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A litigious conservative activist in Houston, the Harris County Republican party, and a number of Republican officials and candidates are asking the Texas Supreme Court to limit in-person and absentee voting options for Harris County voters during the pandemic.

The county, the states most populous and a major Democratic stronghold, began letting voters drop off absentee ballots Monday for the Nov. 3 general election at 11 annexes. In line with a directive from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, the county also intends to begin in-person early voting Oct. 13.

Commonly asked questions about voting in the state.

The deadline to register to vote in the 2020 general election is Oct. 5. Check if youre registered to vote here. If not, youll need to fill out and submit an application, which you can request here or download here.

Early voting for the 2020 general election runs from Oct. 13 to Oct. 30. Voters can cast ballots at any polling location in the county where they are registered to vote during early voting. Election Day is Nov. 3.

In general, polling locations will have guidelines in place for social distancing and regular cleaning. Several counties will offer ballot marking devices so voters avoid contact with election equipment. Poll workers will likely be wearing face masks and other protective equipment, but masks will not be required for voters.

Texas is one of just a few states that hasnt opened up mail-in voting to any voter concerned about getting COVID-19 at a polling place. You can find eligibility requirements and review other questions about voting by mail here.

Not always. Youll want to check for open polling locations with your local elections office before you head out to vote. Additionally, you can confirm with your county elections office whether Election Day voting is restricted to locations in your designated precinct or if you can cast a ballot at any polling place.

Yes. If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or are exhibiting symptoms, consider requesting an emergency mail-in ballot or using curbside voting. Contact your county elections office for more details about both options.

Have you run into hurdles or problems while trying to vote in Texas? We want your help in reporting on those challenges. Tell us your voting story.

Prominent activist Steve Hotze, as well as Wendell Champion, a Republican candidate for Congress; Sharon Hemphill, a Republican candidate for judge; and the local GOP chair, are suing to stop that, arguing Harris County Clerk Chris Hollins is overreaching the bounds of state election law. Theyre asking the states highest civil court to order Harris County to not begin early voting until Oct. 19 the date set by state law that Abbott extended by executive order, citing safety concerns and not accept absentee ballots delivered in person until Nov. 3.

A longtime culture warrior on the right, Hotze has gone to court a number of times to challenge Abbott, Hollins and other elected officials over coronavirus-related restrictions and lately over election procedures with minimal success so far. An opponent of same-sex marriage, Hotze was a key figure in the Legislatures 2017 fight over a bathroom bill that would have limited transgender Texans access to public facilities. He called Abbotts staff earlier this year to ask that law enforcement shoot to kill rioters protesting after the police killing of George Floyd.

The new case comes less than a week after Hotze, along with a number of other top Republicans, challenged the governor for extending early voting in response to ongoing health concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. That case is pending before the Texas Supreme Court.

The conservative plaintiffs also argue that state law does not allow Hollins to permit voters to drop off their ballots at the 11 sites, a strategy they claim creates an opportunity ripe for fraud.

According to the Harris County clerks website, voters who complete absentee ballots may drop them off at any of 11 locations during specified hours, including 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. during the early voting period and on Election Day. Voters can deliver only their own ballots in person, and when they do they must present identification.

Hollins office did not immediately return a request for comment.

Republicans across the country, including leaders in Texas, have sought to cast doubt on the security of absentee ballots skepticism experts say is not merited. There are documented cases of voter fraud in Texas, but with absentee ballots, as overall, it is rare.

Texas is one of just a few states that have not allowed for no-excuse absentee ballots during the pandemic. Texans can vote by mail only if they are over 65, out of their home county, confined in jail, or cite a disability or illness. But the question of who qualifies as disabled has become politicized and intensely litigated as the political parties fight for advantage in an election thats expected to be competitive in Texas. The Trump campaign has encouraged its voters to request absentee ballots, even as the president claims without evidence that it will lead to fraud.

The legal filing also includes allegations, without specific evidence, that a number of prominent Democrats in the Houston area are engaged in ballot harvesting. Quoting two brief affidavits from two men who say they are private investigators and former law enforcement officials, the Republican plaintiffs accuse a host of local Democratic operatives, including elected officials, of harvesting votes from people who are homeless or elderly. The filing provides no evidence to support these claims beyond hearsay claims from unnamed witnesses.

The plaintiffs lawyer, Jared Woodfill, did not respond to a request to make the two men who are referred to as investigators throughout the filing available for interviews about their methods or findings.

State Sen. Borris Miles, a Houston Democrat who is accused of the vote-harvesting scheme, called the allegations false and ludicrous, noting he has never met either of the two men who claim to have inside knowledge of the alleged plot.

Miles said he has always encouraged mail-in voting, especially for voters who are senior citizens, but has never and would never engage in ballot harvesting or any efforts to collect absentee ballots. The allegation is Republican opposition work, he said.

I dont do that, I dont have a team that does that, and Ive never had somebody elses mail ballot in my hands, Miles said.

Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis, another Democratic politician accused of ballot harvesting, denied the accusations as well.

"Im not surprised that Trump, Hotze and others are using all the dirty voter suppression tricks they can to undermine our elections and democratic process," Ellis said. "Im proud our County Clerk is working to ensure Harris County voters have the opportunity to vote safely and securely during this global pandemic, despite these partisan attacks."

Continued here:
Houston Republicans sue to limit in-person, absentee voting options - The Texas Tribune

In communities across Texas that are increasingly competitive between the two major parties, down-ballot Republican candidates face an unusual challenge this year.

Winning and losing presidential candidates such as George W. Bush, Mitt Romney and John McCain have long helped, or at least had a negligible impact on, other Republican candidates, such as those running for the state Legislature. Legislative candidates win or lose on their own, but its always a plus to have a candidate atop the ticket with strong appeal to Republicans and persuadable independents.

Thats not the case this year. Republican legislative candidates are facing headwinds instead of riding coattails. In the most reliably Republican communities, especially in rural parts of the state, Republicans are likely to keep winning up and down the ballot. But in Texas and across the country, suburban and urban areas have moved away from the Republican Party over the last four years and these are the types of communities where Republican dominance in Texas was built.

Down-ballot candidates cannot control what happens in a national campaign but in priorities and temperament, they can distinguish themselves. Republicans can maintain an advantage in Texas by demonstrating a focus on local concerns and a commitment to solving the issues that keep their neighbors up at night.

Those issues begin with COVID-19, and they are plentiful: How will schools help students make up for months spent out of the classroom, and how can legislators continue to make the meaningful investments in public education included in 2019s House Bill 3 school finance legislation? How do we address the challenges to our mental health system that the pandemic and economic recession have made more acute? How can small businesses get back on their feet? And how can the Legislature, without making the states looming budget shortfall even worse, help approximately 659,000 Texans who, between February and May, were added to the ranks of Texans without health insurance?

2020 Voter Guide: A roadmap of the races, candidates and issues on the ballot

Republican candidates for the Legislature need to proactively address each of these worries. It would also be advisable to separate themselves from the tone and tenor of the national campaign. Republican candidates can advocate free-market, pro-business principles with more credibility and optimism than Washington offers. After all, many voters in Republican areas have moved away from the party because of doubts about this president more than doubts about the core tenets the party was built upon.

A Republican Texas congressman recently told a Politico correspondent: Its no secret that in the suburbs, and especially among women, theyre turned off by Donald Trump. Does this mean theyre turned off by Republicans? Does it mean theyre not center-right voters anymore? No, not necessarily. Not at all, actually.

Given the crises we are facing this year, voters should be looking for thoughtful, solutions-oriented candidates who are willing to build consensus and cross aisles when necessary, and govern responsibly for Texas. Its worth remembering that as of Mondays court ruling, this is the first year that Texans cannot just punch one ticket and automatically vote for every candidate in a party up and down the ballot. Voters will need to evaluate each race separately, all the way down a lengthy ballot.

Its never easy for a candidate to separate from the top of the ticket. But it can be done, and Republicans have to do it to save the partys majority in the Texas House. Down-ballot Republicans should embrace that opportunity, zero in on local concerns, and distinguish themselves from the national campaign.

Republican Joe Straus of San Antonio served as Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives from 2009 to 2019. He is chairman of Texas Forever Forward.

Link:
Straus: Election will reward Republicans who set their own tone - San Antonio Express-News

I have been a Republican for decades.

I was raised and educated in the rural South in the early 1940s. As a Jew, I was beaten up in schoolyards because of my religion. Another thing that set me apart from many of my fellow Long Island Republicans: My father was an outspoken Republican who idolized President Abraham Lincoln and wore a "Win With Willkie" button.

I was educated at a segregated university with strict quotas: 20 Jews a year and no Negroes or women. After my discharge from the Army in 1954, I moved to New York and joined the then-flourishing Nassau County Republican Party. Its euphoria lasted until A. Holly Patterson announced he would not run again for county executive and proposed Robert W. Dill to run in his place in the 1961 election.

Since President John F. Kennedy in 1962 had proposed legislation to end housing discrimination, Dill felt he had a campaign issue: Fear. The Nassau GOP chose to support Dills call to fight "those who would do us harm." He called Democrats "pigs." So then-Democratic Party Chairman John English populated Dills rallies with people in pig masks. Our campaign started sounding like an infantile warning of "an invasion of the suburbs by people we dont want as our neighbors." Despite a 2-1 Republican enrollment margin, Democrat Eugene H. Nickerson won. For the first time, Nassau County would be governed by Democrats.

In 1964, I watched as Republicans booed Nelson Rockefeller off the convention stage while he attempted to denounce extremism and racial injustice. New Yorks proposed platforms, endorsing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and denouncing extremism, were voted down. Sen. Barry Goldwater was our nominee. His campaign appealed to our tribal prejudices. He took up the "law and order" mantle, but he carried only his home state of Arizona and five Southern states. In Nassau, his appeal to suburban fear did not work. President Lyndon Johnson carried Nassau, and Democrats gained control of our congressional delegation and made inroads into our state legislative delegation. Joe Carlino, our Republican county chairman and speaker of the Assembly, was defeated.

This year, we have seen protesting, looting and arson in several U.S. cities. They are not nearly as violent as the "long hot summer" of 1967. In that troubled year, Ralph Caso, the presiding supervisor of Hempstead Town, should have run against Nickerson. When Caso refused, the party nominated me.

Nickerson had won in 1964 by some 90,000 votes. The GOP pollsters told us that 80% of Nassau residents were opposed to school busing, and that Democrats could be beaten if we played the race card. Both Ed Speno, the Nassau Republican chairman, and I refused. We were determined to win by promising budget reforms, espousing Republican principles of limited government and planning for Nassaus future. I lost that election, but the Nassau GOP defeated Democratic incumbents in all other races and preserved the credibility of our party.

Go inside New York politics.

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Republicans believe in the Constitution, and reject authoritarian takeover of the government. The driving force of authoritarianism is fear fear of the other, fear of economic insecurity, fear of being subjected to foreign ideas, fear of having our way of life destroyed.

I know party discipline requires endorsing President Donald Trump. I also know he counts on the suburban vote to win reelection. But he is pursuing a dangerous path by stoking racism and fear. Not only will this be anathema to Long Island voters, but those candidates who embrace this approach will do themselves and this nation a grievous disservice and they will probably lose.

Sol Wachtler, a former chief judge of New York State, is a distinguished adjunct professor at Touro Law School.

Go here to read the rest:
Long Island Republicans have been here before - Newsday

COLUMBUS, Ohio The Ohio Republican Party has pulled an ad that falsely attacked state Rep. Phil Robinson for being sued over an unpaid debt from 1999 after Robinson pointed out the lawsuit actually involved a different person with the same name.

The ad launched on Facebook on Friday, according to the social media sites political ad tracker. Along with a picture of Robinson, a Democrat from Solon elected in 2018, it read Phil Robinson cant manage his own finances Can we trust him with ours?

It included a link to a website thats since been taken down. But the site showed information about a 1999 case filed in Cleveland Municipal Court against someone named Phil Robinson.

An Ohio Republican Party ad attacking state Rep. Phil Robinson. The attack is false -- it references a lawsuit involving a different person named Phil Robinson.

It was a different Phil Robinson.

Robinson, the state representative, said he was 18, had just graduated high school and didnt even have a credit card when the lawsuit was filed. Even if it was him, he said its bad form to attack someone over financial issues during the current tough economic times. After noticing it on Saturday, he issued a press release calling on the state GOP to apologize and take it down. He said he hasnt heard from anyone, although he noticed the ads were removed.

They didnt even do the research. They were trying to use that to score cheap political points, and its really defamation of character, Robinson said in an interview.

Evan Machan, a spokesman for the Ohio Republican Party, said research for the ad was performed by an outside firm. He acknowledged the lawsuit was filed against a different person.

Upon finding this out, we directed our digital vendor to immediately take down the ads, he said.

Shay Hawkins, the Republican candidate challenging Robinson in the November election, said he learned about the ad when someone at the Ohio GOP called him to apologize for what had happened.

He said if anything, he would have attacked Robinson over another issue.

I wouldnt attack him on a supposed debt from 20 years ago. That wouldnt be something I would even think to do, or that I would even support doing, Hawkins said.

The race for Ohios 6th House District includes Brecksville, Broadview Heights, Chagrin Falls, Independence, Mayfield and Solon, and is among this years key races in the suburbs, a battleground given President Donald Trumps relative weakness in these normally Republican-leaning districts.

Robinson, executive with the nonprofit City Year Inc., became the first Democrat to be elected to represent the district in decades in 2018.

His opponent, Hawkins, is a lawyer and former congressional aide, most recently working for Republican South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott.

The recent arrest of Republican former Ohio House Speaker Larry Householder has become an issue in the race. Robinson was among the Democrats who helped elect Householder speaker, choosing him over a rival candidate and helping break a Republican stalemate. Democratic legislators have defended the deal, saying they chose the best of two bad options that gave them a greater seat at the table in Columbus.

But Robinson also voted against House Bill 6, Householders signature piece of legislation that, federal prosecutors have alleged in charging documents, Householder agreed to pass in exchange for $60 million in bribes, in the form of political spending from FirstEnergy and its affiliates.

Hawkins has attacked Robinson for accepting $1,000 from FirstEnergys PAC, which Robinson donated to charity in July.

And the Ohio Democratic Party, trying to tie the scandal to all Republican candidates, in a recent mailer attacked Hawkins over the Householder scandal, even though Hawkins wasnt in office when Householder was elected.

Excerpt from:
Ohio Republican Party pulls attack ad after realizing it attacked the wrong person - cleveland.com

Four years ago, Jacob Abel cast his first presidential vote for Donald Trump. As a young conservative from Concord, North Carolina, the choice felt natural.

But this November, he plans to cast a "protest vote" for a write-in candidate or abstain from casting a ballot for president. A determining factor in his 180-degree turn? Climate change.

Climate didn't become a voting issue for Abel until months after the 2016 election. As a college freshman at Seton Hall University, he found himself increasingly frustrated by lackluster Republican responses to an issue nowleadingmillions to march in the streets.

Abel felt that his party's future, like that of his generation, depended upon it addressing climate change with the appropriate urgency.

While his progressive counterparts helped propel a "Squad" of climate leaders into Congress, Abel advocated for market-driven climate solutions like carbon pricing as a spokesperson for republicEn, a right-leaning climate advocacy organization.

"The Green New Deal was actually a big catalyst for a lot of young Republicans coming forward and pushing for serious Republican solutions" on climate change, said Abel.

Momentum on the left stirred new conversations on the right, as young conservatives banded together in hopes of sustaining both their party and the planet. Their cries for climate action helpedopen older Republicans' eyes to the risk of losing young voters, and a seat at the table in future climate policymaking, if the GOP didn't change its tune.

"Over the next 10 years," Abel said, he "wants to see Republicans come together with Democrats to come to a realistic solution," along with Republicans proposing "more and more solutions" of their own, including around what Abel considers a critical "middle ground" measure to advance decarbonizationcarbon pricing.

"Because we're still kind of relatively new to actually taking this topic seriously and proposing policy," said Abel of the GOP, "I think our policy response could be more robust and more detailed."

Only a decade ago, Abel's story might have been a novelty. Now, it's commonplace. Fromragingwildfires on the West Coast to Hurricane Sally's massivefloodingin the South, climate disasters are politicizing young people across the ideological spectrum who have experienced them first hand.

Younger Republicans are much more engaged with climate change than their parents and grandparents, said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The program's researchshowsyoung Republicans are more likely than older ones to believe in human-caused global warming and to support climate action.

Frustrated by party leadership that doesn'trepresenttheir call for urgent climate action and public discourse that discounts their views, young Republicans also seem more willing to pose their own climate solutions. They don't want to see a World War II-style mobilization; they want pragmatic proposals advancing private sector innovation.

The 2020 presidential election poses a critical test of climate conservatives' willingness to put their environmental concerns before party politics. While some young Republicans who prioritize the issue of climate change remain loyal to Trump and others turn to Biden, a growing number like Abel are not supporting either candidate.

GivenTrump's thin margin of victory in 2016, young conservatives who choose not to vote for either major presidential candidate may help Biden just as much as those who vote for him over Trump, Leiserowtiz said, depending on the state they vote in. Millennials and Gen Zers willcomprise37 percent of eligible voters in November, which gives them vast electoral influence, if they vote.

If youth show up in force to oust Trump from office, their votes could provide a "powerful warning sign" for the GOP, Leiserowtiz said. It would affirm that for Republicans to win the youth vote and have a path to the White House moving forward, they must embrace climate action now.

While young conservatives have united around the urgency of climate change, they remain divided over how to bring their concerns to the ballot box. Some embrace right-wingattackspainting Biden as a "tool of the left" and find his climate agenda "radical." Others can't find a way to justify voting for Trump, even if it means breaking with their party.

Patrick Mann from Orange County, California, voted for Trump in 2016. But today, he's leading Aggies for Joe at Texas A&M University and is co-founder of Texas Students for Biden.

Mann grew up watching wildfires ravage his home state, nearly forcing his family to evacuate in 2017. The GOP is failing to "meet the moment" for climate action, Mann said. He's hoping Biden will deliver on a promise to "restore the soul of our nation."

Taylor Walker from Pensacola, Florida, is also determined to make her voice heard on climate, including by casting her first-ever vote for presidentbut not for Biden.

Walker, a statewide campus coordinator for the conservative environmental advocacy group American Conservation Coalition, felt compelled to act on climate change after seeing thelasting environmental and economic damagethe 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico wreaked on her home state. As a practicing Christian, Walker feels a "responsibility from God to steward the environment," which means fighting climate change while protecting industry.

She lauded Trump'ssupportof Ron DeSantis' run for Florida Governor in 2018. Walker appreciated DeSantis'ambitious environmental visionand said he "passed quite a few green initiatives in the first few months of his term." The governor's environmentalrecordsince has been controversial, with DeSantis earning dismal ratings from the Sierra Club andLeague of Conservation Voters.

Walker also praised Trump'srecentcommitment to banning offshore drilling on the state's coasts, which came two years after heproposedvastly expanding oil and gas drilling in U.S. continental waters. The move "shows a good faith investment" in finding clean energy alternatives, Walker said.

Walker said she'd examine both major presidential candidates' platforms and records on climate policy up until Election Day, but she doesn't think there's much, if anything, the Biden campaign could do that would convince her to swing left. If Trump can help pivot the GOP in greener directions, she said, "then more power to him."

Young climate conservatives may fear climate denial and delayed climate action, but more than that, they fear the growing political momentum around the Green New Deal, the massive spending it entails andBiden's citing of itas a "crucial framing for meeting the climate challenges we face."

Many don't want to split with their party to support a Democrat whoseallegedly bipartisan intentionsthey doubt. If stymieing what they consider a radical green agenda means re-electing a climate change denying president, so be it.

"I'm scared of climate change, but I'm also scared of the Green New Deal and what it means for America," said Ben Mutolo, a republicEN spokesperson and junior at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Mutolo felt encouraged by former Ohio Governor John Kasich'sappearanceat the Democratic National Convention, but he still struggles to see himself voting for Biden. Though the candidate paints himself as acentrist,Mutolo believes he's "cozying up to the ultra-progressive left."

Mutolo, who wants to see market-based climate solutions like a carbon tax, feels torn between a candidate whose climate plan relies on taking an "All-of-Government approach," and one with no efforts to reign in global warming at all.

Leiserowitz said he appreciated how a conservative might feel Biden's climate plan "doesn't jive with their limited government, free-market approach."

But he sees a strong distinction between voting for a presidential candidate with a$2 trillion climate planthat includes large renewable energy investments, which havebipartisan support, and a candidate trying "to take the country in the opposite direction, towards more fossil fuels."

Equating the two seems "hard to square rationally," said Leiserowtiz. But most people don't vote rationally. Researchshowsthey vote based on their social and political identities, not policy positions, and areinfluencedby messaging from their social circles.

As someone ready to talk climate solutions, rather than debate science, Mann, the Texas A&M student, has struggled to connect with Republican peers supporting Trump. He believes that people concerned about climate change have a moral imperative to support Biden. "Voting for someone who took us out of the Paris Agreement, you're not going to get progress on climate change," said Mann. "Trump is not making America a leader on this."

Given the vast threat posed by climate change, Mann said, a vote withheld from Biden is just as problematic as a vote for Trump.

Mann knows he can't change people's minds, but that won't stop him from trying. "All I can do is plant ideas in their mind of why it's important" to elect Biden now and put climate leaders into office beyond this November, he said. "Hopefully, those grow."

While some young climate conservatives like Mann are engaging their peers in discussions about the presidential election, others like Walker are more concerned with raising awareness of market-driven climate solutions or getting out the vote for local and Congressional races.

Whatever their course of action, the chance to help shape climate policy for a critical next four to eight years isn't lost on any of these young climate conservatives. How they cast their ballots, and in what numbers, may solidify for the right a reality already made clear on the leftpolitical survival now goes hand in hand with efforts to stabilize the climate and invest in the futures of today's youth and those of generations to come.

This story originally appeared inInside Climate Newsand is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

View original post here:
Young Republican Climate Activists Split over How to Get Their Voices Heard in November's Election - Scientific American