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Trump repeatedly attacked the validity of the election results, tweeting that this was a "RIGGED ELECTION," a "Rigged and Corrupt Election" and a "Rigged Election Hoax." He also tweeted that this was the "most fraudulent Election in history" and that the results are "fake."

None of this is true. The election was not rigged, and there is no evidence of any fraud large enough to have changed the outcome.

Again, not true. Election Day glitches are unfortunate but normal, and there is no evidence of anybody trying to use voting technology to steal votes.

Trump tweeted that there are "millions of ballots that have been altered by Democrats, only for Democrats."

This is false. There is no evidence that millions of ballots were altered by Democrats. In fact, there is not currently evidence that ballots were improperly altered by anyone.

Trump tweeted, "All of the mechanical 'glitches' that took place on Election Night were really THEM getting caught trying to steal votes."

"The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history."

Trump quoted a 1994 article about absentee ballot fraud in a state Senate election in Philadelphia in 1993;

There is no evidence of people voting after the election was over.

Trump repeatedly criticized Georgia's ongoing audit of the presidential election there, in which all ballots are being recounted by hand. Trump tweeted, "The Fake recount going on in Georgia means nothing because they are not allowing signatures to be looked at and verified. Break the unconstitutional Consent Decree!"

Trump then tweeted, "Wow. This is exactly what happened to us. Great courage by judge!"

Trump alleged that there was "voting after the Election was over."

Trump tweeted, "700,000 ballots were not allowed to be viewed in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh which means, based on our great Constitution, we win the State of Pennsylvania!"

This is nonsense.

a Trump campaign lawyer has admitted in court that the campaign's observers were permitted to watch in Philadelphia. And even if, hypothetically, Trump observers had been improperly barred, nothing in the Constitution would make Trump the automatic winner of a state in which he trails by more than 65,000 votes as counting continues.

"NO VOTE WATCHERS OR OBSERVERS allowed."

Trump campaign observers were permitted wherever Biden campaign observers were permitted.

Trump claimed that the election was "stolen" in part by a voting equipment and software company, Dominion Voting Systems, he suggested is biased against him and also has "bum equipment."

There is no evidence of any wrongdoing by Dominion and no evidence that any issues with Dominion's technology affected vote counts

Again, the Trump administration said in the statement last week: "There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised."

There is no evidence of a fraud scheme in Philadelphia in the 2020 election.

The Georgia audit is not fake in any way. While it's true that the state's recount process does not involve signature verification, voters' signatures were verified twice before the ballots were included in the count in the first place

Georgia residents' signatures are verified twice, first when they request an absentee ballot and second when they submit the ballot.

o individual ballot could be connected to an individual signature in a recount, even if someone wanted to violate the bedrock American principle of the secret ballot.

The "Consent Decree" Trump was complaining about is a March legal settlement, between the state and the Democratic Party, that did not prevent signature verification. Rather, it set rules for how and when Georgia voters must be contacted about ballots rejected because of signature issues (and other issues), so that they have time to fix these problems before the count is finalized.

The poll watchers will challenge ballots and the eligibility of voters, but they are not supposed to interact with voters themselves.

The Republican National Committee has been allowed to participate in poll watching only because the courts in 2018 lifted a consent decree that had barred them from doing so for three and a half decades, after the party undertook an operation to intimidate New Jersey voters in 1981.

But while the official poll watchers are being schooled in legal procedures, Mr. Trump and some of his closest surrogates, including his longtime confidant Roger J. Stone Jr. and his son Donald Trump Jr., have recently floated conspiracy theories that also sound like calls to arms.

During a recent appearance on “The Alex Jones Show,” a far-right radio program that peddles conspiracy theories, Mr. Stone said that ballots in Nevada should be seized by federal marshals, claiming that “they are already corrupted” and that Mr. Trump should consider nationalizing the state police. Mr. Stone, a felon whose sentence was commuted this year by the president, has ties to the Proud Boys.

“The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father, President Donald Trump,” the younger Mr. Trump says on the video, posted on Twitter.

The assessment said that “open-air, publicly accessible parts of physical election infrastructure,” including polling places and voter registration events, could be “flash points for potential violence.”

Both parties recruit volunteer poll watchers, a process Republicans previously led at the state level amid the consent decree. In a new video tailored for Pennsylvania, prospective poll watchers are told they must wear identification and remain outside an enclosed space designated for voting.

he seven locations in Philadelphia were satellite election offices where voters could request, fill out and submit absentee ballots; they were not official polling locations and therefore not open to poll watchers.

Now, however, he effectively controls the party.

Whether Trump means the things he says or not, he’s convincing his most ardent supporters that the only way he loses is if the Democrats cheat.”He added, “That’s profoundly destabilizing and scary.”

Voters in some major cities, in addition to choosing their next mayor, will also have the opportunity to weigh in on an important issue that has been heavily debated in their communities.

Proposition 6 would codify the right for long-term care residents to designate an essential caregiver for in-person visitation.

Texas -- Proposition 3 Read MoreWritten in response to Covid-19 restrictions, Texans will consider a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the state or a political subdivision, such as an elected official, from "prohibiting or limiting religious services of religious organizations."

Like Proposition 3, Proposition 6 was also influenced by the Covid-19 restrictions enforced during the height of the pandemic.

Texas -- Proposition 3 Read MoreWritten in response to Covid-19 restrictions, Texans will consider a constitutional amendment that would prohibit the state or a political subdivision, such as an elected official, from "prohibiting or limiting religious services of religious organizations." Enter your email or view the Vault By CNN webpage to own a piece of CNN History with blockchain technology.close dialogExplore Vault by CNN . Presidential elections, space discoveries, CNN exclusives and more.Explore NowGet UpdatesBe the first to know about upcoming releases from our Vault, with updates delivered right to your inbox.Please enter aboveSign Me UpBy subscribing, you agree to our privacy policy.Success!See you in your inbox.close dialog/* effects for .bx-campaign-1426699 *//* custom css .bx-campaign-1426699 *//* custom css from creative 60682 *//* V Text Alignment Fix */ .bx-custom.bx-campaign-1426699 .bx-row-input + .bx-row-submit { vertical-align: top;}/* custom css from creative 60872 *//************************************ CREATIVE STRUCTURE Do not remove or edit unless non applicable to creative set.************************************//* rendered styles .bx-campaign-1426699 */.bxc.bx-campaign-1426699.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative:before {min-height: 185px;}.bxc.bx-campaign-1426699.bx-active-step-1 .bx-creative {bo

Cleveland -- Issue 24 Ballot initiative Issue 24 would establish a new civilian commission, called the Community Police Commission, whose members will have final authority over the police department's policy and procedures, hiring and training, and disciplinary action.

Question 2 would replace Minneapolis Police Department with a new "Department of Public Safety" overseen by the mayor and city council.

Proposal 7, also known as Local Law J, asks city residents whether to expand a civilian police review board's authority to conduct investigations and "to exercise oversight, review, and resolution of community complaints alleging abuse of police authority."

Austin, Texas -- Proposition A Voters in Austin, Texas are being asked whether to bulk up the city's police department with Proposition A, as its supporters argue that the city is in the midst of a "crime wave" and a shortage of police officers.Proposition A would require that the Austin police department employs at least two police officers for every 1,000 residents.

Detroit -- Proposal R A "yes" vote on Proposal R would be in favor of the Detroit City Council establishing a task force that would recommend housing and economic programs that "address historical discrimination against the Black community in Detroit."

New Jersey -- Question No. 1 Question No. 1 asks New Jersey voters whether to allow betting on college sports. Currently, sports betting on college events in the state and on college events in which New Jersey teams participate is prohibited.

Richmond, Virginia -- Local ReferendumResidents of Virginia's capital city will decide whether to approve the construction of a new casino and 250-room luxury hotel in south Richmond along the I-95 highway.

New York -- Ballot Proposal 1New Yorkers are being reminded to flip over their ballots to answer five statewide ballot proposals.

New York -- Ballot Proposal 3New York currently requires that its residents register to vote at least 10 days before an election. Ballot Proposal 3 would remove that requirement, clearing the way for state lawmakers to enact new laws that would allow a resident to register to vote in less than 10 days -- such as same-day voter registration.

New York -- Ballot Proposal 4As it stands now, New York voters may vote by absentee ballot if they are unable to appear at their polling place due to illness or physical disability or expect to be absent from their county of residence, or New York City if they're residents, on Election Day.Ballot Proposal 4 asks whether to eliminate the requirement that a voter provide a reason if they wish to vote by absentee ballot.

Philadelphia -- Question #1: Asks whether to amend the city charter so it urges the Pennsylvania legislature and governor to legalize cannabis for recreational use in the state.

The idea that good soldiers needed good books didn’t start with World War II. During World War I, the American Library Association collaborated with the Army to gather and distribute donated books. Even before Pearl Harbor, the association had planned a new “Victory Book Campaign,” with the goal of collecting 10 million books in 1942. The goal was met, though there were concerns that too many were dirty, outdated or unreadable. The campaign was renewed in 1943, with a caveat that the public should donate only “good books.”

Books were seen not just as diversions, but as weapons in the fight for democracy. In American propaganda, the dedication to the free exchange of ideas was explicitly contrasted with Nazi book burnings.

in early 1943, the Council on Books in Wartime, a publishers’ group formed in 1942, approached Ray Trautman, the Army’s chief librarian, with the idea of producing special paperbacks for soldiers overseas. The result was the Armed Services Editions. which were designed to fit in either the breast or pants pocket of a standard-issue uniform.

The series mixed entertainment with more edifying fare. The first title was “The Education of Hyman Kaplan,” a collection of comic stories by Leonard Q. Ross (a pseudonym of Leo Rosten, future author of “The Joys of Yiddish”). The more than 1,300 titles that followed included literary classics, contemporary fiction, poetry, history, biography, humor and even one art book, a compilation of soldiers’ paintings.

A 1945 pamphlet credited the books with helping to create “a young, masculine reading public,” including some who may not have been eager to dig into, say, Herman Melville’s “Typee.” One Marine quoted in the exhibit said that when that book was given to him, he eventually “had nothing to do but read it.” His verdict? “Hot stuff. That guy wrote about three islands I’d been on!”

Still, the specter of partisan bias shadowed the project. In 1944, when President Roosevelt was seeking a fourth term, Congress passed a law aimed at creating a uniform absentee ballot for soldiers. As part of the law, Republicans, concerned that Democrats were seeking to influence the military vote, included a clause stating that no material “containing political argument or political propaganda” could be distributed to troops.

The vagueness of the language sent a chill through the book program. Some planned titles were pulled, including “Yankee From Olympus” (a biography of the former Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that included a favorable depiction of President Roosevelt) and E.B. White’s “One Man’s Meat.”

Two months later, the law was amended, and all of the postponed books were released

A recount would have to reverse the results in all three states to get Clinton to two hundred and seventy. And, as fivethirtyeight.com noted, this has never happened in cases where the margins are as large as those in Wisconsin or Pennsylvania; even Michigan would be at the edge of past experience.

Stein’s Wisconsin application lists a number of reasons for a recount, most of which are paraphrases of a single thought: the Russians might, just might, have fixed the election

The only example of observable irregularities that Stein cites is an uptick in absentee voting, something that may have many causes.

There have also been reports pointing to a weaker performance for Clinton in counties with paperless balloting; however, as both fivethirtyeight.com and the Upshot have pointed out, any difference disappears when one controls for demographics.

It has been widely noted that Clinton did not visit Wisconsin in the general election. The results may have been “surprising,” but they are not mysterious.

Nate Silver gave Trump close to a one-in-three chance of winning. And, as the Obama Administration confirmed this weekend, there is no sign of interference in the balloting.

written by its attorney Marc Elias, which said that the campaign took concerns about Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania “very seriously,” especially given that “this election cycle was unique in the degree of foreign interference witnessed throughout the campaign.”

“lawyers and data scientists and analysts combing over the results to spot anomalies that would suggest a hacked result”; of meetings with data scientists; of researching recount and audit rules; of an attempt “to systematically catalogue and investigate every theory that has been presented to us.”

On Sunday morning, Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, responded to the recount calls by pointing to how outraged the Clinton campaign was when Trump said, during the debates, that he couldn’t say whether he’d accept the results.

When it comes to combating Trump, one must take particular care not to join him in the land of conspiracies, however intellectually engaging or emotionally satisfying that may be. One has to start, instead, by holding fast to the truth.

In a flat world where everyone has access to everything, values matter more than ever. Right now the Hindus and Confucians have more Protestant ethics than we do, and as long as that is the case we’ll be No. 11!

Ahmed I did go on to produce sons, but, at his death in 1617, his eldest was only 13 years old. This prompted the imperial council to allow Mustafa, then aged 25, to ascend the throne as Mustafa I, although he would be deposed and re-enthroned several times throughout his life

a key turning point in the power structures of the Ottoman Empire

The introduction of the ‘cage’ and the survival of a number of other viable candidates for the throne meant the sultan faced a greater danger of depositions and coups by interested individuals or parties seeking to wield power.

That Osman II announced his intention to undertake the pilgrimage immediately after returning to Istanbul from Edirne provoked fears that he might become an absentee monarch, who might be seeking to return the capital to its original site – Edirne

It is a truth universally acknowledged that royal depositions must, sooner or later, be in want of a regicide. The first in the history of the Ottoman Empire occurred on Friday 20 May 1622, with the death of Osman II, son of Ahmed I. Known as Osman the Young, he had ascended the throne in 1618 at the age of 14, following the coup that deposed Mustafa I, his uncle, for the first time. In 1622, aged 17, he had still not succeeded in legitimising himself as a conqueror of territory and so sought to cultivate the role of a pious sultan instead

The dynasty continued with variable succession methods until the end of the sultanate, with Mehmed VI, who ruled from 1918 until 1922. Following the official declaration and recognition of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, Mehmed VI went into exile

the title of Head of the House of Osman is still passed down and used today

Defeated at Stångebro (1598), Sigismund was deposed the following year and replaced by Charles as virtual ruler of Sweden.

By playing on the nobles’ fear of absolutist rule by an absentee monarch, Charles won their support in forcing Sigismund to accept the decisions of the Convention of Uppsala and to recognize Charles as regent in conjunction with the nobles’ state council.

Catholic Sigismund also succeeded to the Swedish throne in 1592

He was declared king in 1604

Charles’s overthrow of Sigismund led to hostilities with Poland

Charles’s forces then intervened in Russia, attempting to prevent a Polish conquest of the country and to install his son Gustavus (later king of Sweden as Gustav II Adolf) as ruler.

tried to rule by a diet subordinated to his will and a system of terror

The most-discussed proposals are to make mail-in voting available to all eligible voters nationwide, and to expand early in-person voting to limit the crowds on Election Day.

“Congress failed to include sufficient, urgently needed funds in the stimulus to help states run elections in a time of pandemic,”

Republicans opposed to spending big on balloting changes viewed it as an attempt by Democrats to impose a one-size-fits-all solution on states. Democrats said the price tag reflected the enormity of the task of safeguarding the vote during a pandemic.

“You can’t just flip a switch and vote by mail, this is a very involved process,” Hovland said. “A lot of what is possible in November will be determined now.”

Some officials in both parties still worry they could lose out in a nationwide vote-by-mail system.

Fears about the outbreak, which has now infected more than 85,000 Americans and killed over 1,200, have started to affect Americans’ intentions to vote.

In a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken March 18-24, 63% of adults questioned said they were “completely certain” to vote in November. But that figure dropped to 56% when the respondents were asked to project their behavior if coronavirus were still a factor on Election Day.

But one of the biggest challenges will be familiarizing people with a new way of voting in a very short time, said Tina Barton, the city clerk and chief elections official in Rochester Hills, Michigan.

“It’s going to take a massive education campaign not only to train all your clerks on a new process but also to educate voters,” Barton said.

The Brennan Center estimated the cost of ensuring vote-by-mail was available

for all voters could be up to $1.4 billion, with postage alone costing $600 million. Hovland of the U.S. Election A

But rules differ from state to state. Some states provide postage-paid envelopes. Others do not. Most allow no-excuse absentee voting. Others require a specific reason for not showing up at the polls, such as an illness or travel.

Willis has said her investigation will expand past Trump's call with Raffensperger to include any efforts to influence the election in Georgia. She is also investigating a phone call between Trump loyalist Sen. Lindsey Graham and Raffensperger, the abrupt departure of Byung "BJay" Pak, the US attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, and the false allegations of election fraud Rudy Giuliani made before Georgia legislators.

The former President's legal troubles began to mount in the wake of a stunning January 2 phone call. In the 62-minute call, Trump lambasted his fellow Republican for refusing to falsely say that Trump won the election in Georgia and repeatedly touted baseless claims of election fraud. "The people of Georgia are angry, the people of the country are angry. And there's nothing wrong with saying that, you know, um, that you've recalculated," Trump said in one part of the call.

"All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state," Trump said. A person familiar with the investigation said Willis will not hesitate to dig into the details surrounding the call, even if Trump's team tries to claim various types of privilege to shield the former President from investigative inquiries.

"The repeated calls sort of start to tell the story that this was not, again, an official trying to talk to another official about problems that he or she might see in an election," Michael J. Moore, the former US attorney for the Middle District of Georgia between 2010 and 2015 under President Barack Obama, told CNN. "They paint a picture about intent and that's an important element for every prosecutor."

"He might say, his lawyers might say, 'No, no, no. He's calling to complain. He's Kvetching. He's saying I got cheated,' " Williams said. Trump's defense could be, "I'm not calling him to ask him to cheat for me, I'm calling him to ask him to undo the cheating," Williams added. A spokesman for Trump did not respond to a request for comment for this story. In a previous statement to CNN on February 9, Trump's senior adviser Jason Miller said there was nothing "improper or untoward" about the call between Trump and Raffensperger.

In the final days of the Trump administration, after numerous public attacks from Trump following the election, some members of the Secretary of State's office retained attorneys out of fear the then-President could leverage resources for political retaliation, a source with the office told CNN. And while Republican officials in Georgia have been eager to move beyond the drama of the election, they are expected to be drawn back into the investigation as Willis runs down the details surrounding the call with Raffensperger, as well as outreach from Trump and his GOP allies to other state officials

Trump also had contact with Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr and Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp.

Graham, a South Carolina Republican, was chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he called Raffensperger on November 13 and inquired whether Raffensperger could discard all mail-in ballots from counties that had shown higher rates of unmatched signatures, the Republican secretary of state told the Washington Post at the time. Graham has denied the assertions from Raffensperger, who has stood firm on his account. Graham's spokesman Kevin Bishop has said that accusations that the senator's call was inappropriate were "ridiculous."

Willis has also expressed interest in exploring testimony from Giuliani before Georgia state senators, in which Giuliani promoted unfounded theories about why Trump won Georgia and a handful of other states that Trump had, in reality, lost. Giuliani told a room of mostly Republican lawmakers that Georgia's voting machines could not be trusted, tens of thousands of absentee ballots were illegally cast and not properly counted, and that the legislature should appoint its own electors who supported Trump. "It's your responsibility if a false and fraudulent count is submitted to the United States government, and it is clear that the count you have right now is false," Giuliani said during the hearing.

Giuliani said "the law gives you a lot of leeway to view the case in the light most favorable to your client."

"There are lots of different pieces and they're different acts and different people involved," Cunningham said. "Lawsuits all over the place, hoping to find a judge who would issue a temporary restraining order, asking a general assembly to intervene, of course raising all kinds of allegations of fraud, pressure threatening the Governor, threatening the Secretary of State."

While Willis wasted no time in launching her investigation into the former President, she said during the AP interview that she has no set timeline for completing her inquiry. "I'm in no rush," she said. "I think people think that I feel this immense pressure. I don't."

Georgia State Patrol spokesman Lt. W. Mark Riley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Cannon "was advised that she was disturbing what was going on inside and if she did not stop, she would be placed under arrest." Cannon's arrest warrant alleges that she "stomped" on an officer's foot three times as she was being apprehended and escorted out of the property, the AJC reported.

Several videos posted online show arresting officers were told repeatedly that Cannon is a state lawmaker.As she is being pulled away, Cannon identifies herself as a Georgia state lawmaker and demands to know why she is being arrested.

Other officers then arrive to block onlookers from interfering. They eventually bring a shouting Cannon backwards outside and into the back of a Georgia State Capitol patrol car.Cannon is 5 foot 2, according to her arrest record. Her arrest by several larger, white law enforcement officers and the image of her being brought through the Capitol prompted widespread condemnation on social media overnight. And her arrest prompted comparisons to civil rights and police brutality protests from this summer as well as those of the 1960s

Georgia's Constitution says lawmakers "shall be free from arrest during sessions of the General Assembly" except for treason, felony or breach of the peace.Cannon was charged and brought to a local jail. By 11 p.m. she had been released, according to her attorney Gerald A. Griggs, who spoke to a group of reporters and supporters outside the jail.

Griggs told the crowd that Cannon sustained bruising from her arrest. He was joined outside the jail by Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who visited Cannon in jail. He told the group that he is also Cannon's pastor.

The senator questioned what made Cannon's actions "so dangerous" that warranted her arrest.

If Republicans are building the infrastructure to subvert an election — to make it possible to overturn results or keep Democrats from claiming electoral votes — then we have to expect that given a chance, they’ll use it.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act is more specific: It’s aimed at restoring the Voting Rights Act, after the Supreme Court gutted it in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013. To that end, it rewrites the V.R.A. to target states with current records of racial discrimination, not just past records; tightens the focus on electoral changes that have traditionally been used to disenfranchise minority voters, like voter ID laws; and empowers the attorney general to send federal observers wherever there’s a threat of racial discrimination in voting.

Let’s start with the For The People Act. The bill would implement nationwide automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration and online registration (did you know there are still states where you can’t register to vote online?). It would limit the use of voter purges — a common tactic in which states throw people off the rolls under the guise of reducing duplication and errors — and restore voting rights to Americans with a past criminal conviction. As far as federal elections go, it would secure at least two weeks of early voting in all states, expand vote-by-mail options and restrict secretaries of state from overseeing elections in which they are on the ballot (they’re looking at you, Brian Kemp).

But while Democrats are debating the best way to make sure Republicans can be heard in the Senate, Republicans in the states are passing legislation meant to silence Democratic voters across the country. The attack on the Capitol failed on Jan. 6, but that doesn’t mean the quiet war the G.O.P. is waging on democracy won’t succeed. There are ways the filibuster can be reformed to ensure that the Senate minority has a voice. But it would be obscene to let the Republican Party use the language of minority rights to deprive actual minorities of the right to vote.

The bill includes new restrictions on absentee voting; grants broad new autonomy and authority to partisan poll watchers; escalates punishments for mistakes or offenses by election officials; and bans both drive-through voting and 24-hour voting

The bill in Texas, a major state with a booming population, represents the apex of the national Republican push to install tall new barriers to voting after President Donald J. Trump’s loss last year to Joseph R. Biden Jr., with expansive restrictions already becoming law in Iowa, Georgia and Florida in 2021.

President Biden and key Democrats in Congress are confronting rising calls from their party to do whatever is needed — including abolishing the Senate filibuster, which moderate senators have resisted — to push through a major voting rights and elections overhaul that would counteract the wave of Republican laws.

Earlier on Sunday, after a legislative power play by Republicans that led to an all-night session and hours of impassioned debate and objections from Democrats, the Senate passed the bill.

In a provision added late in the process, the Texas bill would make it easier to overturn the results of an election in the state in some circumstances. Texas law previously required proof that illicit votes had resulted in a wrongful victory

By seeking to ban drive-through voting, 24-hour voting and the use of tents or temporary structures as polling locations, the Legislature is targeting cities and suburban areas where Democrats did well in November; roughly 140,000 residents of Harris County used one of those methods in the 2020 election.

The bill also creates new regulations for the maintenance of voter rolls, which could lead to bigger and more frequent purges of voters from the lists.

“They are intent on creating voting restrictions that reverse the trends that you’ve seen in Texas,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said in an interview this month.

“What they’re trying to do is create a system that discourages people from actually going out to vote,” he said.

The measure also limits who can hand out any item, including food or water or election-related material, to voters waiting in line. Items can't be given to voters within 150 feet of a ballot box. Only volunteers or staff working with the election supervisor can "provide nonpartisan assistance" to voters within that area.

The bill would also require voters to request mail-in ballots regularly and place restrictions on third-party voter registration groups.

Florida's voting bill is part of a nationwide effort to alter how states conduct elections and to restrict expanded voter access. A controversial law approved in March in Georgia was slammed by voting rights activists and Democrats as voter suppression.

Major businesses with ties to Texas and Georgia criticized attempts to curb voter access.

bills that would make the laws around voting more restrictive have advanced in closely contested states such as Arizona, Georgia, Florida, Michigan and Texas.

some less competitive states are making changes to ease access to voting, including in Delaware, Kentucky, Virginia and Washington.

The only rule change that a majority in both parties say would make elections more fair is ensuring that in-person early voting is available outside of business hours and on weekends (79% of Democrats, 52% of Republicans say so). On others, there is a wide gap.

with 76% of Democrats saying that the rules make it too difficult to vote and 87% of Republicans saying that the rules are not strict enough to prevent illegal votes from being cast.

More say allowing that would make elections more fair (42%) than say it would make them less fair (36%), with 20% saying it wouldn’t change the fairness of US elections.

Limiting access to ballot drop boxes only when polls are open (41% less fair, 34% more fair) and making it illegal to provide food or water to people waiting in line to vote (39% less fair, 13% more fair, 46% no difference).

Nearly two-thirds say elections would be more fair if the rules ensured that in-person early voting is available outside of normal business hours and on weekends (65%) and if voters were required to provide photo identification before they cast a ballot (64%). About half say elections would be more fair if two frequently discussed changes to voter registration practices were made: 51% say elections would be more fair if eligible voters were automatically registered to vote when they turn 18 (just 17% say that would make elections less fair), and 48% say they would be more fair if voters could register at their polling place on Election Day (23% say that would make elections less fair).

While 71% of Democrats say sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters would make elections more fair, 69% of Republicans say that would make them less fair.

Although there is no evidence of fraud or wrongdoing in the 2020 election, many still say that Biden did not legitimately win enough votes to become president.

ut the share of Republicans who falsely say there is solid evidence that Biden did not win has dropped from 58% in January to 50% now.

State Representative Barry Fleming, a Republican who has been a chief sponsor of the bills in Georgia, did not respond to requests for comment.

Nationwide, Republican lawmakers in at least eight states controlled by the party are angling to pry power over elections from secretaries of state, governors and nonpartisan election boards.

In Georgia’s new voting bill, the State Legislature is looking to strip Mr. Raffensperger of his role as the chair of the State Election Board and make him an ex-officio member without a vote.

If the bill becomes law, the State Election Board, under control of the Legislature, would have more authority over these county boards, including the ability to review and fire their members.

Jon Greenbaum, the chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, said Republicans were engaged in an “all-out effort to change the voting rules in lots of ways that would allow for greater opportunity for them to challenge the eligibility of electors,” and that the party would “add micromanagement by state legislatures to the process of running an election.”

It’s not just Georgia. In Arizona, Republicans are pushing for control over the rules of the state’s elections. In Iowa, the G.O.P. has installed harsh new criminal penalties for county election officials who enact emergency voting rules.

Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a Republican, has not weighed in publicly on the changes to election administration and oversight.

The threat of increased punishment seemed to be directed at three county election officials in the state, who last year chose to mail absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in their counties, drawing the ire of state Republicans.

Bobby Kaufmann, the Republican state representative in Iowa who sponsored the voting bill, said the county auditors’ actions were “as much the inspiration for the bill as anything,” pointing to their decisions to mail out ballots with prepopulated information.

In Arizona, the Republican-controlled Legislature is pursuing multiple paths to tip the scales of election oversight.

Ms. Hobbs, who was the target of many Republican attacks after the 2020 election, said that purely partisan politics were at play in the bills.“The Legislature wasn’t interested in control over elections until I got here and happened to have a ‘D’ by my name,” she said.

Efforts in other states to muddle with the mechanics of elections have gone beyond state legislatures. In Michigan, the state Republican Party has indicated that it is unlikely to ask a G.O.P. member of the State Board of Canvassers who chose to certify last year’s election results to return to his post.

It is nearly assured that almost all of these bills will face legal challenges from Democrats, who have signaled that combating the efforts to restrict voting will be a top priority through both federal legislation and the courts.

Unless they united around changing Senate rules, which now require 60 votes for most bills to advance, their chance to enshrine expansive voting protections could quickly slip away.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., making a rare appearance at a hearing, said Wednesday it took “mighty movements and decades of fraught political conflict” to achieve the basic dignities of current election laws and “any American who thinks that the fight for a full and fair democracy is over, is sadly and sorely mistaken.”

“In the end, that insurrection was about an angry mob working to undermine our democracy,” Klobuchar said. “And it reminds all of us how very fragile our democracy truly is, and how it is on all of us to not just protect that democracy, but to ensure that it thrives.”

the Senate legislation would create automatic voter registration nationwide, allow former felons to vote, and limit the ways states can remove registered voters from their rolls. It would expand voting by mail, promote early voting and give states money to track absentee ballots. Millions of people took advantage of those practices during the pandemic last year — and after some Republican states tried to restrict them in favor of voting in person.

The bill would increase oversight for election vendors and boost support for state voting system upgrades after Russia attempted to breach some of those systems in the 2016 election. It would overhaul federal oversight of campaign finance and encourage small donations to campaigns, while requiring more disclosure of political donations.

Testifying at the hearing, former Attorney General Eric Holder, who served under President Barack Obama, said the legislation would help fight politicians who want to maintain an “unjust status quo.”

“The events of the past few months have brought into stark focus what has been true for too long: There is a large and powerful faction in this country intent on retaining power and who will bend or break the rules of our democracy in order to do so,” Holder said.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a longtime opponent of restrictive campaign finance laws, also made a rare hearing appearance, sitting across the dais from Schumer. He said the bill is full of “silly new mandates” that would create “an invitation to chaos” for states that would have to put them in place.

Lacking the 60 votes needed for passage, Democrats have discussed options like lowering the threshold to break a filibuster, or potentially breaking the bill into pieces. For now, Democrats have suggested they will start with bringing up potentially popular proposals like the voting rights measure and expanded gun background checks and let them fail, forcing Republicans to go on the record in opposition.

Republicans called West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner to testify in opposition to the bill. He said the legislation would force his state and others to follow “arbitrary guidelines, most of which are impossible or unattainable under the deadlines.” He urged the senators to “leave election administration up to the states.”

To make certain that they would wield a veto over the proceedings, many of General Pinochet’s followers in the Senate and Congress wrote into the agreement that the final document produced by the Constitutional Convention would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority. They did so confident in their calculations that they would always be able to command more than one-third of the delegates.

That calculation backfired spectacularly over the past weekend as Chile Vamos, despite an enormous financial advantage, lost badly to independent and opposition candidates, and was sidelined from decision-making when it comes to the new charter. The defeat is all the more striking because the coalition also lost most of the mayor’s and governor’s races that were being held simultaneously.

there will be a series of drastic alterations in the way Chile dreams of its future. Two provisions already exist in the electoral process.

One stipulates that gender parity be achieved in the apportionment of the 155 delegates, so that women will not be greatly outnumbered by men in the halls of power. A majority of the 77 women elected, along with their male allies, can now fight successfully for reproductive rights in a country where abortion has traditionally been restricted and criminalized.

The other provision reserves 17 of the seats at the convention for Indigenous peoples, who form 9 percent of Chile’s 19 million people. Chile can henceforth proclaim itself a plurinational, multilingual republic.

Only 43 percent of the population voted in this election, compared with the more than 50 percent who turned out last year and overwhelmingly approved the idea of creating a new Constitution.

This absenteeism can be partly attributed to the pandemic (which also stopped me and my wife from traveling to Chile to cast our votes) and partly to the widespread apathy of vast sectors of the electorate, particularly among the poorest families.

The other problem is that though nearly 75 percent of the delegates embody a progressive agenda, they are fragmented and tend to squabble among themselves, making it difficult to reach a consensus on how far to carry out the reforms Chile requires.

Many involved in the insurrection professed to be motivated by patriotism, falsely declaring that Trump was the rightful winner of the election. Yet at least eight of the people who are now facing criminal charges for their involvement in the events at the Capitol did not vote in the November 2020 presidential election, according to an analysis of voting records from the states where protestors were arrested and those states where public records show they have lived.

To determine who voted in November, CNN obtained voting records for more than 80 of the initial arrestees

a handful were registered as Democrats in those jurisdictions that provided party information -- though who someone votes for is not publicly disclosed. Public access to voter history records varies by state, and CNN was unable to view the records of some of those charged.

Among those who didn't vote were a 65-year-old Georgia man who, according to government documents, was found in his van with a fully-loaded pistol and ammunition, and a Louisiana man who publicly bragged about spending nearly two hours inside the Capitol after attending Trump's "Stop the Steal" rally.

Jessica Stern, a Boston University professor who has spent around 30 years researching extremists, said that while she hasn't spoken with the individuals involved in the events at the Capitol, from her interviews with other violent extremists, she believes a number of factors could have been at play.

They could be more attracted to the theater, violence or attention they would get from a demonstration like the one at the Capitol than to actually achieving their purported goal -- in this case, different election results.

Court records detail how University of Kentucky senior Gracyn Courtright posted a series of images on Instagram showing herself marching with a large American flag and another with her arms raised in triumph outside the Capitol, with the caption, "can't wait to tell my grandkids I was here."

Jack Griffith, a 25-year-old from Tennessee, trumpeted his arrival in Washington DC with a Facebook post saying, "THE CAVALRY IS COMING!!!!," using the hashtag "#MAGA," according to court documents. Shortly after leaving the Capitol on January 6, he posted a message of disappointment. "I hate to be that guy, but The New World Order beat us," he wrote. "Trump was our greatest champion, and it still wasn't enough.

Election data from Tennessee and Alabama, where public records show Griffith had lived, showed that he had voted in the 2016 and 2018 elections but not the 2020 presidential election.

Stern speculated that it was a combination of these reasons, adding that feelings of anger and humiliation often draw people to extremist groups and violence.

In a string of social media posts he shared straight from the Capitol, Edward Jacob Lang of New York portrayed himself as ready for a revolution. "1776 has commenced," he wrote in one that was cited by the government, showing him standing on the steps of the Capitol. "I was the leader of Liberty today. Arrest me. You are on the wrong side of history," read another. After leaving the Capitol, he continued to encourage followers to join the "patriot movement" with him. "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH," he posted.

Federal prosecutors said that video footage from January 6 shows Lang attempting to attack police officers with a baseball bat, donning a gas mask and riot shield.

Though state records show that Lang is registered to vote and had participated in a couple of past elections, county and state officials confirmed to CNN that he did not vote in the November election. Lang's attorney said in a statement that Lang claimed from jail that he submitted an absentee ballot, saying, "Mr. Lang has always represented himself as a Libertarian...He is not a devout Trump supporter, but believes that those taking office will not uphold citizens' First and Second Amendment rights."

Lang's attorney also said the 25-year-old was a "naive, impressionable young man" who had been provoked by Trump's rhetoric. He cited Senator Mitch McConnell's statement that "the mob was fed lies" and said he hoped that Lang and others would not be considered guilty "due solely to their associations, beliefs and presence."

Arie Perliger, a professor at University of Massachusetts Lowell who specializes in right-wing domestic terror, said that he was not surprised to hear some of the rioters had not voted, particularly militia members like Crowl, since militia membership is often rooted in a distrust of government. Still, he said he was concerned that it could reflect a growing erosion of faith in the American democratic process, which is a "risk we need to think about." "When we see that significant ideological groups are stopping participating in the Democratic process, that may mean they are looking for other ways to participate, and those other ways could be more violent," said Perliger, who oversees a database of right-wing extremist acts of violence in the United States. "We should be concerned if we see a growing number of ideological groups are reducing their involvement in electoral politics."