Offering asides, recommended links, blogworthy quotations, and more, In Brief is the Northwest Progressive Institute's microblog of world, national, and local politics.
“A Florida redistricting plan pushed by Republican Governor Ron DeSantis violates the state constitution and is prohibited from being used for any future U.S. congressional elections since it diminishes the ability of Black voters in north Florida to pick a representative of their choice.”
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“Facebook and YouTube are receding from their role as watchdogs against conspiracy theories ahead of the 2024 presidential election,” The Washington Post’s report.
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Pew’s Stateline: “With their eyes on the 2024 presidential election, state lawmakers around the country are preparing to reshape voting rules in what election experts expect will be another busy legislative season.”
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Via The New York Times: “Voters in New Hampshire and Mississippi face the highest personal cost in the country in terms of the time and effort required to cast a ballot, according to a new academic study. Voters in Oregon and Washington have it the easiest.”
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Washington and Oregon are by far the easiest states in the country to vote in, a new study featured in The New York Times has found. Meanwhile, voters in New Hampshire and Mississippi “face the highest personal cost in the country in terms of the time and effort required to cast a ballot.”
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Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a Republican accused of compromising sensitive election machine data, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday. Here’s an explanation of everything that’s happened so far from The Colorado Sun.
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Assembly Bill 126 would “do away with Nevada’s caucus system that has been used to determine each major party’s presidential nominee in the state since 1981,” the Las Vegas Review-Journal explains.
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“By the time rioters ransacked the Capitol, the machinery of the left had already been primed to respond — prepared by months spent sketching out doomsday scenarios and mapping out responses, by countless hours of training exercises and reams of opinion research,” The New York Times reports.
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“Our number one job is to make sure that we have an accurate election, an accurate tally,” said Meagan Wolfe, the administrator of the Badger State’s Elections Commission.
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Ben Brasch of The Atlanta Journal Constitution has details on an a burst water pipe that is impairing one of Georgia’s biggest counties from counting ballots tonight.
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Ars Technica’s Timothy B. Lee has put together an incredibly good article that reiterates what security researchers and election integrity advocates have known for a long time: online voting is a terrible idea and should not be used for any elections for public office.
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“Trump and his allies have always been motivated by partisanship, even at the expense of American lives,” retorted Nevada’s State Democratic Party Chair after Trump tweeted that Democrats were “using COVID to steal the state” by implementing vote at home in the Silver State.
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“[T]he Pavlovian urge to win the short-term news cycle, own the libs and defend the economic interests of corporate America and Trump’s re-election are combining with the predilection for conspiracy-minded thinking on the right.”
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“Quarantines and fear could decimate voter turnout. Congress needs to fund mail-in ballots nationwide now,” Jon Stokes argues in an essay for WIRED.
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“A significant majority of Americans have lost faith in tech companies’ ability to prevent the misuse of their platforms to influence the 2020 presidential election, according to a new study from Pew Research Center,” TechCrunch reports.
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Via Ars Technica: “Election security advocates scored a major victory on Thursday as a federal judge issued a 153-page ruling ordering Georgia officials to stop using its outdated electronic voting machines by the end of the year.”
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The former Attorney General of the United States offered opening remarks at Defending the Census, a Netroots Nation 2019 panel.
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“I think a full investigation would show that Trump didn’t actually win the election in 2016. He lost the election, and he was put into office because the Russians interfered on his behalf,” the legendary former President said.
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Via Politico: “Trump’s willingness to accept foreign assistance has essentially invited overseas spies to meddle with 2020 presidential campaigns, undoing months of work, said law enforcement veterans.”
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“I’m not asking any of you to give any blood,” civil rights legend Representative John Lewis said at a rally for Stacey Abrams. “I’m just asking you to go and vote like you never voted before. We have to vote!”
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Required reading from the Associated Press’ cybersecurity writer: “Three privately held companies sell and service more than ninety percent of U.S. elections systems. But the companies have long stressed convenience for their customers over product security, security experts and elections officials say.”
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