WI-SEN: Trump-Backed Candidate Uses Anti-Semitic Slurs

Wisconsin U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde (R), who has the backing of Donald Trump ahead of his August GOP primary, has used the term “shysters” on numerous occasions and promoted the Great Reset conspiracy theory, Haaretz reports.





https://politicalwire.com/2024/05/20/trump-backed-candidate-uses-anti-semitic-slurs/

India: A Muslim Voter's First-Person Account Of How She Fought To Cast Her Vote In The 2024 Election

I am a 25-year-old online educator and creative writing instructor with a post-graduate degree in English literature. I was born and grew up in Sambhal. This town is the very fabric of my existence. Every street and every neighbourhood holds memories that have shaped who I am.

Writing has always been an outlet for me to express by giving voice to my thoughts. But after 7 May, I find myself at a loss. The emotional scars from watching my community be disenfranchised, abused and silenced cut deeply.

More than anything, I'm consumed by uncertainty about our future as Indian Muslims. Will we always be treated as second-class citizens on the soil that is just as much our homeland?

I arrived at the polling station in the Lodhi Sarai area at eleven in the morning. I was excited—it was only the second election since I turned the minimum voting age.





https://article-14.com/post/a-muslim-voter-s-first-person-account-of-how-she-fought-to-cast-her-vote-in-the-2024-election-664abb5c73502

Election officials in battleground Michigan grapple with sweeping voting changes and a presidential election

CNN — This year, voting will be far easier for Michigan residents – thanks to new laws that establish early voting, automatically send out absentee ballots to voters who requested them and mandate that every community has least one drop box in which to return those ballots.

But the changes have made running elections in this crucial presidential battleground much harder – leading some to worry about burnout among the state’s more than 1,500 local clerks, who must juggle increasingly complex election responsibilities with other duties, ranging from town record-keeping to licensing pets.

“We just put a Ferrari engine inside a Model T car,” Michael Siegrist, the clerk of Canton Township, said of the sweeping effort to modernize elections in a state that still conducts balloting under a decades-old, hyperlocal system.

The scramble to implement Michigan’s new voting rules also comes in a highly charged climate under which a simple mishap could fuel fresh – and false – conspiracy theories about election fraud.




https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/20/politics/michigan-elections-voting-changes/index.html

Just in case you feel bad about the Iranian president's death.....

Bonus Tweet of the Day

Ohio judge set to rule on state's near-total ban on abortions

A judge in Ohio could rule as soon as Monday in a case that could overthrow the state’s 2019 abortion ban.

Hamilton County Common Pleas Judge Christian Jenkins is considering a case brought by a group of Ohio abortion clinics which seeks to invalidate the state’s law banning abortion in most cases after roughly six weeks of pregnancy.

A ballot measure approved by voters last year already rendered much of that law moot, but parts remain in place including reporting requirements and a 24-hour waiting period, which can add stress and an increased financial burden for those in need of abortion care.

Ohio’s rebuke of the conservative right on the issue of abortion was seen as a warning shot across the Republican party’s bow last year; the state has gone red in the past three presidential elections and has a Republican governor and majorities in its state legislature.

Despite this, voters clearly moved to enshrine reproductive rights into Ohio’s state constitution after Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022.




https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/abortion-ban-ohio-judge-ruling-b2547711.html

NJ-10: Nine Democrats seeking Payne seat want McIver off the ballot

Nine Democrats running in the July 16 special Democratic primary for Congress in New Jersey’s 10th district have asked Secretary of State Tahesha Way asking her to toss LaMonica McIver from the ballot.

“We believe one of our colleagues, LaMonica McIver, submitted a fraudulent candidate petition to the Division of the Elections,” the group of candidates said. “In doing so, Ms. McIver has perpetrated a fraud on the State of New Jersey, jeopardizing the integrity of our electoral process.”

Administrative Law Judge Kim Belin determined that McIver could remain on the ballot, rejecting an allegation by another candidate, Brittany Claybrooks, that the sole circulator of the nominating petition, McIver’s mother, Robin, could not possibly have secured 1,081 signatures herself between in less than three days.

“To claim that a single circulator collected 1,081 signatures in less than three days is as believable as claiming that a person ran a 26-mile marathon in under two hours,” said Claybrooks, in a letter also signed by Eugene Mazo, Derek Armstead, Darryl Godfrey, Shana Melius, John Flora, Alberta Gordon, Sheila Montague and Debra Salters. Only Hudson County Commissioner Jerry Walker did not.




https://newjerseyglobe.com/congress/nine-democrats-seeking-payne-seat-want-mciver-off-the-ballot/

Ohio law at center of suit over who can help voters with disabilities cast absentee ballots

Jennifer Kucera had to rely on her elderly mother to vote in last year's August election.

Kucera, who lives in suburban Cleveland, has muscular dystrophy and requires the assistance of in-home caregivers to complete daily tasks. She can't drive and must use public or rental transportation to get from place to place. Even handling mail is difficult: Kucera can't easily access the mailbox at her apartment complex and asks caregivers to open and send letters on her behalf.

Faced with these challenges, Kucera cast an absentee ballot for Ohio's Aug. 8, 2023 election. But it wasn't a simple process, according to a federal lawsuit filed last year: State law limits which relatives can help voters with disabilities and doesn't allow caregivers ? or even grandchildren ? to return someone's ballot. That forced Kucera to seek help from her mother, who has mobility issues of her own and doesn't live close by.

"The Assistance Restrictions are divorced from the reality faced by Ohio's population of voters with disabilities," stated the complaint filed in December by the American Civil Liberties Union.



https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/05/19/ohio-law-violates-rights-of-voters-with-disabilities-lawsuit-alleges/73414843007/

California Democratic Party endorses ballot measures on same-sex marriage, taxes, rent control

Party leaders backed Assembly Constitutional Amendment 1, a measure put on the ballot by Democrats in the state Legislature that will ask voters whether to lower the vote threshold on new taxes and bonds that increase funding for affordable housing and public infrastructure projects......

The party also supported Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5, which would amend the state constitution to remove outdated language from Proposition 8, passed by California voters in 2008, that characterizes marriage as being between a man and a woman — and reaffirm the right of same-sex couples to marry.........

The state party voted to support Assembly Constitutional Amendment 13, a third measure put on the ballot by the Democratic-led Legislature. This measure is a response to a business-led initiative to make it harder to pass new taxes in California.....

The party also took positions on a number of measures that have gathered the signatures necessary to be eligible for the November ballot but won’t officially qualify until the state’s late June deadline.


https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-05-19/these-are-the-california-ballot-measures-that-the-democratic-party-is-backing

California GOP convention: Lara Trump doubles down on election rigging claims

Hours after South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, who has admitted to fatally shooting her dog, spoke at the California Republican Convention, Lara Trump said that because of the poor economy, American families must choose between feeding their children and feeding their pets.

“People have to make decisions about how they are going to afford their lives. Ultimately, when they have to decide, do I feed my children or do we keep our family pet?” Trump said during a dinner banquet talk at the Hyatt Regency in Burlingame. “They decide to feed their children and that family pet goes to an animal shelter. And because they are overrun, they don’t have enough room, these animals are being euthanized.”

It’s unclear if her story is based on any actual studies or documented events.

Trump, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee and daughter-in-law of presumptive Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, spoke for about 40 minutes in a Q&A-style moderated discussion. Her talk covered the presidential campaign, election fundraising and her fears of election rigging, among other topics.



https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/19/california-gop-convention-lara-trump-doubles-down-on-election-rigging-claims/