DL Open Thread: Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024
The Relentless Rethug Campaign To Disenfranchise Voters.
On Friday, a Virginia judge ruled that Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s recent purge of close to two thousand voters from state rolls—within 90 days of November’s election—was illegal. Now, with that election less than two weeks away, the state must reinstate all 1,600 revoked registrations.
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Patricia Giles found that Youngkin’s purge violated the National Voter Registration Act, a federal law that prevents states from removing ineligible voters from the rolls within 90 days of the election.
While advocates hailed the ruling as a significant victory for voting rights, for many, the damage was already done. Since Monday is the deadline for anyone seeking an absentee ballot, those purged can no longer request one.
A conservative federal court said Mississippi cannot count mail-in ballots that arrive shortly after Election Day, however Friday’s decision was not expected to affect the Nov. 5 election.
The outcome may be negligible in most elections in heavily Republican Mississippi, but the case could affect voting in swing states if the Supreme Court ultimately issues a ruling.
The three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a July decision by U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., who had dismissed challenges to Mississippi’s election law by the Republican National Committee, the Libertarian Party of Mississippi and others. The appeals court order sent the case back to Guirola for further action.
UCLA law professor Richard Hasen wrote on his election law blog that the appeals court ruling was a ”bonkers opinion” and noted that ”every other court to face these cases has rejected this argument.”
All three judges on the three-judge panel were appointed by Trump. Remember, kids, in a fascist state, ‘bonkers opinions’ are the rule, not the exception. Every day, these lawsuits, all based on the Big Lie.
North Carolina: ‘Just give NC’s electoral votes to Trump because of the flood‘:
A Maryland Republican raised the prospect of awarding North Carolina’s 16 Electoral College votes to GOP candidate Donald Trump even before the Nov. 5 presidential election, citing storm damage in the western portion of the state and purported certainty over how voters would have cast their ballots.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of a group of hard-right and libertarian House Republicans called the Freedom Caucus, made the comments Thursday at a GOP dinner event after a speech by pro-Trump activist Ivan Raiklin, who has argued that states should give their votes to the former president if they believe the 2024 election has been tainted.
But this year the Trump ticket’s efforts to pre-emptively deny the results in case of a loss of the election go beyond rhetoric. They are now backed up by widespread party support and a highly organized, massive legal apparatus.
“The effort to try to subvert the outcome is more thought-out, more strategic, more organized, more coordinated in 2020,” said Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Republicans are primed to support Trump’s efforts. Nearly one in five Republican voters believe Trump should declare the election result invalid if he loses, according to a recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute (12% of Democrats said Harris, who has committed to accepting the election results, should do the same).
Dozens of people who have challenged the results of the last presidential election are in local offices where they have power over certifying vote totals. Led by Cleta Mitchell, a Trump ally who aided his efforts to overturn the election four years ago, Republicans have organized a massive effort to monitor election offices, challenge voters, and work in election precincts.
Israel Now Fighting A Four-Front War? Let’s see…Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank, and now, Iraq.
Israel carried out a wave of strikes on military targets in Iran early Saturday, the Israel Defense Forces said, in an attack that lasted about four hours and which Israel characterized as a response to “continuous attacks” from Iran. Iranian state media said two soldiers were killed as a result of the strikes, as the government and air defense corps sought to downplay the impact of the strikes, saying only “limited damage” had been inflicted. The United States was made aware of the attacks in advance but was uninvolved in the operation, U.S. officials have said.
Hey, Trump gave Bibi the go-ahead, and Bibi returned the favor.
I’m not a polls guy. But for those of you who are freaking out, there’s a lot of good news in this polling/state-of-the-race roundup. If you read only one piece on what the polls show, make it this one.
Education Funding: “The Delaware Way Equals Delaware Delay”. No guts, no reform:
A new commission created to overhaul Delaware’s public education funding formula may already lack the political will to make big changes. The Public Education Funding Commission started meeting last month.
Task force members have already started pushing back on the timeline for issuing final recommendations, frustrating at least one education advocate who previously sued the state. American Civil Liberties Union of Delaware Legal Director Dwayne Bensing said officials must act urgently to fix a failing system, including adding hundreds of millions of dollars more in funding.
“This is the Delaware way, which has been the Delaware delay,” he said. “We have had year after year of workforce, task force, WEIC [Wilmington Education Improvement Commission], [Wilmington Education Advisory Committee], Redding Consortium and now this commission to sit there and stare at our belly buttons, apparently, because what we haven’t had is legislative action addressing the dire need of our disadvantaged students in the state.”
Delaware is required to invest more money in public education due to a legal settlement with the ACLU of Delaware and others. A report released last year by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) as a result of the lawsuit showed Delaware was underfunding high-needs students by $600 million to $1 billion. Public education advocates sued the state in 2018, alleging it was underfunding disadvantaged public school students. The parties settled in 2020.
Memo To Matt Meyer And Kyle Evans Gay: This is a Day One priority of the highest order.
What do you want to talk about?
Agree that the election deniers cauldron has reached a steady boil, and now resemble treason of the “tear it all down” variety. Regardless of the elections outcome suspect it will be the starters gun for the Fascists, armed militias and billionaires that mean to rule or imprison all who dare to disagree. Would also note politics, both here and in general, now tend to end in court room games, as the two systems fail in a strange strange harmony.
Dwayne makes some good points though I’m curious why he supported Bethany so stridently when it was Matt that wanted to do the thing he feels so passionate about. Regardless, this is all the more reason that SD 1 is important and so excited about having an incredibly strong – and authentic – education advocate entertaining the position.
Well, the public education advocate, who I flat-out love, will likely face a Charter School propagandist from Jack Markell’s administration.
I hope the DSEA and the teachers take note and support their true ally when the candidate is selected.
Michelle Obama just killed it at a rally. Check it out.
I thought her husband was the best orator but wow.
Killed it, she was fantastic. I wish she was the one running. MO was better than BO. He was lecturing she was inspirational.