Millions of Americans who normally vote in person on election day will turn to early voting or mail-in ballots this fall — but that only works if you understand your state's election rules, deadlines and how to ensure your vote is counted.

Driving the news:

Axios is launching an interactive resource, built on research by RepresentUs, a nonpartisan election reform group, to help voters across the country to get the information they need.

"This election year, voters need to take more time and effort to navigate the challenges of a pandemic," U.S. Elections Assistance Commissioner Donald Palmer tells Axios.

It will be critical for voters to have updated information on their options "to make sure that this election is a true reflection of the will of the people," said Matt Strabone, senior counsel for RepresentUs.

"My name is pronounced "Comma-la", like the punctuation mark," Kamala Harris writes in her 2018 autobiography, The Truths We Hold. The California senator, daughter of an Indian-born mother and Jamaican-born father, then explains the meaning of her Indian name. "It means 'lotus flower', which is a symbol of significance in Indian culture. A lotus grows underwater, its flowers rising above the surface while the roots are planted firmly in the river bottom."

It is clear that her late mother was a big inspiration for Ms Harris. Gopalan was born in the southern Indian city of Chennai, the oldest of four children.
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US Democratic Party activists like Shekar Narasimhan say her candidacy would be "seismic" for the Indian-American community. "She's a woman, she biracial, she will help win the election for Biden, she appeals to various communities and she's really smart."

"Why should Indian-Americans not be proud of her? It's a signal that we are coming of age."

Helen Sullivan @helenrsullivan

And one in every 65 Americans has tested positive for coronavirus

Quote Tweet: Steven Dennis @StevenTDennis

1 out of every 2,000 Americans alive at the start of the pandemic has now died with COVID.

10:07 PM · Aug 9, 2020

In China new locally transmitted cases fell to just 14 in the past 24 hours, the National Health Commission reported on Monday. The low figure was offset, however, by 35 cases brought into the country by Chinese travellers from overseas arriving in seven different cities and provinces across the country. All the cases of local transmission were in the northwestern region of Xinjiang, whose main city Urumqi is the centre of China’s latest outbreak. There are now 29 countries with higher cases than China, which has 88,793 confirmed infections and fewer than 5,000 deaths.

and.....

New Zealand has reported its 101st day in a row with no recorded community transmission of Covid-19 from an unknown source. All 21 active cases of the coronavirus have been diagnosed in travellers returning to New Zealand from other countries; all of them are in quarantine at the government’s managed isolation facilities. There were no new cases of the coronavirus recorded in the quarantine hotels on Monday.

John Fugelsang @JohnFugelsang

Hi, I'm Larry Kudlow. I once had a 100k-per-month coke habit & a reality TV star picked me to manage your economy.

10:55 AM · Aug 7, 2020

It goes without saying that the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, a tribal extravaganza of face-to-face, jowl-to-jowl, belly-bumping machismo and consumer exhibitionism holds the high probability of being the single largest “super spreader” of COVID-19 held anywhere in the world since the outbreak began last November. A quarter of a million people, the vast majority middle-aged to older white men, will both ride into western South Dakota this week for the giant, mechanized bacchanal … and then turn around ride back to their homes, all across the country, spreading everything they picked up in Sturgis all along their routes, like a horde of toxic Johnny Appleseeds.

Bikerworld’s other big rally, in Daytona, Florida went on as scheduled this past March in the early days of the pandemic. But Daytona’s “Biketobefest” seems likely to be cancelled this fall, what with the virus surging worse than ever … in large part due to “protestors”, the roughly 36% of freedom-loving Americans who refuse submit to reality and continue to prolong and enhance the peril to the lives and livelihood of everyone else.

Letting Sturgis happen amid all this is of course not surprising given the culture of South Dakota. The current governor, Kristi Noem, once upon a time the South Dakota Snow Queen, is every Trumpist’s dream girl. She’s abolished the requirement to get a permit before carrying a concealed gun, opposed Obamacare and every form of abortion rights she can find or be pointed at, is on record — during Obama’s term — as being very concerned about the national debt, so much so that as a Congresswoman she declared the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs, Medicaid, high-speed rail projects, cap-and-trade technical assistance, and subsidies for the Washington Metro rapid transit system examples of federal programs she thought needed a damn good whacking.
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Point being. No matter what science or common sense or common courtesy say, no matter what’s good for the rest of the country, South Dakota wants the money the flagrant recklessness and naked stupidity Sturgis brings in.

Our Mission. Elvis Costello crooned, “I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.” That’s the mission statement here — try to see the amusing side of the world as it is, while languidly trying to change it.

I’m a liberal in Minnesota with, as polite Minnesotans say, a “different” sense of humor. So, there is a steady diet of liberal politics, Minnesota issues, and quirky humor. But please bear with me when I stray off-topic, and off-mission. Remember, Elvis’s Mission Statement only promises to “try,” so humorless rants, barbaric yawps and wonk-a-thons also sometimes are in the mix.

Overall, we’re just trying to save the world while having some fun. If you know anyone with similar interests – ranter or ponderer, conservative or liberal, gal or guy — invite them over for some politics on wry.

Joe Loveland