Elections

Republicans today know that blocking access to the ballot has always relied on legal maneuvering and political schemes.Seventy-five years ago this July, a World War II veteran named Maceo Snipes reportedly became the first Black man to cast a ballot in his rural Georgia county. The next day, a white man shot him in his front yard, and Mr. Snipes would soon afterward die from those wounds.Fortunately, three generations removed from the political reign of terror that claimed Mr. Snipes’s life, voter suppression seems much less likely to arrive by bullet. But we may not be as distant in our political moment from theirs as we might think: The long struggle to block access to the ballot has always relied on legal maneuvering and political schemes to achieve what bullets and bombs alone could not.What legislators in Georgia and across the country have reminded us is that backlash to expanded voting rights has often arrived by a method that our eras share in common: by laws, like Georgia’s Senate Bill 202, passed by elected politicians.Opponents of the new Georgia law denounce the legislation as “Jim Crow 2.0” precisely because they recognize the continuities between past and present. The bill’s most ardent supporters, who lined up in front of a painting of a building on the site of an antebellum plantation to watch Gov. Brian Kemp sign it into law, seem less interested in distancing themselves from that past and more eager for Americans to forget it.“Our country has changed,” Chief Justice John Roberts explained in 2013 in defending the Supreme Court’s gutting a key provision of the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder, a decision that helped clear the way for the current voter suppression campaigns. Yet the riot at the U.S. Capitol makes clear that concerted efforts to sow seeds of distrust in the democratic process can still stoke violent reaction.The methods in the fight against voting rights have a common objective — an electorate narrowed along predictable and demonstrable fault lines. Many present-day proponents of voting restrictions are quick to distance themselves from the racist aims and attitudes of their forebears, but the most durable and enduring attacks on voting rights have long cloaked their goals in race-neutral language — at least in writing.Historians like Carol Anderson demonstrate that attempts to limit ballot access have followed in the wake of mass political mobilization and in response to federal efforts to protect or expand voting rights. At the time Mr. Snipes was killed, the U.S. Supreme Court had recently invalidated the white primary, a disenfranchisement tactic that locked Black voters out of the only election that really mattered because of one-party rule in the “Solid South.” The N.A.A.C.P., which grew from 50,000 to approximately half a million members during World War II, spearheaded the legal challenge to the white primary and grass-roots voter registration drives across the South. Anticipating that Black voters would flood the polls in 1946, Eugene Talmadge, the ex-governor running for the office again, mobilized supporters to ward off threats from local activists and federal action alike.Mr. Talmadge egged on supporters who intimidated and attacked Black voters, but his most enduring and effective tactics look much more like present-day voter suppression tactics. As the Emory researcher Hannah Charak has documented, Mr. Talmadge quietly collaborated with sympathetic local officials on illegal registration purges and blanketed the state with “challenge forms” that white residents could use to dispute Black votes.Voter suppression tactics like literacy tests and Georgia’s infamous county unit system delivered racist leadership like Mr. Talmadge (and his son) while withstanding legal challenges and Supreme Court rulings for decades in part because such measures commonly avoided mention of race.If we remember Georgia’s extremist enemies of democracy for the violence they inspired, then today’s advocates of voter suppression may well expect history to reflect favorably on their relative restraint. Yet even as many supporters of Georgia’s new voting restrictions seek to distance themselves from the violence at the Capitol, they invoke unproven claims of voter fraud and the passions they provoke as a pretext for their legislative actions — political cover for those who claim the high ground of “electoral reform.”Georgia is now a far cry from the one-party politics of Jim Crow, and its increasingly diverse population challenges the power of the overwhelmingly white and disproportionately rural ruling class that has held sway for nearly all of the state’s history — thanks in large part to an unending stream of voter suppression schemes.The ruling logic that drives those efforts, spanning generations and a dramatic shift in party affiliation, is the conviction that America would be better off if fewer Americans voted. Perhaps it is time not only to focus on those who say the quiet parts out loud but to remember that the quiet parts have been there all along.Jason Morgan Ward, a professor of history at Emory University, is the author of “Defending White Democracy: The Making of a Segregationist Movement and the Remaking of Racial Politics, 1936-1965” and, most recently, “Hanging Bridge: Racial Violence and America’s Civil Rights Century.”The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

Unlike other defendants in the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon, Mr. Liddy refused to testify and drew the longest prison term.G. Gordon Liddy, a cloak-and-dagger lawyer who masterminded dirty tricks for the White House and concocted the bungled burglary that led to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of President Richard M. Nixon in 1974, died on Tuesday in Mount Vernon, Va. He was 90. His death, at the home of his daughter Alexandra Liddy Bourne, was confirmed by his son Thomas P. Liddy, who said that his father had Parkinson’s disease and had been in declining health.Decades after Watergate entered the lexicon, Mr. Liddy was still an enigma in the cast of characters who fell from grace with the 37th president — to some a patriot who went silently to prison refusing to betray his comrades, to others a zealot who cashed in on bogus celebrity to become an author and syndicated talk show host.As a leader of a White House “plumbers” unit set up to plug information leaks, and then as a strategist for the president’s re-election campaign, Mr. Liddy helped devise plots to discredit Nixon “enemies” and to disrupt the 1972 Democratic National Convention. Most were far-fetched — bizarre kidnappings, acts of sabotage, traps using prostitutes, even an assassination — and were never carried out.But Mr. Liddy, a former F.B.I. agent, and E. Howard Hunt, a former C.I.A. agent, engineered two break-ins at the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate complex in Washington. On May 28, 1972, as Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt stood by, six Cuban expatriates and James W. McCord Jr., a Nixon campaign security official, went in, planted bugs, photographed documents and got away cleanly.A few weeks later, on June 17, four Cubans and Mr. McCord, wearing surgical gloves and carrying walkie-talkies, returned to the scene and were caught by the police. Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt, running the operation from a Watergate hotel room, fled but were soon arrested and indicted on charges of burglary, wiretapping and conspiracy.In the context of 1972, with Mr. Nixon’s triumphal visit to China and a steam-rolling presidential campaign that soon crushed the Democrat, Senator George S. McGovern, the Watergate case looked inconsequential at first. Mr. Nixon’s press secretary, Ron Ziegler, dismissed it as a “third-rate burglary.”But it deepened a White House cover-up that had begun in 1971, when Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt broke into the office of the psychiatrist of Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times, looking for damaging information on him. Over the next two years, the cover-up unraveled under pressure of investigations, trials, hearings and headlines into the worst political scandal — and the first resignation by a sitting president — in the nation’s history.G. Gordon Liddy after his release from prison in Danbury, Conn., on Sept. 7, 1977.Fred R. Conrad/The New York TimesUnlike the other Watergate defendants, Mr. Liddy refused to testify about his activities for the White House or the Committee to Re-elect the President, and drew the longest term among those who went to prison. He was sentenced by Judge John J. Sirica to 6 to 20 years, but served only 52 months. President Jimmy Carter commuted his term in 1977.“I have lived as I believed I ought to have lived,” Mr. Liddy, a small dapper man with a baldish pate and a brushy mustache, told reporters after his release. He said he had no regrets and would do it again. “When the prince approaches his lieutenant, the proper response of the lieutenant to the prince is, ‘Fiat voluntas tua,’” he said, using the Latin of the Lord’s Prayer for “Thy will be done.”Disbarred from law practice and in debt for $300,000, mostly for legal fees, Mr. Liddy began a new career as a writer. His first book, “Out of Control,” (1979) was a spy thriller. He later wrote another novel, “The Monkey Handlers” (1990), and a nonfiction book, “When I Was a Kid, This Was a Free Country” (2002). He also co-wrote a guide to fighting terrorism, “Fight Back! Tackling Terrorism, Liddy Style” (2006), and produced many articles on politics, taxes, health and other matters.In 1980, he broke his silence on Watergate with his autobiography, “Will.” The reviews were mixed, but it became a best seller. After years of revelations by other Watergate conspirators, there was little new in it about the scandal, but critics said his account of prison life was graphic. A television movie based on the book was aired in 1982 by NBC.Mr. Liddy found himself in demand on the college-lecture circuit. In 1982 he teamed with Timothy Leary, the 1960s LSD guru, for campus debates that were edited into a documentary film, “Return Engagement.” The title referred to an encounter in 1966, when Mr. Liddy, as a prosecutor in Dutchess County, N.Y., joined a raid on a drug cult in which Mr. Leary was arrested.In the 1980s, Mr. Liddy dabbled in acting, appearing on “Miami Vice” and in other television and film roles. But he was better known later as a syndicated talk-radio host with a right-wing agenda. “The G. Gordon Liddy Show,” begun in 1992, was carried on hundreds of stations by Viacom and later Radio America, with satellite hookups and internet streaming. It ran until his retirement in 2012. He lived in Fort Washington, Md.Mr. Liddy, who promoted nutritional supplements and exercised, was still trim in his 70s. He made parachute jumps, took motorcycle trips, collected guns, played a piano and sang lieder. His website showed him craggy-faced with head held high, an American flag and the Capitol dome in the background.George Gordon Battle Liddy was born on Nov. 30, 1930, in Brooklyn to Sylvester J. and Maria (Abbaticchio) Liddy. He grew up in Hoboken, N.J., a fearful boy with respiratory problems who learned to steel himself with tests of will power. He lifted weights, ran and, as he recalled, held his hand over a flame as an act of self-discipline. He said he once ate a rat to overcome a repulsion, and decapitated chickens for a neighbor until he could kill like a soldier, “efficiently and without emotion or thought.”Like his father, a lawyer, Gordon attended all-male St. Benedict’s Prep School in Newark and Fordham University in the Bronx. After graduating from Fordham in 1952, he took an Army commission with hopes of fighting in Korea, but was assigned to an antiaircraft radar unit in Brooklyn. In 1954, he returned to Fordham and earned a law degree three years later.In 1957, he married Frances Ann Purcell. The couple had five children. Along with his son Thomas and daughter Alexandra, he is survived by another daughter, Grace Liddy; two other sons, James Liddy and Raymond J. Liddy; a sister, Margaret McDermott; 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Mr. Liddy’s wife died in 2010.From 1957 to 1962, Mr. Liddy was an F.B.I. field agent in Indianapolis, Gary, Ind., and Denver, and a supervisor of crime records in Washington. He then worked in patent law for his father’s firm in New York for four years. He joined the Dutchess County district attorney’s office as an assistant prosecutor in 1966.In 1968, he began a dizzying, three-year rise from obscurity in Poughkeepsie to the White House. Challenging Hamilton Fish Jr. in a primary for the Republican nomination for Congress in what was then New York’s 28th District, he fell short, but his consolation prize was to take charge of the Nixon campaign in the mid-Hudson Valley, which the president won handily.His reward was a job at the Treasury Department in Washington as a special assistant for narcotics and gun control. He helped develop the sky marshal program to counteract hijackers. Impressed, Egil Krogh, a deputy assistant to the president, recommended him in 1971 to John N. Mitchell, the attorney general, who recommended him to John D. Ehrlichman, the president’s domestic policy adviser.Mr. Nixon, furious over the disclosure of the Pentagon Papers, had directed Mr. Ehrlichman to set up the “plumbers” to plug leaks and punish opponents. Among other operations, Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt, who were in charge of the unit, broke into the Beverly Hills office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, Dr. Lewis Fielding, for material to discredit the military analyst. They found none.When the group was disbanded in 1971, Mr. Liddy went to work for the Nixon campaign. His title was general counsel, but his role was to plot more dirty tricks under a code name, “Gemstone.” They included kidnapping radicals who might disrupt the Republican convention, sabotaging the air-conditioning at the Democratic convention in Miami, hiring prostitutes to entrap Democrats with hidden cameras, and killing the syndicated columnist Jack Anderson, whom Mr. Liddy viewed as a national security risk.But only the Watergate burglaries were carried out. It was a piece of tape over the lock on a garage-level door that tripped up the burglars. A security guard called the police, and a crackling walkie-talkie in Mr. Liddy’s hotel room told the tale:“It looks like … guns!” one burglar whispered. “They’ve got guns. It’s trouble.”The team’s lookout in an apartment across the street, broke in: “Now I can see our people. They’ve got their hands up. Must be the cops. More cops now. Uniforms … ”“They got us!”It was all over. Mr. Liddy and Mr. Hunt went home. It was 3 a.m. when Mr. Liddy got in, and his wife awoke. “Anything wrong?” she asked.“There was trouble,” he said. “Some people got caught. I’ll probably be going to jail.”Neil Vigdor contributed reporting, and Jack Begg contributed research. More

The expansive measure would set a nationwide floor on ballot access, nullify many voting restrictions, change the way political districts are drawn and rein in campaign donations.The far-reaching voting rights measure that Democrats are pressing to enact, known as the For the People Act, was more a political statement than serious legislation when lawmakers first proposed it in 2019.The bill, clocking in at 818 pages, includes a laundry list of Democratic priorities like expanded ballot access, tighter controls on political money and support for District of Columbia statehood. It had no chance of becoming law when Republicans controlled the Senate and the White House.But with Democrats in power, the wish list has become a potentially historic law and the most pervasive overhaul of federal election rules in recent memory. Republicans have assailed it as a Democratic effort to rig the political system in their favor, even as some privately acknowledge that the bill’s broad aims are overwhelmingly popular, even among conservatives.President Biden and Democrats portray the bill as the civil rights imperative of modern times and call it essential to shoring up a shaky democracy. But many of them privately concede that some of its provisions, like restrictions on political money, have opponents in their own ranks.Here is a summary of some of the central elements of the measure:The bill would set a national floor for ballot access.Should it become law, the legislation would effectively set a national floor on ballot access, requiring all federal elections to start with an identical set of rules. States and other federal jurisdictions could tweak them to provide more access, but not less. Some states like Colorado and Minnesota have rules that are more generous that the bill mandates; others, like Texas and Tennessee, make it much harder to register and vote than the bill envisions.Jurisdictions could ignore the rules for state and local elections, but as a practical matter, the new requirements would most likely apply to all voting.Some Republicans charge that the bill would rig the voting rules in favor of Democrats. But Republican officials have been working for the past decade to restrict ballot access in ways that make it harder to vote for minority groups that traditionally favor Democrats.Beyond the civic benefits of greater participation in elections, it is clear that expanding voting to more people would benefit both parties. Indeed, as Republicans have increasingly appealed to lower-income and less-educated voters, some experts say the restrictions that they have imposed may actually be cutting into turnout by the party’s loyalists.Many Republican states have had one or more of the voting provisions for years with no indication that they disproportionately favor one party.The measure makes it much easier to register to vote.All voters would be able to register, designate party affiliations, change addresses and de-register online; 40 states and the District of Columbia offer some or all of those options. Voters would also be automatically registered when visiting state or federal agencies unless they explicitly decline, similar to what has been required of most states — but not always carried out — by the federal “motor-voter law” that passed in 1993. Voters could also register when they cast a ballot, either on Election Day or during early voting, as is already the case in 21 states.Early voting would be expanded nationwide, with all jurisdictions offering it for 15 days, for 10 hours daily, at easily accessible polling places. All but a handful of states allow early voting; the average early-ballot period is 19 days, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The bill would also require jurisdictions to provide at least one secure ballot drop box for every 20,000 voters.Mail voting would be extended nationwide, and states would have to prepay postage and electronically track ballots so voters know when their ballots arrive and whether they have mistakes that need to be fixed.It would defang many voting restrictions imposed by Republicans.Republicans have won enactment of voter-ID laws in most states by arguing that they are needed to combat fraud, even though the sort of in-person fraud that such rules would discourage is all but nonexistent. The bill would effectively nullify such laws, allowing voters to sign affidavits swearing to their identities rather than showing ID.The measure would also require that voters be notified at least a week before an election if their polling places have changed, and order steps to reduce long lines. Voting rights activists and specialists argue that turnout falls when polling locations are closed or changed.The legislation also tries to beat back rules adopted by some states, including Texas and New Hampshire, that make it more difficult for college students to vote. It would designate universities as voter-registration agencies and offer nonpartisan assistance to students who cast absentee ballots.Under the bill, states would be barred from taking voters off the rolls because they had not participated in recent elections, a practice that the Supreme Court upheld in 2018. Critics argue that the practice is aimed at reducing turnout.It would also restore voting rights to felons who have completed their sentences, cementing into law a practice that states have increasingly adopted but some, such as Florida, have resisted.Partisan gerrymandering would end.Among other redistricting changes, the bill would mandate that political maps be drawn by nonpartisan commissions, not by state legislatures. If a legislature refused to approve a map, a three-judge federal panel would take over drafting.A number of states have established such commissions in recent years, including Ohio and Colorado, but removing politics from political maps has proved difficult. Critics say Arizona’s Republican governor has stacked the selection process for that state’s commission, and the composition of Colorado’s new commission also has come under fire. The legislation lays out detailed instructions for choosing panel members.Political contributions would be reined in.The legislation tries to stop the flow of money to campaigns from abroad by requiring political committees to report foreign contacts, outlawing the use of shell companies to launder foreign contributions and barring foreigners from advising PACs on contributions and other political efforts. These moves and other requirements are direct responses to Russian efforts to support Donald J. Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.The most contentious provisions would pull back the veil over so-called dark political money, whose donors are secret, and regulate independent political expenditures — mostly spending that is not expressly coordinated with a candidate — by corporations.Those provisions would counter the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission that independent expenditures are a form of free speech protected by the Constitution. The ruling effectively allowed nonprofit groups to spend unlimited amounts of money — $750 million in 2020, according to the advocacy group OpenSecrets — to support or oppose candidates or causes while keeping donors anonymous.Public corporations would require approval by boards of directors and shareholders for independent expenditures and some other political spending over $50,000.The bill would also require nonprofit groups spending money on elections or judicial nominations to disclose the donor of any contribution over $10,000 and ban shifting money between groups to disguise a donor’s identity. It would also address the growing use of political advertising on the internet, requiring for the first time that ads disclose their sponsors and that online companies keep a public list of political advertising buyers.Finally, the measure would set up new funds to match small donations to Senate and presidential candidates. The money, raised through fines on corporate lawbreakers and tax cheats, would be available only to candidates who reject political donations of more than $1,000. More

This is what happens when a political party turns against democracy. More

If any of the Texas police officers who came to detain Capitol riot suspect Garret Miller were not sure they had the right man, the T-shirt they found him wearing offered something of a clue: it featured a photograph of Donald Trump and the slogan “I Was There, Washington DC, 6 January 2021”.
Prosecutors say Miller’s attire on the day of his arrest in Dallas was only part of the self-incriminating evidence he provided to confirm his role in the deadly insurrection incited by Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat.
Police say they found weapons, ammunition and tactical gear including night vision goggles, ropes and grappling hooks, plus crossbows and arrows, at Miller’s house.
A succession of social media posts by the unemployed 34-year-old on the day of the riot and its immediate aftermath was also highlighted in a federal court filing prosecutors hope will persuade a judge not to release Miller on bond before his trial.
On Facebook on 6 January, Miller allegedly posted a selfie from inside the Capitol, prompting another user to write: “Bro you got in?! Nice!”
Miller replied, “just wanted to incriminate myself a little lol,” prosecutors said.
In an Instagram post on 10 January, Miller allegedly said of the officer who shot dead a female protester inside the Capitol: “He will swing. I had a rope in my bag that day.”
The prosecutors say Miller believed the officer was black and considered him “a prize to be taken”.
“By bringing tactical gear, ropes and potentially, by his own admission, a gun to the Capitol on 6 January 2021, Miller showed that he was not just caught up in the frenzy of the crowd but instead came to DC with the intention of disrupting the democratic process of counting and certifying electoral college votes,” the prosecutors wrote.
Miller later threatened to kill Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York congresswoman, and the Capitol police officer who shot the protester.
“Assassinate AOC,” Miller replied on Twitter, prosecutors allege, after she wrote “Impeach” in her own post about Trump’s actions.
Miller is among more than 300 people facing federal charges for participating in the riot that claimed five lives, including a Capitol police officer. He was indicted by a grand jury in February on 12 counts, including civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding officers.
He denies any role in the violence. According to the court filing, he told his mother in a phone call after his arrest: “I don’t feel that I’ve done anything wrong and now I’m being locked up.”
F Clinton Broden, Miller’s attorney, called for his client’s release, saying he regrets his actions.
“He has no history of violence and he did not engage in any acts of violence in connection with the charged offenses, unlike many others who have previously been released,” Broden wrote.
Miller remains in jail in Oklahoma City, with a trial date yet to be set. He broke his collarbone playing soccer during recreation time, prosecutors say, delaying his transfer to Washington DC. More

New rules give Chinese security bodies power to investigate all potential candidates, meaning that opposition politicians face steep odds of even being allowed to run.HONG KONG — China’s sweeping overhaul of Hong Kong’s election system will give national security bodies vast power over who can run for office, a move that could sideline the pro-democracy opposition for years to come.Hong Kong’s pro-democracy figures had long enjoyed a greater share of the vote in direct elections, but the system was stacked against them, ensuring the pro-Beijing camp controlled the legislature. On Tuesday, the standing committee of the Communist Party-controlled National People’s Congress in Beijing approved changes that would ensure an even stronger legislative majority for the establishment.The changes give Beijing and its handpicked local leaders vast powers to block any opposition candidate China deems disloyal, aiming to stamp out the intense antigovernment sentiment that fueled protests in 2019.Here is a look at the changes and what they mean for Hong Kong:The changes cut the proportion of directly elected seats in the Hong Kong Legislature, to less than 25 percent.Vincent Yu/Associated PressA devastating blow to Hong Kong’s democracyAmong the most significant of the changes is how the city’s lawmakers will be chosen. The move slashes the proportion of directly elected seats on the legislature, to less than a quarter from half. Forty seats on the 90-member body will be chosen by an election committee, a pro-establishment body that also selects Hong Kong’s leader.Beijing further consolidated its grip over the election committee by removing elected district council members, after pro-democracy politicians swept most of those positions in 2019. Those seats were to be replaced with appointed advisory bodies and groups representing people from Hong Kong in mainland China.Opposition groups said the changes would most likely leave them completely shut out of elections at all levels. “The feeling is surreal. It’s beyond anger,” said Avery Ng, the head of the League of Social Democrats, a leftist, pro-democracy party in Hong Kong. “With the newly established structure, the Beijing government can have a 100 percent guarantee on the result in Hong Kong.”Ventus Lau, center, an organizer of the antigovernment protests, was among the candidates barred from elections last year.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesNational security comes to the forePerhaps the most dramatic transformation will be the power that national security bodies beholden to Beijing will now have over the electoral process.Any potential candidate will first be investigated by the national security department of the Hong Kong police and the city’s national security committee, a body created by Beijing last year that includes the central government’s chief representative in Hong Kong. Their reports would be handed to a new vetting committee, whose decisions on qualifying candidates are final and cannot be appealed in court.“The amendments achieved what has been emphasized before: Patriots need to rule Hong Kong,” said Tam Yiu-chung, a pro-Beijing politician and Hong Kong’s sole delegate on the standing committee of the National People’s Congress.He said the changes would block those who “opposed China and wreaked havoc on Hong Kong” — Beijing’s depiction of many pro-democracy figures — from holding seats in the legislature and the election committee.The changes show that Beijing will decide how elections are held in Hong Kong, said Lau Siu-kai, a former senior Hong Kong government official who now advises Beijing policymakers on Hong Kong issues, including the electoral changes.A TVB news broadcast in a Hong Kong mall in 2019. TVB said this month that it would not air the Oscars for the first time in 52 years.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesIt adds to Hong Kong’s transformed political environmentThe electoral overhaul is only the latest example of how Beijing has squeezed a once raucous and freewheeling political landscape and crippled free speech in Hong Kong.The authorities have waged an intense crackdown on the opposition with arrests and detentions. Last month, they charged 47 pro-democracy politicians, including most of the camp’s most prominent figures, with subversion under a national security law. Others are in court on charges of unauthorized assembly. The prosecutions have effectively silenced much of the opposition.The security law has also loomed over the city, curbing its environment for free expression. Some politicians have warned that Hong Kong’s new art museum, M+, risks violating the security law if it displays works from artists like the Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei.A local broadcaster, TVB, said this week that it would not show the Oscars after 52 years of televising the event. It said the decision was commercial, but this year’s awards include two nominees that are politically sensitive in China. “Do Not Split,” a nominee for best documentary short, focuses on the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and Chloé Zhao, the first Chinese woman and the first woman of color to be nominated for best director, has stirred a backlash over a 2013 interview in which she criticized her native country.Barriers outside the Legislative Council building in Hong Kong this month.Lam Yik Fei for The New York TimesBeijing has been unswayed by the international backlash.Beijing’s moves on Hong Kong have prompted criticism and countermeasures from foreign governments, including the United States. Both the Trump and Biden administrations imposed financial sanctions on Chinese and Hong Kong officials deemed as having undermined the city’s autonomy.Several nations have also announced they would make it easier for people from Hong Kong to immigrate. Britain has opened up residency and a potential pathway to citizenship for millions of people from Hong Kong, a former British colony.As the political changes pushed by Beijing continue to shake Hong Kong, more people are likely to consider options for leaving, said Sonny Lo, a political analyst based in Hong Kong.“This will have a kind of chilling effect on society,” he said. “I expect a wave of migration. Because in the minds of ordinary citizens who don’t know about politics, who don’t know the complexities, they are really scared off.”Keith Bradsher More

Listen and follow The Daily Apple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherIn the weeks after the 2020 election, Georgia’s Republican leaders emerged as defenders of election integrity, rebuffing demands by former President Trump to overturn the results. But now voting rights in the state are under threat. The Republicans in the state legislature watched as the state flipped for a Democratic presidential candidate for the first time in decades and two Democrats — Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — won their Senate runoff elections. Their response was a package of voting restrictions. Today, we look at the measures introduced in Georgia and how similar laws may be passed elsewhere in the country. On today’s episodeNick Corasaniti, a domestic correspondent covering national politics for The New York Times. Three Democratic state representatives, Kim Schofield, second from left, Viola Davis and Sandra Scott, at a protest outside the Georgia Capitol as House members debated a bill on voting restrictions last week.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesBackground reading Georgia Republicans have moved early in a campaign to rewrite voting rules. Republicans in other states are determined to follow them.The country’s most hotly contested state has calmed down after months of drama, court fights and national attention. But new storms are on the horizon.There are a lot of ways to listen to The Daily. Here’s how.Transcripts of each episode are available by the next workday. You can find them at the top of the page.Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting.The Daily is made by Theo Balcomb, Lisa Tobin, Rachel Quester, Lynsea Garrison, Annie Brown, Clare Toeniskoetter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon Johnson, Brad Fisher, Larissa Anderson, Wendy Dorr, Chris Wood, Jessica Cheung, Stella Tan, Alexandra Leigh Young, Lisa Chow, Eric Krupke, Marc Georges, Luke Vander Ploeg, Sindhu Gnanasambandan, M.J. Davis Lin, Austin Mitchell, Neena Pathak, Dan Powell, Dave Shaw, Sydney Harper, Daniel Guillemette, Hans Buetow, Robert Jimison, Mike Benoist, Bianca Giaever, Liz O. Baylen, Asthaa Chaturvedi, Rachelle Bonja, Alix Spiegel, Diana Nguyen, Marion Lozano and Soraya Shockley.Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Landsverk of Wonderly. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Mikayla Bouchard, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Nora Keller, Sofia Milan, Desiree Ibekwe, Laura Kim, Erica Futterman and Shreeya Sinha. More

Listen and follow The Improvement AssociationApple Podcasts | Spotify | StitcherFrom the makers of Serial: The Improvement Association. In this five-part audio series, join the reporter Zoe Chace as she travels to Bladen County, N.C., to investigate the power of election fraud allegations — even when they’re not substantiated.A few years ago, Bladen County, N.C., made national headlines. In 2018, Mark Harris, a Republican, beat out his Democratic opponent for a congressional seat, but the election was later thrown out and a new election was called after his campaign was investigated over suspicions of absentee-ballot fraud.But according to some local residents, the authorities got it all wrong. They say there’s a powerful group still at work in the county, tampering with elections, bullying voters and stealing votes — a Black advocacy group, the Bladen County Improvement Association. These accusations have never been substantiated, but they persist.Join Zoe Chace as she travels to Bladen County to find out what’s behind all this suspicion. Who exactly is making the accusations? And in small-town politics, where rumors and allegations abound, how can you be sure who is telling the truth?Behind this series:From left, Nancy Updike, producer on this series, and Zoe Chace, reporter on this series. Sandy HonigZoe Chace, the reporter for this series, has been a producer at This American Life since 2015. Before that, she was a reporter for NPR. She loves telling stories about people and politics and people in politics.Nancy Updike, the producer for this series, is a Senior Editor at This American Life and one of the founding producers of the show.Transcripts of each episode of The Improvement Association will be available by the next workday after an episode publishes.The Improvement Association was reported by Zoe Chace; produced by Nancy Updike, with help from Amy Pedulla; edited by Julie Snyder, Sarah Koenig, Neil Drumming and Ira Glass; editorial consulting by R.L. Nave and Tim Tyson; fact-checking and research by Ben Phelan; and sound design and mix by Phoebe Wang.The original score for “The Improvement Association” was written and performed by Kwame Brandt-Pierce.Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Julie Whitaker, Seth Lind, Julia Simon, Nora Keller and Lauren Jackson. More