Ryan Senate staff votes for Union. Rollingstone Co.
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How funny is this? Congressman Ryan’s staff forms Union. Ryan is running in he state of Ohio for the Senate seat of Senator Portman who’s not running. So how does the senate staff reward Ryan? They form a union. I call that poetic justice. How about his congressional staff? Oh well.
His Senate campaign staff announced it was unionizing on Tuesday, making history as the first unionized Senate campaign in the Buckeye State’s history.
The staff union said it organized with IBEW Local 1466 and that Ohio AFL-CIO President Tim Burga certified the election.
Ohio Sen. Matt Dolan enters U.S. Senate race, bringing establishment voice to GOP primary. Columbus Dispatch.
Views: 14
Only thing funnier than this is Tim Ryan running for the Senate seat in Ohio. Ohio Sen. Matt Dolan enters U.S. Senate race, bringing establishment voice to GOP primary. Dolan is presently a state senator. His family owns the Cleveland Indians (Guardians ). A country club Republican. A fan of Rob Portman and Mike DeWine.
Dolan is in the mold of former Governor Kasich and present Senator Portman. RINO, Moderate. If it’s Dolan vs Ryan, it’s Dago Red vs Irish Whiskey. Dolan is now a sitting state senator.
What are Progressives afraid of? Majority of American citizens want it. So let’s do it. 55% of Voters Support Election Audits. A majority of U.S. voters support forensic audits of election results, according to a Rasmussen poll released Wednesday.
For some reason the MSM and White Progressives refuse to look at fixing past election screw ups. That’s voter suppression.
Rasmussen Reports finds that 55% of Likely U.S. Voters support forensic audits of election results to ensure there was no vote fraud. Twenty-nine percent (29%) oppose such audits and 17% are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
Reprint. Georgia’s new voting law has sparked outrage from Democrats and even been called “Jim Crow on steroids” by President Joe Biden, but many of its provisions have governed elections in other states across the country for years.
From voter ID requirements to ballot drop boxes, and early voting schedules to absentee ballot access, there is little new or unique in the freshly minted Georgia rules. In fact, many of the measures critics are attacking have long been in place in blue states, including Biden’s home state of Delaware.
Peach State Republicans say they passed the law to ensure voter integrity after the 2020 presidential election, which was conducted around the country with new rules put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic. They say the law is designed to increase access for legal voters but make it harder to commit fraud. But Democrats say the new measures are aimed at suppressing the minority vote. And the bitter battle may be about to begin in Texas, where the state Legislature is weighing its own slate of reforms.
Here is how a law that cost Atlanta the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and prompted celebrities and CEOs alike to attack Georgia Republicans as racists stacks up to the way other states conduct their elections:
EARLY IN-PERSON VOTING
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, has called the law a “despicable voter suppression bill” in part over the changes she says it makes to early voting. Biden has repeatedly said it ends early voting hours before workers can get off of their shifts at 5 p.m.
But the Georgia law actually adds time to the window in which voters can cast their ballots early and in person.
The new Georgia law, by contrast, expanded the number of early voting days to 17, mandating the polls stay open for early voting on an additional Saturday and leaving open the option for counties to conduct early Sunday voting as well.
Meanwhile, Biden’s home state of Delaware has no in-person early voting. The state Legislature passed reforms setting aside up to 10 days of early voting at some locations, but voters won’t enjoy that access until 2022, according to the Center for Public Integrity.
Other blue states have far fewer opportunities for voters to cast their ballots early and in person than Georgia or Texas currently have.
Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott lengthened the early in-person voting period to begin 21 days prior to Election Day in 2020; in normal years, it begins 17 days prior.
And the legislation under consideration in the Texas Legislature would give voters ample time to get to the polls within that period — mandating that polls stay open for early voting 12 hours a day, from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
In deep-blue New York, for example, voters had only nine days of in-person early voting before Election Day in 2020.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, recently signed reform legislation that expanded early in-person voting to nine days. He took the opportunity to slam the Georgia law as restrictive — even though the bill he was touting provided voters in his state just over half the number of early voting days.
“I cannot overlook that this early voting bill passed our Legislature the same day that the governor of Georgia was signing a law restricting the rights of Georgians to vote, even making it a crime to give a voter waiting in line a bottle of water,” said Murphy, parroting a Biden mischaracterization explained below.
MAIL-IN VOTING
Many states dramatically expanded voting by mail ahead of the 2020 election in order to accommodate public health concerns about the pandemic.
But Democrats and voting rights advocates have worked to characterize states’ attempts to return to their pre-COVID-19 standards as stripping people of their right to vote — even in places where the increased volume of mail-in ballots caused confusion and delayed the results in November.
Such was the case in Georgia, where delays counting the unprecedented number of mail-in ballots in some counties created confusion that former President Donald Trump and his allies claimed was evidence of fraud.
The new Georgia law shortens the window of time in which voters can request their mail-in ballots; that window will now close two Fridays before Election Day, which supporters say will give voters more time to receive and then mail back their ballots without missing the deadline.
Most states allow the application process to continue closer to Election Day, so this is an area of the Georgia law that critics characterize as restrictive. Thirty-five states allow voters to request their ballot seven days or less before Election Day.
But the difference in when voters can apply for their absentee ballot in Georgia under the new rule isn’t all that significant compared to some blue states. Georgians face a deadline of 11 days before Election Day, but New Yorkers, for example, have a deadline of seven days before.
The Georgia law also left intact the state’s no-excuse absentee voting rules, meaning anyone, regardless of their ability to vote in person, can request a mail-in ballot.
That is more permissive than the vote-by-mail rules in 16 other states that require voters to provide a reason why they need to vote by mail, such as being physically out of state during the election.
Delaware, Connecticut, and New York are among the states that don’t currently offer no-excuse absentee voting.
VOTER ID
Voting rights advocates often claim that ID requirements disenfranchise voters of color, and many of them have railed against the Georgia law for its voter ID provisions.
But the Georgia reforms simply extended existing ID requirements — voters must show ID to vote in person in Georgia — to voting by mail. Voters now need to list their driver’s license or state ID number on their application for an absentee ballot, and election workers will use that to verify ballots in lieu of signature matching, which critics say is much more subjective.
If a Georgia voter has no ID, they can list the last four digits of their Social Security number instead.
Georgia is far from the only state that asks voters for documentation of their identity.
That includes Democratic-controlled states such as Connecticut and Delaware, which both ask voters to prove their identities in some circumstances or to sign affidavits under penalty of law if they don’t have the documents.
And despite coming under fire for considering new voting reforms, Texas does not have a strict voter ID law and isn’t proposing one currently. Texas voters can submit other proof of their identities, such as a utility bill or paycheck, and still cast their ballots without a driver’s license.
DROP BOXES
Critics of the Georgia law have also misleadingly claimed that it takes ballot drop boxes away from voters and therefore eliminates opportunities to vote.
But the Peach State did not allow the use of any drop boxes prior to 2020, when Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp authorized them on an emergency basis due to the pandemic.
For the first time, the Georgia Legislature voted to authorize drop boxes on a permanent basis. While there may be fewer available in some counties than there were in 2020, voters would not have the option at all if Republican lawmakers hadn’t written it into their bill.
In doing so, Georgia joined a relatively small group of states that has laws on the books specifically authorizing the use of drop boxes. Just eight other states have such laws, although many more states allowed voters to deposit their ballots in drop boxes during the 2020 election.
FOOD AND WATER
A headline-grabbing provision in the Georgia law was a ban on political or voting rights groups distributing food and water to voters within 150 feet of a polling location. The practice, which critics call “line warming,” is now a misdemeanor under the new rules.
Supporters said it closed a loophole in existing laws that prohibited politically affiliated organizations from trying to sway voters as they waited outside their polling places to cast their ballots.
Nonpartisan election workers can still set up self-service stations where thirsty voters can help themselves to water as they stand in line.
Other states have bans on campaigns or political groups enticing voters with snacks at the polls.
Colorado, for example, allows only “comfort teams” to provide food and water within 100 feet of a polling location and prohibits members of those teams from campaigning or wearing campaign apparel if they are within that perimeter.
New York also bans providing food and drink to voters at polling locations — except if the value of what’s being given is less than $1 and offered by a person who does not identify themselves as a representative of a party or political group.
So what changed? We all were told that the Governors and Secretary of States were changing laws that were voted on and passed by the state legislature. In three of the four states the Secretary of State and Governor were Democrat. In the fourth ( Georgia ) the Secretary of State made a deal with a noted race baiter to change the law there.
Iran and China worked against Trump in 2020. Was it successful? Russia always was a player who pitted both sides against each other. We knew last year that Iran and China supported Joe Biden. And why not? Trump with the Tariffs. Plus leaving the Iran nuclear deal. Biden supported BOTH.
The National Intelligence Officer for Cyber — assessed that China “did take some steps to try to undermine former President Trump’s reelection.”
Those assessments, each of which was delivered with “high confidence,” came in a declassified report released through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. The investigation was carried out by the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, or CISA.
Last year all the MSM saw the declassified documents that China and Iran were attempting to tip the election in Biden’s favor. But now only the Cyber folks see the Chinese as a threat? Looks as if Hunter will be working again.
The official recall campaign against California Governor Gavin Newsom has now gathered more than 1.95 million signatures. Organizers have until March 17 to gather signatures. A total of 1, 497, 709 valid signatures must be collected and verified to trigger the recall election. Election officials have until April 29 to verify them. The announcement was made during an online meeting with campaign leaders who are, among other things, dissatisfied with the governors handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.
“That is more than enough to be able to have this initiative qualify for a special election later this year to let the people finally decide who and what is going to happen with the fate and the future of California Gavin Newsom,” organizers said at the conference.
“We are still setting our sites on getting an additional number of signatures in order to bridge that 2 million mark and we’re excited and hopeful that we’re going to have that in the time we have left,” they continued.
How desperate the left must be to want 16 year old children to vote. They are not mature enough to make those type of decisions. Just because one of those progressives had a 3 year and a 1 year old by 16, that isn’t a sign of maturity. More like stupidity and no parental guidence.
“Our fellow citizens deserve better and expect more of us,” Justice Clarence Thomas declared Monday, when the Supreme Court decided — by one vote –to hear none of the 2020 election cases raising issues of voter fraud and illegal votes.
Why Justice Thomas’s words on the Elections are so Important. I feel that this is so important, so I’m inviting all the folks in my tag groups. Regardless of how you feel about the 2020 Elections, Justice Thomas said things that do point out where he thought politics were played and changes were made to existing laws. That can’t be denied I’m going to post his full response to the courts decision to not hear the Pennsylvania complaints. I’ll highlight what I feel were important points. As always be civil. No name calling. Justice Thomas.
“The Constitution gives to each state legislature authority to determine the ‘Manner’ of federal elections,” began Thomas. “Yet both before and after the 2020 election, nonlegislative officials in various States took it upon themselves to set the rules instead. As a result, we received an unusually high number of petitions and emergency applications contesting those changes. The petitions here present a clear example.”
“The Pennsylvania Legislature established an unambiguous deadline for receiving mail-in ballots: 8 p.m. on election day. Dissatisfied, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court extended that deadline by three days,” Thomas explained, referring to one of the rejected cases. “These cases provide us with an ideal opportunity to address just what authority nonlegislative officials have to set election rules, and to do so well before the next election cycle. The refusal to do so is inexplicable.”
“For more than a century, this Court has recognized that the Constitution operates as a limitation upon the State in respect of any attempt to circumscribe the legislative power to regulate federal elections,” he continued, quoting Supreme Court precedent. “Because the Federal Constitution, not state constitutions, gives state legislatures authority to regulate federal elections, petitioners presented a strong argument that the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision violated the Constitution by overriding the clearly expressed intent of the legislature.”
“But elections enable self-governance only when they include processes that give citizens (including the losing candidates and their supporters) confidence in the fairness of the election,” Thomas added, quoting a recent Supreme Court case that held, “Confidence in the integrity of our electoral processes is essential to the functioning of our participatory democracy.”
“Unclear rules threaten to undermine this system. They sow confusion and ultimately dampen confidence in the integrity and fairness of elections,” he explained. “To prevent confusion, we have thus repeatedly — although not as consistently as we should — blocked rule changes made by courts close to an election.”
The mail-deadline case did not impact enough votes to change the 2020 election. “But we may not be so lucky in the future,” Thomas warned. “Indeed, a separate decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court may have already altered an election result.”
Thomas surmised:
That is not a prescription for confidence. Changing the rules in the middle of the game is bad enough. Such rule changes by officials who may lack authority to do so is even worse. When those changes alter election results, they can severely damage the electoral system on which our self-governance so heavily depends. If state officials have the authority they have claimed, we need to make it clear. If not, we need to put an end to this practice now before the consequences become catastrophic.
Winning road to 2022. Virginia law thrown out. We got another one in the win column. In Virginia the law was changed to allow ballots three days after election day even if they weren’t dated. Well a judge ruled that the law was illegal. The latest ruling reinforces the earlier injunction, assuring that Virginia will not be able to make similar changes to future elections in the state without adequate changes in current law. This is the latest victory for fair elections.
The U.S. Supreme Court turned away a Democratic bid to force universal vote-by-mail in Texas, leaving intact a state law that lets people cast no-excuse absentee ballots only if they are 65 or older.
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