Analysis shows 12 percent could vote without paper backup in 2020
More than one in 10 voters could cast ballots on paperless voting machines in the 2020 general election, according to a new analysis, leaving their ballots more vulnerable to hacking. A study released by the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law on Tuesday evaluates the state of the country’s election security six months before the New Hampshire primary and concludes that much more needs to be done. While there has been significant progress by states and the federal government since Russian agents targeted U.S. state election systems ahead of the 2016 presidential election, the analysis notes that many states have not taken all of the steps needed to ensure that doesn’t happen again. The report also notes that around a third of all local election jurisdictions were using voting machines that are at least a decade old, despite recommendations they be replaced after 10 years. The Associated Press reported last month that many election systems are running on old Windows 7 software that will soon be outdated. “We should replace antiquated equipment, and paperless equipment in particular, as soon as possible,” the report recommends. The analysis comes as Congress is debating how much federal government help is needed to ensure state election systems are protected. Democrats have put forward legislation to require paper balloting, give more assistance to the states and give them more money to make improvements. But some Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, are wary of too much federal intervention and have said no more funding is needed. Using voter registration and turnout data, the Brennan Center estimates that as many as 12% of voters, or around 16 million people, will vote on paperless equipment in November 2020. Security experts have said that paper-based systems provide better security because they create a record that voters can review before casting their ballots and election workers can use them to audit results. Still, the number represents an improvement from 2016, when 20 percent of voters cast ballots on paperless equipment. In the last presidential election, 14 states used paperless voting machines as the primary polling place equipment in at least some counties and towns. In 2020, the Brennan Center estimates, that number will drop to no more than eight. The states that could still have some paperless balloting are Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Jersey, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee. Three states, Arkansas, Delaware and Virginia, transitioned to paper-based voting equipment since the 2016 election. And Georgia, South Carolina and Pennsylvania have committed to replacing equipment by the 2020 election. Homeland Security officials notified election officials in 21 states in 2017 that their systems had been targeted by Russia. Authorities have since said they believe all states were targeted to varying degrees. Russian President Vladimir Putin, responding to a question from the AP during a meeting with chief executives of international news agencies in St. Petersburg in June, denied that his government interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election despite the extensive evidence to the contrary. Putin also insisted that Moscow has no intention of interfering in any future elections, saying that “we didn’t meddle, we aren’t meddling and we will not meddle in any elections.” By Mary Clare Jalonick Associated Press. Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
85-year-old Alabama Korean War veteran casts first vote
David Gregg doesn’t hesitate to name the most patriotic man he knows – his father, Clyde Gregg. Clyde Gregg, now 85, served in the military as a combat engineer stationed in Germany during the Korean War, and for 42 years as a minister and missionary. Of all the firsts he has experienced, voting in the Aug. 15 U.S. Senate race was one of the most memorable, Clyde Gregg said. Tuesday’s primary marked his first time to ever vote. “I know it’s sort of shocking when people hear I’ve never voted, mainly because I’m so patriotic,” he said. “I never liked politics to start with, but I love my country and I don’t like what it’s becoming.” David Gregg said he was thrilled when his parents told him they were going with him to the polls. Though he’s had strong feelings politically in the past, Clyde Gregg says he doesn’t recall times being more volatile than now, a society he describes as “absolutely out of control.” National events such as the tearing down of historical statues and violent protests occurring on a regular basis have led Clyde to believe one thing: the country’s Constitution is in grave danger of being destroyed. That fear drove him to the polls on Tuesday. “I served this country under that Constitution, and I just decided that there are too many people in Washington trying to destroy it and I’m not going to stand for it,” he said. In response, he and his wife, Nancy, made their first-ever pilgrimage to the polls. It was only the second time Nancy has ever voted. “I remember voting when I was about 19 when I went with my mother, but I haven’t since then,” she said. “I was like anyone else. I didn’t like things that were going on in our country, but I just didn’t voice my dissatisfaction in that way, with my vote.” The couple moved to Florence from their native Indiana last year to be nearer to their son and his family. They say they won’t let the opportunity to vote slip away again. “I’m going to vote in every election I can from now on for as long as I have,” Clyde said. Nancy, who is 80, agrees. “It felt good, like a privilege I have because I’m an American and I’m alive.” She said she studied her choice of candidates before she voted, and will continue to educate herself for future elections. She will also encourage the younger generation to get out and vote, she said. Clyde said he knows some people question how he could go all his life without voting, and he’s heard all the cliches about non-voters. “They say if you don’t vote, you can’t complain,” he said. “Well, I say, I pay taxes and I’ve served this country that I love, and I have a right to voice my opinion. But now, I’ll just be voting, too.” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
SPLC asks Alabama to restore voters to ‘active’ status by next month
Last Tuesday, Alabama voters across the state fund themselves listed as inactive when they arrived at the polls to vote in the special U.S. Senate primary. Now the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is asking Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill to reinstate those roughly 340,162 Alabamian voters before the September 26 Senate runoff. According to the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) as well as state laws, every four years cards are sent to voters to verify voter addresses in order to maintain their “active” voting status. If they’re marked “return to sender” twice, the voter is put on the inactive list. In a Friday letter to Merrill, the SPLC said they believers voters were inaccurately moved to inactive and the state’s process was “deeply flawed” and that it was “imperative you take immediate corrective action to return inactive voters to the active voting list.” Inactive voters are able to restore their active status by filling out a form at the polls, but the SPLC says that process may dissuade voters from showing up to vote. Voters who are unsure of their voting status may check it online here. To check via phone voters can call the Secretary of State’s Office at (334) 242-7210 or at their local board of registrars office.
Donald Trump embraces legacy of Andrew Jackson
It was an ugly, highly personal presidential election. An unvarnished celebrity outsider who pledged to represent the forgotten laborer took on an intellectual member of the Washington establishment looking to extend a political dynasty in the White House. Andrew Jackson‘s triumph in 1828 over President John Quincy Adams bears striking similarities to Donald Trump‘s victory over Hillary Clinton last year, and some of those most eager to point that out are in the Trump White House. Trump’s team has seized upon the parallels between the current president and the long-dead Tennessee war hero. Trump has hung a portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office and Trump’s chief strategist, Stephen Bannon, who has pushed the comparison, told reporters after Trump’s inaugural address that “I don’t think we’ve had a speech like that since Andrew Jackson came to the White House.” Trump himself mused during his first days in Washington that “there hasn’t been anything like this since Andrew Jackson.” It’s a remarkable moment of rehabilitation for a figure whose populist credentials and anti-establishment streak has been tempered by harsher elements of his legacy, chiefly his forced removal of Native Americans that caused disease and the death of thousands. “Both were elected presidents as a national celebrity; Jackson due to prowess on battlefield and Trump from making billions in his business empire,” said Douglas Brinkley, a professor of history at Rice University. “And it’s a conscious move for Trump to embrace Jackson. In American political lore, Jackson represents the forgotten rural America while Trump won by bringing out that rural vote and the blue collar vote.” The seventh president, known as “Old Hickory” for his toughness on the battlefield, gained fame when he led American forces to a victory in the Battle of New Orleans in the final throes of the War of 1812. He did serve a term representing Tennessee in the Senate, but he has long been imagined as a rough and tumble American folk hero, an anti-intellectual who believed in settling scores against political opponents and even killed a man in a duel for insulting the honor of Jackson’s wife. Jackson also raged against what he deemed “a corrupt bargain” that prevented him from winning the 1824 election against Adams when the race was thrown to the House of Representatives after no candidate received a majority in the Electoral College. Even before the vote in November, Trump railed against a “rigged” election and has repeatedly asserted, without evidence, widespread voter fraud prevented his own popular vote triumph. Jackson’s ascension came at a time when the right to vote was expanded to all white men — and not just property-owners — and he fashioned himself into a populist, bringing new groups of voters into the electoral system. Remarkably, the popular vote tripled between Jackson’s loss in 1824 and his victory four years later, and he used the nation’s growing newspaper industry — like Trump on social media — to spread his message. Many of those new voters descended on Washington for Jackson’s 1829 inauguration and the crowd of thousands that mobbed the Capitol and the White House forced Jackson to spend his first night as president in a hotel. Once in office, he continued his crusade as a champion for the common man by opposing the Second Bank of the United States, which he declared to be a symptom of a political system that favored the rich and ignored “the humble members of society — the farmers, mechanics, and laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves.” Jackson, as Trump hopes to do, expanded the powers of the presidency, and a new political party, the new Democratic party, coalesced around him in the 1820s. He was the first non-Virginia wealthy farmer or member of the Adams dynasty in Massachusetts to be elected president. “The American public wanted a different kind of president. And there’s no question Donald Trump is a different kind of president,” Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said this past week. “He’s now comparing himself to Andrew Jackson. I think it’s a pretty good, a pretty good comparison. That’s how big a change Jackson was from the Virginia and Massachusetts gentlemen who had been president of the United States for the first 40 years.” But there are also limits to the comparison, historians say. Unlike Jackson, who won in 1828 in a landslide, Trump lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million ballots. Jon Meacham, who wrote a 2008 biography of Jackson, “American Lion,” said Jackson was “an outsider in style but not in substance” and his outlandish public pronouncements would often be followed by hours of deep conversations and letter-writing hashing out political calculations. “He was a wild man during the day but a careful diplomat at night,” said Meacham, who said it was too early to know whether Trump, like Jackson, “had a strategy behind his theatrics,” and whether Trump had the ability to harness the wave of populism that has swept the globe as it did in the 1820s. “The moment is Jacksoninan but do we have a Jackson in the Oval Office?” Meacham asked. Trump’s appropriation of Jackson came after his victory. Trump never mentioned Jackson during the campaign or discussed Jackson during a series of conversations with Meacham last spring But it is hardly unique for a president to adopt a previous one as a historical role model. Barack Obama frequently invoked Abraham Lincoln. Dwight Eisenhower venerated George Washington. Jackson himself had been claimed by Franklin Roosevelt and his successor, Harry Truman, both of whom — unlike Trump — interpreted Jackson’s populism as a call for expanded government, in part to help the working class. There could be other comparisons for Trump. A favorable one would be Eisenhower, also a nonpolitician who governed like a hands-off CEO. A less favorable one would be Andrew Johnson, a tool of his party whose erratic behavior helped bring about his impeachment. Trump’s embrace could signal an
Donald Trump’s voter fraud expert registered in 3 states
A man who President Donald Trump has promoted as an authority on voter fraud was registered to vote in multiple states during the 2016 presidential election, the Associated Press has learned. Gregg Phillips, whose unsubstantiated claim that the election was marred by 3 million illegal votes was tweeted by the president, was listed on the rolls in Alabama, Texas and Mississippi, according to voting records and election officials in those states. He voted only in Alabama in November, records show. In a post earlier this month, Phillips described “an amazing effort” by volunteers tied to True the Vote, an organization whose board he sits on, who he said found “thousands of duplicate records and registrations of dead people.” Trump has made an issue of people who are registered to vote in more than one state, using it as one of the bedrocks of his overall contention that voter fraud is rampant in the U.S. and that voting by 3 to 5 million immigrants illegally in the country cost him the popular vote in November. The AP found that Phillips was registered in Alabama and Texas under the name Gregg Allen Phillips, with the identical Social Security number. Mississippi records list him under the name Gregg A. Phillips, and that record includes the final four digits of Phillips’ Social Security number, his correct date of birth and a prior address matching one once attached to Gregg Allen Phillips. He has lived in all three states. At the time of November’s presidential election, Phillips’ status was “inactive” in Mississippi and suspended in Texas. Officials in both states told the AP that Phillips could have voted, however, by producing identification and updating his address at the polls. Citing concerns about voters registered in several states, the president last week called for a major investigation into his claim of voter fraud, despite his campaign lawyer’s conclusion that the 2016 election was “not tainted.” “When you look at the people that are registered, dead, illegal and two states, and some cases maybe three states, we have a lot to look into,” Trump said in an ABC interview. Reached by telephone Monday, Phillips said he was unaware of his multiple registrations but asked, “Why would I know or care?” “Doesn’t that just demonstrate how broken the system is?” he asked. “That is not fraud — that is a broken system. We need a national ID that travels with people.” Phillips has been in the national spotlight since Nov. 11, when he tweeted without evidence that his completed analysis of voter registrations concluded the “number of non-citizen votes exceeded 3 million.” Thousands of people liked and retweeted the claim, which led to a viral article three days later on InfoWars.com, a site known to traffic in conspiracy theories. Phillips also has previously tweeted about the dangers of “inactive voters” being able to vote in U.S. elections. “There is already law that compels states to remove inactive voters. Many don’t,” Phillips tweeted Nov. 29. According to media reports, five Trump family members or top administration officials also were registered to vote in two states during the 2016 election — chief White House strategist Stephen Bannon; Press Secretary Sean Spicer; Treasury Secretary nominee Steven Mnuchin; Tiffany Trump, the president’s youngest daughter; and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser. The Houston-based True the Vote has challenged the validity of voter rolls in numerous states. On Friday, Phillips tweeted that the conservative group “will lead the analysis” of widespread voter fraud, and suggested in a CNN interview that it might release the underlying data in a few months. Shortly after Phillips appeared on CNN on Friday, Trump tweeted: “Look forward to seeing the final results of VoteStand. Gregg Phillips and crew say at least 3,000,000 votes were illegal. We must do better!” Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Steven Kurlander: Turn Donald Trump voter fraud distraction into 21st-century voting platform
President Donald Trump unfolded his promised massive scale-back of leftist Federalism last week by signing numerous Executive Orders – so many that their volume probably made former President Obama blush with envy. The Trump Revolution, which can be defined both in conservative ideology and viewed as totally hazardous, shallow and impulsive at the same time, has begun in earnest. And it’s more than obvious that Trump is using all that (unconstitutional) executive power that has been allowed to build up the last 30 years to begin his revolution. At the same time, the Executive Orders were rolled out, Trump and his White House staff continued the campaign ShockPolitics methodology of making belligerent statements and discussion points to draw outrage toward Trump, distracting his opponents and Americans alike from the wielding of such power and the true implications of his executive orders. So while the Trump White House began to gut 30 years of excessive Federal environmental regulation and jump-started the Dakota Access and Keystone pipelines, he continued to complain about the reporting by media outlets of size of the crowd at the Inauguration. As the president began to frame a revision of our antiquated immigration policies by ordering our borders closed to visitors and refugees from selected Islamic countries, Trumps key adviser Steven Bannon incredulously stated at the same time that “The media should be embarrassed and humiliated and keep its mouth shut and just listen for a while.” Probably the most outlandish statement, actually two tweets, made by Trump during his few days in office was this: “I will be asking for a major investigation into VOTER FRAUD, including those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and … even, those registered to vote who are dead (and many for a long time). Depending on results, we will strengthen up voting procedures!” Trump wrote in two consecutive tweets Wednesday morning. Sure, the president’s assertion is, to put it nicely, questionable at best, particularly in light of allegations of Russian hacking against Democrats. However, the tweets themselves could be used to demark the beginning of a true discussion of fixing our voting system. Here’s a suggestion: Instead of an investigation, I would suggest the president form a bipartisan presidential commission comprised of members of Congress, security and computer industry leaders and experts, state officials and common citizens to secure our voting processes and modernize the way we vote to 21st century standards. I would suggest addressing five major voting issues: — Voter Registration — Building and implementing a national registry from scratch that would replace antiquated and inaccurate registration rolls in states and counties and safeguarding voters from suppression on a national level; standardizing voter registration in all 50 states; requiring a Social Security card, valid picture identification, and developing a eye-scanning or similar system to prove identity; building technology to allow voters to vote by using their PDAs and home computers; and to make registration for native-born American citizens at birth along with the issuance of a birth certificate or Social Security cards. — Launching a Voter Technology and Security Initiative — much like President Kennedy launched the Space Program — major national resources would be dedicated toward building a voter registration system that is impenetrable — and spur a much-needed buildup of securing our computers from hacking and identity theft in all aspects of our lives. — Destroying the Two Party hold on Voting – in all regions across the nation, there are a growing number of voters and office-seekers who are NDAs that do not receive the same influence and protection as Democratic and Republican voters both in election offices and at the polls – there’s a need to modernize this 19th century party system of controlling who votes and how polling places are manned. The Two-Party System is basically dead in 2017 and it’s time to reform voting to reflect its demise. — Replacing Election Day with an Election Period — where voters could vote within a time period rather than on a certain day. States already allow early voting and mail ballots. — Replacing voting at polls with voting by PDA or at home on computer or snail mail. The present scanning devices at polls are crap as well as the old methodology of voting itself by having to go to a specific place to vote. Going to the polls should be one of many options, not a mandate. The creation of such a presidential voting commission would be a positive first step for the president to take not only in terms of really addressing the breakdown of American voting, but to begin a positive dialogue, not confrontational rants by tweeting, to address the many issues facing Americans today. Such a commission could also serve as a model for Trump to build badly needed consensus and tamper down the vitriol that his election has created as a new norm in American life. ___ Steven Kurlander blogs at Kurly’s Kommentary and writes for FloridaPolitics.com. He is an attorney and communications specialist living in Monticello, New York. He can be reached at kurlyskommentary@gmail.com.
Donald Trump drama rolls on: Disputes, falsehoods hit transition
The drama, disputes and falsehoods that permeated Donald Trump‘s presidential campaign are now roiling his transition to the White House, forcing aides to defend his baseless assertions of illegal voting and sending internal fights spilling into public. On Monday, a recount effort, led by Green Party candidate Jill Stein and joined by Hillary Clinton‘s campaign also marched on in three states, based partly on the Stein campaign’s unsubstantiated assertion that cyberhacking could have interfered with electronic voting machines. Wisconsin officials approved plans to begin a recount as early as Thursday. Stein also asked for a recount in Pennsylvania and was expected to do the same in Michigan, where officials certified Trump’s victory Monday. Trump has angrily denounced the recounts and now claims without evidence that he, not Clinton, would have won the popular vote if it hadn’t been for “millions of people who voted illegally.” On Twitter, he singled out Virginia, California and New Hampshire. There has been no indication of widespread election tampering or voter fraud in those states or any others, and Trump aides struggled Monday to back up their boss’ claim. Spokesman Jason Miller said illegal voting was “an issue of concern.” But the only evidence he raised was a 2014 news report and a study on voting irregularities conducted before the 2016 election. Trump met Monday with candidates for top Cabinet posts, including retired Gen. David Petraeus, a new contender for secretary of state. Trump is to meet Tuesday with Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, who is also being considered more seriously for the diplomatic post, and Mitt Romney, who has become a symbol of the internal divisions agitating the transition team. Petraeus said he spent about an hour with Trump, and he praised the president-elect for showing a “great grasp of a variety of the challenges that are out there.” “Very good conversation and we’ll see where it goes from here,” he said. A former CIA chief, Petraeus pleaded guilty last year to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information relating to documents he had provided to his biographer, with whom he was having an affair. Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is heading the transition effort, teased “a number of very important announcements tomorrow” as he exited Trump Tower Monday night. Pence is said to be among those backing Romney for State. Romney was fiercely critical of Trump throughout the campaign but is interested in the Cabinet position, and they discussed it during a lengthy meeting earlier this month. Other top Trump allies, notably campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, have launched a highly unusual public campaign to warn the president-elect that nominating Romney would be seen as a betrayal by his supporters. Conway’s comments stirred speculation that she is seeking to either force Trump’s hand or give him cover for ultimately passing over Romney. Three people close to the transition team said Trump had been aware that Conway planned to voice her opinion, both on Twitter and in television interviews. They disputed reports that Trump was furious at her and suggested his decision to consider additional candidates instead highlighted her influence. Conway served as Trump’s third campaign manager and largely succeeded in navigating the minefield of rivalries that ensnared other officials. Trump is said to have offered her a choice of White House jobs — either press secretary or communications director. But people with knowledge of Conway’s plans say she is more interested in serving as an outside political adviser, akin to the role President Barack Obama‘s campaign manager David Plouffe played following the 2008 election. The wrangling over the State Department post appears to have slowed the announcements of other top jobs. Retired Gen. James Mattis, who impressed Trump during a pre-Thanksgiving meeting, was at the top of the list for Defense secretary, but a final decision had not been made. Trump was also considering former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani for Homeland Security secretary, according to those close to the transition process. Giuliani was initially the front-runner for State and is still in the mix. But questions about his overseas business dealings, as well as the mayor’s public campaigning for the job, have given Trump pause. Those close to the transition insisted on anonymity in commenting because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the private process. Even as Trump weighs major decisions that will shape his presidency, he’s been unable to avoid being distracted by the recount effort. He spent Sunday on a 12-hour Twitter offensive that included quoting Clinton’s concession speech, in which she said the public owed Trump “an open mind and the chance to lead.” His final tweets challenging the integrity of an election he won were reminiscent of his repeated, unsubstantiated assertions during the campaign that the contest might be rigged. Those previous comments sparked an outcry from both Clinton and some Republicans. Clinton lawyer Marc Elias said the campaign has seen “no actionable evidence” of voting anomalies. But the campaign still plans to be involved in Stein’s recount to ensure its interests are legally represented. Trump narrowly won Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. All three would need to flip to Clinton to upend the Republican’s victory, and Clinton’s team says Trump has a larger edge in all three states than has ever been overcome in a presidential recount. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Hillary Clinton casts her ballot: ‘It is the most humbling feeling’
She’s delivered her closing pitch, concluded her final rally and cast her own vote. By Tuesday evening, there was little left for Hillary Clinton to do but wait, and prepare for word of whether she’d be picked as the first woman to serve as U.S. president. Her campaign picked a suitably symbolic location for her election night party – the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City, which, in a nod to the historic moment, offers a glass ceiling. As returns started trickling in Tuesday night, the Democratic nominee watched the information with a collection of close aides at the Peninsula New York, a luxury hotel nearby. The first round of poll closings came at 7 p.m. with Clinton taking Vermont and Trump winning Kentucky and Indiana. Those early wins were expected for both. Casting her ballot at an elementary school near her home in suburban New York on Tuesday morning, Clinton acknowledged the weight of the day, saying: ” so many people are counting on the outcome of this election.” It was a relatively calm Election Day compared with Clinton’s hectic final few days day on the campaign trail. The former secretary of state and New York senator dashed through battleground states, encouraged get-out-the-vote efforts and campaigned with a star-studded cast of celebrity supporters. The eve of the election included an emotional rally in Philadelphia with her husband, President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama, as well as performances by Jon Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen. Lady Gaga capped it off by serenading thousands of supporters before the Clintons took the stage for a 1 a.m. rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. After the divisive rhetoric of the campaign against Republican Donald Trump, Clinton sought to offer a positive closing message on Monday. She told supporters in Pittsburgh they “can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, bighearted America.” In a buoyant mood, she also greeted voters who cried out “we love you,” smiling back: “I love you all, too … absolutely.” Some good news boosted Clinton’s spirits in the final moments of the campaign. On Sunday, FBI Director James Comey sent a letter to Congress, informing lawmakers the bureau had found no evidence in its hurried review of newly discovered emails to warrant criminal charges against Clinton. The late October announcement of a fresh email review rocked the race just as Clinton appeared to be pulling away from Trump in several battleground states. The update from the FBI may have come too late for some: In the nine days between Comey’s initial statement until his “all clear” announcement on Sunday, nearly 24 million people cast early ballots. That’s about 18 percent of the expected total votes for president. But campaign aides projected confidence in the final moments. They said they felt good about Nevada, where they said support for Clinton in early voting was strong. They were encouraged by the strong Latino turnout in Florida and felt they took a strong lead in Michigan and Pennsylvania into Election Day, when the bulk of votes are cast in those states. Leading up to Election Day, Clinton made stops in Pennsylvania, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio and New Hampshire – often flanked by star guests. Jay Z and Beyonce performed with pant-suited backup dancers in Cleveland. James Taylor serenaded New Hampshire voters and Katy Perry sang “Roar” in Philadelphia. She also campaigned with Khizr Khan, the father of a slain U.S. Army officer whose indictment of Trump at the Democratic National Convention was an emotional high point for Clinton’s party. Her last two days on the campaign trail felt almost like a Clinton family reunion, with some of her closest confidants jumping on the campaign plane for her final hours. Even Huma Abedin, her embattled personal aide caught up in the email controversy, jumped on the plane for the midnight rally in Raleigh. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
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Did you experience any issues at your polling place? Alabama Today is tracking reports of problems or irregularities at polls across the state. The types of issues to report include long wait times, technical problems with machines, potential voter fraud, or requests for information you don’t think you should have to provide. Voters should also report issues to the Secretary of State’s office here. Simply fill out the form below. We will be tracking issues and finding answers when possible. (Click here if the form does not display properly on your device.) Loading… Polls in Alabama will be open statewide from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m.
Donald Trump team says ‘we are behind’ but can still win the race
Donald Trump‘s campaign bluntly acknowledged Sunday that the real estate mogul is trailing Hillary Clinton as the presidential race hurtles toward a close, but insisted he still has a viable path to win the White House. With barely two weeks left and early voting underway in most of the U.S., Trump’s team said “the race is not over” and pledged to keep campaigning hard — even in states like Virginia and Pennsylvania that polls show are now trending Clinton’s way. Campaign manager Kellyanne Conway laid out a path to the requisite 270 electoral votes that goes through make-or-break states Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Ohio. “We are behind. She has some advantages,” Conway said Sunday. Yet she argued that Clinton’s advantages — like a slew of bold-name Democrats campaigning for her — belied her lack of true support. “The current president and first lady, vice president, all are much more popular than she can hope to be.” Added Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus: “We expect to win.” Yet even as Clinton appeared to be strengthening her lead, her campaign was careful not to declare premature victory. “We don’t want to get ahead of our skis here,” said Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook. He said the “battleground states” where both candidates are campaigning hardest “are called that for a reason.” As part of his closing message, Trump was laying out an ambitious agenda for his first 100 days as president. Yet he undermined his own attempt to strike a high-minded tone on policy issues when he announced in the same speech that he planned to sue the numerous women who have accused him of groping and other unwanted sexual behavior. “All of these liars will be sued once the election is over,” Trump said Saturday during an event near the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg. He added: “I look so forward to doing that.” Asked about Trump’s remarks, Clinton told reporters between rallies Saturday in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia that she was done responding to what her Republican opponent is saying as Election Day nears and would instead focus on helping elect other Democrats. A day earlier, Clinton attacked Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Pat Toomey, saying in Pittsburgh that he has refused to “stand up” to Trump as she praised his Democratic challenger, Katie McGinty. Noting Trump’s comments about Mexican immigrants and his attacks on a Muslim-American military family, she said of Toomey: “If he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to Donald Trump after all of this, then can you be sure that he will stand up for you when it counts?” Clinton rejected Trump’s allegation, offered without evidence, that the dozen or so women who have come forward are being prompted by her campaign or the Democratic National Committee. The accusers emerged after the former reality TV star boasted of kissing women and groping their genitals without their consent. “These accusations are not coming from our campaign,” Mook said. On Saturday, an adult film actress said the billionaire kissed her and two other women on the lips “without asking for permission” when they met him after a golf tournament in 2006. Trump has denied that all the other allegations, while insisting some of the women weren’t attractive enough for him to want to pursue. “He’s been waterboarded by these issues,” said former Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, a Trump supporter, lamenting the “oppression” of her candidate in the media. Though mostly a recap of policies he’s proposed before, Trump’s speech included a few new elements, such as a freeze on hiring new federal workers and a two-year mandatory minimum sentence for immigrants who re-enter the U.S. illegally after being deported a first time. In a pledge sure to raise eyebrows on Wall Street, he said he’d block a potential merger between AT&T and media conglomerate Time Warner. Throughout the GOP primary, Trump was criticized for shying away from detailed policy proposals. But his speech, which aides said would form the core of his closing argument to voters, underscored how the billionaire has gradually compiled a broad — if sometimes vague — policy portfolio that straddles conservative, isolationist and populist orthodoxies. Mook and Brewer spoke on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Priebus on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” Conway spoke on “Fox News Sunday” and on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
Possible Election Day problems worry civil rights advocates
New ID requirements. Unfamiliar or distant polling places. Names missing from the voter rolls. Those are just some of the challenges that could disrupt voting across the country through Election Day. While most elections have their share of glitches, experts worry conditions are ripe this year for trouble at the nation’s polling places. This is the first presidential election year without a key enforcement provision of the federal Voting Rights Act, and 14 states have enacted new registration or voting restrictions. Adding to the uncertainty is a call by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for supporters to monitor the polls for voter fraud and concerns by the federal government that hackers could try to disrupt the voting process. All this has civil rights advocates on guard. “There is going to be a lot going on in this election that we are going to have to watch out for,” said Penda Hair, a civil rights lawyer who represented the North Carolina NAACP in its bid to overturn that state’s voter ID law. With no national standards for voting, rules vary widely across states and even counties. Voting experts and civil rights groups are encouraging voters to do their research before heading to the polls. That includes checking to ensure they are registered and finding their voting location, as well as understanding their rights if they face any problems. “People should not leave without casting a ballot,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU’s School of Law. “If you are an eligible voter, you should be able to have your vote counted no matter what anyone is saying.” Adding to the potential for confusion are new voter ID laws in nine states as well as reduced hours for early voting and changes to polling locations in some states. In North Carolina, at least two counties no longer offer Sunday voting. Deborah Dicks Maxwell, 60, said she is worried that — along with early voting hours largely limited to between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. — will make it harder for people to cast ballots in her home county of New Hanover. She said Sunday voting was popular during North Carolina’s primary in March. “With the short hours we have and the high turnout that generally occurs in a presidential election year, someone is going to be in line,” said Dicks Maxwell, president of the New Hanover County branch of the NAACP. “Why penalize the citizens when you could have extended the hours and made it easier for them?” State officials have said the county didn’t offer Sunday voting in 2012 and that the current plan represents an increase in evening hours available during early voting. Long lines led to frustration during Arizona’s March primary, when some voters in the Phoenix area waited hours to cast ballots after county election officials opened 60 polling stations — fewer than half what is typical. Melissa Dunmore, a 26-year-old social worker from Phoenix, still doesn’t know if her primary ballot was counted. She waited an hour to vote, only to be told she wasn’t registered despite checking her status before heading to her polling place. She said she won’t be deterred and plans to vote early this time. “If we stop voting every time it was hard or it was denied, women wouldn’t have the right to vote, black people wouldn’t have the right to vote,” Dunmore said. Meanwhile, some 33 states have accepted an offer from the federal government to check their voter databases and reporting systems for vulnerabilities after hackers attempted to breach systems in two states over the summer. Trump’s warning that the election might be rigged along with his call for supporters to monitor polling places has alarmed some advocacy groups who say such comments threaten to undermine voter confidence in the election. “We are deeply concerned about the chilling effect this call might have on the electorate and minority voters in particular,” said Kristen Clarke, president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. “And we are concerned about the disruption this will cause for election workers.” Clarke and others say Trump supporters at the polls could lead to intimidation at a time when the U.S. Department of Justice has had to make substantial changes to its federal election monitoring program following the 2013 Supreme Court decision that struck down a portion of the Voting Rights Act. For the 2012 election, more than 780 federal observers and Justice Department staff were sent to 51 jurisdictions in 23 states. Now federal election observers can be sent only to those locations where there is a court order, which exists for only a small number of places in five states. With fewer federal election observers on hand, Attorney General Loretta Lynch said last week that Justice Department employees will be sent instead to at least as many states as 2012. But she did not say how many officials will go and how much access they will have. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
For Hillary Clinton, election likely to be won or lost in October
Each night, Hillary Clinton‘s data experts head to a conference room on the 11th floor of her Brooklyn headquarters, to start counting votes. The sessions in the “early voter boiler room,” as it’s been dubbed by campaign aides, stretch into the early hours of the morning. The team pores over turnout patterns in states where advance voting is already underway, projects how many votes Clinton and Republican Donald Trump have already received, and updates crucial targeting lists of the voters she still needs. For Clinton, October is when she’s likely to win or lose the election, not Nov. 8. By the third week of this month, Clinton’s campaign hopes to have a solid enough sample of the early vote to know whether the Democrat is on track to win the White House. “Many battleground states are already voting so every day is Election Day,” said Matt Dover, Clinton’s voter analytics director. In several competitive states, including North Carolina, Iowa, Colorado, Florida and Nevada, at least 45 percent of the total vote is expected to come in early. Initial metrics show good news for Clinton in North Carolina, a must-win state for Trump. There are modestly positive signs for the Republican in Iowa, but that’s a state the Democrat can likely afford to lose. The Republican National Committee, which oversees early voting and turnout operations for Trump, is also encouraging supporters to take advantage of opportunities to cast ballots before Nov. 8. The party has significantly stepped up its analytics and voter-targeting operations since being outmatched by Democrats in the past two presidential elections, but the 2016 race is the first test of its strength in a national election. Despite improvements, the RNC system was always intended to be a complement to whatever operations the eventual GOP nominee brought to the table. Trump arrived in the general election with intense enthusiasm among his core supporters but few ways to harness it into trackable voter data. Unlike Clinton, whose travel schedule is being built around voter registration deadlines and the start of early voting in key states, Trump’s battleground stops haven’t been pegged to those benchmarks. However, there is a noticeably more robust registration effort at Trump rallies and the candidate himself is making explicit early voting appeals to supporters. “Get those ballots in because the only way this is going to be taken away (is) if we’re foolish or if we let people take it away from us,” Trump said Monday during a rally in Colorado. “I hate to interrupt my speech with these minor details but they’re very important, right?” Republicans traditionally do well initially with mail-in absentee balloting before Democrats surpass them during in-person early voting. That makes the start of in-person voting a key indicator as to whether core Democratic constituencies, such as young people and non-whites, show up. “For me, voting early is a matter of convenience, and if I don’t do it I’m unlikely to vote at all,” said Joseph Wozniak, 23, of Macon, Georgia. A recent college graduate who declined to say who he is supporting in the election, Wozniak is working on early vote efforts for the non-partisan organization Democracy Works. Thirty-seven states allow voting with little restriction before Election Day, either in person or via mail. By the third week in October, 34 of those states will be voting. Iowa was the first of the battlegrounds to start in-person voting last Thursday. Of the 39,435 people who have cast ballots, 58 percent were Democrats and 25 percent were Republicans — but that was much closer than in 2012. In North Carolina, buoyed by strong voter interest, Clinton appears to hold an edge with Democratic ballots submitted so far currently leading Republican ones, 40 to 35 percent. At this point in 2012, Republicans had opened a wide lead over Democrats in ballots, due in part to strong support among older whites. For 2016, Clinton officials pointed in particular to a 13 percent increase in African-American and a 40 percent jump in Latino mail-in ballot requests. To them, it’s a hopeful sign that non-whites and young people will be engaged this election, part of a shift in campaign strategy to more strongly mobilize less reliable, sporadic voters first. Still, the campaign said it will have a much clearer picture once in-person voting begins in the state on Oct. 20. Similarly in Florida, absentee balloting began only Tuesday, but already more than 2.5 million people — nearly one-third of the total number of votes cast in 2012 — have requested ballots. In-person voting doesn’t begin until Oct. 24, so state Democrats are now strongly urging voters to vote by mail — including in a letter from President Barack Obama paid for by the party. “In Florida, voting is easier than ever because now you can vote by mail,” he writes. “It’s the fastest and most convenient way to make your voice heard.” In Obama’s historic 2008 race, he ran up such big early voting advantages in four battlegrounds — Colorado, Florida, Iowa and North Carolina — that his rival, John McCain, couldn’t catch up, despite winning the Election Day vote in those states, according to AP data. If all goes according to the Clinton campaign’s plan, early ballots soon enough will start to unequivocally point in the same direction. Republished with permission of the Associated Press.
