Voter Suppression & Election Theft by the Republican Party

[LFC]

Why isn't this assclown in prison yet? He was indicted something like 5 years ago.

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Republican officials around the country have been giving increasing attention and resources to investigating election crimes. Most have focused on the alleged wrongdoing of voters.

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also working a different angle: His office has been criminally investigating the people who help run elections.

Over the past two years, Paxton’s office opened at least 10 investigations into alleged crimes by election workers, a more extensive effort than previously known, according to records obtained by ProPublica. One of his probes was spurred by a complaint from a county GOP chair, who lost her reelection bid in a landslide. She then refused to certify the results, citing “an active investigation” by the attorney general.

In at least two of the cases, Paxton’s office unsuccessfully tried to indict election workers, attempts that were first reported by the Austin American-Statesman. In the remaining eight investigations identified by ProPublica, it is unclear just how far the probes went. As of mid-October, none of the cases resulted in criminal charges.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 3, 2022 18:17:12 GMT LFC said:

Why isn't this assclown in prison yet? He was indicted something like 5 years ago.

In the wake of the 2020 presidential election, Republican officials around the country have been giving increasing attention and resources to investigating election crimes. Most have focused on the alleged wrongdoing of voters.

But Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is also working a different angle: His office has been criminally investigating the people who help run elections.

Over the past two years, Paxton’s office opened at least 10 investigations into alleged crimes by election workers, a more extensive effort than previously known, according to records obtained by ProPublica. One of his probes was spurred by a complaint from a county GOP chair, who lost her reelection bid in a landslide. She then refused to certify the results, citing “an active investigation” by the attorney general.

In at least two of the cases, Paxton’s office unsuccessfully tried to indict election workers, attempts that were first reported by the Austin American-Statesman. In the remaining eight investigations identified by ProPublica, it is unclear just how far the probes went. As of mid-October, none of the cases resulted in criminal charges.

He and Bibi Netanyahu seem to know how to get re-elected despite being under indictment.  Trump aspires to this.

[LFC]

This is the kind of person that Republicans will put in charge of elections.

Slow Clap

The mayor of Milwaukee announced on Thursday that he had fired Milwaukee Election Commission deputy director Kimberly Zapata for allegedly making a bogus request for military ballots and sending them to a MAGA election-denying state lawmaker to prove voter fraud was possible.

∙ Zapata also now potentially faces criminal charges over the gambit, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Milwaukee County prosecutors are reportedly looking at charging the ex-official with illegally requesting a ballot and malfeasance in office.

∙ Zapata isn’t even the first person in Wisconsin to land in trouble for committing voter fraud to prove voter fraud could be committed: A conservative activist named Harry Wait was criminally charged in September for trying to pull the same stunt.

[andydp]

Claims the judge's order was unclear, missed a meeting because he was in a conference call.  (Trying to stop the order)



GOP election official tries — and fails — to ‘run out clock’ on Vassar poll site

The Republican commissioner, Erik J. Haight, was named as a defendant in a petition filed last Tuesday by the League of Women Voters of the Mid-Hudson Region, a Vassar College student and a Vassar professor. The college has more than 1,000 registered voters, according to the filing, which requires it to have a polling place on or near campus according to state election law. The petition accused Haight of stonewalling Vassar’s attempts to coordinate a voting site with the county Board of Elections.

On Thursday, state Supreme Court Justice Christie L. D’Alessio ruled in the petitioners’ favor, writing in her decision that "the plain language of Election Law ... specifically mandates the designation of a voting polling place" on college campuses with at least 300 registered voters.

(Snip)  Prior attempts:

Haight has previously fought efforts to make it easier for college students in Dutchess County to vote. In 2020, he sought to prevent Bard College from hosting a polling site, and in 2012, he denied voter registrations from approximately 100 students at the Culinary Institute of America, Marist College and Bard College because they either did not provide the technical name of their dormitory buildings or their room numbers on their applications. That prompted a federal class-action lawsuit against Haight, which he lost.

www.timesunion.com/hudsonvalley/news/article/GOP-elections-official-Vassar-polling-site-17565012.php?IPID=Times-Union-HP-state-package

[LFC]

America gets a reprieve for now but how long before right-wing partisan hack SCOTUS becomes even more active in their destruction of democracy?

[LFC]

What happened to my Schadenfreude Meter!

Why?

[LFC]

Some Republicans are grumbling about how to prevent young voters from voting. It's always the same, anymore. An election occurs, Republicans analyze who didn't support them, and they try to take away their voting rights. Rinse, wash, repeat.

As Gen Z headed to the polls this week, conservative commentators had a message for young voters: please stop.

Tuesday’s midterm election saw Gen Z come out strong for Democrats, including for their generation’s first U.S. representative: Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat from Florida. The young blue bloc left Fox News personalities dismayed, with other conservative voices suggesting that the minimum voting age be raised from 18 (currently enshrined in the Constitution) to 21 or 28.

“The fact that these youth voters are coming in so strong in an off-year is very concerning,” Fox News commentator Jesse Watters lamented on Wednesday night. “It looks like they’ve been brainwashed. This new generation is totally brainwashed ‘cause a lot of these single women [who] vote 37 spreads for Democrats, are teaching all of our younger generation in these schools and they’re polluting their minds and then they grow up and they’re in their twenties and then they vote for leftists.”

Exit polling shows strong youth support for Democrats, typically on issues like climate change, reproductive rights, and guns. Voters aged 18-24 (all of whom fall into Gen Z) voted 61 percent for Democrats, while the 25-29 age group, some of whom are Gen Z, voted 65 percent blue, exit polls show.

Research by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), suggests 27 percent of people ages 18-29 voted in the election. It’s the second-highest youth turnout in midterm history, Al Jazeera reported.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 11, 2022 20:40:45 GMT LFC said:

Some Republicans are grumbling about how to prevent young voters from voting. It's always the same, anymore. An election occurs, Republicans analyze who didn't support them, and they try to take away their voting rights. Rinse, wash, repeat.

As Gen Z headed to the polls this week, conservative commentators had a message for young voters: please stop.

Tuesday’s midterm election saw Gen Z come out strong for Democrats, including for their generation’s first U.S. representative: Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old Democrat from Florida. The young blue bloc left Fox News personalities dismayed, with other conservative voices suggesting that the minimum voting age be raised from 18 (currently enshrined in the Constitution) to 21 or 28.

“The fact that these youth voters are coming in so strong in an off-year is very concerning,” Fox News commentator Jesse Watters lamented on Wednesday night. “It looks like they’ve been brainwashed. This new generation is totally brainwashed ‘cause a lot of these single women [who] vote 37 spreads for Democrats, are teaching all of our younger generation in these schools and they’re polluting their minds and then they grow up and they’re in their twenties and then they vote for leftists.”

Exit polling shows strong youth support for Democrats, typically on issues like climate change, reproductive rights, and guns. Voters aged 18-24 (all of whom fall into Gen Z) voted 61 percent for Democrats, while the 25-29 age group, some of whom are Gen Z, voted 65 percent blue, exit polls show.

Research by Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), suggests 27 percent of people ages 18-29 voted in the election. It’s the second-highest youth turnout in midterm history, Al Jazeera reported.

So who brain washed the Trump Cult members?  Most of the cult is far older than 24.

[AnBr]

Nov 11, 2022 20:44:45 GMT goldenvalley said:

So who brain washed the Trump Cult members?  Most of the cult is far older than 24.

A statistical break down I recently saw was the generation with the largest share of MAGAts was GenX. I'll have to see if I can find that again.

[indy]

Nov 11, 2022 22:34:43 GMT AnBr said:

Nov 11, 2022 20:44:45 GMT goldenvalley said:

So who brain washed the Trump Cult members?  Most of the cult is far older than 24.

A statistical break down I recently saw was the generation with the largest share of MAGAts was GenX. I'll have to see if I can find that again.

I had seen this, don't know if it is what you meant

I also saw this some time ago:

So if GenX voted at a 50% clip for Trump and they cast 35.7 million votes, then they cast 17.85 million votes for Trump? But it seems Baby Boomers actually cast a larger share 48.1 x .45 = 21.6? I say we split the difference and award them each a crown made of the finest excrement we can find.

[AnBr]

What I saw was a report of an actual study not a graph in a tweet, but your point still stands.

[LFC]

Doug Mastriano conceded. Two things jump out. The first is that his letterhead says "Governor." As if. The second was completely predicted. Republicans forced Philly's vote counting to be slow. Now Dougie is whining that we don't have complete results yet. This has been echoed in other states. It's classic Republicanism where you create a problem and then whine about the problem, offering to solve it in a ridiculous and lately fascist manner.

"As I write this, the final results of the 2022 Mid-term Elections are still not available. We can and must do better to make our election more transparent, secure, and more quickly decided. [blah, blah, blah]"

[LFC]

Democracy survives for a little longer.

As the winner of Nevada’s Senate election came into focus this weekend — and with it, the reality that Democrats would retain the upper chamber for two more years — a winner was also projected in another key race: That for Nevada’s secretary of state.

Jim Marchant (R), one of the most outspoken deniers of the 2020 election to run for office in 2022, lost to Cisco Aguilar (D). That made for a clean sweep: in states that could be key to determining the presidency in 2024, election deniers had run to control the state’s vote count and lost.

In two of those states — Arizona and Michigan — election deniers were on the ballot not just for secretary of state, but also for two other crucial roles for administering elections: governor and attorney general. In Michigan, these candidates lost too. In Arizona, the governor and attorney general races remain too close to call.

With the defeat of the MAGA secretaries of state, the possibility of a 2024 election in which state-level officials did the opposite of what Georgia’s Brad Raffensperger did in 2020 — and gave in to Donald Trump’s claims of a stolen election — becomes less likely.

Marchant was especially prolific, and particularly unsubtle: He headed up an “America First Secretaries of State coalition” that included candidates for the office in several states, as well as gubernatorial candidates Doug Mastriano (Pennsylvania) and Kari Lake (Arizona).

[LFC]

Who's shocked. Anyone?

[andydp]

Nov 14, 2022 22:31:22 GMT LFC said:

Who's shocked. Anyone?

First comment: "This is a cliche` at this point."

[LFC]

[goldenvalley]

Nov 14, 2022 23:28:09 GMT LFC said:

Do people send him or his campaign money when he tweets such things?

[AnBr]

Nov 14, 2022 22:31:22 GMT LFC said:

Who's shocked. Anyone?

[LFC]

How Republicans Tipped The House Scales Long Before Votes Were Cast

The House majority, however you slice the outstanding races, is coming down to the wire.

As a red wave failed to materialize and Democrats won the Senate, the lower chamber has seemed increasingly in play. Even now, when many give Republicans the edge to flip the House, Democrats are very much in the ball game.

The majority will likely come down to a handful of seats. That brings the role of gerrymandering, a super powerful force that’s often relegated to the background of election analysis, to the fore.

If Republicans win the House by a slim margin, you can pinpoint some of the states where their redistricting abuse — often assisted by right-wing judges — made it happen.

Ohio shows just how lawless Republicans have truly become. The rule of law is a weapon, not a principle.

Screw the People: Ohio

In the Buckeye State, Republicans showed how little a price they’d pay for ignoring both their own courts and the will of the people in favor of netting as many seats as possible.

Voters there had overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendments to curb partisan gerrymandering in the state, creating a redistricting committee and shortening the lifespan of any map passed on partisan lines.

But Republicans found, to their joy, that they could largely ignore those mandates and get away with it. The state’s legislative and congressional elections were held under maps the Ohio Supreme Court had found to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders.

Ohio Republicans used a combination of slow-walking, refusing to meaningfully change the maps and confidence that their gerrymanders would continue to imbue them with enough power to keep circumventing the state’s recent redistricting reforms. They ensured that a slightly red state kept voting like a deeply red one. Democrats only have two solidly blue-leaning seats to Republicans’ 11 under the current map.

[LFC]

Happily we dodged 13 of 14 bullets.

[LFC]

Here come the fascists in Arizona!

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) has waded into tensions over election concerns in Maricopa County, demanding answers about some Election Day printing issues before state election send in final election results. 

The Arizona Attorney General Office’s Elections Integrity Unit has received “hundreds of complaints” about the state’s election administration since Election Day, Brnovich said in a four-page letter to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office on Saturday.

“These complaints go beyond pure speculation, but include first-hand witness accounts that raise concerns regarding Maricopa’s lawful compliance with Arizona election law,” Brnovich said. 

Brnovich’s letter highlights problems with printer configuration and voter “check-out.”

“Arizonans deserve a full report and accounting of the myriad problems that occurred in relation to Maricopa County’s administration of the 2022 General Election,” Brnovich said.  

Maricopa County elections officials have acknowledged that Election Day printer issues affected some 17,000 ballots, as some ballots weren’t printed with dark enough markings to be read by tabulators. 

The officials said after Election Day that they were investigating the issue, but said that “all ballots affected will be counted securely and accurately” despite the error.

Of course we know who commits the real crimes.

Maricopa, the state’s largest county, faced a number of other issues leading up to Election Day.

Two uniformed “vigilantes” dressed in tactical gear were found outside a Maricopa County dropbox just a few weeks ahead of Nov. 8, during early voting, prompting the Maricopa sheriff to increase security around ballot boxes. 

The Arizona secretary of state also referred a case of possible voter intimidation to the Justice Department and the state’s attorney general after a voter in Maricopa County was “approached and followed” while attempting to cast their ballot.

[LFC]

Arizona, again.

In a special session of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors Monday morning, the three-person board voted to postpone certifying the election until the end of the week.

The motion on the floor was to table the certification vote for the remainder of the week—until Friday, Dec. 2. The state canvass of the general election takes place on Monday, Dec. 5.

This is the second time the Board has voted to postpone its certification of the results submitted by the Cochise County Elections Department. The first instance was the Board's Nov. 18 meeting.

Supervisor Ann English (D2) was the sole 'no' vote on the board, making the argument against postponing the vote certification further. Supervisors Tom Crosby, (D1) and Peggy Judd (D3) voted for postponing the vote.

The outcome could be disenfranchisement of all Cochise County voters who lean heavily Republican. It has been brought up by several people, including the person who won the state AG race, that if this occurs the votes must be re-tallied by state law. This has to potential to flip some races and, with the voters in that county, not likely in the Republican direction. F***ing idiots.

[LFC]

Republican shitheads in PA. What a shock. I've spent time up in this area. It's got some beautiful country but it is most definitely Trump country, brimming with rednecks in pickups who are easily lead.

The process of certifying the general election in Luzerne County led to heavy criticism at an election board meeting on Monday morning. Monday is the deadline to certify the election.

The public meeting was held inside the county council chambers in the Luzerne County Courthouse.

More than a dozen voters and volunteers urged against certifying the election for several reasons, including the shortage of ballot paper, the inability for people to vote, misspellings on ballots, voters being turned away, and a lack of privacy for voters.

Only two speakers spoke in favor of certifying the election.

"Denying even one voter the right to vote is inexcusable, and too many were turned away, denying numerous voters their most basic right. The only solution to this voter disenfranchisement is decertifying," said Robin Coshan from Dallas Township.

"We had so many issues. We had 300 and some people here two weeks ago explaining their issues," said Jamie Walsh of Ross Township.

Only a couple of people spoke in favor of certification.

"I have confidence that you fulfilled your duty to canvass and compute the ballots, and now urge you to complete your final statutory obligation and certify the election results," said Alicia Hoffman-Marelovich of Fairview Township.

After public comment, the members of the board discussed their opinions on the matter.

"There have been enough irregularities and enough discrepancies and enough disenfranchisement of disenfranchised voters in this county that I don't understand how we could possibly proceed without seriously considering a re-vote," said James Magna, (R) Board of Elections vice chair.

"We went over everything meticulously as far as the reconciliations, that's any anomalies were pretty much explained. And it was due to the confusion at the polls because of the paper shortage," said Audrey Serniak, (D) Board of Elections member.

Two Democratic members of the board voted to certify the election. Two Republican members voted against it, and one Democrat member abstained.

"My feeling is I needed a little more information. So, I really didn't want to say, 'Oh, yeah, we're done with it now.' I want more information, so I can make a short decision on that it's right to certify it or to not certify it," said Daniel Schramm, (D) Board of Elections member.

Members of the Luzerne County Board of Elections tell Newswatch 16 they will consult their lawyer and the state as to what happens next.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 28, 2022 21:42:44 GMT LFC said:

Republican shitheads in PA. What a shock. I've spent time up in this area. It's got some beautiful country but it is most definitely Trump country, brimming with rednecks in pickups who are easily lead.

The process of certifying the general election in Luzerne County led to heavy criticism at an election board meeting on Monday morning. Monday is the deadline to certify the election.

The public meeting was held inside the county council chambers in the Luzerne County Courthouse.

More than a dozen voters and volunteers urged against certifying the election for several reasons, including the shortage of ballot paper, the inability for people to vote, misspellings on ballots, voters being turned away, and a lack of privacy for voters.

Only two speakers spoke in favor of certifying the election.

"Denying even one voter the right to vote is inexcusable, and too many were turned away, denying numerous voters their most basic right. The only solution to this voter disenfranchisement is decertifying," said Robin Coshan from Dallas Township.

"We had so many issues. We had 300 and some people here two weeks ago explaining their issues," said Jamie Walsh of Ross Township.

Only a couple of people spoke in favor of certification.

"I have confidence that you fulfilled your duty to canvass and compute the ballots, and now urge you to complete your final statutory obligation and certify the election results," said Alicia Hoffman-Marelovich of Fairview Township.

After public comment, the members of the board discussed their opinions on the matter.

"There have been enough irregularities and enough discrepancies and enough disenfranchisement of disenfranchised voters in this county that I don't understand how we could possibly proceed without seriously considering a re-vote," said James Magna, (R) Board of Elections vice chair.

"We went over everything meticulously as far as the reconciliations, that's any anomalies were pretty much explained. And it was due to the confusion at the polls because of the paper shortage," said Audrey Serniak, (D) Board of Elections member.

Two Democratic members of the board voted to certify the election. Two Republican members voted against it, and one Democrat member abstained.

"My feeling is I needed a little more information. So, I really didn't want to say, 'Oh, yeah, we're done with it now.' I want more information, so I can make a short decision on that it's right to certify it or to not certify it," said Daniel Schramm, (D) Board of Elections member.

Members of the Luzerne County Board of Elections tell Newswatch 16 they will consult their lawyer and the state as to what happens next.

I've noticed this in CA too.  The counties that have overwhelming Republican registration, in which Trump won in 2020, in which most if not all elected officials have R behind their names, are the ones that are most suspicious of elections.  They have what they want. I just don't understand... 

[LFC]

Another Republican grasps that telling your slack-jawed followers that elections are all a scam isn't the best for GOTV efforts. Welcome to the law of unintended consequences, dipshit.

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk has been going off the deep end with the best of them the last several days, hyping various conspiracy theories oozing out of the public comment section of a Maricopa County meeting that took place before election officials certified the midterm results in Arizona’s most populous county this week.

He’s fixated on the same conspiracy theory that Kari Lake and Republican attorney general candidate Abe Hamadeh have been clinging to for days — that a printer issue that several polling sites in the district faced on Election Day is somehow evidence the election was rigged. As we’ve noted repeatedly, voters impacted by the glitch were told to submit their ballots to a drop box or vote at another precinct. The problem was solved within hours. Maricopa officials have already issued reports affirming that the glitch did not prevent residents from voting.

I explain all of that to say, Kirk is just doing his usual thing and Steve Bannon is giving him the airtime to do it. It’s all noise and typical tantrum throwing over the fact that their candidate lost the election. But during an interview with Bannon on his War Room podcast today, Kirk made a rather entertaining admission (I have no idea where he is getting these numbers from and cannot confirm them, so take it all with a mountain of salt):

“400,000 people that voted for Trump in 2020 did not show up or vote for the midterm election. I believe it’s because a lot of people do not trust the system,” he said. He went on to deliver another screed about Maricopa County, claiming people don’t trust the system because of something something printer issue, but the broader point rings true. Your followers may believe you when you tell them not to trust a system. And it’s a problem the Big Liars have run into before.