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Representatives of a tax-recall petition committee responded Friday to allegations in Jefferson County circuit court that organizers altered voter information to help the petition gain certification by the Jefferson county clerks office. Judge Brian Edwards decision will determine whether votes cast on tax-levy question will be counted.

Organizers of the tax-recall petition do not deny they altered names, addresses and birthdates entered on an online petition to recall a 9.5% property tax increase. Organizer and Louisville Tea Party president Theresa Camoriano says she was just trying to clean up data signers had entered through a website, fixing typos and making sure all necessary info was there.

People had a hard time, Camoriano told attorneys during her deposition.

Camoriano said she used a Republican Party database to fill out missing information, or sometimes change information. She said she got the database log-in from Rep. Jason Nemes (R-Louisville), who has been endorsed by the Jefferson County Teachers Association (JCTA).

Petitioner and Louisville Tea Party member Michael Schneider, who helped develop the website, said the group of tax-opponents anticipated challenges with an online platform.

We realized that a good portion of our Tea Party group is elderly, Schneider told the court Friday. So, we tried very carefully to make it as user friendly as possible so that older folks wouldnt have trouble entering their information.

But they did have trouble, Schneider said, especially since there were a number of quirks with the website. At first, Schneider said, the field for birthdate required voters to use the European format, with the day of the month first. Then they changed it to a drop-down menu, which Schneider said created more problems.

Asked if he was uncomfortable with Camoriano changing the data voters entered, Schneider said no.

Im comfortable with that. I think the main thing was to just identify that the person was a voter and intended to sign the petition, he said.

Camoriano said she did not always reach out individually when she altered voters entries.

Jim Sprigler, a web developer hired by JCTA, found 1,110 instances in which it appeared committee members had altered the original data voters entered into the website. Attorneys for the teachers union have said its possible that voters were signed up by others, who knew their name and address, or even name and block. JCTA says they have contacted 12 people whose names were on the petition without their knowledge.

Schneider maintained he was not comfortable with Camorianos decision to add voters signatures to the website who had submitted her written requests to do so. Camoriano said she only did this a handful of times.

Camoriano also admitted to adding an alternate address and birth date for at least one person who signed the handwritten version of the petition.

Finally, according to her deposition and emails provided to the court, Camoriano encouraged hundreds of voters to sign the petition a second time in order to make sure they entered all necessary information.

We have discovered a problem with your entry on the petition that will prevent it from being counted. We are sending this notice to ask you to re-submit your entry on the petition at https://nojcpstaxhike1.com/sign-the-petition/ to be sure that your signature counts, she wrote in a mass email.

Rest assured, we will delete duplicate signatures before we submit the petition to the Jefferson County Clerk, the email reads.

Camoriano told attorneys she tried very hard to get rid of duplicates, throwing out thousands of signatures. But Sprigler found at least 928 duplicates in the signatures that were accepted by the county clerk. That does not include duplicates that were found by the county clerk.

An attorney for the petitioners, Dana Howard, has called into question whether some of the alterations Sprigler identified were truly alterations made by the committee. She found one entry where the change in some unusual characters used in a name could have been caused by importing the data from one program into another.

Petitioners and the teachers union offered competing calculations as to how many signatures are valid, should the court decide to throw out those with errors and alterations. Petitioners needed 35,517 signatures certified by the county clerks office to put the tax question on the ballot. They submitted around 40,000, and the clerk certified 38,507, putting them above the threshold needed.

However, the clerks office accepted 2,376 signatures in which deputy clerks found errors, including wrong birthdays or addresses. It is not clear why the clerks office accepted some of these errors, and not others. The clerks office had about 20 different deputy clerks going through different pages of the signatures, and were supposed to be following certain uniform guidelines, according to depositions with Jefferson County Clerk Government Affairs Executive Frank Friday.

Attorneys for the teachers union argue those 2,376 should be thrown out, along with the other errors and altered signatures identified in Spriglers analysis. That would leave petitioners with 33,196 not enough signatures for a ballot measure. Attorneys offered the following visual:

Attorneys for the JCTA offered this visual showing the signatures they believe should be thrown out.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the petitioners have their own math. Howard said the starting point should be the total signatures the clerk certified, including those with errors. They argue that even if duplicates and unregistered voters identified by Sprigler were thrown out, petitioners would still have 36,356 signatures, which exceeds the threshold. Howards math however, left in records with erroneous birthdates, addresses and some duplicates identified by Sprigler. She presented the following chart:

An attorney for the petitioners says there are still enough signatures if some of the signatures with errors or alterations are thrown out.

WFPL News also did an analysis, using data provided by attorneys for JCTA. We subtracted all of the errors, duplicates and altered records found by Sprigler from the total number of signatures certified by the county clerks office. We left in the 2,376 errors the clerk found and certified anyway. Heres what we got:

38,507 total signatures certified by the clerk

-192 unregistered signers

-928 duplicates

-1,312 birth date errors

-1,110 altered electronic entries

-75 altered handwritten entries

_________________________________

34,008

Thats 1,509 signatures below the threshold needed to put the referendum on the ballot.

The judge says hell issue a ruling by the end of next week. His decision will determine whether votes cast on the tax levy question will be counted.

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Tax-Recall Petitioners Respond To Allegations They Altered Voter Information - 89.3 WFPL News Louisville

In the 2016 presidential election, more than 5% of voters nationwide voted for a third-party or write-in candidate a 20-year high while 4.5% of Connecticut voters did so.

But polling data suggests, and political scientists agree, that the share will be lower this election. In late August, NBC News reported that among 215 voters interviewed who said they backed Gary Johnson or Jill Stein in 2016, 47%said they'revoting for Joe Biden and 20% for Donald Trump.

Based on surveys of 359 likely voters conducted Oct. 16-18, Morning Consult found that 53% of those who didn't vote for Trump or Hillary Clinton in 2016 said they're backing Biden this year while 21% are supporting Trump.

Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins isn't even on the ballot in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, two states where Stein received more votes in 2016 than the margin of victory Trump held over Clinton. Hawkins and Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen haven't raised nearly as much money as their 2016 counterparts.

In southeastern Connecticut, some Green Party supporters are voting for Biden for president but Green Party candidate Cassandra Martineau in the 2nd Congressional District, while some libertarians are moving in the opposite direction of the aforementioned surveys, shifting from a Trump or Clinton vote in 2016 to a vote for Jorgensen this year.

Green Party supporters want more climate action, less reliance on defense spending

Joshua Steele Kelly, former Waterford Town Meeting member and co-chair of the Waterford Green Party, is leaning toward voting for Martineau, citing her support for the Green New Deal and single-payer health care, and Biden.

He voted for Stein for presidentin 2016, considering "there was really no way Donald Trump was going to win Connecticut." But given his concern this year that Trump and the Republican Party are going to challenge mail-in ballots, he feels an obligation not only to vote for the candidate more likely to win, but also to add to the numbers of people voting in-person for Biden.

Kelly sees the plight of third-party candidates as a vicious cycle: People often don't want to vote for a candidate that doesn't have momentum, but voting for a candidate is how that person builds momentum.

Daryl Finizio, an attorney and former mayor of New London, has signs in his yard for Martineau and Biden. While he said Courtney is "one of the absolute nicest people I've met in politics" and works hard with constituent services, Finizio feels the congressman falls far short on "radically transforming our fossil fuel economy."

Finizio would also like to see the de-escalation of military spending, a larger response to income inequality, and student loan forgiveness.

To the "traditional liberals who scream at third-party voters," he pointed to the long-term effectiveness of Tea Party members primarying Republicans across the country.

While they may have lost in the general election, "they were OK with that because what they were telling the Republican Party is, 'We are not going to walk with you unless you walk our way,' and eventually the party walked their way," Finizio said. "Now, I happen to think it was the wrong direction and a dangerous direction, but the effectiveness of that cannot be ignored."

Ronna Stuller, chairwoman of the New London Green Party, said she's talked to a lot of people who are voting for Biden but are interested in Martineau's run.

She is voting for Green Party candidates at all levels possible: Erycka Ortiz for state representative in the 39th House District, Martineau for U.S. representative andHawkins for president.

"In the middle of a pandemic, we really need a single-payer health care system, not just improved (Affordable Care Act), and we really need to start thinking about creating a jobs program based on renewable energy," Stuller said. She also wants the local economy to diversify away from reliance on the defense industry.

Stuller noted a minor party must get at least 1% of the vote to get ballot access in the next election, or the party must petition for a line, so she typically votes Green to keep the line open.

Libertarian voters 'simply cannot do the lesser of two evils'

As someone who thinks "that personal choice should be at the forefront of any decision," whether about abortion or gun rights, Travis Robinson of Stonington voted for Johnson in 2016 and is voting for Jorgensen this year.

Jorgensen has no hopes of winning, but based on conversations he's had, Robinson is "almost certain" the party will break 5% this year. That would allow Libertarian candidates to receive public funding in the future, which Robinson, 26, called "a good springboard."

Pew Research found that 4% of adults surveyed Sept. 30 through Oct. 5 said if the election were held today, they would vote for Jorgensen. Buta much lower share ofJorgensen voters than Trump or Biden voters said they're extremely motivated to vote.

When people say he's wasting his vote, Robinson said he responds, "The only vote wasted is the one not cast."

Mystic resident Bethany Guthrie said she voted for Trump in 2016, "because I felt like he was the lesser of the two evils that time, and we all see how that turned out." She pointed to actions against LGBTQ people and said this year, she "cannot, in good conscience, vote for someone who sees them as lesser human beings."

"It's been hard for me to live with that vote, because I knew he was terrible, and this time, I simply cannot do the lesser of two evils again," she said.

Guthrie, 47, said she would want Jorgensen to stop the war on drugs and to bring troops home from overseas, and that Second Amendment rights are a big deal to her.

She called herself "the most liberal Republican you've ever met" while fellow Jorgensen voter Jacob Covey, of Gales Ferry, said he leans "more toward the Democratic point of view," but both said they would still vote for Jorgensen even if they lived in a swing state.

"I'm tired of the lesser of two evils argument, I'm tired of kind of feeling like I've been taken advantage of," said Covey, 28. In 2016, he was interested in Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson but voted for Clinton in hopes of keeping Trump out of office.

Covey said he agrees strongly with Biden's social platform but doesn't align with him financially, while he likes what Trump has done for the economy but dislikes his response to the coronavirus pandemic. He said "both candidates are proponents for a larger government," which he doesn't like.

Asked about people who think he's wasting his vote, Covey called that mentality "a version of voter suppression."

Putnam resident Lance Leduc, 36, said he's voting for the Libertarian Party in as many races as he can and not voting in other races, meaning he is only voting for Jorgensen for president and Dan Reale in the 2nd Congressional District.

"Every four years, it feels like 51% of the country gets to tell the other 49% how to live," Leduc said. He added, "It's big government versus us, and they have us fighting over which rights we get to have and which we don't, based on who wins the race."

e.moser@theday.com

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Whether for president or Congress, some local voters going a third way - theday.com

It's anyone's guess who will win the 2020 presidential election. Polls across the country vary, with President Donald Trump leading in some and and former Vice President Joe Biden ahead in others.

Despite what many see as an ever-widening gap between the right and left, it appears some voters are crossing the political aisle. Several well-known Republicans have already decided to jump ship this election cycle. Among those are former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Cindy McCain, widow of the late Sen. John McCain.

The president's list of supporters from the Democratic Party is not as long, but it does include a former Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, Gary Doty, and former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was pardoned by Trump in February after being removed from office in 2009 on corruption charges.

It's not only politicians who have had changes of heart. One Tahlequah, Oklahoma, woman, Kimberly Davis, grew up in a religious household in Houston with her siblings and a single mother. Now an atheist, she moved from California to Tahlequah four years ago with her husband.

"I was raised liberal and I didn't even vote for Trump because I was a liberal and I was completely against it," Davis said. "In 2016, when it all started happening, I cried when he was voted in, and my neighbors were shooting off their guns, and I thought, 'I can't believe I live here.'"

While Davis originally felt grief when Trump was elected, she said she's tried to do research and pay less attention to her feelings. She has since formed a different opinion about the 45th president of the United States.

"I just had a complete mental breakdown when Trump was elected. Two months after he was elected, a lot of the facts I was being fed started seeming less real, and there was no backing to it," Davis said. "As a woman, I was always told that I'm a victim and feminist this and feminist that. I was being fed lies and eventually I realized none of that was true."

On the flip side, Tahlequah resident Susan Feller said she would rather be voting for a "qualified Republican," as she said she is concerned Trump does not have the ability to bring the nation together.

"He has enriched himself through the presidency, including costing taxpayers millions of dollars to support his golf habit," said Feller. "He pardoned criminals who support him, which is simply wrong. He has mishandled the pandemic and made it into a political issue."

Though she registered as a Republican when she was 18, Feller shifted away from the GOP when the Tea Party materialized. In 2015, she registered as an independent, and this year, she decided to register as a Democrat.

"I'm hoping if Biden wins, he devotes himself to addressing the anger and hate unleashed by Trump," said Feller. "Listen to the concerns of all citizens. We may not all agree, but we share a country and need to start finding common ground."

While it seems the Republican and Democratic parties are becoming increasingly polarized, it has left many people stuck in the middle, hoping to see some sort of change in the country's political framework. Tahlequah resident Aaron Grant said he has voted the Democratic ticket in the past, but has a much more independent streak these days.

"The two-party system denies too many of us representation," said Grant. "I vote for people over parties these days, and I think a ranked-voting system would open up the possibility of any number of candidates from any number of parties - nullifying the two-party system, giving better representation to those disenfranchised voters, and potentially adding votes to both Democrats and Republicans."

This year, Grant said he will choose Biden if he decides to vote at all. However, he is concerned the gerrymandering of districts can lead to faulty election outcomes. He would prefer to see third-party candidates start to get more attention in today's political climate, as well.

"Current regulations make it nearly impossible for other parties to be listed in this state, and independent parties can't get any traction nationally until every state decides to play ball," said Grant.

Although some voters will shift sides this election, many will stick with the party with which they most affiliate themselves. It's not uncommon for citizens to vote strictly along party lines.

Shannon Grimes, Cherokee County Libertarian Party chair, said it seems like voters are often stuck in abusive relationships with their parties and just don't know how to escape.

"I think perceptions and emotions regarding political parties is a mixed bag," said Grimes. "More and more people are seeing the flip-flopping hypocrisy and becoming somewhat disenchanted. But on the other hand, 'that other party' is worse, and so they continue with what they consider the less bad option. It is tough to break out and away from the psychology of the two-party system."

The Libertarian Party will need more media attention before it can start to collect a greater percentage of the votes, said Grimes. He also pointed out it's the only other party that will have its presidential candidate and her vice presidential pick on the ballot in all 50 states.

"Getting that ballot access is a huge endeavor in and of itself," he said. "The other thing the Libertarian Party needs to do is to locate and support good candidates, especially for smaller and local offices. Thankfully, this is happening. Yes, there are candidates who are running for larger offices even when unlikely to get much traction. But they have too in order to try and maintain ballot access."

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Some voters have change of heart in Trump era - Tahlequah Daily Press

Republicans know their prospects decline as turnout rises for elections. The reason is that the party base of older white voters are more likely to take part in low turnout elections than the Democratic base of minorities and young people. In 1980, political strategist Paul Weyrich, a founder of the modern conservative movement, criticized the goo goo effects with good governance. They want everybody to vote. I do not want everybody to vote, he said. As a matter of fact, our leverage with the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

More recently, Republicans have said restrictions on voting such as photo identification laws helps the party in diminishing the opposition voting. In 2012, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Mike Turzai declared that voter identification, which is going to allow Governor Mitt Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania in the election, would be done.

In 2013, while talking about the conservative advantage from low turnout, Scott Tranter of the political consulting firm Optimus said, A lot of us are campaign professionals and we want to do everything we can to help our sides. Sometimes we think that means voter identification, sometimes we think that means longer lines, or whatever it may be.

Ken Emanuelson, a Tea Party leader in Texas, was leading a 2013 meeting on turning out Republicans when a black pastor asked him, What are the Republicans doing to get black people to vote? Emanuelson said, I will be real honest with you. The party does not want black people to vote if they are going to vote nine to one for the Democrats.

The efforts by Republicans to limit voting by Democrats is urgent as the white voter share of the electorate has fallen from 76 percent in 2000 to 67 percent in 2018. In response to a push by Democrats for reforms like same day registration, early voting, and mail voting this year, President Trump said, The things they had in there were crazy. They had levels of voting that if you ever agreed to it, you would never have a Republican elected in this country again. He is not alone on this.

This year, Trump and his conservative allies have launched a blatant voter suppression campaign. They have filed lawsuits all around the country to restrict mail voting and the counting of ballots. They have falsely attacked mail voting as rife with fraud and then encouraged intimidators to go visit polling places. Federal officials appointed by Trump installed Republican donor Louis DeJoy to be director of the Postal Service.

DeJoy enacted changes that slowed down mail and imperiled the timely delivery of mail ballots. These include the dismantling of automatic mail sorting machines, a directive to leave mail behind rather than having late or extra deliveries, and cutbacks with overtime. DeJoy claimed that these changes would improve the economy in his agency ridden by deficits. But the Postal Service has been in the red for years. DeJoy could have shortly deferred austerity measures until the election is done.

Four federal judges have since imposed temporary injunctions on these operational changes at the Postal Service, but it is still unclear how fully DeJoy has complied. Although delivery times have improved since these court orders, as compared to the period before the ascension of DeJoy, mail delivery was still slowed down through last month.

Citizens cannot change Postal Service policies and practices, but we can take the initiative to ensure the delivery of ballots is faster. The solution is to stop sending mail besides ballots, medicines, and other critical items between now and the election. Communicate by call, text, email, private couriers, or social media instead. Delay ordering of packages and pause the sending of brochures until after the election is over.

Republicans and Democrats know that this will be the most momentous election in recent years. We can all contribute to a full and fair vote with the act of observing a mail moratorium for a few weeks.

Allan Lichtman is an election forecaster and a distinguished professor of history at American University. He is the author of The Embattled Vote in America: From the Founding to the Present. He tweets @AllanLichtman.

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Why America needs moratorium on mail until after this election is done | TheHill - The Hill

On Oct. 21, 1967, 100,000 people came together at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. to protest the Vietnam War. Following several speeches, roughly 50% of those gathered walked over to the Pentagon where a few hundred people then attempted to levitate the building.

The striking civic protest against the Vietnam War was noteworthy not just for its unusual call to action, but for the new and inventive ways Americans were flexing their right to peaceably assemble. And the Yippies who put on the event inspired countless creative takes on what protest could be, from the Womens Art Movement (WAM) to the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP).

The tradition of protesting in the United States is older than the country itself. This year, we've seen that historic institution full force with Black Lives Matter protests and, more generally, protests against the storied, systemic racial injustice in the United States. The May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, held under the knee of a white police officer in Minneapolis, sparked protests across U.S. cities and around the world. The protesters have called for justice for Floyd and other Black peoplefrom Breonna Taylor to Elijah McClainwho were killed by police, an end to police brutality, a dismantling of racist systems and symbols (including memorials to Confederate soldiers), and a greater investment in communities in need.

The protests prompted widespread dialogue about racial injustice and the political and cultural systems that support it. The four police officers involved in the killing of Floyd were charged with crimes related to the incident. The Minneapolis City Council agreed to dismantle its police force and rethink how it approaches public safety. And many politicians promised to adjust police budgets so money gets reallocated to support communities directly through improved housing, education, and mental health programs, especially in communities of color.

To understand where the Black Lives Matter demonstrations fit into this rich history, Stacker took a closer look at some of the most famous American protests. Research came from the New York Times, The Week, Time, and Business Insider; government archives; and information from unions and mission-driven organizations. The demonstrations that have made their mark on history range from the Boston Tea Party and Temperance prayer protests to demonstrations for modern-day issues, like civil rights, climate change, nuclear disarmament, reproductive health concerns, LGBTQ+ equality, and gun control.

Keep reading to learn about the important issues that motivated Americans to protestand the impacts of those actions on our society today.

[Pictured: A portrait taken during The Day Without an Immigrant protest on May 1, 2006.]

You may also like: Political Cartoons From The Last 100 Years

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Famous protests in US history and their impacts - Journal Gazette and Times-Courier