Voting Law Proposals and Voting Rights Efforts (2 Viewers)

[MT15]

This is, IMO, going to be a big topic in the coming year. Republicans have stated their aim to make voting more restrictive in just about every state where they have the means to do so. Democrats would like to pass the Voting Rights Bill named after John Lewis. I’m going to go look up the map of all the states which have pending legislation to restrict voting. Now that we have the election in the rear view, I thought we could try to make this a general discussion thread, where people who have concerns about voting abuses can post as well and we can discuss it from both sides. Please keep memes out of this thread and put them in the boards where we go to talk about the other side, lol.

 

[MT15]

The same people who demanded Covid vaccine passports are fighting voter ID.

The same people who always claimed they were pro-choice thought we should force people to take vaccines.

I'm sensing a pattern.

We all see your pattern, and you never deviate from it. As predictable as can be.

 

[MT15]

While right wingers are distracting SFL with talk of undocumented immigrants voting, which doesn’t happen, this is what the billionaire class is doing to sway the election. Keep in mind, SFL, if they can suppress the votes of democratic voters - why would they care about your vote either? They don’t. The only people they care about are themselves, they consider themselves elite and want to control everything for their own benefit.

Inside Ziklag, the Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Sway the Election and Change the Country

The little-known charity is backed by famous conservative donors, including the families behind Hobby Lobby and Uline. It’s spending millions to make a big political push for this election — but it may be violating the law.

www.propublica.org

“A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.”

 

[cuddlemonkey]

Immigrants coming into the country outside of the immigration system is illegal as well and it's still continuing so that's a worthless point.

It's quite obvious why the Democrats oppose proof of citizenship to vote based on the millions of illegals that Biden is welcoming into the country.

Can you provide any proof of non-citizens voting in federal elections?

 

[DaveXA]

Can you provide any proof of non-citizens voting in federal elections?

He doesn't. It's nothing more than a terrible strawman.

 

[LA - L.A.]

He doesn't. It's nothing more than a terrible strawman.

More like bogeyman at this point.

 

[Optimus Prime]

The multimillionaire and prominent election denier Patrick Byrne has been boosting his funding to the Maga-allied America Project and using it to steer six-figure checks to far-right groups that push voting conspiracies in Arizona, Michigan and elsewhere, according to tax records and voting experts.

Byrne, the former CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, said last fall that only $3m of the $30m the Florida-based project had raised at that point came from “the public”, with the rest coming from him.

In 2022, the America Project almost doubled its revenues to $14.3m versus some $7.7m the prior year, according to tax records first disclosed by Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group.


The America Project was launched in April 2021 by Byrne and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump when he was president; both Byrne and Flynn have been vocal purveyors of falsehoods that Trump lost the 2020 election due to fraud. They were also both at a meeting with Trump and others in late 2020 to brainstorm ways to overturn his loss.

The project’s website features bogus claims about election fraud stemming from early and mail voting, and styles itself as “an America First non-profit organization defending rights and freedoms, election victory, and border security to save America”.

The project also boasts that its goal is “to be a symphony conductor of the pro-freedom, pro-constitutional movement, synchronizing and magnifying the efforts of those who wish to ally with us through connecting, training, funding, and working together to save America”.

In practice, the America Project and Byrne have sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Arizona-based We the People AZ Alliance, and Michigan-based United States Election Investigation and Lawsuits Inc, triggering alarms by election watchdogs and some GOP veterans due to their incendiary election denialist stances and leaders.

The Arizona alliance was co-founded by Shelby Busch, a vice-chair of the Maricopa county Republican party, who in late June was caught on video threatening to kill the top county election official, Stephen Richer, the Maricopa county recorder.

Busch opined she would accept only “a good, Christian man that believes what we believe”.……..

Pro-Trump multimillionaire and election denier boosts funds to far-right voter-conspiracy groups

Ex-Overstock chief Patrick Byrne using Maga-allied America Project to steer large amounts to groups pushing fringe theories

www.theguardian.com

 

[MT15]

Billionaire idiots are doing real harm to this country.

 

[SaintForLife]

Marc Elias is the guy that helped bring us the discredited Steele Dossier. Real trustworthy guy.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Guess this can go here
====================

The former attorney general Bill Barr was personally involved in a decision to release an unusual and misleading justice department statement on the eve of the 2020 election suggesting there may have been voter fraud in Pennsylvania, according to a new inspector general’s report that was released on Thursday.

The 76-page report from the justice department’s Office of the Inspector General focused on the department’s handling of an investigation into nine military ballots that were found discarded in the trash in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania.

Barr briefed Trump on the ballot issue before it was public and the president subsequently disclosed it in a radio interview. David Freed, the US attorney overseeing the matter, also released a statement and letter detailing the investigation.

The announcement was highly charged because it came at a time when Trump was warning the election would be rigged because of mail-in ballots.

It was also highly unusual – justice department policy does not allow employees to comment on ongoing investigations before charges are filed, except in limited circumstances.

Separate guidance instructs department employees that they should be “particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship”.

Federal law enforcement officials were notified of the discarded ballots on 18 September 2020 and investigators quickly became aware that evidence might not exist to support criminal charges.

The seasonal employee who discarded the ballots appeared to have a mental disability, FBI agents noted on 22 September, and was “remorseful”, “felt horrible” and “never voted/doesn’t vote/didn’t pay attention to it”.

The suspect, who was quickly fired, reportedly believed incorrectly the military ballots were fraudulent and discarded them without telling anyone.

Nonetheless, Barr briefed Trump on the matter and later called Freed to discuss releasing a public statement.

“Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed – both career employees and Trump Administration political appointees – emphasized how ‘unusual’ it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed,” the inspector general report said.

“As one then US Attorney told us: ‘If [we] don’t have a charge, we don’t say anything about an investigation; we just don’t do that.’”

Barr’s behavior “was certainly not consistent” with that guidance, the report said. Barr did not agree to a voluntary interview and the inspector general does not have the power to subpoena testimony from former justice department employees.

“Providing this information to the president, who was not bound by the department’s policies prohibiting comment on ongoing investigations and who had a political interest in publicizing the investigation, created the risk that the president would use the department’s non-public investigative information to advance his own political aims,” the report said.

“A risk that was in fact realized when President Trump referenced the ballots on a national radio show the next morning.”………

Bill Barr complicit in misleading voter fraud statement’s release – watchdog

Trump attorney general’s unusual actions ‘certainly not consistent’ with justice department policy, report finds

www.theguardian.com

 

[Optimus Prime]

more on this
========

The Trump administration’s Justice Department broke with long-standing norms during the 2020 election cycle by publicly commenting on an ongoing investigation into nine military mail-in ballots tossed into a dumpster in Pennsylvania, according to a report released Thursday by the agency’s inspector general.

The discarded ballots in Luzerne County became fodder for election conspiracies, with then-President Donald Trump using the investigation to sow doubt into whether the election could be conducted fairly. Trump later relied on such doubts to fuel his false claims that he had defeated Joe Biden in the election — claims he has continued to repeat during his current campaign for the White House.

On Sept. 24, 2020, U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania David Freed took the unusual step of stating publicly that federal officials had launched an inquiry into the discarded ballots and that all nine ballots were cast for Trump. His statement was later retracted and amended to say that seven ballots were cast for Trump and the votes of the remaining two were unknown.

Then-Attorney General William P. Barr encouraged Freed to make the statement, according to the report issued Thursday, even though Justice Department policy generally prohibits such comments on ongoing, uncharged investigations.

The purpose of the policy is to protect the privacy of people who are ultimately not charged with a crime and ensure that cases are only pursued based on evidence that would be allowed in a courtroom.

The Justice Department also releases an Election Year Sensitivities Memorandum during major election cycles reminding employees about the seriousness of making statements about election-related investigations during an election year. Barr had issued that memorandum to his employees months before encouraging Freed to make the statement, the report said.

Still, the inspector general concluded that Barr did not violate Justice Department policies, citing the “ambiguity regarding the applicability” of those policies. The report notes that the attorney general has the discretion to comment on ongoing criminal investigations “in the interest of the fair administration of justice.”

Barr met with Trump before Freed made his statement, according to the report, and told Trump the discarded ballots were votes for him — details that had not yet been made public. The next day, Trump repeated that information on a national radio show.

While Barr’s briefing to the president was unusual — there is generally supposed to be a wall between the White House and Justice Department when it comes to criminal investigations to ensure they are not politically motivated — it also didn’t violate the department’s policies, the report said.

“Although we were troubled by the investigative facts about the Luzerne County matter that Barr relayed to President Trump in the briefing, we concluded, for reasons described below, that the policy appears to leave it to the Attorney General’s discretion to determine precisely what information can be shared with the President where a communication is permissible under the policy, as we found was the case with Barr’s briefing,” the report states.

Freed, however, violated department policy multiple times, the report says, failing to coordinate with the FBI before he issued his statement and making public a letter that he sent to the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections providing more details about the investigation than his statement did...........

MSN

 

[DaveXA]

Guess this can go here
====================

The former attorney general Bill Barr was personally involved in a decision to release an unusual and misleading justice department statement on the eve of the 2020 election suggesting there may have been voter fraud in Pennsylvania, according to a new inspector general’s report that was released on Thursday.

The 76-page report from the justice department’s Office of the Inspector General focused on the department’s handling of an investigation into nine military ballots that were found discarded in the trash in Luzerne county, Pennsylvania.

Barr briefed Trump on the ballot issue before it was public and the president subsequently disclosed it in a radio interview. David Freed, the US attorney overseeing the matter, also released a statement and letter detailing the investigation.

The announcement was highly charged because it came at a time when Trump was warning the election would be rigged because of mail-in ballots.

It was also highly unusual – justice department policy does not allow employees to comment on ongoing investigations before charges are filed, except in limited circumstances.

Separate guidance instructs department employees that they should be “particularly sensitive to safeguarding the Department’s reputation for fairness, neutrality, and nonpartisanship”.

Federal law enforcement officials were notified of the discarded ballots on 18 September 2020 and investigators quickly became aware that evidence might not exist to support criminal charges.

The seasonal employee who discarded the ballots appeared to have a mental disability, FBI agents noted on 22 September, and was “remorseful”, “felt horrible” and “never voted/doesn’t vote/didn’t pay attention to it”.

The suspect, who was quickly fired, reportedly believed incorrectly the military ballots were fraudulent and discarded them without telling anyone.

Nonetheless, Barr briefed Trump on the matter and later called Freed to discuss releasing a public statement.

“Nearly every DOJ lawyer we interviewed – both career employees and Trump Administration political appointees – emphasized how ‘unusual’ it would be for the department to issue a public statement containing details about an ongoing criminal investigation, particularly before any charges are filed,” the inspector general report said.

“As one then US Attorney told us: ‘If [we] don’t have a charge, we don’t say anything about an investigation; we just don’t do that.’”

Barr’s behavior “was certainly not consistent” with that guidance, the report said. Barr did not agree to a voluntary interview and the inspector general does not have the power to subpoena testimony from former justice department employees.

“Providing this information to the president, who was not bound by the department’s policies prohibiting comment on ongoing investigations and who had a political interest in publicizing the investigation, created the risk that the president would use the department’s non-public investigative information to advance his own political aims,” the report said.

“A risk that was in fact realized when President Trump referenced the ballots on a national radio show the next morning.”………

Bill Barr complicit in misleading voter fraud statement’s release – watchdog

Trump attorney general’s unusual actions ‘certainly not consistent’ with justice department policy, report finds

www.theguardian.com

That's not at all surprising.

 

[SFIDC3]

Barr deserves to be held accountable as he was complicit in trying to undermine the election and the will of the people, but he will likely never get what he is due.....

 

[MT15]

Barr deserves to be held accountable as he was complicit in trying to undermine the election and the will of the people, but he will likely never get what he is due.....

He likely also did the bidding of Trump in some cases where Trump interfered in the DOJ. Go back and listen to him stammer around when Harris as a Senator asked him the question about the WH telling the DOJ to open certain investigations.

 

[Optimus Prime]

Candace Smith did everything right.

During the May 2024 state primary in Georgia, the Atlanta attorney voted early, giving herself time to sort out any issues that might occur and ensure that her vote would be counted.

But on Election Day, when she went to check her ballot status online, a warning popped up. Someone had submitted a challenge to her voter registration status.

“I found it shocking,” Smith said, adding that she has been an active voter in Fulton County for decades, and that the challenge did not include any reason or evidence. “Nothing about it made any sense.”

Smith, an attorney and longtime proponent of voting rights efforts in Georgia, was well positioned to advocate for her rights. She quickly contacted the Fulton County Elections Office, raising the issue to a supervisor to make doubly sure that her ballot had counted. But for the average person, she said, encountering a voter challenge could pose an insurmountable barrier.

Had she less time or knowledge about the complex web of election infrastructure, she said, “that might be an issue that prevented me from voting, and it also might be something that would deter me from bothering in the fall.”

Citizen voter challenges, once an obscure practice, have transformed into a mass movement in Georgia, with conservative activists challenging hundreds of thousands of voter registrations in the last several years. Often, the waves of voter challenges coincide with competitive, high-profile elections, with election conspiracy theorists using complaints of rampant voter fraud to cast doubt on election results.

Voters of color — and Black voters in particular — have been disproportionately impacted by these vast disenfranchisement campaigns.

And voting rights experts say a newly-passed election law, known as SB 189, is likely to make the problem worse.

Challenging a voter’s registration is nothing new. Almost every state in the country has laws allowing residents to notify local election boards if a resident is found to be voting improperly. In Georgia, citizen campaigns to challenge election registration date back to the 1940s, when white supremacists mobilized to prevent Black voters from accessing the polls. In modern times, however, these laws had not posed any widespread barriers to voters until recently.

“Voter challenge laws were originally intended for a bit of a different era,” said Andrew Garber, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice who has been tracking mass voter challenges since 2021. “It was a way for one person to be able to say, ‘I have personal knowledge that someone is presenting to vote who is no longer eligible.’”

But in recent years, state legislators have passed sweeping election law changes, giving election conspiracy theorists greater power to challenge their fellow voters. SB 202, a 2021 election bill, codified the ability for any one person to challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations. Voting rights organizations have largely considered mass challenges to be voter intimidation tactic.

“It can be scary as a voter to learn that your name is on some list claiming you're not eligible to vote,” Garber said, adding that being challenged can "make it more likely that people will ultimately not be able to vote or choose not to vote.”

In the years since SB 202 took effect, a few conservative activists have filed sweeping challenges, accusing hundreds of thousands of Georgia residents of being improperly registered to vote. The emergence of technology like EagleAI allows activists to comb through massive datasets like the National Change of Address Database, identifying people whose registration may contain errors and submitting those discrepancies to local election officials as evidence of malfeasance.............

Though only a small number of people are routinely filing voter challenges, the open-ended nature of voter challenge laws has allowed these activists to cast a wide net. A 2023 ProPublica investigation found that nearly 90% of voter challenges filed since the passage of SB 202 — encompassing 89,000 voters — were submitted by just six people............

New Georgia law makes voter intimidation easier, critics say; affects Black voters most

Voter challenges, once an obscure practice, have become a mass movement in Georgia. Experts say a new election law will likely make the problem worse.

www.usatoday.com

 

[DaveXA]

Candace Smith did everything right.

During the May 2024 state primary in Georgia, the Atlanta attorney voted early, giving herself time to sort out any issues that might occur and ensure that her vote would be counted.

But on Election Day, when she went to check her ballot status online, a warning popped up. Someone had submitted a challenge to her voter registration status.

“I found it shocking,” Smith said, adding that she has been an active voter in Fulton County for decades, and that the challenge did not include any reason or evidence. “Nothing about it made any sense.”

Smith, an attorney and longtime proponent of voting rights efforts in Georgia, was well positioned to advocate for her rights. She quickly contacted the Fulton County Elections Office, raising the issue to a supervisor to make doubly sure that her ballot had counted. But for the average person, she said, encountering a voter challenge could pose an insurmountable barrier.

Had she less time or knowledge about the complex web of election infrastructure, she said, “that might be an issue that prevented me from voting, and it also might be something that would deter me from bothering in the fall.”

Citizen voter challenges, once an obscure practice, have transformed into a mass movement in Georgia, with conservative activists challenging hundreds of thousands of voter registrations in the last several years. Often, the waves of voter challenges coincide with competitive, high-profile elections, with election conspiracy theorists using complaints of rampant voter fraud to cast doubt on election results.

Voters of color — and Black voters in particular — have been disproportionately impacted by these vast disenfranchisement campaigns.

And voting rights experts say a newly-passed election law, known as SB 189, is likely to make the problem worse.

Challenging a voter’s registration is nothing new. Almost every state in the country has laws allowing residents to notify local election boards if a resident is found to be voting improperly. In Georgia, citizen campaigns to challenge election registration date back to the 1940s, when white supremacists mobilized to prevent Black voters from accessing the polls. In modern times, however, these laws had not posed any widespread barriers to voters until recently.

“Voter challenge laws were originally intended for a bit of a different era,” said Andrew Garber, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice who has been tracking mass voter challenges since 2021. “It was a way for one person to be able to say, ‘I have personal knowledge that someone is presenting to vote who is no longer eligible.’”

But in recent years, state legislators have passed sweeping election law changes, giving election conspiracy theorists greater power to challenge their fellow voters. SB 202, a 2021 election bill, codified the ability for any one person to challenge an unlimited number of voter registrations. Voting rights organizations have largely considered mass challenges to be voter intimidation tactic.

“It can be scary as a voter to learn that your name is on some list claiming you're not eligible to vote,” Garber said, adding that being challenged can "make it more likely that people will ultimately not be able to vote or choose not to vote.”

In the years since SB 202 took effect, a few conservative activists have filed sweeping challenges, accusing hundreds of thousands of Georgia residents of being improperly registered to vote. The emergence of technology like EagleAI allows activists to comb through massive datasets like the National Change of Address Database, identifying people whose registration may contain errors and submitting those discrepancies to local election officials as evidence of malfeasance.............

Though only a small number of people are routinely filing voter challenges, the open-ended nature of voter challenge laws has allowed these activists to cast a wide net. A 2023 ProPublica investigation found that nearly 90% of voter challenges filed since the passage of SB 202 — encompassing 89,000 voters — were submitted by just six people............

New Georgia law makes voter intimidation easier, critics say; affects Black voters most

Voter challenges, once an obscure practice, have become a mass movement in Georgia. Experts say a new election law will likely make the problem worse.

www.usatoday.com

What they should do is put those 6 people on a watch list. If a challenge is found to be illegitimate, then ban them from submitting future challenges. Same approach with anyone submitting multiple challenges.

 

[Optimus Prime]

What they should do is put those 6 people on a watch list. If a challenge is found to be illegitimate, then ban them from submitting future challenges. Same approach with anyone submitting multiple challenges.

I'd take it one step further, if these challenges are bullshirt (and I have no doubt they are)

Some sort of fine for all the time, effort and money these people have to go through resolving the issue so they can vote

Ban them from voting too

 

[DaveXA]

I'd take it one step further, if these challenges are bullshirt (and I have no doubt they are)

Some sort of fine for all the time, effort and money these people have to go through resolving the issue so they can vote

Ban them from voting too

They should be hit with the same penalties as voter fraud. That will put a stop to it pretty quick.

 

[DJ1BigTymer]

They should be hit with the same penalties as voter fraud. That will put a stop to it pretty quick.

Thank for getting there! If those claims are found to be fraudulent, then they have committed voter fraud and should be be prosecuted!