Voter Suppression & Election Theft by the Republican Party

[AnBr]

She needs to go to jail.

[LFC]

As expected and predicted the Republicans are going full bore with gerrymandering starting with Texass and their suppression of nearly all of the increase in voters over the past decade. Now THAT's efficient. Welcome to minority rule.

People of color made up the vast majority of Texas’ decade-long growth spurt, especially Latinos, a group that accounted for fully half of the state’s growth.

But Republicans control the state’s legislature. And the new political maps they’ve approved in recent days as part of the redistricting process dilute Latinos’ voting power, according to the first lawsuit over the maps.

The suit, filed Monday in federal court in the Western District of Texas, marks what’s likely to be a fierce struggle over political representation in the increasingly diverse state.

People of color made up 95% of Texas’s population growth since 2010. Of the state’s roughly 4 million new residents over the past decade, 1,980,796 were Hispanic, 613,092 were Asian, 557,887 were Black — and just 187,252 were white, the Texas Tribune noted.

That diverse growth is not being represented in newly-drawn political maps, several Latino civil and voting rights groups suing the state say. Rather, Texas Republicans drew up state House, state Senate, state Board of Education and U.S. congressional maps that preserved their power by “packing” certain districts with Latinos but keeping them out of the majority in new districts.

“Plaintiffs seek a declaratory judgment that the redistricting plans for the Texas House (Plan H2316), Senate (Plan S2168), SBOE (Plan E2106) and Congress (C2193) violate their civil rights because the plans unlawfully dilute the voting strength of Latinos,” the suit read. “Plaintiffs further seek a declaratory judgment that the challenged redistricting plans intentionally discriminate against them on the basis of race and national origin.”

The complaint was written by lawyers from the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, or MALDEF. The suit’s defendants, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and Deputy Secretary of State Jose A. Esparza, have not responded in court to the complaint, but Republicans lawmakers have said they followed the law with the new districts.

At the time the suit was filed Monday, the legislature had approved redistricting plans for the state House and Senate, and was finalizing a plan for U.S. Congress.

By Tuesday, both legislative chambers had approved a final congressional map as well.

Texas’s large population growth meant it was the only state in the country to gain two congressional seats. But despite the state’s white population actually shrinking as a percentage of total residents, the newly drawn and approved districts gave white voters “effective control” of both new districts, the Tribune reported.

Currently, Latino voting-age residents make up the majority of eight congressional districts. Under the new maps — despite massive growth of Texas’ Latino population in recent years — that number would be down to seven.

[AnBr]

Texas’ Lt. Guv Pays First Voter-Fraud Reward—to a Progressive Poll Worker

[andydp]

Oct 22, 2021 14:12:04 GMT AnBr said:

Texas’ Lt. Guv Pays First Voter-Fraud Reward—to a Progressive Poll Worker

The GOP: where every accusation is an admission of guilt.

[LFC]

Apparently the right to vote isn't really all that much of a right. No shock here.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an attempt to move forward with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Like other attempts to pass voting rights legislation this year, even a formal debate on the bill could not pass Republicans’ use of the filibuster.

A majority of the Senate supported moving forward with bill, which would reconstruct some of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) “preclearance” provisions that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013, as well as other parts of the 1965 law that were weakened by another Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the lone Democratic hold out on the legislation over the summer, announced his support for a slightly-amended version of the bill on Tuesday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also supports that legislation as well; for months, she’s been the only Republican signed onto the effort.

The cloture vote to move forward with debate on the bill failed to surpass the 60-vote bar necessary to overcome a filibuster.

The vote was 50-49, with Murkowski the lone Republican in support. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) switched his vote, a procedural maneuver so that the Senate could take up the measure at a later date.

“The party of Lincoln is becoming the party of the Big Lie,” Schumer said after the vote.

So the focus, again, is on the filibuster. Just like the Freedom To Vote Act, which Republicans blocked from receiving a debate two weeks ago, the failure of the motion to begin debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is just the latest episode to demonstrate how the arcane Senate rules have stopped progress on Democrats’ priorities.

“If they’re not going to do this, then we have to look at what’s next, and I believe that is restoring the Senate,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told reporters Tuesday, referring to Republicans’ intransigence. “We can’t deny debate.”

“They are literally stopping us from debating something,” she said, adding later: “At some point, our democracy has to move along, so that’s a discussion we’ll be having.”

[goldenvalley]

Nov 3, 2021 20:36:06 GMT LFC said:

Apparently the right to vote isn't really all that much of a right. No shock here.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked an attempt to move forward with the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act. Like other attempts to pass voting rights legislation this year, even a formal debate on the bill could not pass Republicans’ use of the filibuster.

A majority of the Senate supported moving forward with bill, which would reconstruct some of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) “preclearance” provisions that were gutted by the Supreme Court in 2013, as well as other parts of the 1965 law that were weakened by another Supreme Court ruling earlier this year.

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), the lone Democratic hold out on the legislation over the summer, announced his support for a slightly-amended version of the bill on Tuesday. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) also supports that legislation as well; for months, she’s been the only Republican signed onto the effort.

The cloture vote to move forward with debate on the bill failed to surpass the 60-vote bar necessary to overcome a filibuster.

The vote was 50-49, with Murkowski the lone Republican in support. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) switched his vote, a procedural maneuver so that the Senate could take up the measure at a later date.

“The party of Lincoln is becoming the party of the Big Lie,” Schumer said after the vote.

So the focus, again, is on the filibuster. Just like the Freedom To Vote Act, which Republicans blocked from receiving a debate two weeks ago, the failure of the motion to begin debate on the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act is just the latest episode to demonstrate how the arcane Senate rules have stopped progress on Democrats’ priorities.

“If they’re not going to do this, then we have to look at what’s next, and I believe that is restoring the Senate,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) told reporters Tuesday, referring to Republicans’ intransigence. “We can’t deny debate.”

“They are literally stopping us from debating something,” she said, adding later: “At some point, our democracy has to move along, so that’s a discussion we’ll be having.”

Not surprised at all.  Anything the Dems propose will be torpedoed. Nothing really has changed since the 2020 election.  The elected officials hold the line on keeping voting laws unchanged while the folks in the Rep party keep yelling about mask and vaccine mandates, school closings, CRT...the things that keep Rep voter turnout high.

[LFC]

Re: Tina Peters of Colorado...

Oct 14, 2021 22:53:19 GMT AnBr said:

She needs to go to jail.

Well, AnBr, you just might get your wish.

FBI agents on Tuesday raided the home of a Trumpy Colorado county clerk already under state investigation after a leak of sensitive election information to a major QAnon influencer and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

It wasn’t immediately clear what the FBI was looking for when they entered Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters’ home, as well as several other locations that Peters said had been raided.

But Peters has been under investigation by state and local authorities, with the help of the FBI, since August, when video and digital information showing the inner working of her county’s election machines spilled into public view, after Peters allegedly allowed an unauthorized person to attend a software update.

The data, which was taken from election machines in Peters’ custody earlier this year, was shared online by the QAnon figure Ron Watkins and analyzed before an audience at Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium” in August.

The raid on Peters’ home Tuesday was part of four such federal operations Tuesday, the local district attorney said.

Peters, spilling the details of the raid in an interview with Lindell Tuesday, said authorities also raided the home of Rep. Lauren Boebert’s (R-CO) former campaign manager, Peters ally Sherronna Bishop. Bishop accompanied Peters to Lindell’s cyber conference (reportedly on Lindell’s private jet), and, like Peters, has pushed false theories for months about the election machines.

“We executed four federally court-authorized operations today to gather evidence in connection with the investigation into the Mesa County clerk and recorders office,” Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein said in a statement quoted by Colorado Politics. “We did so with assistance from the DA’s office from the 21st judicial district, the attorney general’s office and the FBI.”

Snowflake Tina if, of course, playing the victim card.

Peters, speaking to Lindell, said she was “terrified” by the raid.

“The FBI raided my home at 6 a.m. this morning, accusing me of committing a crime,” Peters told Lindell in the interview Tuesday, Colorado Politics reported. “And they raided the homes of my friends, mostly older women.”

OK, so they're older women. Does that mean they can't commit crimes against our democracy?

[Traveler]

Another just went down in Ohio. Cannot find the coverage I just saw on that. Another private laptop hooked into the voting machine network. Couldn't get through the device ID firewall, fortunately.

[LFC]

Nov 22, 2021 15:38:11 GMT Traveler said:

Another just went down in Ohio. Cannot find the coverage I just saw on that. Another private laptop hooked into the voting machine network. Couldn't get through the device ID firewall, fortunately.

Here's a link. F***ing fascists.

Ohio is investigating whether someone tried to gain access to Lake County's election network in order to find evidence of voter fraud.

According to The Washington Post, federal and local investigators are looking into what happened when a private laptop was plugged into the county network inside the office of Republican John Hamercheck, chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

The Lake County Board of Elections didn't respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed the investigation, saying no voter data or board information was compromised.

According to The Post, Lake County's security system worked. The computer connected to the county network, but the board of elections uses a separate network that only recognizes authorized devices.

“We are thrilled that our infrastructure stayed strong,” Lake County Board of Elections Director Ross McDonald told The Post.

Hamercheck didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Post that he was advised not to comment on the investigation including whether he participated in it.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Post he believes a government official helped facilitate the breach.

“It’s concerning that somebody would — especially somebody in a government office, somebody who is an elected official, or somebody who’s part of county government — would not realize all of those safeguards exist and would try to engage in some sort of a vigilante investigation,” LaRose said in an interview with The Post. “The good news is that our system of cyber security in Ohio is among the best in the nation.”

Ohio is investigating whether someone tried to gain access to Lake County's election network in order to find evidence of voter fraud.

According to The Washington Post, federal and local investigators are looking into what happened when a private laptop was plugged into the county network inside the office of Republican John Hamercheck, chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

The Lake County Board of Elections didn't respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed the investigation, saying no voter data or board information was compromised.

According to The Post, Lake County's security system worked. The computer connected to the county network, but the board of elections uses a separate network that only recognizes authorized devices.

“We are thrilled that our infrastructure stayed strong,” Lake County Board of Elections Director Ross McDonald told The Post.

Hamercheck didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Post that he was advised not to comment on the investigation including whether he participated in it.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Post he believes a government official helped facilitate the breach.

“It’s concerning that somebody would — especially somebody in a government office, somebody who is an elected official, or somebody who’s part of county government — would not realize all of those safeguards exist and would try to engage in some sort of a vigilante investigation,” LaRose said in an interview with The Post. “The good news is that our system of cyber security in Ohio is among the best in the nation.”

LOCK THEM UP! LOCK THEM UP!

[andydp]

Nov 22, 2021 15:38:11 GMT Traveler said:

Another just went down in Ohio. Cannot find the coverage I just saw on that. Another private laptop hooked into the voting machine network. Couldn't get through the device ID firewall, fortunately.

You know the rules: IOKIYAR

[pnwguy]

Nov 22, 2021 17:06:12 GMT andydp said:

Nov 22, 2021 15:38:11 GMT Traveler said:

Another just went down in Ohio. Cannot find the coverage I just saw on that. Another private laptop hooked into the voting machine network. Couldn't get through the device ID firewall, fortunately.

You know the rules: IDOIYAR

FIFY

(It's Divinely Ordained If You Are Republican)

[goldenvalley]

Nov 22, 2021 16:47:47 GMT LFC said:

Nov 22, 2021 15:38:11 GMT Traveler said:

Another just went down in Ohio. Cannot find the coverage I just saw on that. Another private laptop hooked into the voting machine network. Couldn't get through the device ID firewall, fortunately.

Here's a link. F***ing fascists.

Ohio is investigating whether someone tried to gain access to Lake County's election network in order to find evidence of voter fraud.

According to The Washington Post, federal and local investigators are looking into what happened when a private laptop was plugged into the county network inside the office of Republican John Hamercheck, chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

The Lake County Board of Elections didn't respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed the investigation, saying no voter data or board information was compromised.

According to The Post, Lake County's security system worked. The computer connected to the county network, but the board of elections uses a separate network that only recognizes authorized devices.

“We are thrilled that our infrastructure stayed strong,” Lake County Board of Elections Director Ross McDonald told The Post.

Hamercheck didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Post that he was advised not to comment on the investigation including whether he participated in it.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Post he believes a government official helped facilitate the breach.

“It’s concerning that somebody would — especially somebody in a government office, somebody who is an elected official, or somebody who’s part of county government — would not realize all of those safeguards exist and would try to engage in some sort of a vigilante investigation,” LaRose said in an interview with The Post. “The good news is that our system of cyber security in Ohio is among the best in the nation.”

Ohio is investigating whether someone tried to gain access to Lake County's election network in order to find evidence of voter fraud.

According to The Washington Post, federal and local investigators are looking into what happened when a private laptop was plugged into the county network inside the office of Republican John Hamercheck, chairman of the Lake County Board of Commissioners.

The Lake County Board of Elections didn't respond to a request for comment, but a spokesman for the Ohio Secretary of State confirmed the investigation, saying no voter data or board information was compromised.

According to The Post, Lake County's security system worked. The computer connected to the county network, but the board of elections uses a separate network that only recognizes authorized devices.

“We are thrilled that our infrastructure stayed strong,” Lake County Board of Elections Director Ross McDonald told The Post.

Hamercheck didn't immediately respond to a request for comment, but he told The Post that he was advised not to comment on the investigation including whether he participated in it.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose told The Post he believes a government official helped facilitate the breach.

“It’s concerning that somebody would — especially somebody in a government office, somebody who is an elected official, or somebody who’s part of county government — would not realize all of those safeguards exist and would try to engage in some sort of a vigilante investigation,” LaRose said in an interview with The Post. “The good news is that our system of cyber security in Ohio is among the best in the nation.”

LOCK THEM UP! LOCK THEM UP!

Hmm looks like elections in Lake County are secure.  Rational people would conclude that.  People arguing in bad faith just take it as a challenge to make up ever more unhinged claims.

[LFC]

Nov 22, 2021 17:35:46 GMT goldenvalley said:

Hmm looks like elections in Lake County are secure.  Rational people would conclude that.  People arguing in bad faith just take it as a challenge to make up ever more unhinged claims.

When the perpetrators start staring down serious charges we can expect them to pull out the "we were just testing security of the systems" defense.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 22, 2021 18:01:12 GMT LFC said:

Nov 22, 2021 17:35:46 GMT goldenvalley said:

Hmm looks like elections in Lake County are secure.  Rational people would conclude that.  People arguing in bad faith just take it as a challenge to make up ever more unhinged claims.

When the perpetrators start staring down serious charges we can expect them to pull out the "we were just testing security of the systems" defense.

Stupid defense that won't work.  It doesn't matter why they hacked the system unless they were paid by the elections office to try to do it to make sure the system works properly.

[LFC]

Nov 22, 2021 20:46:00 GMT goldenvalley said:

Nov 22, 2021 18:01:12 GMT LFC said:

When the perpetrators start staring down serious charges we can expect them to pull out the "we were just testing security of the systems" defense.

Stupid defense that won't work.  It doesn't matter why they hacked the system unless they were paid by the elections office to try to do it to make sure the system works properly.

WHAT? What happened to embracing real 'Murican patriots like this?

[Traveler]

More on the story.  

Ahead of both instances, county officials in the two locales — including Hamercheck — discussed claims of election fraud with Douglas Frank, an Ohio-based scientist who has done work for Lindell, according to people familiar with Frank’s role who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions. Data obtained from both localities were distributed at the conference hosted by Lindell.

Frank, who has claimed to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 election, has been traveling the country trying to convince election officials that the vote was riddled with fraud — and that they should join the effort to uncover it, he told The Post in interviews. In an interview last week, Frank said he did not remember speaking to Hamercheck or have any record of the call.

County records obtained by The Post through a public-records request show that Hamercheck, an engineer and retired police officer, used his security badge to swipe into the fifth-floor offices multiple times during the roughly six-hour period when, according to the leaked data, the laptop was intermittently connected to the county network.

Aw shucks, just playing around...

[LFC]

Pay up, assholes.

A federal judge in Michigan ordered several Trumpy attorneys including Sidney Powell and Lin Wood to pay $175,000 in attorneys fees to the state of Michigan and city of Detroit on Thursday — part of court-ordered sanctions for a frivolous lawsuit to overturn the 2020 election.

The fees were ordered paid by Judge Linda Parker of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, who in August referred the group of nine attorneys involved in the case for suspension or disbarment in their respective states, writing that the lawyers had “scorned their oath, flouted the rules, and attempted to undermine the integrity of the judiciary along the way.”

The attorneys were ordered to pay $21,964.75 in legal fees to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and $153,285.62 to the city of Detroit, which was also named in their suit.

The bill from the city could have been even larger, Parker noted — but “the firm agreed to discount its fees by an additional ten percent (10%) ‘because of the unexpectedly large volume of work involved in the election litigation,’” she wrote, quoting the lead lawyer representing the city.

Throughout the 27-page order, Parker patiently swatted away the chastised attorneys’ objections to the large bill, pointing out the size of the legal effort to overturn the election, the quick timeline and the various unexpected turns the proceedings took — such as Wood violating a court order by posting a recording from the hearing on social media, requiring even more billable hours from attorneys for the governments.

The legal fees included the fees incurred by government lawyers while they were preparing to make an argument for sanctions.

“Plaintiffs’ attorneys filed this lawsuit without conducting the required degree of diligence as to the truth of the allegations made or the merits of the legal claims asserted,” Parker wrote. “Unlike the typical case where sanctions are awarded, more was at risk in this matter than one or even a few defendants having to defend a meritless, repetitive, and/or nuisance lawsuit.”

“The Court found sanctions necessary to deter such dangerous behavior in the future,” she added. “For these reasons, it was perhaps as important for the City’s counsel to prepare and present their arguments for sanctions in response to such conduct as it was to present the City’s defenses to Plaintiffs’ claims.”

[LFC]

This Wisconsin Republican is about to get Liz Cheneyed for telling the truth.

A prominent Wisconsin Republican delivered a stinging rebuke of the state legislature’s “investigation” into the 2020 presidential election results Monday, saying her party should move on from bogus claims of voter fraud for its own good, and for the good of the country.

“No election is perfect, but there is no evidence of intentional malfeasance, no evidence that the election in 2020 wasn’t accurate,” said State Sen. Kathy Bernier (R), a member of the chamber’s Republican leadership and chair of the Committee on Elections, Election Process Reform and Ethics.

At one point Monday, Bernier choked back tears as she recited the famous quote from Benjamin Franklin, describing America’s newly-drafted constitution in 1787: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

“We’re in jeopardy of losing it,” Bernier said.

“We have a great system here, and no one should falsely accuse election officials of cheating,” she added separately, at a press event flanked by the prominent election lawyers Ben Ginsberg and Bob Bauer, as well as David Becker of the Center for Election Innovation & Research and Matt Masterson, a former election security official at the Department of Homeland Security.

The comments came amid serious Republican attacks s on Wisconsin’s election systems. Michael Gableman, a former Supreme Court justice tasked by State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) with investigating the 2020 election, recently threatened to jail the mayors of Green Bay and Madison, who he says are standing in the way of his investigation.

And Vos himself has said members of Wiconson’s state election authority should “probably” be charged with felonies for a 2020 change to nursing home voting procedures that was made to accommodate the COVID-19 pandemic. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) has encouraged Republicans at the state level to take over control of elections themselves from the Wisconsin Election Commission, a bipartisan body that Republicans created six years ago.

Bernier said she’s spoken to Vos about Gableman’s investigation, which she described as politics, not policy, influenced by “the pressure from Donald Trump.” She separately referred to “this constant drumbeat of all the ‘massive voter fraud’” as “a charade.”

She's toast.

[LFC]

Georgia's Republicans have taken over 6 election boards run by Democrats. Welcome to the Weimar Republican Empire.

Protesters filled the meeting room of the Spalding County Board of Elections in October, upset that the board had disallowed early voting on Sundays for the Nov. 2 municipal election. A year ago, Sunday voting had been instrumental in boosting turnout of Black voters.

But this was an entirely different five-member board than had overseen the last election. The Democratic majority of three Black women was gone. So was the Black elections supervisor.

Now a faction of three white Republicans controlled the board – thanks to a bill passed by the Republican-led Georgia legislature earlier this year. The Spalding board’s new chairman has endorsed former president Donald Trump’s false stolen-election claims on social media.

The panel in Spalding, a rural patch south of Atlanta, is one of six county boards that Republicans have quietly reorganized in recent months through similar county-specific state legislation. The changes expanded the party’s power over choosing members of local election boards ahead of the crucial midterm Congressional elections in November 2022.

The unusual rash of restructurings follows the state's passage of Senate Bill 202, which restricted ballot access statewide and allowed the Republican-controlled State Election Board to assume control of county boards it deems underperforming. The board immediately launched a performance review of the Democratic-leaning Fulton County board, which oversees part of Atlanta.

The Georgia restructurings are part of a national Republican effort to expand control over election administration in the wake of Trump’s false voter-fraud claims. Republican-led states such as Florida, Texas and Arizona have enacted new curbs on voter access this year. Backers of Trump’s false stolen-election claims are running campaigns for secretary of state - the top election official - in battleground states. And some Republicans in Wisconsin are seeking to eliminate the state’s bipartisan election commission and threatening its members with prosecution.

[LFC]

More cases of voter fraud found!

hree residents of The Villages have recently been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud, court records show.

Jay Ketcik, Joan Halstead and John Rider are each charged with casting more than one ballot in an election, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

The probe into the allegations of voting irregularities was initiated by the office of Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Bill Keen, according to prosecutors. Keen declined to comment about the cases, citing the ongoing investigation.

Ketcik, 63, is accused of voting by mail in Florida in October 2020 while also casting an absentee ballot in his original home state of Michigan, court records show.

Halstead, 71, voted in-person in Florida but also cast an absentee ballot in New York, prosecutors allege.

Ketcik and Halstead turned themselves in to the Sumter County jail on outstanding warrants, court records show.

Rider, 61, was arrested by Brevard County deputies at the Royal Caribbean cruise ship terminal at Port Canaveral on Dec. 3, according to court records. Details of the accusations against him were not immediately available, but prosecutors indicated he also cast ballots both out-of-state and in Florida.

Ketcik, Halstead and Rider could not be immediately reached for comment. There is no indication from court records that they know each other.

Court records also do not reveal which candidates they cast votes for in the 2020 general election.

All three were registered as Republicans in Florida at the time of the election, voter registration records show.

INTERESTING UPDATE: It appears one of the people from The Villages accused of voting twice in the 2020 election changed his Florida voter registration around the times of his arrest. Records show he recently switched from Republican to NPA. (more) #news6 pic.twitter.com/8uVKLyt4Xs
— Mike DeForest (@deforestnews6) December 14, 2021

Rider’s voter registration appears to have been changed to No Party Affiliation around the time of his arrest, state records indicate.

Facebook pages that appear to belong to Ketcik and Halstead contain several posts expressing support for former president Donald Trump.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 15, 2021 16:41:19 GMT LFC said:

More cases of voter fraud found!

hree residents of The Villages have recently been arrested as part of an ongoing investigation into voter fraud, court records show.

Jay Ketcik, Joan Halstead and John Rider are each charged with casting more than one ballot in an election, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.

The probe into the allegations of voting irregularities was initiated by the office of Sumter County Supervisor of Elections Bill Keen, according to prosecutors. Keen declined to comment about the cases, citing the ongoing investigation.

Ketcik, 63, is accused of voting by mail in Florida in October 2020 while also casting an absentee ballot in his original home state of Michigan, court records show.

Halstead, 71, voted in-person in Florida but also cast an absentee ballot in New York, prosecutors allege.

Ketcik and Halstead turned themselves in to the Sumter County jail on outstanding warrants, court records show.

Rider, 61, was arrested by Brevard County deputies at the Royal Caribbean cruise ship terminal at Port Canaveral on Dec. 3, according to court records. Details of the accusations against him were not immediately available, but prosecutors indicated he also cast ballots both out-of-state and in Florida.

Ketcik, Halstead and Rider could not be immediately reached for comment. There is no indication from court records that they know each other.

Court records also do not reveal which candidates they cast votes for in the 2020 general election.

All three were registered as Republicans in Florida at the time of the election, voter registration records show.


Rider’s voter registration appears to have been changed to No Party Affiliation around the time of his arrest, state records indicate.

Facebook pages that appear to belong to Ketcik and Halstead contain several posts expressing support for former president Donald Trump.

I wonder how many snowbirds in Florida and Arizona do this kind of double voting.  

[LFC]

Manchin said he's trying for bipartisan support of voting rights protections. Yeah, good luck with that. The entire Republican electoral strategy is based on the very opposite.

Its key objective is to put back in place key measures from the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that the Supreme Court overruled in 2013. The bill implements a federal process for reviewing changes to voting rules in any jurisdiction nationwide, with an eye toward measures that are historically discriminatory.

The bill passed the House last session but was never brought to a vote on the Senate floor.

So far no Senate Republican has come out to back that legislation, but Manchin said he's spoken to GOP colleagues and he sees a path forward.

He vowed that he would not bring the he bill to the floor for consideration unless it has bipartisan backing.

He's so committed to working in a bipartisan way that he's vowed not to use other measures that would allow the Senate to pass the legislation with a simple majority.

For example, Manchin said he won't support the use of reconciliation, a procedural tool that allows the Senate to bypass the usual 60-vote threshold necessary to pass legislation, to move the John Lewis Voting Rights Act.
MORE: How some states are expanding voting rights amid sweeping push to restrict access

He also won't support a one-time change to the Senate filibuster rule, despite pleas from some advocates.

"If you do it for one time you basically destroy the Senate as we know it," Manchin said.

[goldenvalley]

Dec 15, 2021 17:01:05 GMT LFC said:

Manchin said he's trying for bipartisan support of voting rights protections. Yeah, good luck with that. The entire Republican electoral strategy is based on the very opposite.

After all this time he still thinks a Republican will vote for anything like this?  He is as deluded as the QAnon followers.

[LFC]

Democrats are pushing Manchin. If he doesn't act then he will likely be known as the single key failure in defending voting rights in America and the weak link that allowed fascism to win. I suspect Sinema is likely in the same boat though she seems to be keeping her (air) head down.

Senate Democrats are escalating pressure on Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) to get behind using the “nuclear option” to change the filibuster and break a months-long stalemate on voting rights legislation.

The flurry of talks — including dedicating a closed-door caucus lunch to the issue despite a public focus on passing President Biden’s climate and social spending bill — comes as Democrats are facing intense pressure to pass election legislation though there isn’t yet a clear path forward.

A group of Democrats, tapped by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), met with Manchin Tuesday as part of rolling discussions. But Manchin, simultaneously, is pushing for rules changes to be bipartisan and holding talks with Republicans, who are unlikely to support the sort of reform needed to get voting legislation passed.

[LFC]

Interesting protest.

The family of Martin Luther King Jr. is calling for "no celebration" of MLK Day without the passage of voting rights legislation, putting pressure on President Joe Biden and lawmakers to act on federal voting rights bills that have stalled in Congress.

Martin Luther King III, his wife Arndrea Waters King and their daughter Yolanda Renee King plan to mobilize activists on MLK weekend to push for Biden and Congress to apply the same efforts to federal voting rights bills that they used to pass the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill. They hope to send the message: "you delivered for bridges, now deliver for voting rights."

"President Biden and Congress used their political muscle to deliver a vital infrastructure deal, and now we are calling on them to do the same to restore the very voting rights protections my father and countless other civil rights leaders bled to secure," Martin Luther King III said in a statement Wednesday, adding that they "will not accept empty promises in pursuit of my father's dream for a more equal and just America."

The Kings and local groups plan to rally supporters in Phoenix on January 15, the date of King's birthday, "to restore and expand voting rights to honor Dr. King's legacy." On January 17, the federal holiday commemorating the civil rights leader's birthday, the family and other activists will march across the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge in Washington, DC.

The actions will call on Biden and the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, and "ensure the Jim Crow filibuster doesn't stand in the way."

I think Dems should keep to the planned MLK Day events and have a unified message that Republicans are coming to attack black people and take away their voting rights. They have piles of proof that this is true at this point. They have a big, public pulpit. They need to use it to jam the GOP's actions down its collective throat.