Nevada grand jury brings indictments against alternate electors in 2020 election | 6 Dec 2023 | A grand jury convened by Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford has brought felony indictments against six individuals who served as alternate electors after the 2020 election as the Trump campaign worked to secure recounts to verify the results of […]

An elected Washington, D.C., official was among six people who were fined by the city this week after voting in the 2020 elections twice.

Darryl Cooper, AKA @MartyrMade, is a podcaster who had a Twitter thread go viral with 13k retweets and 20k likes of the first Tweet alone. This one is 36-Tweets long. It makes very cogent arguments of not only why millions of Trump supporters believe the 2020 election was stolen, but also why we are justified to believe it. Continue reading →

SPIA’s Andrew Guess and research colleagues used de-identified data from Facebook and Instagram to explore how changes in the way content was delivered affected people's attitudes and behavior.

The recent Chicago Teachers Union strike drew attention from Democratic presidential candidates in Illinois, a state won by Democrats in the last White House contest. For 2020, it's possible we could see a twist on that story: big-city teacher strikes in states with less predictable outcomes.

Attorney General Jennings today called on U.S. Attorney General William Barr to reverse his abrupt change to a 40-year-old U.S. Department of Justice policy that until this week had kept the department from interfering with election results. In a letter to AG Barr, AG Jennings and 22 other attorneys general strongly objected to a November […]

Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance boldly said “no,” Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election, when pressed on the issue at a campaign event Wednesday in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.

The Ohio senator has avoided directly denying the results over the past few weeks.

When quizzed by The New York Times about the results over the weekend, for example, he refused multiple times to answer the question, on one occasion claiming he was “focused on the future”—echoing an answer he gave to Democratic opponent Tim Walz at the vice presidential debate.

Read more at The Daily Beast.

New technology is becoming a part of the 2020 election process and has the potential to create faster, more accessible voting around the country. But, as shown with the Iowa caucus, these untested technologies have the potential to do the complete opposite - delaying results and creating confusion. How can we ensure that the technology we are using gives us fast, reliable and accurate results?

; Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court is no stranger to controversy, but it still gets higher marks in public opinion polls than the other branches of government. Now though, for the first time in memory, the court is not just split along ideological lines, but along political lines as well: All the conservatives are Republican appointees, all the liberals Democratic appointees. That division could put the court in the crosshairs of public opinion if it is forced to make decisions that affect the 2020 election.

Chief Justice John Roberts has worked hard to persuade the public that the justices are fair-minded legal umpires--not politicians in robes. That image got pretty scuffed up earlier this month when the conservative court majority shot down accommodations for the coronavirus that would have allowed six more days for absentee ballots to be received in Wisconsin's election for 500 school board seats, over 100 judicial seats, and thousands of other state and local positions.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the COVID-19 pandemic had become a public health crisis. Encouraged by local officials, about a million more voters than usual requested absentee ballots, and local officials were unable to keep up with the surge. To mitigate that problem, the lower courts allowed an extra six days for election officials to receive completed absentee ballots.

But the day before the election, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling by a 5-to-4 vote. The result was that tens of thousands of people who had not yet even received their absentee ballots were forced to, as the dissenters put it, choose between their health and their right to vote.

The TV footage of people wearing masks waiting for hours to vote at the very few precincts that were open amid the pandemic was, to say the least, not a good look. Health officials in Milwaukee have since identified six voters and one poll worker who appear to have contracted the virus during the election.

The majority opinion was unsigned, so no one knows who the principal author was. But we do know some things.

First, the emergency appeal in the case came through the justice assigned to that region of the country, Brett Kavanaugh. Typically, when a justice refers a case to the full court, he or she writes a memo about the issues, likely with a recommendation. Kavanaugh almost certainly did that. But other justices would then chime in. And in a voting case, Chief Justice Roberts assuredly would have played a pivotal role.

"John Roberts' fingerprints are on this as chief justice and as someone who has owned this area of the law," says Joan Biskupic, a Supreme Court biographer and CNN legal analyst who is the author of a critically acclaimed biography about Roberts.

Indeed, Roberts was invested in voting-rights law as far back as 1982 when he was a staffer in the Reagan administration. Back then, he led the effort to narrow the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. When that failed, President Reagan signed the broad extension of the law, rejecting advice to veto it. But years later, on the Supreme Court, Roberts wrote the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting a key provision of that law.

So, it was no surprise when the conservative majority refused to make even a modest accommodation to the pandemic. What was surprising was the tone of the opinion. Critics of the opinion, including some Roberts defenders, called the language "callous," "cynical," and "unfortunate."

In fact, the word "pandemic" appears not once in the court's unsigned opinion. Rather, the majority sought to portray the issue before the court as a "narrow, technical question." The majority said the lower court had overstepped the Supreme Court's established rule that courts should "ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election."

The dissenters replied that the court's treatment of the current situation as ordinary "boggles the mind." Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opined that "a voter cannot deliver...a ballot she has not yet received. Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested absentee ballots" are being asked to do just that.

"I do think there's something to this idea that we need to stick with the rules even in the context of an emergency," says law professor Rick Hasen, an election expert at the University of California, Irvine.

He and others see the legal question before the court as a close call, but say the decision was, at the very least, tone deaf in light of the reality of a pandemic.

Hasen says that the court could have recognized "the inhumanity of making people vote in this way," but that instead the tone of the opinion was "really dismissive of the entire threat facing these voters."

Chief Justice Roberts has, on some occasions tried to bridge the two wings of the court, in a couple of big cases siding with the court's liberals, or sometimes trying to fashion a compromise. But as Hasen observes, "there really is not any case I can think of involving elections where Roberts has forged a larger consensus."

Roberts must have anticipated at least some of the outcry over the Wisconsin decision. He is, after all, an astute political observer.

But as any student of the court knows, Roberts is a reliable, and often leading member of the conservative majority when it comes to a whole host of issues involving campaigns, voting and elections. That includes decisions he has written striking down laws aimed at limiting the role of big money in campaigns and decisions upholding partisan gerrymanders. Moreover voting rights in particular "is an area of the law where John Roberts has not been deterred by anticipated public criticism," says Biskupic, his biographer.

For the chief, says Biskupic, "It's not just voting rights. It's a broader overlay of representation" in his decisions, a pattern that "often will favor Republicans, but more fundamentally, it seems to favor entrenched powers, the status quo in many states, against ordinary citizens. And we certainly saw that in Wisconsin."

Uncertainties around COVID-19 remain, with states facing decisions about when to reopen and what size of public gatherings are safe. As November inches closer, those decisions could affect the 2020 election. Who gets to vote, when, and how, are unanswered questions and states are surely exploring different plans to keep voters safe. But Roberts' Supreme Court may be the ultimate arbiter of what changes and accommodations to voting are allowed.

The majority opinion "tried to tell the public that this was a very small decision," says Biskupic. "But as the dissent pointed out, it laid down a very serious marker about how voters will be accommodated in the middle of the coronavirus crisis."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

As the Illinois primary election draws closer, college students are preparing to cast their votes. Some for the first time. As part of our series, "You're the Boss," we asked several NIU voters at campus voter registration events about their most important issues in the election, and what questions they would ask candidates and current officeholders directly if they had the chance. Here's what they had to say: Salvador Meza, electrical and computer engineering major, Chicago “Well, on a national level, there seems to be a lot of division within the country. It would be nice to have a candidate that can united on both sides, see both sides of the matter. That would be the primary thing. Definitely immigration. Right now immigration is a big thing for me at least. On the state level, definitely taxes. Taxes need to get a little bit sorted on what’s going on, but what’s new in Illinois, right?” “I’d definitely ask them what would be their plan for immigration for not only the DACA

What happens to our politics when oil craters? On this edition of River to River , host Ben Kieffer is joined by political scientists Sara Mitchell and Jim McCormick to look at how the imbalance in oil markets may impact geopolitics and discuss the top political headlines of the week. Guests: Sara Mitchell , F. Wendell Miller Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa Jim McCormick , professor of political science at Iowa State University

A mayor, an electrician and a prison manager will try to help the Country Liberal Party claw back some seats in next year's NT election.

The Opposition Leader acknowledges the mountain his party must climb if it hopes to end 19 years of Labor government.

How the president has proved himself a more successful socialist than Sanders is likely to ever be.

Republican incompetence and heartlessness are again coming to Democrats’ rescue.

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Hon Guillaume Soro, Chairman, Rassemblement Pour la Côte d’Ivoire (RACI)
Chair: Paul Melly, Consulting Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House

Research Event

Event participants

HE Alassane Ouattara, President, Republic of Côte d'Ivoire
Chair: Bob Dewar CMG, Associate Fellow, Africa Programme, Chatham House

14 January 2020

A year-long project focused on what is at stake in the pivotal 2020 US presidential and congressional elections, considering the future of US policy on trade, global economy and technology, national security, transatlantic relations, climate, migration and Latin America.

The recent Chicago Teachers Union strike drew attention from Democratic presidential candidates in Illinois, a state won by Democrats in the last White House contest. For 2020, it's possible we could see a twist on that story: big-city teacher strikes in states with less predictable outcomes.

The recent Chicago Teachers Union strike drew attention from Democratic presidential candidates in Illinois, a state won by Democrats in the last White House contest. For 2020, it's possible we could see a twist on that story: big-city teacher strikes in states with less predictable outcomes.

Former US president Barack Obama given Joe Biden his endorsement for the 2020 presidential election.

March 23, 2020 – As the United States grapples with the COVID-19 outbreak and its ongoing fallout, there is another pressing issue that is crucial to the American public: ensuring safe and fair elections between now and Nov. 3. “The Coalition believes it is important for all Americans to be active in the political process […]

EXECutive Summary Taiwan will hold its presidential and legislative elections on January 11, 2020. The incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), appears increasingly likely to prevail over her main challenger, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang (KMT). In the legislative campaign, the DPP now has better than even odds to retain its…

As 2019 winds down, all eyes will soon turn to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The cycle promises to dominate the news throughout next year, covering everything from the ongoing impeachment proceedings to health-care reform and more. While education traditionally may not be considered a top-tier issue in national elections, as Brookings’s Doug Harris has…

As 2019 winds down, all eyes will soon turn to the 2020 U.S. presidential election. The cycle promises to dominate the news throughout next year, covering everything from the ongoing impeachment proceedings to health-care reform and more. While education traditionally may not be considered a top-tier issue in national elections, as Brookings’s Doug Harris has…

EXECutive Summary Taiwan will hold its presidential and legislative elections on January 11, 2020. The incumbent president, Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), appears increasingly likely to prevail over her main challenger, Han Kuo-yu of the Kuomintang (KMT). In the legislative campaign, the DPP now has better than even odds to retain its…

Will foreign assistance and foreign policy matter to voters in the 2020 elections? At the 16th Annual Brookings-Blum Roundtable, Merrell Tuck-Primdahl—communications director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings—hosts a discussion with Brookings Senior Fellow E.J. Dionne, Jr.; Liz Schrayer, the president and CEO of U.S. Global Leadership Coalition; and Charlie Dent, former U.S. representative…

What happens when you mix easy access to increasingly sophisticated technology for producing deepfake videos, a high-stakes election, and a social media ecosystem built on maximizing views, likes, and shares? America is about to find out. As I explained in a TechTank post in February 2019, “deepfakes are videos that have been constructed to make…

The people of Taiwan should be proud of their success in consolidating democracy over recent decades. Taiwan enjoys a vibrant civil society, a flourishing media, individual liberties, and an independent judiciary that is capable of serving as a check on abuses of power. Taiwan voters have ushered in three peaceful transfers of power between major…

Why the rhetoric surrounding wealth inequality is especially acute this election season among Democratic presidential candidates — and will continue to be so.

The Trump Administration has attacked China over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Vasu Menon of OCBC warns tensions between Washington and Beijing could pick up even further, heading into the 2020 election.

A majority of Americans think a recession is likely in the next year, but amid historically low unemployment and a record stock market, most voters say the 2020 election will not be about the economy, according to a new CNBC Invest In You survey on money and politics released Monday.

President Trump calls the U.S. Postal Service "a joke," and as millions face orders to stay home, his attacks on the agency could also threaten efforts to vote by mail, a method Trump has called "a terrible thing." "We're talking now about basic access to the ballot box," says American Postal Workers Union President Mark Dimondstein, who notes "the Post Office is the most trusted federal agency."

The official was part of a briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, which is chaired by Democratic Trump enemy Adam Schiff, and told lawmakers about Russia's repeat offending.

Shelby Pierson,inset, is the intelligence community's top election security official. She told lawmakers on Thursday that Russia was resuming interference efforts. Trump is main.

Michelle Obama's first effort to get out the vote in 2020 has been cancelled due to coronavirus concerns.

The Anonymous author of 'A Warning' continued the charade with an 'ask me anything' post on Reddit that revealed the writer will directly confront Donald Trump before the 2020 elections.