Have a Lot to Do with That If That Happens’ https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trum...y-have-a-lot-to-do-with-that-if-that-happens/
You are a foreigner and what you are doing is illegal. Foreign influence in U.S. elections has been a point of concern for both policymakers and the public, especially in recent years. This influence can take various forms, including disinformation campaigns, financial contributions, and cyberattacks, all aimed at swaying voter opinions or undermining confidence in the electoral system. Key Forms of Foreign Influence: Disinformation Campaigns: One of the most well-known forms of interference involves the spread of misleading or false information on social media platforms. Foreign actors, often backed by state entities, create fake accounts and spread divisive content to polarize voters and undermine trust in democratic processes. Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is a prime example, where troll farms and bots disseminated propaganda to influence voters' perceptions of candidates. Cyberattacks and Hacking: Cyberattacks on election infrastructure, such as voter databases or the emails of political campaigns, can erode public trust. The hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 election is a notorious instance, where emails were stolen and leaked to embarrass candidates or influence the outcome. Financial Contributions: Foreign entities are legally barred from making direct financial contributions to U.S. elections. However, indirect routes, such as donations through third parties or corporations, have been scrutinized. The goal is often to gain favor with politicians or shape policies that align with foreign interests. Lobbying and Influence Peddling: Foreign governments can hire U.S.-based lobbyists and law firms to indirectly influence policy by shaping legislative agendas and supporting candidates whose policies are favorable to their own interests.
You are a foreigner and what you are doing is illegal. Foreign influence in U.S. elections has been a point of concern for both policymakers and the public, especially in recent years. This influence can take various forms, including disinformation campaigns, financial contributions, and cyberattacks, all aimed at swaying voter opinions or undermining confidence in the electoral system. Key Forms of Foreign Influence: Disinformation Campaigns: One of the most well-known forms of interference involves the spread of misleading or false information on social media platforms. Foreign actors, often backed by state entities, create fake accounts and spread divisive content to polarize voters and undermine trust in democratic processes. Russia's involvement in the 2016 U.S. presidential election is a prime example, where troll farms and bots disseminated propaganda to influence voters' perceptions of candidates. Cyberattacks and Hacking: Cyberattacks on election infrastructure, such as voter databases or the emails of political campaigns, can erode public trust. The hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) during the 2016 election is a notorious instance, where emails were stolen and leaked to embarrass candidates or influence the outcome. Financial Contributions: Foreign entities are legally barred from making direct financial contributions to U.S. elections. However, indirect routes, such as donations through third parties or corporations, have been scrutinized. The goal is often to gain favor with politicians or shape policies that align with foreign interests. Lobbying and Influence Peddling: Foreign governments can hire U.S.-based lobbyists and law firms to indirectly influence policy by shaping legislative agendas and supporting candidates whose policies are favorable to their own interests.
Let's see the latest out of Georgia with the MAGA election board. Despite knowing it's illegal, extreme Georgia election board votes to require hand-counting of ballot. Trump-aligned Georgia election board votes 3-2 to require hand-count on election day Republican majority approves requirement for poll managers to hand-count ballots before tabulating votes https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/20/georgia-state-election-board-meeting Forty-six days before the election, Georgia’s state election board approved a new rule requiring a hand count of paper ballots cast on election day before tabulating votes. The three Trump-aligned members that make up the majority on the board approved the rule that would require three people in every precinct to check machine-vote tallies by hand-counting the election results, despite a warning from the state attorney general that this rule and others in consideration “very likely exceed the board’s statutory authority”. Chair John Fervier – an appointee of Brian Kemp, the Republican governor – and Democratic appointee Sara Tindall Ghazal voting against. “We are going against the advice of our attorney by voting in the affirmative,” said Fervier. “Mr Chairman, I have to point out that every time you make a statement that this could be against the law, you are welcoming lawsuits,” board member Janelle King said in response. “I am getting really tired of encouraging lawsuits.” Voting experts have long warned that hand-counts are time-consuming, costly and less reliable than machines. It is a process that nonetheless has been favored by conservative activists who doubt the results of the 2020 election. Advocates have also warned that Georgia’s proposed rule is contrary to state law and an avenue for error. “What we are talking about in plain terms is asking for thousands of people to handle ballots before their totals are known and were formally reported without virtually a single safeguard in place, even without considering the risk of any bad actors,” Marisa Pyle, senior democracy defense manager for All Voting Is Local, said during the public comment portion of Friday’s meeting. “Elections staff are begging you stop.” The board will also consider proposed rules that would mandate daily hand counts of early votes, require public reports of voters who have cast a ballot during early voting, allow for greater poll-watcher access during tabulation, distinguish emergency and mail-in ballots, and require that ballots be tracked through the mail. Chris Carr, Georgia’s attorney general, issued a letter on Thursday to inform the board that the proposed rules are likely illegal. A proposed rule permitting poll watchers more access would go “beyond the statutorily-designated list of places a superintendent may decide to place poll watchers”, Carr wrote, adding that if adopted, it would “very likely be subject to legal challenge as invalid”. The five-member board has flown under the radar until recently, when a new three-member Republican bloc began pushing through a series of rule changes that many worry could slow down the certification process this fall. In recent months, it has come under intense scrutiny as it adopted new rules that allow local election board members to undertake an undefined “reasonable inquiry” before they can certify an election, and gives them the right to access unlimited documents. The board also passed a rule that requires an explanation for any mismatch between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters who check in at a precinct. Election officials have said that those mismatches are typical and usually have benign explanations like a voter deciding not to cast a ballot after showing up at the polls. One of the primary concerns from elections directors is about how the change in procedure would create a chain-of-custody problem in voting centers. Currently, precinct officials never touch a cast ballot. After a voter completes a ballot by touchscreen, their ballot is printed and then the voter places it in a tabulator which scans it and deposits it into a sealed box. The rule change would have poll workers unseal that box, count ballots by hand and then return ballots to a container to be sealed again. The process introduces the potential for counting errors that would delay a count. State law – which legislators changed in 2021 – requires counties to have a complete tabulation by 11.59 on election day. The Georgia state representative Saira Draper, testifying before the committee, said the board was trying to “sow chaos” before the election. “We are setting up our counties to fail,” she said. “When these counties fail, when there are inaccuracies if there is a result of the election that some of the members of this board do not like, they will be able to point to those inaccuracies.” In previous meetings over the year, Trump-aligned activists packed the meeting hall. On Friday, much of the audience was composed of elections officials from across the state. “The world is going to hold us accountable for the decisions we make,” said Milton Kidd, elections director for Douglas county. Donald Trump has praised the three members of the elections board who have enacted the recent rules by name, calling them “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory”. Janice Johnston, the most senior member of the bloc, attended that rally and stood up and waved to the crowd. Before Friday’s meeting, local election officials throughout the state – and some members of the board – had urged the board to halt changing the rules around elections so close to voting, warning it would strain already resource-strapped election offices and cause confusion. “Our main concerns are the timing of these rules,” said Travis Doss, executive director of the Richmond county board of elections in Augusta and the president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, which has written to the board urging it to halt changes before the election. Mail-in ballots are set to begin going out on 7 October and early voting will begin on 15 October. Ballots to military and overseas voters are being mailed out on 21 September. The Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, a Republican whose seat was removed from the state board by lawmakers after the 2020 election, has also condemned the changes. “It is far too late in the election process for counties to implement new rules and procedures, and many poll workers have already completed their required training,” his office wrote in a letter to the board obtained by the New York Times earlier this week. “If the board believes that rules changes are important for an election, the process should begin much sooner to allow for smooth implementation and training, and include the input of election officials.”
Let's see how Republican voter suppression efforts are going in Arizona. Oh they screwed up? Arizona Republicans suddenly realized the error in their lawsuit for more stringent voter ID laws: More Republicans would be affected than Democrat. What a shame. Let's see how quickly they back-paddle. What the Arizona GOP’s Surprise Reversal in ‘Noncitizen’ Voting Litigation Reveals Do Arizona Republicans support voter ID? It may depend on who’s disenfranchised. https://www.justsecurity.org/103415/arizona-gop-noncitizen-voting-reversal/
Let's see what other state is purging thousands of eligible voters. Voter Suppression: Ohio’s Secretary of State Has Purged Thousands of Eligible Voters In spite of the fact that he found no evidence of widespread voter fraud, Ohio's Republican Secretary of State is removing many thousands of voters from the rolls who in all probability would vote for Democrats. https://factkeepers.com/voter-suppr...tate-has-purged-thousands-of-eligible-voters/ Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has purged hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls, saying doing so is important to protect “election integrity.” But a watchdog has found that while LaRose professes to protect election integrity, Ohio has poor safeguards against removing eligible voters from the rolls. By LaRose’s own accounting, fraudulent voting in Ohio is a problem that almost doesn’t exist. LaRose found an infinitesimal 0.0005% “potentially illegal” voting in the last presidential election. Even so, he insists that his aggressive voter purges are for no purpose other than to protect the voter rolls. It’s typical for election officials to perform routine maintenance on a state’s voter rolls. But some states go well beyond that, and a study last year indicated that Ohio’s practices were among those most likely to sweep eligible voters off the rolls—and those voters are more likely to be minorities, the American Bar Association said in a 2020 report. A study of 10 states published late last year found that Ohio had the worst removal practices when it did voter purges, and that it was among the worst in terms of purging eligible voters. It was produced by Dēmos, a progressive think tank dedicated to voter access, campaign finance reform and economic justice. Future President Barack Obama was a member of its founding board in 2000, and the group has in the past challenged LaRose’s purge tactics. It singled out Ohio’s voter purges for special attention, saying “at nearly every turn, the state makes it hard for voters to stay on the registration rolls, and the totality of Ohio’s removal practices—from purging for inactivity to lack of notice to voters removed for alleged felony conviction or adjudication of mental incapacity, to a lack of process for voters to contest their removal, to expansive permissions to challenge a voter’s eligibility—make it likely that eligible voters will be improperly purged.” LaRose’s office didn’t respond to questions for this story. In an interview, Roni Druks, senior counsel at Dēmos, made the distinction between routine maintenance of voter lists and voting purges. “Voter purges occur when election officials engage in practices like Ohio does that essentially result in the removal of otherwise qualified voters from the state voter rolls,” she said. A main way Ohio and a minority of other states do that is through “use it or lose it” practices that the American Bar Association in 2020 said “ought to be seen as glaringly unconstitutional—purging people from the rolls solely because they have skipped voting in several consecutive elections and they have not responded to a letter asking them to confirm where they live.” As Druks explained, there’s nothing in the law or the U.S. Constitution requiring people to vote to maintain their eligibility. “Not voting isn’t a disqualification,” she said. “Being apathetic about our political process is not a voter disqualification. I think we should be reaching out to folks who feel disconnected.” In 2019, LaRose’s office released a list of 235,000 voters about to be removed from the rolls. It was riddled with errors and about 40,000—or 20%—were on it even though they were eligible voters, the New York Times reported. In its 2020 report, the Bar Association noted, “Failure to vote regularly correlates with lower socioeconomic status and, at least in some places, with being a member of a racial minority,” it said. Minority voters skew heavily to the Democratic Party. LaRose is a Republican.
How did the GOP become the party of cranks, crackpots and fruitcakes? https://www.alternet.org/fringe-gop/