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Las Vegas political operative Jesse Law is not coy about the chief goal of the Election Day poll-watching operation that the Trump campaign hired him to organize in Nevada.

The main goal is electing the boss, Law told a group of volunteers last week during an online training session that was recorded on video and shared with ABC News.

Law is one of more than a dozen Trump field generals organizing Election Day poll-watching operations in key battleground states and are now engaged in almost-daily training sessions preparing volunteers for long shifts watching the voting process unfold. The presidents campaign is calling it Trumps Army, which they maintain will be a force of 50,000, now being prepped to spend hours quietly eyeballing voters, ready to summon attorneys at the first indication something is amiss.

Ask questions. Were there as observers, Law told trainees in the video. And if its real bad, we'll send mean, nasty, terrible, horrible people called lawyers. And be prepared to escalate.

Law emphasized that the goal is not to interfere with voters, but to flag issues to lawyers, especially if they believe they are witness to acts of voter fraud -- something experts say is a rare occurrence. Rules vary by state, but the campaigns are allowed to have representatives watch the voting process unfold, so long as they don't take steps to disrupt or interfere with those casting their ballots.

Both parties have poll-watching plans for 2020. The Biden campaign effort expects to have a presence at precincts in 21 key states, and is back-stopped by a legal team that includes former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Obama White House Counsel Bob Bauer. A campaign spokesman told ABC News the Biden operation has plans for the largest voter protection program in history, with "thousands" of lawyers and volunteers working on voter protection efforts.

But the widespread presence of Republican poll watchers at polling sites in 2020 will be something new. The party has been restricted from placing partisans inside precincts since the 1980s, when a court ruled that GOP volunteers were systematically harassing and intimidating voters in a manner that violated the Voting Rights Act. A 2018 court ruling lifted those restrictions for the first time in decades.

GOP had 'one hand tied behind its back'

Justin Clark, one of the Trump campaign's top lawyers, said while speaking on a panel about voter fraud at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in March that the Republican Party had spent 40 years fighting this battle with one hand tied behind its back."

"In 2020, we have a brand new opportunity to be able to activate an Election Day operations program that's really robust," he said, describing a plan to recruit 50,000 volunteers to surveil the voting process.

Democrats have expressed a desire to match that presence with their own poll watchers. How many volunteers will ultimately participate remains uncertain, but the Trump campaign has already spent millions of dollars on the effort, federal election records show. The undertaking has involved several paid consultants, including Stampede America, a little-known firm run by veteran Republican political operatives that has received over $1 million from Republican-leaning groups to recruit Election Day workers.

Legal experts who reviewed videos of the Trump campaign training sessions at the request of ABC News say instructors like Law are using the right language, but that still may yield the wrong results.

One of the major concerns about poll watching is that it will still lead, intentionally or not, to voter intimidation, said Sean Morales-Doyle, the deputy director of voting rights and election programs at the Brennan Center for Justice.

An 'army' doesnt sound like people just there to observe, Morales-Doyle said. An army sounds like people there to engage in war with the enemy.

Responding to that concern in a statement Sunday to ABC News, Clark pushed back: This isnt about intimidation but about transparency in the election process. Anything to the contrary is just demagoguery.

Trump campaign officials said they view poll watchers as critical to ensuring the fairness of the election, a point the president tried to drive home during the first presidential debate. Trump referenced his plans to mobilize his supporters to monitor the polls, saying he is urging my supporters to go in to the polls and watch very carefully.

You know why? Because bad things happen, he said.

Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine Law School, said in a recent interview with Slate that he grew more concerned about voter intimidation when the president in the same debate refused to condemn a hard-right group known for violent confrontations.

Hes talking about sending poll watchers to places. When he says that in a debate at the same time hes talking about the Proud Boys standing by, its very worrisome, Hasen said.

A voter casts his ballot at the Lexington County Voter Registration & Elections Office on the second day of in-person absentee and early voting in Lexington, S.C., Oct. 6, 2020.

'No spectacles, please'

In videos of recent training sessions obtained and reviewed by ABC News, as well as dozens of pre-recorded state-specific instructional presentations that the Trump campaign distributed online, poll watchers are told explicitly to avoid directly engaging with voters. The training sessions, which were advertised on the official campaign website, were conducted by campaign officials including Law, who has been paid more than $35,000 by the campaign since May, according to federal filings.

You guys have to watch your backs, Law says at one point. If you're over there going, Hey, that voter isn't legal! and it's just a person who is completely legal -- that's a black eye for us. Don't do that.

Instead, Law tells the trainees that if they are seeing a problem, document it and talk to the attorneys about it and get to the bottom of it. No spectacles, please.

Speaking to the volunteers, Law explains the overarching goal of the Trump campaigns Election Day operations -- deterring fraud.

Uncovering fraud, exposing some controversy at the end of the day can pick you up anywhere from a quarter percent to two and a half percent [of the vote] based on what we're doing, he says.

Thea McDonald, the campaign's deputy national press secretary, reiterated that point in response to questions from ABC News, saying poll watchers will be trained to ensure all rules are applied equally, all valid ballots are counted, and all Democrat rule breaking is called out."

But some experts are skeptical saying everything will depend on the approach the poll watchers take on Election Day. Morales-Doyle said he is concerned that on the rare occasion that there is rule-breaking, either intentional or not, it should not be immediately portrayed the result of a widespread conspiracy. The training sessions, Morales-Doyle said, imply the opposite.

Thats the tone that runs throughout and probably is the most concerning, he said. The whole goal of this enterprise is to catch a voter fraud conspiracy that doesnt exist.

Residents wait in line to vote at an early voting site, Oct. 2, 2020, in Chicago.

Questions about some generals in Trump's Army

Despite the warnings against conflict at the polls, some of the officials the Trump team has hired to assist with training poll watchers have had a combative history when it comes to voting questions.

In Nevada, Law was involved in a 2016 lawsuit when Democrats sued Trump's campaign for allegedly training its poll watchers to intimidate voters, according to the Associated Press, though the judge ultimately found no evidence of intimidation.

Law joked about the case during his recent training class, saying the poll watching program had been accused of engaging in suppression of the vote for minority voters. Best news is if you Google my name, that does not show up, he said. Maybe because we were successful. Law referred ABC News' request for comment to the national office.

In North Carolina, the Trump campaign has hired Ryan Terrill to oversee poll watchers. When Terrill worked on former North Carolina Gov. Pat McCroy's gubernatorial bid in 2016, the campaign made repeated allegations of fraudulent voting in what critics called "an apparent effort to overcome a narrow defeat."

Democracy North Carolina, a left-leaning nonprofit organization, maintained later that "despite an avalanche of legal filings and the constant drumbeat of serious voter fraud, nearly all of the fraud allegations the campaign had leveled at 600 voters proved to be false. Voters who initially faced the allegations told the nonprofit at the time they were left "shocked" and "furious."

ABC News was not able to reach Terrill directly for comment. The North Carolina Republican Party did not respond to multiple requests for comment about the report.

A poll worker wearing personal protective equipment directs voters to cast their ballots for the upcoming presidential election as early voting begins in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Oct. 6, 2020.

And just last week, one leader of Trumps Pennsylvania Election Day effort had to be escorted out of a satellite election office in Philadelphia's City Hall. Elections officials there accused James Fitzpatrick of causing a "disturbance," a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Sheriff's office told ABC News.

In Pennsylvania, poll watchers are not allowed in satellite offices, which are locations where voters can register to vote and request and return mail in ballots, among other things, and are not considered official polling locations. The Trump campaign has sued to enable poll watchers to monitor these locations, claiming "bad things are happening in Philadelphia," though a judge tossed the suit over the weekend.

"Mr. Fitzpatrick went inside the facility, he was asked why he was there," said Teresa Lundy, the spokesperson for the sheriff's office. And then he pulled out his cellphone and started doing video and taking photographs, and that's when he was approached asked to leave."

Fitzpatrick did not respond to email and phone messages from ABC News seeking comment. His video of the encounter was posted on Twitter by a Trump campaign staffer. A Trump campaign spokesperson told ABC News the incident was "another instance of Philly election officials denying observers access to the voting places."

A few days after the incident, Fitzpatrick was back talking to Trumps 2020 volunteers. On a video of a training session obtained by ABC News, he can be seen making clear his goal. Discussing an effort to review absentee ballot applications, he said: We're going to need people to go through them and issue challenges.

We think it all comes down to Pennsylvania this year, he told the group. We could use the help. Let us know if youre interested.

This report was featured in the Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020, episode of Start Here, ABC News daily news podcast.

"Start Here" offers a straightforward look at the day's top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

More here:
As Trump team rushes to train 'army' of poll watchers, experts on watch for voter intimidation - ABC News

By Tim Reid and Karen Freifeld

(Reuters) - Joe Biden supporter Cindy Kalogeropoulos took no chances when her absentee ballot arrived on Sept. 29. The Michigan retiree filled it out, drove 7 miles to the nearest drop box and hung around to make sure election officials picked it up - all within 48 hours of receiving it.

In neighboring Ohio, Biden backers Eric Bjornard, 42, and his wife Abigail moved quickly too. The couple hand-delivered their mail ballots to their local elections office last month, five weeks ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

Democratic leaders have been urging Biden supporters to show up in huge numbers and vote early amid concerns that nothing short of a decisive victory will prevent Republican President Donald Trump from contesting the results, potentially opening the way for state legislatures, the courts or Congress to decide the outcome.

Telling voters to have faith in the democratic process while simultaneously acknowledging that a landslide may be the only way to oust a defiant incumbent is proving to be a delicate balancing act, more than a dozen Democratic Party officials and Biden campaign advisers told Reuters.

Trump has repeatedly and without evidence declared mail voting to be riddled with fraud and the election "rigged" in favor of Democrats, all the while refusing to commit to ceding power peacefully if he loses. The Democratic operatives said they're concerned that amplifying Trump's claims could backfire and suppress turnout by making Biden voters believe their ballots won't count.

What has emerged is an approach that aims to emphasize the power voters hold to send Trump packing if they act early. In Ohio, for example, David Pepper, head of the state Democratic Party, said his team is using Trump's attacks on voting to motivate Biden supporters to return their mail ballots immediately or to vote early in person.

"We are telling people: 'You hear what he is saying, so go and vote, you can stop him,'" Pepper said. "We are flipping the narrative."

Ohio election officials were overwhelmed with vote-by-mail requests for the state's April presidential nominating contest, when in-person voting was sharply curtailed there due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ballots for some voters arrived too late.

Election officials say they're better prepared this time around. Still, Democratic phone banks, text messages, mailings, social media and TV and radio ads are exhorting Ohio voters to act now to "Make It Count". Polls shows the race tied in a state that Trump won by 8 points four years ago.

The sense of urgency resonated with the Bjornards, the Columbus couple that hand-carried their ballots to their local elections office. "I wanted to make sure they have plenty of time to process it," said Eric Bjornard, who works for a robotics software company.

In Ohio, more than 2.4 million mail-in ballots have been requested, double the 1.2 million requested at the same time in 2016, according to the Ohio Secretary of State.

Nationally, 14.6 million people have already cast ballots by mail or through in-person voting, compared to roughly 1.4 million at the same point four years ago, according to the United States Elections Project, a site run by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald that compiles early voting data.

Democrats appear to be driving much of that surge. In states that report party affiliation data, nearly twice as many registered Democrats have requested ballots than Republicans have, the data show. For example, more than 960,000 registered Democrats in battleground Florida have already mailed back their ballots, compared with 564,000 Republicans.

PREPARING FOR A DISPUTED ELECTION

While early turnout is encouraging for Democrats, the Biden camp is preparing for the worst.

Democrats say their turnout campaign is especially critical this year as Republicans seek to restrict mail-in voting despite the pandemic, and both parties fight over how votes are tallied in key states. Dozens of lawsuits have been filed in multiple states, many focused on mail-in voting.

The Biden campaign said it has built the largest election protection program in the Democratic Party's history, including thousands of lawyers and volunteers around the country. Dana Remus, the campaign's general counsel, is overseeing a wide-ranging team of lawyers with veteran Democratic lawyer Bob Bauer, now a full-time senior campaign advisor. The team includes former solicitors general Donald Verrilli and Walter Dellinger, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and Marc Elias, a top elections lawyer at the firm Perkins Coie.

The Trump campaign has also assembled a large legal team to prepare for a contested result and to monitor the voting process. That effort is being led by Matthew Morgan, the campaign's general counsel, and Justin Clark, deputy campaign manager and senior counsel to the campaign.

Then there are the post-election preparations. Biden's national legal team is examining a series of scenarios, including those in which Trump casts doubt on the integrity of a close contest, campaign advisors said.

Among them is the possibility that a lengthy or disputed count of mail ballots could result in Republican-controlled legislatures in key states intervening to award their Electoral College vote to Trump. The U.S. presidency is clinched by winning a majority of the 538 votes apportioned to the 50 states and Washington D.C. in the Electoral College.

Typically, governors certify the results in their respective states and share the information with Congress. But it is possible for "dueling" slates of electors to emerge, in which the governor and the legislature in a closely contested state could submit two different election results.

The risk of this happening is heightened in states where the legislature is controlled by a different party than the governor. Several battleground states, including Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, have Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures.

According to legal experts, it is unclear in this scenario whether Congress should accept the governor's electoral slate or not count the state's electoral votes at all.

The law governing Congress's role in such a dispute - the Electoral Count Act of 1887 - is unclear and "untested," said Lawrence Douglas, a legal and elections scholar at Amherst College. "We'd be in unchartered territory," he said.

Those scenarios are far less likely, the Democratic advisors said, if enough Americans make sure to vote early in November's election. The Democrats who spoke with Reuters believe the more votes that are counted and processed before Election Day, the less chance Republicans have to dispute the validity of the results.

Jennifer Holdsworth, an attorney and Democratic strategist, said if Democrats run up the score with the vote count, "our legal job becomes easier."

"If it's a tight election, that goes to Trump's favor," she said. "For Democrats to avoid a potential stolen election... we need to make sure the vote is as overwhelming as possible."

Lawyers for Biden are preparing responses for various scenarios and some "are ready to go if needed," said Bauer, the senior campaign advisor. He and Remus, the campaign's general counsel, declined to discuss contested election scenarios in detail, wary of elevating Republican messaging about potential problems.

"They are trying to sow chaos and confusion and we are focused on not letting them do that," Remus said. "By telling voters how to vote, how to ensure their vote is going to be counted, and giving them confidence, we will pull this election off."

Thea McDonald, the Trump campaign's deputy national press secretary, said it was Democrats, not Republicans, creating mayhem by "irresponsibly" scaring people away from voting in person with their push for mail-in balloting.

"President Trump is absolutely right: mass voting by mail is a recipe for chaos, confusion and disenfranchisement," McDonald said in an email to Reuters. "In a free, fair election, President Trump wins hands down."

McDonald said allegations that Trump might not accept the election results were Democratic "conspiracy theories."

Biden and his running mate, U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, have repeatedly urged people to vote early. During their recent debates with Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, respectively, both steered clear of talking about Trump's unfounded claims of a rigged election.

"Vote, vote, vote!," Biden told Americans during his Sept. 29 debate with Trump, when the moderator asked the candidates to reassure Americans about the integrity of the election. "If we get the votes, it's going to be all over. He's going to go. He can't stay in power."

Joe Foster, chair of the Montgomery County Democratic Committee in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state that Trump won by less than one percentage point in 2016, said the state party has advised county Democrats not to talk about the possibility of Trump contesting the election there, and instead focus on turning out the vote.

The party is sending voters texts, emails, mailers, ads and social media posts urging them to vote as early as possible, as well as detailed instructions on how to fill out mail ballots correctly, Foster said. People are also being encouraged to bring their completed mail ballots directly to elections offices because of concerns that the U.S. Postal Service may be unable to deliver them in time.

"Our goal is to turn out every vote. We need to have big numbers," Foster said.

'DON'T TRUST THE POLLS'

Several national opinion polls show Biden has opened up a double-digit lead since the chaotic September debate in which Trump repeatedly interrupted his rival, then was hospitalized with COVID-19 a few days later. A majority of Americans reject Trump's handling of the pandemic that has killed more than 216,000 people in the country.

In an Oct. 9-13 Reuters/Ipsos poll, 53% of American adults said they disapprove of Trump's virus response, while 41% approve his handling of the pandemic.

But the race remains competitive in key states such as Florida, Arizona and North Carolina that are crucial to winning the Electoral College. Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, won the national popular vote by nearly three million votes but lost the Electoral College, and thus the presidency.

Judy Daubenmier, chair of the Livingston County Democratic Party in Michigan - another state that Trump won by less than a percentage point - said she is telling voters not to believe Biden's encouraging poll numbers.

"People are scarred from 2016," Daubenmier said. "Nobody assumes Biden is going to win. We are working like we are two points behind. Anything can happen."

Outside an early voting location in Atlanta on Tuesday, the second day of early in-person voting in Georgia, Aquino Lee said he had waited in line an hour to vote for Biden. The 43-year-old said it had been 25 years since he had last cast a ballot.

Pulling on a cigarette, his face mask hanging off an ear, the general contractor said he was determined to do his part to ensure that Trump is a one-term president. "He ain't no leader. We're suffering," Lee said. "Work has dried up and everyone is afraid of corona. He needs to go."

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Los Angeles and Karen Freifeld in New York. Additional reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta and Joseph Ax in Princeton, NJ. Editing by Soyoung Kim and Marla Dickerson)

See the original post:
Democrats urge early voting, massive turnout as Trump stokes fears of contested election - WTVB News

This column is by Rebecca Rolfes, president of the League of Women Voters of Coastal Georgia.

Between 2000 and 2018, 60% to 80% of seats in the Georgia General Assembly were uncontested. The national average of uncontested elections for statewide offices is 35%.

The 2020 election in November will be no different.

In 2011, Republicans got 53.3% of the popular vote but won 68% of the seats.

In 2018, 438,000 people Democrats, Republicans and otherwise -- who went to the polls and voted for Georgia governor failed to cast a ballot in their state representative race.

If this sounds like minority rule, you would be correct. The reason, say reformers, is partisan gerrymandering which stifles competitive races, depresses voter turnout and turns a democratic majority into a representational minority.

New electoral districts will be drawn next year once data from the 2020 U.S. Census is made available to the states. Redistricting, mandated by Article 1, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution is "a brilliant idea that our founding fathers came up with," says Pat Bryd, executive director of FairDistricts GA. "They said the populations going to change. We want to have these districts and we want to adjust the size of those districts and base the number of districts on the census every 10 years. Its wonderful because it means when population has shifted, the representation can shift too."

State constitutions mimic the U.S. Constitution and carry out statewide redistricting on the same 10-year schedule.

The problem in Georgia is that the same people voted into office will draw lines that can guarantee they will stay in office.

In essence, redistricting is the political issue that underlies all political issues because it determines who votes for whom. When redistricting becomes gerrymandering, it enables politicians to pick their voters instead of voters picking their politicians.

"Why do we have politicians who think its OK to allow rural hospitals to close," Bryd asks. "Why do we have politicians who despise Medicaid? We have the politicians we have because districts were created to give them the power base they need."

Shining a light on an opaque process

Redistricting that becomes gerrymandering the drawing of lines to gain advantage for one party or candidate, or to deprive a specific group of voters of their rights distorts the one person/one vote system of democracy. Racial redistricting is illegal per the Voting Rights Act. Partisan redistricting is not.

"If you cannot have your elected officials reflect the public, if those two things are divorced from each other, then the elected officials are not going to do what the public wants and it doesn't matter how much they vote," says State Sen. Elena Parent (D-Dekalb Co.) , a long-time proponent of reform. "Thats totally divorced from what a democracy is supposed to be. It enables minority rule."

Assuming Republicans retain control of the Georgia House and Georgia Senate in the November elections, State Sen. Matt Brass (R-Newnan), chair of the Senate Redistricting Committee, and his House counterpart Rep. Bonnie Rich (R-Suwanee), will have several bright spotlights trained on them when they meet in special session to begin drawing new state electoral lines, probably sometime next August when the U.S. Census data becomes available. Their work must be complete by the time the General Assembly meets in 2022.

The first spotlight will be questions about the Census itself. The Commerce Department, which oversees the count, tried to add a question about citizenship when the Constitution mandates that everyone who resides in the country must be counted. An attempt to shorten the Census was struck down in court. Responses to the Census questionnaire have been lower than normal in the 60% to 70% range compared to 74% in the 2010 census due to the coronavirus.

The second spotlight will be Georgias history of gerrymandering. Georgia has repeatedly been reprimanded by the Department of Justice for gerrymandered districts. In 2001, the maps were so bad that the DOJ redrew them. The last maps drawn in 2011 were approved by then U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, "the first time in Georgia history since the Voting Rights Act that we not only had our maps approved but a new law was not created because they were so bad," says Sen. Brass.

Georgia, like other states, also periodically redraws lines between the 10-year census counts. In 2015, then Secretary of State Brian Kemp was sued in U.S. District Court for an attempt to gerrymander Districts 105 and 111. The General Assembly tabled the effort.

The third and final spotlight -- and potentially the brightest -- will be the more than $50 million raised by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) to fix what it terms a "broken system." The NDRC has endorsed 102 candidates who favor redistricting reform Marcus Thompson, a Democrat, running against Rep. Ron Stephens (R-Savannah) in District 164 among them and is targeting Georgia among 13 states.

The NDRC will spend $103,200 of their war chest in Georgia. Their hope is that Democrats will take control of the Georgia House depriving Republicans of the political trifecta: control of the House and the Senate as well as the governors office.

Reformers say that such an outcome will, at a minimum, improve the fairness and transparency of the redistricting process and might ultimately lead to passage of the Democracy Act. That act, proposed by the ACLU and supported by a coalition of 12 other nonpartisan organizations, would amend the Georgia Constitution to take redistricting out the hands of elected officials and create an independent commission.

Some form of the same reform has been enacted in 21 states. In those states, races tend to be more competitive. Candidates more accurately reflect the electorate with more people of color, more women and more candidates without access to large campaign donations.

Voter Turnout 2018 by savannahnow.com

Behind closed doors

Both those in charge of redistricting at the state level and those favoring reform toss the word transparency around as the key to everything that needs to change.

At present, House and Senate committees meet in special session, crunch numbers from the Census data, look at obvious geographic boundaries to ensure whats called contiguity and at less obvious but equally important community of interest groupings, then hold a series of public hearings around the state to develop districting maps. All of this is tacitly agreed to rather than legally binding.

The Transparency Act, proposed last year by Sen. Parent, mandated that public hearings would be held in each district, that they would be recorded and made available on a website. The adjournment of the General Assembly because of the coronavirus meant that the act never got a hearing. Now Sen. Brass has picked up one of the acts provisions and hopes to hold public hearings in all 180 House districts and 56 Senate districts in the state. He would prefer to hold them in person but, given time, distance and the likely persistence of the coronavirus, some or all may be virtual.

According to Sen. Parent, the supposedly public hearings held as part of the existing process are a "sham, for appearances only," while the redistricting process actually takes place behind closed doors in Atlanta. The crucial difference: The Transparency Act would set a standard that is legally binding. Such legal mandates would be an important first step to improving the process, say reformers. Parent, who was gerrymandered out of her House seat in 2012, intends to pre-file the act in mid-November.

"Their goal in 2011 was to draw maps that gave them a two-thirds supermajority in all chambers," Parent said. "We have districts in Georgia that are one precinct wide and four miles long. Decatur is split into four districts. Statesboro is three. Athens is split in half. Their excuse is that means more representatives fighting for a communitys interest. What it really amounts to is an effort to create majority-minority districts."

With the Transparency Act, Parent was looking for what she calls "a smaller lift," something that would improve the process but be easier to pass than a constitutional amendment.

The Georgia constitution is vague on the subject of redistricting, Byrd says. "It doesn't exist. That's pretty vague. The Georgia Constitution section on redistricting includes only the contiguity section." The North Carolina constitution, by contrast, contains a section guaranteeing free and open elections. Georgias says nothing.

The Georgia Constitution has five sentences about voting rights and redistricting. It has 68 pages on the lottery.

Incremental reforms like the Transparency Act may be the best courseindeed the only courseopen to reformers in the face of politically entrenched opposition.

For Sen. Brass, reforming the system would consist of, first, greater transparency. "To me in today's day and age with technology, theres really no excuse for this not to be the most transparent redistricting weve ever had," he says. "I don't mean that just for our state, I mean nationwide. Theres literally no excuse."

Second, he wants a certain percentage of each body to approve the maps. "You couldn't pass your maps with 91 votes," he says. "We might put it at 66%, 67%, something like that. That would be a good step."

Finally, hed prefer that the state resort to mid-year or mid-decade map changes only under specific circumstances. "I don't think you can ban it outright," he says, "but they would be outliers."

Public outcry

Given that so many candidates will run unopposed in 2020, voters will be given little voice in determining reform vs. the status quo. What they can do, Bryd says, is pay attention. The successful challenge to Kemps attempt to gerrymander two districts in 2015 resulted from a "public outcry" of letter writing, phone calls and testimony from nonpartisan voting rights organizations.

The sad fact is, regardless of who is elected, without an independent commission on redistricting, the party in power will likely try to continue to game the system.

Republicans and Democrats are equally guilty of partisan gerrymandering. The party in power wants to remain in power so there is a strong temptation to draw district lines that ensure that will happen. In 1971, Democrat Andrew Young was drawn out of a Congressional seat by a Republican Redistricting Committee. In 1991, Democrats returned the favor by gerrymandering Rep. Newt Gingrich out of office.

Voters struggle to connect the dots between redistricting and issues that matter to them. According to Parent, however, "redistricting touches every single issue."

Redistricting and its evil twin gerrymandering are complicated, a combination of data crunching and geography. That keeps voters from realizing how important they are. Without knowing why, they begin to feel that their vote makes no difference. Voters should care, however, says Brass, "mainly because you want your vote to matter. If the lines are drawn egregiously as we saw in 2001, when they're drawn that badly and you've got voters packed into one district, you're drowning out a lot of other voices."

Originally posted here:
Viewpoints: Redistricting the biggest political issue no one thinks about - Savannah Morning News

On Sept. 29, AL DA hosted a RoundTable discussion sponsored by Pennsylvania AARP all about voter engagement among the 50+ population and its role in determining the outcome of the 2020 election.

The panel, which included Uva Coles, founder and CEO of Inclusiva, Joanne Grossi, president of AARP Pennsylvania, Victor Negrn Jr., vice president of public affairs and marketing at Amerihealth Caritas, and Will Gonzalez, executive director of Ceiba, dove into the issues of 50+ voters this election cycle, their importance to its outcome, and some of the pitfalls around participation in 2020.

50+ Voter Issues

When it comes to issues, an AARP Pennsylvania study from Sept. 15 found that 50+ voters want their Medicare and social security, lower drug prices and protections for people in nursing homes.

Grossi added that no matter the political affiliation, these issues stood out at the top.

It was resounding, she said.

For Gonzalez, the issues are personal.

Wheres my social security that I paid so many years for? Wheres my retirement benefits? Hows my government going to serve when Im in a nursing home? he said.

But beyond the issues, 50+ voters are also the age demographic that has the highest voter turnout and is the population that has been the deciding factor in past elections.

Gonzalez pins that high participation on the history many older voters have experienced involving voter suppression, both legally and illegally.

The older citizen saw when it was almost illegal for us to vote, he said.

They remember the fight it took to get the right to vote and have a voice, and thats not taken lightly.

We are the core voter, said Negrn.

However, he also said that over the past decade, theres been a reduction in voter turnout among the 50+ population. According to a Pew study of voter turnout following the 2016 presidential election, the rate of participation had dropped almost four points between 2008 and 2016 for individuals between the ages of 45 and 64.

Negrn said it doesnt compare to the drops seen in other, younger age groups, but its still a warning of the apathy that is growing around the nation when it comes to the civic duty.

Mentors of younger voters

That apathy runs the risk of not only affecting the 50+ voter population, but often as mentors to younger voters, their overall participation is also further in question.

Coles called voting a generational gift. That means not only are 50+ voters voting for themselves, but the future they want for their children and young family members.

This is how you have an opportunity to inform that future, she said.

When it comes to Black and Latinx 50+ voters in 2020, Coles said to remember the moment.

While every presidential election year is often dubbed the most important in our lifetime, 2020 has been particularly unforgiving with the COVID-19 pandemic and civil unrest.

It has affected everyone no matter their race, religion or political leaning, and many of the most popular overarching issues of the total 50+ population are only driven further home by the disproportionate effects on Black and Latinx populations.

There are the same overarching issues, said Coles.

An issue of mechanics

Another issue that has surfaced thanks to 2020s events is a number of worries about the actual process of voting before or on Nov. 3.

If youre a voter and you want your vote to count, you have to pay attention to the details, said Negrn.

In addition to voting in person, which will be scaled back, voters can also vote by mail, and there will be both dropboxes for mail-in ballots and satellite offices offering voter registration, handling requests absentee ballots and allowing submission of ballots.

For mail-in voting, Gonzalez shared a video put together by Ceiba that broke down all the mechanics of the process.

If voting by mail in Pennsylvania, voters will receive two envelopes for their ballot. One is a secret envelope that ones ballot goes in before being placed inside a larger one that is then signed by the voter.

The mail-in ballots must be filled out in blue or black ink, and the outer envelope does not need a postage stamp.

However, given all the hoops presented, a majority of 50+ voters will instead be voting in person on Nov. 3, according to AARP Pennsylvania data.

Have a plan

But even on that front, voting in 2020 will be very different. Much like former Attorney General Eric Holder told AL DA back on Sept. 15, the panelists stressed the importance of having a plan when going to vote this Election Day.

As part of the plan, voters should not wait and vote as early as possible, while also planning to wait once they arrive at the polling place.

That is especially true for voters of color, where faulty equipment and long waits are often used as tactics of voter suppression, and could be used amid COVID-19, where tensions are at an all-time high.

Voter suppression is real, said Coles. Voter suppression in this moment has been amplified.

To help develop a plan, much like it is the elder populations job to introduce young people to the process of democracy, it is up to young people to make sure the elder population follows through with the plan.

It harkens back to her previously mentioned multi-generational approach to voting.

We have a responsibility and we have to have a plan along with that responsibility, she said.

Pennsylvanias voter registration deadline is Oct. 19.

For more information on voting, go to votespa.com or call 1-877-VOTESPA.

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The power of 50+ voters in 2020 and what they mean to the future of the U.S. - AL DIA News

The Biden campaign has brought in an army of lawyers, including former President Barack ObamasAttorney General Eric Holder, in anticipation of a brawl in the courts with the Trump campaign over the unique challenges that voting in 2020 entails.

The New York Times reported on Monday that hundreds of lawyersincluding Holder, two U.S. solicitors general from the Clinton and Obama presidencies, the former general counsel for Obamas campaigns and the DNC law firm Perkins Coie that has been on the front lines of various voting-related caseshave joined Joe Bidens so-called special litigation unit.

Its unclear what truly lies ahead in the debut season of Law & Order: Special Litigation Unit, but based on what we have seen so far we can surmise that Trump campaign challenges to vote-by-mail expansion and vote counting methodology will be a feature rather than a bug. The Trump campaign has filed suit in multiple states over vote-by-mail expansion, which, it says,invites fraud to benefit the Biden campaign. But vote-by-mail itself is far from the only issue that may arise in the coming weeks and months.

A federal judge in Georgia recently gave voters extra time to return absentee ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, reasoning that the risk of disenfranchisement is great. Expect this, and any other extensions of time like it, to be challenged in court.

Then there is the issue of the election itself and the rhetoric surrounding its legitimacy.

The Trump campaign and Attorney General Bill Barr have argued against universal mail-in voting, saying that logic suggests the vote could be manipulated both domestically and by foreign bad actors. Barr even cited a false example of ballot fraud on CNN to make his case. The Biden campaign may argue, on the other hand, that the Trump campaign is sowing distrust in the legitimacy and accuracy of the eventual 2020 election both in order to suppress the vote and as a pretext to any potential challenge over which votes should and should not be counted. Will we see a 2020 version of the Brooks Brothers Riot?

The DOJ has stepped in, in at least one instance, to support Alabamas witness requirements for absentee ballots. On the other side, there have been multiple lawsuits over the changes made at the Post Office in the lead-up to the election.

We have even seen Kanye West booted from state ballots after challenges led by Perkins Coie and Mark Elias, one of the lawyers working for the Biden campaign.

It is against this bizarre backdrop that Bidens campaign has ramped up its legal operation, which Dana Remus is heading. Remus is a Yale-educated lawyer, law professor and general counsel at the Obama foundation. Obama was actually the officiant at Remuss wedding.

Remus told the Times that the goal for 2020 is to have a free and fair election with results that can be trusted. Former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer, a senior adviser on the campaign,said that the Biden legal team, due to the unique challenges of this year, will be far more sophisticated and resourced than other campaigns.

To the end, the campaign has added Obama-era U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. and Bill Clinton-era acting U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, along with hundreds of other lawyers,to the fold. The Times described Eric Holders involvement as something of a liaison between the campaign and the many independent groups involved in the legal fight over the election, which is already raging in the courts.

[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

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Biden Brings in Hundreds of LawyersBig Names Among Themin Anticipation of Unique Election Legal Battles - Law & Crime