USA under presidency of a know-nothing, neo-fascist, racist, sexist, mobbed-up narcissist!!

[Peter Lemkin]

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) acknowledged that voter suppression efforts by Republicans are significant enough to swing key Senate races in Arizona and North Dakota.
In Arizona, where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema is virtually tied with Republican Martha McSally, outdated voter databases which do not automatically update new home addresses could mean up to 300,000 Arizonans will be unable to vote on Election Day, according to the ACLU's Dale Ho.
In North Dakota, a new and strict voter ID law requires a home address to vote. However, over five percent of the state's population is Native American, and Native Americans living on reservations typically do not have traditional home addresses. Because the state's population is only 800,000, every vote is crucial.
Students at Texas State were surprised to learn that the polling station on campus closed after only three days, when normally polling locations are open for two weeks during early voting periods.
Students have contacted election officials to re-open the polling location. When Democratic official Debbie Ingalsbe contacted Republican official Wally Kinney to ask about the Texas State polling location, Kinney responded, "If Debbie is bringing it forward, it probably means that it is going to favor Democrats, so maybe I should not be in favor of this."
Dodge City, Kansas, which is 60 percent Latino, was recently told that its one polling location would be moved beyond city limits over a mile away from the nearest bus stop.
Further complicating matters, newly registered voters in Dodge City were mailed a document directing them to the former polling location.
Dodge City is home to 27,000 residents, most of them Latino, and as many as 13,000 voters are expected to vote at this one polling location. The average polling location in Kansas sees about 1,200 voters.
The Republican nominee for Kansas Governor, Kris Kobach, has been a vocal proponent of strict voter ID laws, even heading President Donald Trump's short-lived Voter Fraud Commission.
Finally, some good news. While many states are making it harder to vote, some states are trying to increase voter turnout.
Michigan has a ballot referendum, known as Prop 3 or "Promote the Vote," which would introduce many reforms to increase voter participation, including automatic voter registration for people getting driver's licenses, allowing for same day voter registration, easing restrictions on military personnel to vote, introducing no-excuse absentee voting, and allowing for straight-party ticket voting, where a voter can select one box and all of those party's officials down-ballot are selected.
The referendum is expected to pass.
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POLLING SITE CLOSURES IN TEXAS THREATEN UPCOMING MIDTERM ELECTION

If Democratic challenger Beto O' Rourke wins in Texas, it could mean a significant power shift within the Senate. Photo credit: Beto O'Rourke / Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)

A little-known provision in the Texas Election Code allows polling locations to be switched with hardly any notice and voting rights advocates fear that it could be used to disenfranchise low-income voters. That provision is particularly concerning this year, as this type of issue could constitute a tipping point in the hotly contested race between Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Democratic challenger Beto O'Rourke.
Texas officials can change or close polling locations up to 72 hours before an election. The provision was part of a sweeping law that Lone Star State Republicans pushed through in 2013. They did so after the Supreme Court's Shelby County v. Holder decision freed the state from the obligation to get federal approval for changes to its voting procedures.

Related: 5 Years After Shelby County,' Democracy Has Suffered
Texas took full advantage and put in place provisions in the Texas Election Code allowing these last-minute closures. In recent years, Republicans have increasingly focused on shutting down polling locations. Although there have been some efforts at the county level to address voting obstacles, most minority and low-income voters in Texas remain vulnerable.
In 2016, the state closed more polling locations than any other state in the country with a total of 403 closures, according to a report from the US Commission on Civil Rights(USCCR). Much less publicized than these closures, however, were the last-minute changes to polling locations.
Related: Shuttered Polling Sites Cast Shadow Over Midterm Elections
Experts say this tactic primarily affects African American, Latino, and low-income voters because of limited time and access to polling locations. According to the USCCR, most of these polling closures occurred in counties with a long history of Voting Rights Act violations.
Whether a person is impacted or not by these closures comes down to "voting privilege," Wanda Zamorano, a representative of the Texas League of Women Voters, told WhoWhatWhy.
"Too often a voter does not have the time to search for a new location," Zamorano explained. "They may have work or family responsibilities. And too often, if finding the place becomes difficult, the voter might say just forget it,' especially if there is little gas in the car and no money until payday to fill the gas tank. Driving to the grocery store will take precedence over finding the right polling location."
These polling closures are both intentional and likely to happen again, critics charge.
Zamorano believes that election officials in some places are deliberately trying to discourage people from voting. By "slowing things down" and keeping lines long, they hope that voters who may be ideologically opposed to those in power will give up and go home instead of waiting to cast their ballots.
The populations affected by poll closures or changes are more likely to support Democrats. With Texas in the middle of a Senate race that is tighter than most in recent memory and that could hand control of the Senate to the Democrats if O'Rourke manages to upset incumbent Cruz the outcome could hinge on turnout.
Texas has the fifth lowest voter turnout in the nation and experts agree that any threat to voting rights will only reduce the state's abysmal numbers. Josh Blank of the Texas Politics Project told WhoWhatWhy that in addition to voter suppression, voter apathy is a major factor.
"Texas hasn't elected a Democrat statewide since 1994," Blank said. "Most elections in Texas are not competitive. That's another thing that tends to drive people away from the polls is the feeling that their vote isn't going to impact the outcome."
In a state where turnout is low, and suppression and apathy are high, any additional threat to voting rights, including new polling closures, is worrisome, especially considering Texas's track record of Voting Rights Act violations.
A possible solution down the road, according to Dianne Trautman, a candidate for Harris County Clerk, is the Countywide Polling Place Program.
The Countywide Polling Place program permits certain Texas counties to allow voters to cast their ballot at any polling location in their county. This program would allow voters to vote at any voting location on Election Day, just as they can during early voting, thereby eliminating much of the inconvenience caused by polling closures and changes.
Trautman noted that the program, which is currently being used in 52 of the 254 counties in Texas, has helped increase voter turnout.
While this program could be a partial solution to the adverse effects of polling site closures, it requires counties to meet certain requirements and go through a lengthy application process. And it is up to the Texas Secretary of State to approve each county's application.
In light of the Lone Star State's track record of discouraging voters who might turn the state purple, getting this program implemented across Texas could pose a high hurdle to climb.
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Number of Georgia Voters Purged by
Brian Kemp Continues to Climb
Investigation reveals 340,000 voters were improperly removed
By Peter Wade, Rolling Stone

Republican gubernatorial candidate and current Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp incorrectly canceled some 340,000 voter registrations, according to a recent investigation. Although Kemp claimed the voters left the state of Georgia or moved to another county, they hadn't, Greg Palast, who filed suit against Kemp.

Don't miss this 7-minute film of Palast's Georgia Investigation (for Salon TV)

According to John Lenser, who is CEO of CohereOne and who led a review of the list of purged voters for Palast, "340,000 of those voters remained at their original address. They should have never been removed from the voter registration rolls."
Palast only obtained the list after he filed suit against Kemp. "It began five years ago, when Kemp stonewalled my first requests for information on purges in Georgia, first for Al Jazeera and Rolling Stone, now for Truthout and Democracy Now!" Palast wrote, "It took my lawyer's threat of a federal lawsuit, filed last week in Atlanta federal court, to blast the list of the electorally doomed from Kemp's hands."

After he received the list, Palast said he analyzed it and discovered that 340,134 voters were purged when they shouldn't have been. To do this, he consulted experts who cross-referenced voter data with a number of other databases including cell phone bills and tax filings to see if, in fact, any of these voters had actually moved. Many had not. A list of the purged voters' names is available on Palast's website. While it is too late for them to register for the upcoming midterm elections, they are still eligible to re-register for the 2020 presidential election.

Kemp used a tactic Palast calls "Purge by Postcard" to remove eligible voters from the rolls. Kemp sent a postcard that could have easily been mistaken for spam to voters who did not vote in the prior election. If a voter did not return the postcard, Kemp purged their registration without informing the voters it was happening.

Thanks to a June 2018 Supreme Court ruling that reversed the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, this practice is now legal. If a voter misses an election and fails to respond to a notice by mail, the court ruled it legal to remove them from the list of registered voters. In a dissent to the majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor called the practice part of "concerted state efforts to prevent minorities from voting and to undermine the efficacy of their votes" and said they were "an unfortunate feature of our country's history."

Kemp also faces a lawsuit for exposing the records of 6 million registered Georgia voters and potentially the state's election system to foreign hackers. Kemp has become notorious for his efforts to cull voter registrations, especially those of Democratic and minority voters. Rolling Stone recently obtained audio of Kemp speaking to donors, saying his opponent Stacey Abrams's campaign "continues to concern us, especially if everybody uses and exercises their right to vote."