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brookegoodman

A state-by-state breakdown of US coronavirus cases - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

crisis us

shared by brookegoodman on 27 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • (CNN)The first US case of the coronavirus was reported January 21 -- a Washington state man who had recently returned from China. Now, the country has at least 82,250 cases across all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Guam, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
  • Alabama: 531 (including one death)Alaska: 69 (including one death)Arizona: 508 (including eight deaths) Arkansas: 349 (including three deaths)California: 3,006 (including 65 deaths)Colorado: 1,430 (including 24 deaths)Connecticut: 1,012 (including 21 deaths)Delaware: 143 (including one death)District of Columbia: 267 (including three deaths)Florida: 2,353 (including 28 deaths)Georgia: 1,643 (including 56 deaths)Guam: 45 (including one death)Hawaii: 106 Idaho: 189 (including three deaths)Illinois: 2,538 (including 26 deaths)Indiana: 645 (including 17 deaths)Iowa: 179 (including one death)Kansas: 168 (including three deaths)Kentucky: 248 (including five deaths)Louisiana: 2,305 (including 83 deaths)Maine: 155Maryland: 580 (including four deaths)Massachusetts: 2,417 (including 25 deaths)Michigan: 2,856 (including 60 deaths)Minnesota: 346 (including two deaths)Mississippi: 485 (including five deaths)Missouri: 502 (including eight deaths)Montana: 90Nebraska: 73Nevada: 535 (including 10 deaths)New Hampshire: 137 (including one death)New Jersey: 6,876 (including 81 deaths)New Mexico: 136 (including one death)New York: 37,258 (including 385 deaths)North Carolina: 636 (including two deaths)North Dakota: 52Ohio: 867 (including 15 deaths)Oklahoma: 248 (including seven deaths)Oregon: 316 (including 11 deaths)Pennsylvania: 1,687 (including 16 deaths)Puerto Rico: 64 (including two deaths)Rhode Island: 165South Carolina: 456 (including nine deaths)South Dakota: 46 (including one death)Tennessee: 957 (including three deaths)Texas: 1,424 (including 18 deaths)US Virgin Islands: 17Utah: 402 (including one death)Vermont: 158 (including nine deaths)Virginia: 460 (including 13 deaths)Washington: 3,207 (including 149 deaths)West Virginia: 76Wisconsin: 707 (including eight deaths)Wyoming: 55Repatriated cases: 70
  • CORRECTIONS: A previous version of this story included an incorrect number of cases for Florida. That number has been corrected. On March 14, CNN revised the US death count, taking it down by one after discovering a double count of one death. This article also has been updated with the correct number of deaths for Hawaii, and cases for Wisconsin, Alabama.
aleija

Opinion | The Sound of Silence on Abortion - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...bortion-corporate-support.html

politics US Culture policy opinion

shared by aleija on 03 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • Back in 2014, when the Arizona Legislature passed a bill to provide business owners with a religious excuse to discriminate against gay people, the N.F.L. threatened to move Super Bowl XLIX out of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed the bill.
  • In 2015, when the N.C.A.A. led a pushback from its Indianapolis headquarters against a similar bill that the Indiana Legislature passed, Gov. Mike Pence said it was all a “great misunderstanding” and eventually signed a watered-down version that met the demands of the N.C.A.A. and other sports organizations that had protested.
  • In 2017, the North Carolina Legislature repealed an anti-transgender “bathroom bill” after the loss of the N.B.A. All-Star Game plus convention and tourism business cost the state millions of dollars in revenue and companies canceled plans to relocate there.
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  • This April, prodded or perhaps even shamed by prominent Black business leaders, 170 executives of major companies signed a statement protesting a vote-suppression measure enacted in Georgia and ones pending in other states.
  • And this brings us to a subject that corporate America would evidently prefer not to talk about: abortion. It’s possible I’ve missed something, but I’ve been listening hard, and so far all I’ve heard is the sound of silence.
  • . The article pointed out that in the four days between April 26 and April 29, 28 new abortion restrictions were signed into law in seven states. As of mid-May, bills proposing 549 separate abortion restrictions had been introduced in 47 states, including 165 that would ban abortion.
  • Much of this activity might have been shrugged off as just so much political theater had the Supreme Court not agreed last month to hear Mississippi’s defense of its ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a law that under current doctrine is unconstitutional. While the country may not learn until a year from now how receptive the court is to revising or abandoning its abortion precedents, its acceptance of the Mississippi case for argument in the fall serves as a welcome mat to states trying to outdo one another in anti-abortion zealotry.
  • But nothing can compete with the law that Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed last month. Not only does it ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected — which can occur as early as six weeks, before many women realize they are pregnant — but it effectively deputizes the entire world’s population to enforce the ban, authorizing “any person” to sue anyone who performs or facilitates an abortion outside that time frame
  • All would be subject to a $10,000 fine plus the plaintiff’s court costs for each successful lawsuit. At the same time, the law strips the state itself of enforcement power. The purpose of that novel provision is to prevent abortion providers from going to court, because there is no entity they can sue.
  • Abortion may be an uncomfortable subject to talk about, but don’t misunderstand the silence. Abortion is not rare. It is, in fact, a common female experience, although I’ll grant that it is not as common as voting. Nearly half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended, and some 40 percent of those end in abortion. This is life as women live it, even in Texas.
  • Your silence is acquiescence; it’s a decision. You’re making a decision. Your silence is a decision. And when you recognize that, some of these issues are so salient and so critical that you have to take a position.
rerobinson03

Louis DeJoy Investigated Over Possible Campaign Finance Violations - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...is-dejoy-campaign-finance.html

shared by rerobinson03 on 04 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • The investigation focuses on campaign contributions made by people employed by New Breed Logistics, the company in North Carolina that Mr. DeJoy led from 1983 to 2014, before he was appointed postmaster general a little over a year ago during the administration of President Donald J. Trump. Mr. DeJoy was a leading donor to Mr. Trump in the 2016 campaign.
  • Mr. DeJoy has received a grand-jury subpoena for information connected to the investigation, according to a person familiar with the inquiry who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose details related to the grand jury.
  • One day in October 2014, for example, 20 midlevel and senior officials at the company donated a total of $37,600 to the campaign of Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, who was running to unseat a Democratic incumbent. Each official wrote a check for either $2,600, the maximum allowable donation, or $1,000.
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  • There is a five-year statute of limitations for criminal violations of federal campaign finance law, meaning Mr. DeJoy could only be prosecuted for violations of that sort that took place in 2016 or later.
aidenborst

US coronavirus: Americans are celebrating steps toward normalcy. But the real test of p... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

US history politics crisis Culture policy Pandemic vaccine pandemic-recovery

shared by aidenborst on 02 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • While Memorial Day was a milestone for a return to a sense of normalcy from the Covid-19 pandemic, it could take another two weeks to determine where the US really stands, an expert said.
  • "In some ways, this was the first big stress test," CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen said. "We have restrictions lifted en masse, people going about their normal lives. We know that in the past, after major holidays and an increase in travel, that we then had a substantial uptick in the rate of infections."
  • 12 states have reached President Joe Biden's goal of having 70% of Americans getting at least one dose by July 4.
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  • Overall, more than 136 million people -- about 41% of the US population -- are fully vaccinated, and about 51% have received at least one dose of vaccine, according to CDC data.
  • For the first time since March 2020, the US recorded a seven-day average of fewer than 20,000 new daily cases Tuesday. Less than 5% of the US population lives in a county considered to have high Covid-19 transmission, according to CDC data.
  • "You have parts of the country with very low vaccination rates," she said. "I really worry about the unvaccinated people in those areas spreading coronavirus to one another."
  • "Our study suggests that, for a population of 10.5 million, approximately 1.8 million infections and 8,000 deaths could be prevented during 11 months with more efficacious COVID-19 vaccines, higher vaccination coverage, and maintaining NPIs (non-pharmaceutical interventions), such as distancing and use of face masks," they wrote.
  • West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice on Tuesday announced a vaccination incentive lottery with prizes that include $1 million, two full four-year scholarships to eligible students and 25 weekend getaways.
  • In Kentucky, senior centers will be allowed to reopen at full capacity starting June 11, Gov. Andy Beshear said. "The reason that we can do that are vaccines. These things are miracles," he said in a statement.
  • Mehul Patel, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and colleagues used a mathematical model to simulate a coronavirus spread within the population of North Carolina.
  • They found that infections, hospitalizations and deaths would continue to rise if pandemic precautions such as quarantine, school closures, social distancing and mask-wearing were lifted while vaccines were being rolled out.
  • "On Father's Day, we are going to make one of you a millionaire," Justice said.
  • Fortunately, cases also do appear to be declining in children.
  • As of May 27, nearly 4 million children had tested positive since the pandemic's start.
anonymous

Mexican Flag Worn At Graduation Caused Student's Diploma To Be Withheld : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...the-mexican-flag-at-graduation

shared by anonymous on 06 Jun 21 - No Cached
  • A North Carolina high school senior was denied his diploma because he draped a Mexican flag over his gown in violation of a graduation dress code, school officials said.
  • A 68-second video of the graduation at Asheboro High School on Thursday shows the student wearing the flag over his gown, on his back and shoulders, as he proceeds toward the stage, WGHP reported. The video shows the student being handed a diploma holder and moving on to receive his diploma. It then shows him appearing to talk to people in the line for a few seconds before he returns to his seat without his diploma.
  • Asheboro school officials defended the decision to withhold the student's diploma, saying that wearing a flag of any kind is a violation of the dress code.
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  • In a separate statement, officials said they "continue working to resolve this issue with the student and his family so that he will receive his diploma from Asheboro High School."
  • The video also captures another student wearing the Mexican flag on her mortarboard. The statement said that decorating mortarboards is "the ONLY acceptable deviation from the standard cap and gown regalia."
katherineharron

2021 US Congress: Breaking down the historic numbers - CNNPolitics - 0 views

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election

shared by katherineharron on 03 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • The 117th Congress, being sworn in Sunday, is historically diverse, with record-setting numbers of women, Black and Latino members and members who identify as LGBTQ.
  • There will be two vacancies in the House: New York's 22nd District will not have representation as legal challenges in the race continue, and Louisiana's 5th District will not have representation due to the death of Republican Rep.-elect Luke Letlow. I
  • Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler is also running in Georgia's dual runoff elections Tuesday. Perdue's term finished at the end of the 116th Congress, so he is not included in the new Congress' numbers. Loeffler's term will continue unless she is defeated Tuesday, so she is counted.
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  • three Democratic members are expected to leave office to take on roles in the new Biden administration: Rep. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana (2nd Congressional District) to be White House senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement; Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico (1st Congressional District) to be Secretary of the Interior; and Rep. Marcia Fudge of Ohio (11th Congressional District) to be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
  • Democrats: 222Republicans: 211
  • There will be 60 freshmen in the 117th Congress. Seventeen of those seats flipped during the 2020 general election, with Republicans picking up 14 seats and Democrats picking up 3.
  • Eleven of the Republicans who picked up seats defeated Democrats who flipped seats in the wave year of 2018, while one GOP pickup came from the defeat of long-time Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, one came in an open seat (Iowa's 2nd) and one was in a Libertarian-held seat (Michigan's 3rd District).
  • Total 2020 flipped House districts: 17
  • Total Women: 118
  • The 117th Congress will see a record number of women in the House, and a record number of Republican women.
  • Republican Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina, born August 1, 1995, will be the youngest member of this Congress at age 25. He takes that title from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York who, at 31, is now the chamber's second youngest member.
  • Republicans: 51 (including Sen. Kelly Loeffler)Democrats: 48 (including two independents who caucus with the Democrats)
  • There will be 7 new senators at the start of 117th Congress, including Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona, who was sworn in in December.
  • Total women: 26 (will decrease to 25 when Padilla replaces Harris)
  • Total states with two female senators: 5 (will decrease to 4 when Padilla replaces Harris)
  • Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, born on December 31, 1979, remains the Senate's youngest member at 41.
  • Total Black members in the House and Senate: 61
  • The 117th Congress will have the largest number of Black members in the history of the House and in the history of Congress. The 58 representatives are a new record for the House, while the record-high three in the Senate remains the same, at least until Harris resigns to become vice president.
  • Total Latino members in the House and Senate: 44
  • Fourteen newly elected veterans will be joining the House this year, according to the University of San Francisco and the Veterans Campaign. That's down from the 18 veterans who were first elected in 2018, but up slightly from the three cycles before that.
xaviermcelderry

20 Counties in Battleground States That Could Shape the Race - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ground-states-trump-biden.html

election Democrats Republicans swingstates

shared by xaviermcelderry on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • The most contested battles this year will take place in six states: Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Mr. Trump won some of them by razor-thin margins.
  • Within these states are 20 counties that will help decide who wins enough electoral votes to reach the White House.
  • It’s likely this year’s race will again be decided by a percentage point or two.
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  • Miami-Dade County, Fla. A Democratic stronghold, it is not a county Mr. Trump would hope to win. But this majority-Hispanic county was a disappointment for Democrats in 2018, especially in heavily Cuban-American precincts. Younger Cuban voters have started identifying as Trump Republican here
  • Pinellas County, Fla. Perhaps the biggest swing county in the state, which backed Mr. Trump after twice backing Barack Obama, it is a Florida microcosm: solid Democrats in St. Petersburg and Midwestern retirees elsewhere.
  • Let’s look at some critical counties in North Carolina. The state has cities with large communities of Black voters, moderate professionals and college students and also big stretches that are more rural, whiter and conservative.
  • The prize will likely go to the candidate most popular among the Lumbee Indians, the county’s largest group. Mr. Trump held a rally here in October, and both campaigns pledged to support the tribe’s quest for federal recognition.
  • Let’s move on to Pennsylvania, which has two huge Democratic cities, big swaths of formerly Republican suburbs and a deeply conservative rural middle. This year’s election may hinge on this state, one of three that Mr. Trump won by less than one percentage point in 2016.
  • Michigan, historically Democratic, provided one of Mr. Trump’s most surprising victories in 2016. He won the state by 0.3 points.
  • Dane County, Wis. This is home to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and it’s where Democrats surged in an April 2020 race for the State Supreme Court. Nearly as many votes were cast here as in Milwaukee County, even though Dane has less than 60 percent of Milwaukee’s population. Heavy turnout in early voting suggests Mr. Biden is claiming those votes.
delgadool

Opinion | Why Are Republicans So Afraid of Voters? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...voting-rights-republicans.html

politics election

shared by delgadool on 01 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • there were reasonable concerns that many people would not vote at all. The numbers to date suggest that 2020 could see record turnout.
  • Why are so many Americans consistently missing in action on Election Day?For many, it’s a choice. They are disillusioned with government, or they feel their vote doesn’t matter because politicians don’t listen to them anyway.
  • For many more, the main obstacle is bureaucratic inertia. In New York City, a decrepit, incompetent, self-dealing board of elections has been making a mockery of democracy for decades. Just in the past four years, tens of thousands of absentee ballots have been sent to the wrong addresses, and hundreds of thousands of voters have been wrongly purged from the rolls. For the past few days, some New Yorkers have been forced to stand in line for four or five hours to cast their ballots.
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  • In Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Wisconsin, Republicans have fought to prevent the counting of all mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, even if they are postmarked on or before Nov. 3.
  • This year, in the face of the unprecedented hurdles to voting introduced by the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans are battling from coast to coast to ensure that casting a ballot is as hard as it can be.
  • But across the country, the group most responsible for making voting harder, if not impossible, for millions of Americans is the Republican Party. Republicans have been saying it themselves for ages. “I don’t want everybody to vote,” Paul Weyrich, a leader of the modern conservative movement, told a gathering of religious leaders in 1980. “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”
  • Scholars, researchers and judges have said for years that voting fraud of any kind is vanishingly rare in this country. That hasn’t stopped Republicans from alleging that it happens all the time. They know that accusations of fraud can be enough by themselves to confuse voters and drive down turnout.
  • The effort has been turbocharged by President Trump, who has spent the past year falsely attacking the integrity of mail-in ballots
  • That’s why, if either of these laws is going to pass, it will require, at a minimum, voting out Republicans at every level who insist on suppressing the vote. Only then can those who believe in representative democracy for all Americans reset the rules and help ensure that everyone’s vote counts.
  • He has urged his supporters to enlist in an “Army for Trump,” monitoring polls. “A lot of strange things happening in Philadelphia,” Mr. Trump said during a recent campaign stop in Pennsylvania. “We’re watching you, Philadelphia. We’re watching at the highest level.”
  • Representative democracy works only when a large majority of people participate in choosing their representatives. That can happen only when those in power agree that voting should be as easy and widely available as possible
  • A fair election would mean giving all states the necessary funds to implement automatic voter registration and to upgrade old voting machines. It would mean allowing people with criminal records to vote as soon as they have completed the terms of their sentences.
  • To help ensure that voting is easier for everybody, the federal government needs to take action. Currently, there are two comprehensive voting-rights bills in Congress, the Voting Rights Amendment Act and H.R. 1, also known as the For the People Act. The first bill would update the old map the Supreme Court invalidated in 2013 and would identify the states and localities that are racially discriminating against their voters today, requiring them to seek federal court approval before changing any election laws.The second bill would, among other things, create a national voter-registration program; make it harder for states to purge voting rolls; and take gerrymandering away from self-interested state legislatures, putting the redistricting process in the hands of nonpartisan commissions.
  • The House of Representatives passed both of these bills in 2019, with all Democrats voting in favor both times. The Voting Rights Amendment Act got the vote of a single House Republican. H.R. 1 got none.
  • When that tactic fails, Republicans turn to another tried-and-true one: voter intimidation. Frightening people, particularly Black people, away from the ballot box has a long history in the United States.
  • What would a level playing field look like? For starters, it would have more polling places, more early-voting days and shorter voting lines. Since the Supreme Court gutted the heart of the Voting Rights Act in 2013, almost 1,700 polling places have been shut down, most of them in the states that had been under federal supervision for their past discriminatory voting practices. It’s no surprise that voters in predominantly Black neighborhoods wait 29 percent longer to cast ballots than voters in white neighborhoods.
katherineharron

Early voting broke records. Officials hope it will lead to a smoother Election Day - CN... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Millions of Americans have already cast their ballots ahead of Election Day, smashing mail-in and early voting records and raising election officials' hopes that the eye-popping early vote totals will ease the potential for problems, chaos and conflict at the polls on November 3.
  • Since voting began in September, there have certainly been issues at the polls, including hours-long waits, allegations of voter intimidation and suppression -- as well as incidents like one in North Carolina on Saturday, where police used pepper spray to break up a march to a polling place
  • concerns persist that tensions over the bitter contest between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden could boil over on Election Day, whether at the polls or afterward when the results are tallied.
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  • Rising Covid-19 cases in nearly every state add another problematic layer to preparations for Election Day, escalating voters' fears about going to a crowded polling place and potentially threatening the loss of critical polling workers who test positive or have to quarantine.
  • The coronavirus pandemic led to a chaotic primary in several states during the spring, prompting many states to make major changes to their voting rules to encourage more ballots to be cast by mail or ahead of Election Day.
  • "Everyone spreading out when they vote has been key to safely voting during this pandemic," Sims said. "We do still expect steady turnout on Election Day."
  • In Texas, a federal judge set a hearing Monday on a Republican challenge to 100,000 votes cast in Harris County, the Democratic stronghold including Houston, via drive-thru voting centers.
  • Local election officials are hopeful that all of the early voting will make things smoother on Tuesday, even in places where lines were a major problem during the primary, like Detroit.
  • Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said at a news conference last week. "Because two thirds of our citizens will likely vote absentee or prior to Election Day, we will see a third of our citizens, probably about 2 million, vote in person on Election Day."
  • will turnout be significantly smaller than normal because so many voted ahead of time? Or is it merely foreshadowing a record-breaking overall vote total -- and there will be long lines on November 3, too, when voting will take longer than normal due to the pandemic?
  • The coronavirus pandemic, which took hold in the US just after Biden emerged as the winner of the crowded Democratic primary, scrambled many of the remaining primaries.
  • many states turned to expanding early voting, some allowing all voters to request an absentee ballot and others moving most of their election to vote by mail
  • two factors turned more voters to cast ballots early and in person. One was that Democrats began to shift their strategy on in-person voting, encouraging voters to vote early and in-person, due to a higher rate of ballot rejection to absentee ballots. The second was that the US Postal Service began to see service delays this summer under new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump donor who had implemented cost-cutting measures.
  • Texas surpassed its 2016 vote total even before the weekend. More than 9.6 million people voted during the three-week early voting period that concluded Friday night, beating the state's 9 million turnout in 2016.
  • Despite massive turnout levels across the country, there are still millions of mail ballots in the key battleground states that were requested by voters but haven't been returned, according to the latest data from Edison Research.
  • In most states, information about unreturned ballots is public information, and is mined by political campaigns. Campaigns use this data to aggressively target their supporters, during the final stretch of the race, to cast their vote.
  • "We are now focused on building a reserve pool of 1,500 workers who can be deployed across the state on Election Day in the event there are any last-minute worker changes or shortages," Michigan Secretary of State spokesperson Tracy Wimmer told CNN on Friday.
  • In Kent County, which includes Grand Rapids, county elections director Gerrid Uzarski told CNN last week that "some" poll workers were quarantining after being exposed to Covid-19, and would no longer be working on Election Day. On top of those quarantining, Uzarski added that "some" other poll workers have decided that they do not want to risk coming into work on Election Day because of the rising cases across the state.
mariedhorne

Early voting 2020: Pre-Election Day vote surpasses two-thirds of all 2016 ballots cast ... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

pre-election president voting

shared by mariedhorne on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • More than 91.6 million Americans have voted so far, as a majority of states are reporting record early voting turnout in the 2020 election.
  • These votes represent about 43% of registered voters nationwide, according to a survey of election officials in all 50 states and Washington, DC, by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist.   
  • Thirty-five states and Washington, DC, have crossed their halfway marks for total 2016 ballots cast, including 13 of CNN's 16 most competitively ranked states — Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, Wisconsin, Maine, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Nebraska
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  • Trump and Biden's schedules in the final stretch of this campaign have reflected the focus on those competitive states
  • . Biden then heads to Philadelphia on Sunday, as the President has five rallies planned in five key states -- Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
aidenborst

Melania Trump slams Biden and Democrats in final solo campaign speech - CNNPolitics - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

Politics US trump crisis Culture pandemic gop melania democratics campaign speech North-Carolina

shared by aidenborst on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • First lady Melania Trump gave her fourth solo campaign speech on Monday afternoon in Huntersville, North Carolina. Trump, who before last Tuesday had not appeared on the campaign trail for more than a year, slammed Democrats in remarks that touched on Covid-19, the military, and echoes of President Donald Trump's law and order messaging.
  • "When rioters and looters were burning our cities and wrecking small businesses that belong to hard working families and bring jobs to our communities, where were the Democrats?"Trump said in a speech similar in content to the two she gave Saturday in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
  • "Why should we trust Joe Biden when he suggests he can do a better job? All you have to do is look back on his 47 years in political life to determine whether you think he is suddenly capable of putting the American people first," said the first lady,
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  • The first lady, who last month battled coronavirus, told the crowd of about 250 attendees, most of whom were wearing masks, that the media and Democrats are politicizing the pandemic.
  • "The Democrats, together with the media, have attempted to make Covid-19 the most politically charged, polarizing, and divisive topic of the last decade.
  • The numbers of coronavirus cases are surging across the nation, and medical experts, including those on the White House's own coronavirus task force -- Dr. Deborah Birx and Dr. Anthony Fauci -- have warned of the dangers ahead for Americans as winter looms and there remains no comprehensive federal plan for prevention.
mattrenz16

Live Election Trump vs. Biden Updates: Town Hall Recap - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-town-halls

shared by mattrenz16 on 16 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • In a result that few in the TV and political arena predicted, Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s ABC town hall on Thursday night drew a larger audience than President Trump’s competing event on NBC, MSNBC and CNBC, according to preliminary Nielsen figures.
  • 13.9 million viewers, compared to 13.1 million for Mr. Trump
  • Savannah Guthrie pressed him to denounce QAnon and white supremacy (Mr. Trump hesitated on both) and clear up questions about his medical condition.
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  • Americans are simply growing bored with The Trump Show.
  • Mr. Trump is known for his sexist remarks, and the clips the ad shows are real. Mr. Biden, on the other hand, has long styled himself a champion of women. He still refers to the Violence Against Women Act as his proudest legislative achievement and he said months before he selected Ms. Harris as his running mate that he would name a woman to his ticket.
  • President Trump’s rude and demeaning comments to and about women are no secret. Just last week, he called Senator Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, a “monster.” A new ad from the Lincoln Project urges voters to consider what it would be like to have a different kind of president — a man, it suggests, who actually respects women.
  • The 90-second ad opens with two directives: “Imagine a young girl looking in the mirror, searching for role models in the world to give her hope that one day she, too, can make a difference. Now imagine how she feels when she watches women being verbally attacked.” Cue a series of clips that show Mr. Trump belittling women, including female reporters. “Your daughters are listening,” the ad says.
  • North Carolina may have broken a record for first-day, early-voting turnout on Thursday, when more than 333,000 people showed up in person to cast their ballots, according to the North Carolina State Board of Elections.
  • Mr. Biden’s outing was not completely easy. He again dodged a question on expanding the Supreme Court if he gets elected, though he did say, that he would offer an answer before Election Day but wanted to see how the nomination process for Judge Amy Coney Barrett plays out first.
  • Mr. Trump also all but confirmed that he owed about $400 million to creditors, as reported in a New York Times investigation about his taxes.
  • Over on ABC News, at a very different octane and a very different volume, Mr. Biden answered policy questions from George Stephanopoulos.
  • The forums replaced what was to be the second debate between the two candidates, after Mr. Trump rejected the decision by the Commission on Presidential Debates to hold the debate virtually because of Mr. Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis.
  • Mr. Biden also made some news, saying that his support of the 1994 crime bill — which has been blamed for the large-scale incarceration of Black people — was a “mistake,”
  • National polls released on Thursday showed Mr. Biden up by an average of more than 10 points.
  • The venerable NBC/WSJ poll did show Mr. Biden’s lead dropping from 14 points, right after the Sept. 29 debate, to 11 points.
  • In Arizona, for instance, two new polls found Mr. Biden ahead by four points and one found Mr. Trump ahead by one point.
  • But in several other swing states, Mr. Biden continues to retain comfortable leads.
  • He also dodged repeated questions about whether he had a negative coronavirus test immediately before the first presidential debate.
  • Mr. Biden got his numbers wrong on troop levels in Afghanistan relative to when he left office four years ago and mischaracterized an element of the Green New Deal, but generally avoided clear misstatements.
  • That day, Nov. 3 this year, instead represents the end of a six-week sprint during a record number of Americans cast their ballots in advance.
  • In an effort to make polling places less crowded on Election Day, many states have encouraged absentee voting, opened more in-person early-voting sites and, in a few cases, mailed ballots to all registered voters.
  • While the long lines were a vivid symbol of longstanding efforts to make voting more difficult — particularly for people of color — they also demonstrated the intensity of the desire to vote in an election that millions of Americans have waited for since the last one,
  • Yet the voters keep coming, intent on exercising a constitutional right and in hopes of shaping a better future for their country.
mattrenz16

In Dash to Finish, Biden and Trump Set Up Showdown in Pennsylvania - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-campaign.html

shared by mattrenz16 on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • As the national early vote climbs past a staggering 93 million and challenges to the electoral process intensify across states, President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. are barreling into Pennsylvania and turning it into the top battleground in Tuesday’s election
  • Both campaigns see Pennsylvania as increasingly crucial to victory: Mr. Trump now appears more competitive here than in Michigan and Wisconsin, two other key northern states he hopes to win, and Mr. Biden’s clearest electoral path to the White House runs through the state.
  • Pennsylvania has more Electoral College votes, 20, than any other traditional battleground except Florida,
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Mr. Trump devoted Saturday to four rallies across the state, and he and Mr. Biden planned campaign events for the final 48 hours of the race as well, with a wave of prominent Democrats and celebrities slated to arrive
  • In Pennsylvania in particular, the possibility of extended court battles and confusion hangs over the race, with the state Republican Party hoping the Supreme Court will reconsider its decision last week to allow the state to continue receiving absentee ballots for three days after Election Day.
  • The Texas Supreme Court denied an effort by Republicans to throw out more than 120,000 votes that had been cast at drive-through locations in Harris County, an increasingly Democratic area anchored in Houston.
  • in Dubuque, Iowa, on Sunday, Mr. Trump claimed, inaccurately, that the result of the election was always determined on Election Day. “We should know the result of the election on Nov. 3,” he said. “The evening of Nov. 3. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it should be. What’s going on in this country?”
  • Mr. Trump entered the final hours of the race in a worse position here than he was four years ago, when Pennsylvania was seen as Hillary Clinton’s firewall. This time, Mr. Biden has a lead of six points, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll released Sunday, and is working to create multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes.
  • Mr. Trump’s lagging position in the race was evident in his grueling travel schedule that had him shoring up votes in five states he won four years ago — Michigan, Iowa, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.His final rally of the day was scheduled for 11 p.m., and risked violating a midnight curfew in Miami-Dade County.Mr. Biden, by contrast, set his sights squarely on Pennsylvania on Sunday, an approach he will repeat again Monday, along with a foray into Ohio, a state Mr. Trump won handily in 2016 but that polls show could be more competitive now.
  • Compared with other swing states, such as Florida, far fewer early ballots have already been cast in Pennsylvania and, according to the U.S. Elections Project, as of Sunday there were more than 350,000 absentee ballots that had been requested by Democratic voters that had yet to be returned.
  • Mr. Biden’s Philadelphia events kicked off a last push through the state over the final two days. On Monday, Mr. Biden, Senator Kamala Harris and their spouses are expected to campaign in five media markets, hoping to cement support across a sprawling coalition and to keep Mr. Trump’s margins down in parts of western Pennsylvania that propelled him to victory in 2016.“My message is simple,” Mr. Biden said Sunday. “Pennsylvania is critical in this election.”
  • Democrats are well aware of how devoted Mr. Trump’s core base remains. In Macomb County in Michigan, where the president held his first rally Sunday, Irwin Patterson was selling Trump merchandise at a makeshift roadside store.
  • He also embraced the actions of some of his supporters in Texas who had surrounded a Biden campaign bus with their vehicles on Saturday, in an apparent attempt to slow it down and run it off the road. Mr. Trump claimed the vehicles were “protecting his bus, yesterday, because they are nice.”
  • Mr. Biden countered with his own warning later Sunday, saying, “The president is not going to steal this election.”
  • That lead, however, isn’t enough to make Democrats and anti-Trump Republicans feel fully confident about the state of the race in Pennsylvania.
  • The Trump campaign ads running in Pennsylvania have been overwhelmingly centered on economic messages, mainly jobs and taxes.
  • Pennsylvania’s economy is emerging from the pandemic recession but still has a long road ahead to its pre-crisis state. Like the nation, it has seen a two-track recovery that has left small businesses and low-earning workers behind.
  • “That blue wall has to be re-established,” Mr. Biden said in another recent Pennsylvania campaign appearance. He said that winning the state meant a “great deal to me, personally as well as politically.”
  • Pennsylvania has long loomed large in the psyche of the Biden campaign. Mr. Biden, a Scranton native, gave his first speech of his presidential campaign in Pittsburgh, and he chose Philadelphia for his campaign headquarters, before the pandemic hit.
  • Pennsylvania saw its unemployment rate fall to 8.1 percent in September, according to the Labor Department, nearly identical to the national rate of 7.9 percent.
  • PHILADELPHIA — As the national early vote climbs past a staggering 93 million and challenges to the electoral process intensify across states, President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr. are barreling into Pennsylvania and turning it into the top battleground in Tuesday’s election, with Democrats flooding in with door-knockers and Republicans trying to parlay Mr. Trump’s rallies into big turnout once again.
  • Pennsylvania has more Electoral College votes, 20, than any other traditional battleground except Florida, and Mr. Trump won the state by less than one percentage point in 2016.
  • Mr. Biden is ahead with a modest margin in recent polls, and is trying to cut into the president’s turnout in rural counties. But Mr. Trump’s rallies have energized many Republican voters, and his team is already preparing legal challenges over the vote if it ends up being close.
  • “Every day is a new reminder of how high the stakes are, how far the other side will go to try to suppress the turnout,” Mr. Biden said as he campaigned here Sunday. “Especially here in Philadelphia. President Trump is terrified of what will happen in Pennsylvania.”
  • Some Trump supporters also turned disruptive on Sunday: Vehicles bearing Trump flags halted traffic on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey; local officials said the motorcade backed up traffic for several miles. In Georgia, a rally for Democrats that had been scheduled was canceled, with organizers citing worries over what they feared was a “large militia presence” drawn by Mr. Trump’s own event nearby.
  • Throughout his final sprint of rallies, Mr. Trump has moved to baselessly sow doubt about the integrity of the electoral process.
  • Mr. Biden, by contrast, set his sights squarely on Pennsylvania on Sunday, an approach he will repeat again Monday, along with a foray into Ohio, a state Mr. Trump won handily in 2016 but that polls show could be more competitive now.
  • Democrats are well aware of how devoted Mr. Trump’s core base remains. In Macomb County in Michigan, where the president held his first rally Sunday, Irwin Patterson was selling Trump merchandise at a makeshift roadside store.
  • Later, he tweeted in response to the news that the F.B.I. was investigating the incident that “in my opinion, these patriots did nothing wrong,” adding that federal authorities should be scrutinizing antifa instead.
  • Of the three big Northern swing states Mr. Trump won by a hair four years ago, the once reliably blue state of Pennsylvania is the one his advisers believe is most likely within his reach. That’s in large part because of the support of rural voters and Mr. Biden’s call for eventually phasing out fossil fuels, an unpopular stance for many voters in a state with a large natural gas industry.
  • The Trump campaign ads running in Pennsylvania have been overwhelmingly centered on economic messages, mainly jobs and taxes. The campaign’s most aired ad in Pennsylvania over the past week has been a negative ad claiming Mr. Biden will raise taxes (he has said he will raise taxes for those making over $400,000).
  • But the Biden campaign has not ceded the subject to the president, with 14 different ads on air that touch on jobs and the economy. Its most aired ad in Pennsylvania over the past week featured a Biden speech outlining his plans for pandemic recovery, including jobs. Another ad directly rebuts the Trump campaign’s attacks on his tax plan.
  • Pennsylvania saw its unemployment rate fall to 8.1 percent in September, according to the Labor Department, nearly identical to the national rate of 7.9 percent. That is a significant improvement from the 16.1 percent unemployment it posted in April. But the state still had 380,000 fewer jobs in September than it did in September of 2019, and there are 18 percent fewer small businesses open here compared to a year ago, according to data compiled by the economists at Opportunity Insights.
xaviermcelderry

Live Trump-Biden Election Highlights: Florida and Georgia Voters Wait for Results - The... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-election

election Biden Trump swingstates

shared by xaviermcelderry on 04 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • Mr. Trump was holding off Joseph R. Biden Jr. in three states across the South that Mr. Biden had hoped to snatch back from Republican column: Florida, Georgia and North Carolina. The president had a strong lead in Florida. These were not must-win states for Mr. Biden by any means, but he spent heavily in all three places. A Biden victory in Florida would have particularly left Mr. Trump very few roads back to the White House.
  • Mr. Biden was racking up expected wins in Democratic-leaning states: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
  • Mr. Trump was posting similar expected victories in Alabama, Arkansas, Idaho, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, West Virginia, Wyoming, Indiana and South Carolina.Among the biggest states to close that was too early to call was Texas, a 38-vote Electoral College prize that has not gone Democratic since 1976
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The most intense attention was on the swing state of Florida and its 29 Electoral College votes. There, Mr. Trump was overperforming his 2016 vote totals in the populous Miami-Dade County, with 526,000-plus votes so far counted in 2020 compared with about 334,000 total four years ago — an enormous improvement.
  • Florida is a critical part of almost any Electoral College pathway for Mr. Trump to hit the 270 votes needed to secure re-election. Mr. Biden is seen to have multiple paths without the state.
  • In populous Miami-Dade, Mr. Trump was overperforming his 2016 vote totals, with 512,000-plus votes so far counted in 2020 compared with about 334,000 total four years ago — an enormous improvement.
carolinehayter

Opinion | Will Trump's Presidency Ever End? - The New York Times - 2 views

www.nytimes.com/...mp-election-supreme-court.html

opinion trump presidency politics us crisis election supreme court

shared by carolinehayter on 25 Sep 20 - No Cached
  • That was when Trump supporters descended on a polling location in Fairfax, Va., and sought to disrupt early voting there by forming a line that voters had to circumvent and chanting, “Four more years!”This was no rogue group. This was no random occurrence. This was an omen — and a harrowing one at that.
  • Republicans are planning to have tens of thousands of volunteers fan out to voting places in key states, ostensibly to guard against fraud but effectively to create a climate of menace.
    • carolinehayter
      carolinehayter on 25 Sep 20
       
      Isn't voter intimidation illegal?
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      yes, but this is an interesting work around...
  • bragged to Sean Hannity about all the “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” who would monitor the polls on his behalf. At a rally in North Carolina, he told supporters: “Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.”
  • ...45 more annotations...
  • Color me alarmist, but that sounds like an invitation to do more than just watch. Trump put an exclamation point on it by exhorting those supporters to vote twice, once by mail and once in person, which is of course blatantly against the law.
  • On Wednesday Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he lost to Joe Biden. Shockingly but then not really, he wouldn’t. He prattled anew about mail-in ballots and voter fraud and, perhaps alluding to all of the election-related lawsuits that his minions have filed, said: “There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.”
    • carolinehayter
      carolinehayter on 25 Sep 20
       
      Absolutely terrifying-- insinuating that there would not be a peaceful transfer of power for the first time in this country's history...
  • “sheriffs” and “law enforcement” who would monitor the polls on his behalf. At a rally in North Carolina, he told supporters: “Be poll watchers when you go there. Watch all the thieving and stealing and robbing they do.”
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      This lack of social awareness from a president seems unfathomable.
  • “I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class.”
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      pointent and true. America is in great danger
  • “I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class.”
  • This was an omen — and a harrowing one at that.
  • And the day after Ginsburg died, I felt a shudder just as deep.
  • Is a fair fight still imaginable in America? Do rules and standards of decency still apply? For a metastasizing segment of the population, no.
  • Right on cue, we commenced a fight over Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat that could become a protracted death match, with Mitch McConnell’s haste and unabashed hypocrisy
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      HYPOCRISY!!!!!!!! I feel nothing but seething anger for Mitch Mcconnell
  • On Wednesday Trump was asked if he would commit to a peaceful transfer of power in the event that he lost to Joe Biden. Shockingly but then not really, he wouldn’t
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      A peaceful transfer of power is a pillar of our democracy. The thought that it could be forever undone by a spray tanned reality star is harrowing.
  • We’re in terrible danger. Make no mistake.
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      Ain't that the truth
  • “There won’t be a transfer, frankly. There will be a continuation.”
  • Trump, who rode those trends to power, is now turbocharging them to drive America into the ground.
  • The week since Ginsburg’s death has been the proof of that. Many of us dared to dream that a small but crucial clutch of Republican senators, putting patriotism above party,
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      I truly commend the senators who have respected the laws they put in place for Justice Scalia four years ago.
  • Hah. Only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, broke with McConnell, and in Collins’s case, there were re-election considerations and hedged wording. All the others fell into line.
  • Most politicians — and maybe most Americans — now look across the political divide and see a band of crooks who will pick your pocket if you’re meek and dumb enough not to pick theirs first.
  • “If the situation were reversed, the Dems would be doing the same thing.”
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      maybe... but I have more optimism for the moral compasses of the Dems than I do for the GOP
  • Ugliness begets ugliness until — what? The whole thing collapses of its own ugly weight?
  • The world’s richest and most powerful country has been brought pitifully and agonizingly low. On Tuesday we passed the mark of 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, cementing our status as the global leader, by far, on that front. How’s that for exceptionalism?
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      Perfectly encapsulates the American dilema right now.
  • What’s the far side of a meltdown? America the puddle? While we await the answer, we get a nasty showdown over that third Trump justice. Trump will nominate someone likely to horrify Democrats and start another culture war: anything to distract voters from his damnable failure to address the pandemic.
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      So so so so so so true
  • University of California-Irvine School of Law, with the headline: “I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now.”
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      Me too...
  • “The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery,”
  • “I don’t think the survival of the republic particularly means anything to Donald Trump.”
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      Couldn't have said it better
  • “Tribal,” “identity politics,” “fake news” and “hoax” are now mainstays of our vocabulary, indicative of a world where facts and truth are suddenly relative.
  • you can be re-elected at the cost that American democracy will be permanently disfigured — and in the future America will be a failed republic — I don’t think either would have taken the deal.
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      Retweet!
  • But what if there’s bottom but no bounce? I wonder. And shudder.
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 25 Sep 20
       
      This article has left me speechless and truly given me pause. 10/10 would recommend.
  • This country, already uncivil, is on the precipice of being ungovernable, because its institutions are being so profoundly degraded, because its partisanship is so all-consuming, and because Trump, who rode those trends to power, is now turbocharging them to drive America into the ground. The Republican Party won’t apply the brakes.
  • At some point, someone had to be honorable and say, “Enough.”Hah. Only two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, broke with McConnell, and in Collins’s case, there were re-election considerations and hedged wording. All the others fell into line.
  • So the lesson for Democrats should be to take all they can when they can? That’s what some prominent Democrats now propose: As soon as their party is in charge, add enough seats to the Supreme Court to give Democrats the greater imprint on it. Make the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico states, so that Democrats have much better odds of controlling the Senate. Do away with the filibuster entirely. That could be just the start of the list
  • And who the hell are we anymore? The world’s richest and most powerful country has been brought pitifully and agonizingly low. On Tuesday we passed the mark of 200,000 deaths related to the coronavirus, cementing our status as the global leader, by far, on that front. How’s that for exceptionalism?
  • he might contest the election in a manner that keeps him in power regardless of what Americans really want.
  • The coronavirus pandemic, a reckless incumbent, a deluge of mail-in ballots, a vandalized Postal Service, a resurgent effort to suppress votes, and a trainload of lawsuits are bearing down on the nation’s creaky electoral machinery,
  • this election might well degenerate into violence, as Democratic poll watchers clash with Republican poll watchers, and into chaos, as accusations of foul play delay the certification of state vote counts
  • headline: “I’ve Never Been More Worried About American Democracy Than I Am Right Now.”
  • “The republic is in greater self-generated danger than at any time since the 1870s,” Richard Primus, a professor of law at the University of Michigan Law School, told me, saying that Trump values nothing more than his own power and will do anything that he can get away with
  • “If you had told Barack Obama or George W. Bush that you can be re-elected at the cost that American democracy will be permanently disfigured — and in the future America will be a failed republic — I don’t think either would have taken the deal.” But Trump? “I don’t think the survival of the republic particularly means anything to Donald Trump.
  • What gave Primus that idea? Was it when federal officers used tear gas on protesters to clear a path for a presidential photo op? Was it when Trump floated the idea of postponing the election, just one of his many efforts to undermine Americans’ confidence in their own system of government?
  • Or was it when he had his name lit up in fireworks above the White House as the climax of his party’s convention? Was it on Monday, when his attorney general, Bill Barr, threatened to withhold federal funds from cities that the president considers “anarchist”? That gem fit snugly with Trump’s talk of blue America as a blight on red America, his claim that the pandemic would be peachy if he could just lop off that rotten fruit.
  • The deadly confrontations recently in Kenosha, Wis., and Portland, Ore., following months of mass protests against racial injustice, speak to how profoundly estranged from their government a significant percentage of Americans feel.
  • Litigation to determine the next president winds up with the Supreme Court, where three Trump-appointed justices are part of a majority decision in his favor. It’s possible.
  • Rush Limbaugh — you know, the statesman whom Trump honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year — has urged McConnell not even to bother with a confirmation hearing for the nominee in the Judiciary Committee and to go straight to a floor vote. Due diligence and vetting are so 2018
  • You know who has most noticeably and commendably tried to turn down the temperature? Biden. That’s of course its own political calculation, but it’s consistent with his comportment during his entire presidential campaign, one that has steered clear of extremism, exalted comity and recognized that a country can’t wash itself clean with more muck.
  • He’s our best bid for salvation, which goes something like this: An indisputable majority of Americans recognize our peril and give him a margin of victory large enough that Trump’s challenge of it is too ludicrous for even many of his Republican enablers to justify. Biden takes office, correctly understanding that his mandate isn’t to punish Republicans. It’s to give America its dignity back.
  • Maybe we need to hit rock bottom before we bounce back up.But what if there’s bottom but no bounce? I wonder. And shudder.
  • “I have never in my adult life seen such a deep shudder and sense of dread pass through the American political class.”
leilamulveny

Mail Balloting Is Fueling Historic Early Voting in the 2020 Election - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...-the-2020-election-11602591220

mail voting politics

shared by leilamulveny on 22 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Several have topped 2016 numbers for mail ballots returned, even as in-person early voting is opening up in much of the country. Altogether in 2016, there were 58.8 million early votes.
  • In the presidential battlegrounds of North Carolina and Florida, registered Democrats have cast more ballots than registered Republicans so far. In North Carolina, independent voters have also cast more early ballots than registered Republicans.
  • Several battleground states are already seeing large numbers of requests for mail ballots. This could make for a long election night in states that prohibit the counting or processing of ballots before election day.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • And in Wisconsin, which starts counting on Election Day, polling places for early voting open Tuesday but already the state is nearing its 2016 early vote total due to a flood of mail-in ballots.
  • Mail balloting has produced fights over the use of special drop boxes and the need for witness signatures.
  • Signatures that don’t match voting records frequently get ballots disqualified, according to federal government data.
nrashkind

US Republicans to shift August convention away from Charlotte | USA News | Al Jazeera - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...charlotte-200603205004439.html

shared by nrashkind on 04 Jun 20 - No Cached
  • he Republican National Committee unveiled plans on Wednesday to proceed with certain convention activities in Charlotte, North Carolina,
  • even though President Donald Trump will deliver his nomination acceptance speech somewhere else.
  • The move came in response to growing concerns from North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper that the full capacity convention Trump had requested is "very unlikely" to happen in light of the COVID-19 pandemic
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Cooper wants the GOP to continue discussing a scaled-back convention, while Republicans are seeking assurances that more than 10 people will be allowed in a room.
  • Dory MacMillan, a spokeswoman for Cooper, said in a statement that the governor "has been clear that the convention could be held with more than 10 people but that plans need to be in place for a scaled down convention with safety precautions
  • Republican governors in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee have called on Trump to move the convention to their states, and the RNC is scheduled to visit Nashville on Thursday.
  • Michael Bitzer, a political scientist at Catawba College, noted former President Barack Obama held his 2012 convention in Charlotte but lost the state to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney in 2012.
  • "Conventions don't really have as great of an impact as people think," Bitzer said. "The Democrats had a convention in Charlotte, and the state went for Romney by two points in 2012."
leilamulveny

Coronavirus Surge in Mail Voting Likely to Lead to More Rejected Ballots - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...e-rejected-ballots-11601827201

voting wsj trump politics policy crisis us

shared by leilamulveny on 06 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • Around 1% of them were rejected nationally in the 2016 general election, according to the federal U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Common reasons include ballots being received after the deadline or voters not signing the ballot envelope or supplying a signature that doesn’t match state records.
  • The state’s Supreme Court ruled last month that those mailed without the secrecy envelope, also called “naked ballots,” should be disqualified.
  • Republican and Democratic parties are engaged in legal battles in many states over voting rules.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • “Many voters are casting their ballots by mail for the first time, so some mistakes are expected,”
  • North Carolina, along with more than 30 other states, offer voters who make certain errors that would invalidate their ballots—such as missing or mismatched signatures—a chance to correct them.
  • . For the presidential race, the Trump and Biden campaigns have vowed full-scale efforts to monitor voting and ballot counting
  • In North Carolina, more than 300,000 people have already successfully cast ballots by mail in the general election through Thursday, more than the total cast by mail in 2016. Still, around 3.4% of ballots returned had errors, so far slightly higher than four years ago, the State Board of Elections said.
  • In the June primary in New York City, thousands of ballots were rejected for not being postmarked on time, for voters failing to sign the backs of envelopes and for other reasons, according to candidates
  • Mr. Smith’s research has found mail-in ballot rejections tended to disproportionately affect younger or inexperienced voters and racial minorities in previous elections. Those voters generally lean Democratic.
  • For the general election, voters have already cast 2,105,553 mail-in ballots and 94,338 early in-person votes, based on data from 22 states collected by the Associated Press as of Friday.
  • Democrats are urging voters to vote early, whether by mail or in person. “Ensuring voters know all the multiple options for voting—in person and by mail—is a central focus down the stretch,” said Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo.
  • Academic studies—such as ones from Dartmouth College and New York University’s School of Law—have found no evidence of widespread fraud in recent U.S. elections.
  • estimated in a publicly released letter to state lawmakers that 100,000 voters statewide could be disenfranchised this election over these “naked ballots.”
katherineharron

More than 17 million people have *already* voted. The election is still 19 days away. -... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

election

shared by katherineharron on 15 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • More than 17 million ballots across 44 states and DC have already been cast in the 2020 election, a stunning testament to what could be a a historically high voter turnout fueled by a series of state law changes that allow more mail-in balloting with the coronavirus pandemic still gripping the country.
  • In fact, in ALL of 2016, just over 46 million votes were cast early -- whether in person or by mail. That means that, even though we are still 19 days from the election, more than one-third (37%) as many early votes have already been cast in 2020 as were cast in the entirety of the early voting in the 2016 presidential race.
  • On Monday in Georgia -- the first day of in-person early voting -- some people waited in lines for as long as 11 hours to cast their ballot. In Texas on Tuesday, its first day of in-person early voting, thousands waited in long lines to have their voice heard. Early in-person voting begins in North Carolina on Thursday. (President Donald Trump will be in the state to rally supporters today.)
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • And the data suggests that it is Democrats driving the early vote rise. In the 23 states that report ballots cast by party identification, 55% of the returned ballots are from Democrats while just 24% are from Republican and 16% are from voters with no party affiliation.
  • "Republicans typically hold a slight edge in absentee ballot returns in Florida elections. But this year, there's been a stunning development."For the first time ever at this stage of a general election, Democrats here are outvoting Republicans — and by a mammoth 384,000-vote margin through Tuesday."
  • According to Gallup polling data from earlier this month, more than 6 in 10 Democrats (62%) said they had either already voted or planned to do so before the election whether in-person or by an absentee ballot. Just 24% of Republicans said the same, a huge 38 point partisan gap that is wildly different than in past presidential elections.
  • In 2016, the gap was just 2 points: 44% of Democrats planned to vote early as compared to 42% of Republicans In 2012, 37% of voters in each party said they planned to vote early.
  • The pandemic, which appears to be ramping up again across the United States, has killed more than 219,000 Americans and sickened almost 8 million. Because of concerns about gathering in large groups indoors, many states have changed their election laws to allow no-excuse absentee voting. Trump's reaction to that has been to suggest, with no evidence, that mail-in balloting is rife with fraud and to encourage his supporters to vote on Election Day in person. Which they seem, judging by the Gallup numbers, to be planning to do.
  • Everyone -- Democrats, independents and Republicans -- who have already voted or plan to do so in the weeks leading up to November 3 are doing so in a national political environment that is decidedly tilted against Trump. Even if the landscape somehow turns for Trump in the next 19 days, he may -- given the avalanche of early votes -- already be too far behind to make it up among voters on Election Day.
clairemann

2020 Election Live Updates: Republicans Confirm Barrett to Supreme Court, Cementing Con... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-election

SCOTUS trump Democrats Republicans

shared by clairemann on 27 Oct 20 - No Cached
  • A divided Senate voted Monday night to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, capping a lightning-fast Senate approval that handed President Trump a victory only days before the election and promised to tip the court to the right for years to come.
  • A divided Senate voted Monday night to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, capping a lightning-fast Senate approval that handed President Trump a victory only days before the election and promised to tip the court to the right for years to come.
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 27 Oct 20
       
      Wow. Inevitable, but still upsetting
  • Republicans overcame unanimous opposition by Democrats to make Judge Barrett the 115th justice of the Supreme Court and the fifth woman ever to sit on its bench.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • all but one Republican, Susan Collins of Maine, who herself is battling for re-election
    • clairemann
      clairemann on 27 Oct 20
       
      at least there is one republican in the senate who isn't a hypocrite
  • With Judge Barrett’s elevation in place of Justice Ginsburg, a liberal icon, the court is expected to tilt decisively to the right.
  • It was the first time in 151 years that a justice was confirmed without a single vote from the minority party, a sign of how bitter Washington’s decades-old war over judicial nominations has become.
  • Democrats called it a hypocritical power grab by Republicans, who they said should have waited for voters to have their say on Election Day — the stance Republicans had taken four years ago when they declined even to hold hearings for one of former President Barack Obama’s nominees to the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland.
  • 52-to-48
  • including abortion rights, gay rights, business regulation and the environment.
  • Her impact could be felt right away. There are major election disputes awaiting immediate action by the Supreme Court from the battleground states of North Carolina and Pennsylvania. Both concern the date by which absentee ballots may be accepted
  • Judge Barrett will quickly confront a docket studded with major cases on Mr. Trump’s programs and policies
  • Justices can begin work as soon as they are sworn in, meaning she could be at work on Tuesday.
  • Yes. The court will soon act on cases from North Carolina and Pennsylvania concerning whether deadlines for receiving mailed ballots may be extended.
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