| | | | |  | | By Ayah Mahana | Presented by American Edge Project | | 
Elections worker Joshua Hallford readjusts a polling place sign at the Mission Playground in San Francisco. | Paul Chinn/San Francisco Chronicle via AP | ‘THE GREAT RESIGNATION’ — Despite fears of chaos and clashes between protesters and counter-protesters at former President Donald Trump’s two arraignments in recent weeks, both landed with a whimper and no notable incidents. Whether we’ll be so fortunate across the rest of the 2024 cycle — which could feature a bitter rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, or a trial-of-the-century featuring Trump as a defendant — is still in question. In particular, election administrators are increasingly concerned about acts of violence against poll workers — and they’re trying to do something about it in advance. Their fears are not unfounded: A poll conducted by the Brennan Center for Justice and the political reform group Issue One showed that roughly three in four election officials have reported a spike in threats against election workers since 2020. In response, a group of 24 former and current election officials are urging Congress to adopt $400 million in consistent federal funding to improve the working conditions for poll workers around the country. The threats — largely stemming from people who deny the result of the 2020 presidential election — are already causing poll workers and other election officials to resign in droves, according to Tonya Wichman, the director of the Defiance County Board of Elections in Ohio. “People don’t realize the mental health situation,” Wichman said. “We’ve lost a lot of election officials throughout the country. They’re calling it the ‘Great Resignation.’ People are broken and exhausted.” Credible threats of violence have manifested across the country — and one in five poll workers suggested they’d likely quit before the 2024 presidential election last year — but they appear to be most pronounced in closely contested swing states. Seven battleground states — Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — accounted for nearly 60 percent of all threats of physical violence that election workers reported to a federal task force on election threats. Of the more than 1,000 contacts reported as hostile or harassing by the election officials, approximately 11 percent of those contacts met the threshold for a federal criminal investigation. In one November 2020 incident, a polling station in Philadelphia received a threat from an unknown individual claiming that they were going to “straighten out” the person responsible for counting votes, according to Omar Sabir, vice chair of the Philadelphia City Commissioners, a bipartisan board of elected officials in charge of elections and voter registration for the city. Eventually, two armed men arrived but were intercepted by the police department after the FBI was alerted. Many veteran poll workers, who are often volunteers or paid just a small stipend for their time, and even election officials have decided that the risk of violence or continued harassment is too much to take. In Michigan, over three dozen county clerks have left their positions since November 2020, according to Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum. This has clear consequences for election administrators attempting to run free and fair elections. When veteran officials and poll workers leave their positions, they take with them “decades of institutional knowledge,” Byrum said. In some cases, she says, this has allowed for conspiracy theorists and deniers to fill the positions, making it harder to administer elections and sometimes increasing threats of violence against poll workers. The $400 million that election administrators are requesting from Congress would go towards security measures including training to stop or deal with doxxing, privacy services and home security and federal protections against threats. Currently, election operations are funded at the city and county level, making the funding inconsistent and the task of upping security that much harder. The goal is simple: to have a safe, free and fair election. “I want to make sure that every one of my voters has the chance to make their voice heard,” says Boone County, Mo. Clerk Brianna Lennon. “And that means that we can’t have interference from people that don’t have that in mind. I hope that all levels of government with funding sources that come into elections recognize the importance of investing in our elections. Now.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com. Or contact tonight’s author at ayahmahana@gwmail.gwu.edu or on Twitter at @AyahMahana.
| | | | A message from American Edge Project: How American Values Can Keep The Global Internet Free, Open And Accessible
Since the early days of the internet, the United States has led the world in advocating to keep it free and open. America has championed the values of free expression and open trade, of participatory governance, and of technological advancement that promotes freedom, opportunity, and equality. Read our policy report here. | | | | | — Fed pauses rate hikes but signals it could turn up the heat again this year: The Federal Reserve today held off on raising interest rates for the first time in more than a year — but warned that at least two more increases could be in store for 2023. Central bank officials now expect the economy to grow faster and unemployment to drop less this year than they projected in March, convincing them that higher borrowing costs might still be necessary to bring inflation back down to 2 percent over the next couple of years. — Tuberville rejects GOP attempts to end military promotions blockade: Sen. Tommy Tuberville is rejecting off-ramps and advice from more senior Republicans to end his hold on military promotions, even as Pentagon officials step up their warnings that the maneuver is compromising America’s security. The Alabama lawmaker’s colleagues have approached him in recent weeks to broker a compromise that would allow roughly 250 senior officer promotions to clear the Senate. The hold threatens to ensnare President Joe Biden’s pick for Joint Chiefs chair, Air Force Gen. C.Q. Brown, along with others preparing to rotate in as senior military leaders prepare to retire. — Blinken to visit China this week: Secretary of State Antony Blinken will travel to China to meet with Beijing’s senior officials this week, the State Department announced today. Blinken, who will leave on Friday and return next Wednesday, will become the first secretary of State to visit China in five years and the first Cabinet-level official to do so in four years.
| | | | GET READY FOR GLOBAL TECH DAY: Join POLITICO Live as we launch our first Global Tech Day alongside London Tech Week on Thursday, June 15. Register now for continuing updates and to be a part of this momentous and program-packed day! From the blockchain, to AI, and autonomous vehicles, technology is changing how power is exercised around the world, so who will write the rules? REGISTER HERE. | | | | | | | | | ANOTHER FLORIDA MAN — A super PAC supporting Miami GOP Mayor Francis Suarez today dropped a slick two-minute video just a day before he’s set to announce a possible 2024 presidential bid, reports POLITICO’s Gary Fineout. Suarez, the son of Miami’s first Cuban-American mayor, was elected twice as the mayor, including a resounding 2021 reelection. If he jumps into the race for president, he will become the third candidate from Florida seeking the GOP nomination, along with former President Donald Trump and Gov. Ron DeSantis. Suarez would also become the first Hispanic candidate seeking the nomination for either party this cycle. ‘BLIND SUPPORT’ — Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he would not vote for Donald Trump should he end up the Republican nominee and be convicted in a criminal trial, reports POLITICO’s Zach Montellaro. The declaration is one of the strongest rebukes of Trump since he was indicted on 37 counts related to allegedly mishandling classified documents. It also underscores the difficult position in which the Republican party now finds itself: with the party’s base rallying behind a frontrunner facing possible jail time and another portion of the party threatening to bolt if he’s their candidate. Hutchinson added that he has disagreed with the Republican National Committee’s requirement for candidates to sign a loyalty pledge to participate in the primary debates, in part because of Trump’s legal troubles. The party, he said, should not “want candidates pledging blind support for a nominee“ that could be “seriously problematic for the Republican Party.” HOW TO TALK ABOUT THE INDICTMENT — Former President Donald J. Trump faces 37 federal charges that could send him to prison for the remainder of his life, but it’s the rest of the Republican field that’s in the most immediate political trouble, writes the New York Times. Advisers working for Mr. Trump’s opponents are facing what some consider an infuriating task: trying to persuade Republican primary voters, who are inured to Mr. Trump’s years of controversies and deeply distrustful of the government, that being criminally charged for holding onto classified documents is a bad thing. MICHIGAN MESS — As he ran for Michigan attorney general last year, Matthew DePerno touted his endorsement from Donald Trump, condemned pandemic restrictions, called for imprisoning Democrats and regularly reminded voters that he had filed a lawsuit questioning the outcome of the 2020 election. Six months after losing that race, the man who was once considered a champion of MAGA-style politics was denounced by Republican activists as a turncoat for attacking the state GOP’s new chairwoman and supporting efforts to expel delegates. The GOP schism in Michigan, like those in other battleground states such as Arizona and Georgia, comes as Trump dominates Republican presidential primary polls and taps into the anger of a base in an uproar over his recent indictment for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House, writes the Washington Post. Over the weekend, Michigan Republicans approved rules that are likely to make it easier for Trump to win the nomination in the state. He has cheered on the state’s party for its commitment to promoting misinformation about the 2020 election. At least four county parties in Michigan have been at open war with themselves, with members suing one another or putting forward competing slates that claim to be in charge. The night before an April state party meeting, two GOP officials got into a physical altercation in a hotel bar over an attempt to expel members. The state party’s new chairwoman, Kristina Karamo, has struggled to raise money and abandoned the party’s longtime headquarters.
| | | | A message from American Edge Project:   | | | | | | | 
Protests against Poland's restrictive abortion law in Warsaw today. | Czarek Sokolowski/AP Photo | POLAND PROTESTS — A wave of abortion rights protests took place in Poland today, sparked by the death in May of a pregnant woman — an incident that has thrust doctors into the eye of the storm, writes Wojciech Kość. Dorota Lalik, a 33-year-old pharmacist, checked into the Pope John Paul II hospital in the southern Polish town of Nowy Targ after her water broke on May 21. She was five months pregnant. According to Polish media site gazeta.pl, Lalik was told initially that her pregnancy could be sustained and that her health was not in danger. A relative of the late woman said that the staff told Lalik to “lie with her legs up so that the waters might come back,” according to the report. After a three-day ordeal, Lalik’s health began deteriorating rapidly. While she was given an abortion on May 24, she eventually died from septic shock and multiple organ failure the same day. Her death has caused outrage in Poland, with anger directed at the country’s anti-choice laws but also at doctors, who have been accused of waiting too long to terminate her pregnancy. Poland has some of the toughest abortion laws in the EU, with termination allowed only in cases of rape or incest, or if the life of the woman is endangered — a situation that brings medical judgement into the decision of whether an abortion is legal.
| | | | STEP INSIDE THE WEST WING: What's really happening in West Wing offices? Find out who's up, who's down, and who really has the president’s ear in our West Wing Playbook newsletter, the insider's guide to the Biden White House and Cabinet. For buzzy nuggets and details that you won't find anywhere else, subscribe today. | | | | | | | | | | $2.04 million The amount of money that Trump raised at the first major fundraiser of his campaign, just hours after his arraignment in Miami. Billed as a “candlelight dinner” with top donors and campaign bundlers, Trump gave brief remarks to his supporters and was seated at a table with donors and supporters. | | | | ART OF THE DEAL — At the outset of the war in Ukraine last year, major Western companies faced intense pressure to pull their stores and services out of Russia. Many chose to do so, leaving ordinary Russians without access to products they’d come to rely on. But as the war has dragged on, wealthy Russians have profited from that decision — by buying up storefronts and infrastructure left over at low prices. Now, they’re replacing goods and services from multinational corporations with their own, cheaper versions. Read Jonathan Yerushalmy’s reporting into some of the people who have benefited financially from the war in Ukraine in The Guardian.
| | | | 
On this date in 1993: President Bill Clinton and Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg walk outside of the White House as they head to the Rose Garden for a news conference where Clinton nominated Ginsburg to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court. | Doug Mills/AP Photo | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.
| | | | A message from American Edge Project: Three Pillars For A Free And Open Internet
We need to craft a policy agenda rooted in three pillars: combatting digital authoritarianism, promoting free speech within and across borders, and building a stronger internet to connect people to each other and to their governments.
Learn more. | | | | | | | Follow us on Twitter | | | | Follow us | | | | |
No comments:
Post a Comment