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    City of Miami Racially Gerrymandered Voting Districts, Judge Finds

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    The federal judge threw out the city’s voting map, rejecting the rationale that city commissioners have used for more than 20 years.The City of Miami unconstitutionally gerrymandered voting districts by race and ethnicity, a federal judge found on Wednesday, throwing out the city’s voting map and rejecting the way city commissioners have tried to hold on to power for more than two decades.Judge K. Michael Moore of the Federal District Court in Miami wrote that commissioners had used redistricting rationale since 1997 to draw five districts with the explicit intent of having voters elect three Hispanic commissioners, one Black commissioner and one non-Hispanic white commissioner.“Sorting voters on the basis of race, as the city did here, deprives Miamians of the constitutional promise that they receive equal protection under the law,” Judge Moore wrote. “These are the serious harms that the city perpetuated, and Miamians suffered. Today, the court permanently prevents the city from racial gerrymandering any longer.”The ruling comes as scandal has roiled City Hall.Mayor Francis X. Suarez, who briefly sought the Republican presidential nomination, has been dogged by controversies over undisclosed work for clients outside City Hall. Last year, a jury held Commissioner Joe Carollo liable for more than $63 million in damages for siccing inspectors on two businessmen as political retribution.A former commissioner, Alex Díaz de la Portilla, faces bribery and money laundering charges in a case involving a city land deal. (He has pleaded not guilty.) Another former commissioner, Sabina Covo, has been under investigation for bribery. (She has denied wrongdoing.) The city attorney, Victoria Méndez, has been accused in a lawsuit of being involved in a house-flipping scheme with her husband. (She has denied involvement or wrongdoing.)As a result of Judge Moore’s ruling, the city could be forced to hold a special election or to draw a new voting map. The next municipal elections are supposed to take place in November 2025. Commissioners, who are nonpartisan, serve staggered four-year terms.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Appeals Court Allows Indiana Ban on Transition Care for Minors to Take Effect

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      A lower court had mostly blocked enforcement of a state law that banned gender-transition care for minors, but a federal appellate court lifted that injunction on Tuesday.Indiana’s ban on hormone treatments and puberty blockers for transgender minors can go into effect, a federal appeals court ruled on Tuesday, undoing a lower court decision last year that had largely blocked the law.The three-paragraph ruling by a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, based in Chicago, said it was staying a preliminary injunction that the district court had issued in June, just before the law was scheduled to take effect last summer.The appellate judges did not explain their reasoning but simply said that a full opinion on the case would be issued in the future.The decision further unsettles the national legal landscape around transgender care for minors, with bans blocked in some states but not others, and it could lead to abrupt changes in treatment for young people in Indiana.“This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors and their families,” the American Civil Liberties Union and the A.C.L.U. of Indiana, which brought the lawsuit challenging the ban, said in a statement. “As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Indiana to know this fight is far from over,” the statement added.The Indiana attorney general, Todd Rokita, whose office defended the law in court, said on social media that “we are proud to win this fight.”“Our common-sense state law, banning dangerous and irreversible gender-transition procedures for minors, is now enforceable,” said Mr. Rokita, a Republican. Republican-led states have raced to ban gender-transition care for minors in recent years, leading to a series of lawsuits in federal and state courts that so far have had mixed results. Many legal experts on both sides of the issue expect the legality of the bans to ultimately be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.The Indiana ban passed the Republican-controlled legislature last spring by large margins and was signed into law by Gov. Eric Holcomb, a Republican. Supporters of the law claimed they were seeking to protect young people from making life-altering decisions that they might later regret.Families of transgender children sued to block the law, saying that it would put transgender youths at immediate risk of unwanted changes to their bodies, which would have lifelong consequences.A federal district judge, James Patrick Hanlon, who was appointed by President Donald J. Trump, temporarily blocked portions of the law banning hormone treatments and puberty blockers for minors while the lawsuit proceeded. He allowed a ban on gender-transition surgeries for minors to take effect as scheduled.But after hearing arguments this month, a three-judge panel from the Seventh Circuit, made up of two judges appointed by Republican presidents and one appointed by a Democratic president, lifted Judge Hanlon’s injunction. More

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      Wisconsin Judge Dismisses Felony Charge in ‘Ballot Selfie’ Case

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      The debate over a candidate’s photo reflects concerns among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. A Wisconsin judge on Monday dismissed a felony charge against a school board candidate who had posted a photograph on Facebook of a ballot with his name filled in.In his ruling, the judge, Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County, threw out the count of voter fraud against the man, Paul H. Buzzell, 52, a former school board member in Mequon, a suburb of Milwaukee, who was voted back onto the board during an election in April, online court records show. Judge Malloy ruled on a motion to dismiss by Mr. Buzzell’s lawyers, who argued that the state law prohibiting so-called ballot selfies was overly broad and violated the constitutional guarantee of free expression. “What is at stake is branding a politician a felon for declaring to the world that the politician displayed” a marked ballot “showing a vote for himself in an election,” the motion said. Mr. Burrell would have faced a maximum possible sentence of three and a half years in prison and a $10,000 fine had he been convicted. He would also have been barred from running for elected office.The case reflects the debate among states over selfies of ballots and of people showing how they vote. Some legislators have argued that public displays of marked ballots can be used to influence voters in an election or to promote vote buying. Others, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say such laws banning voting selfies on social media restrict free speech.Under Wisconsin law, it is an election fraud violation for a person to show his or her marked ballot to someone else, or to mark a ballot so that it is identifiable as his or hers. It is one of at least 18 states that have laws prohibiting selfies displaying a voter’s marked ballot.In 2020, the Wisconsin Senate passed a bill to legalize ballot selfies, but the State Assembly failed to pass a bill that would eliminate the statute, The Associated Press reported.According to a criminal complaint, Mr. Buzzell, 52, published a photograph on Facebook of a marked ballot on March 27 ahead of an election for the Mequon-Thiensville School Board. Witnesses reported the post to the Mequon Police Department as a case of possible election fraud, the complaint said. The photograph of the ballot showed the oval next to Mr. Buzzell’s name filled out as well as that of another candidate, Jason P. Levash, court documents show. Mr. Levash serves as the school board’s vice president, and Mr. Buzzell serves as treasurer. “He displayed a marked ballot showing a vote for himself,” Mr. Buzzell’s lawyer, Michael Chernin, said on Tuesday, adding that Mr. Buzzell indicated that the ballot in question was his daughter’s. Mr. Buzzell, when contacted by the police on April 2, said that “his understanding was that it was not illegal to post a photo of a ballot with his name on it,” the complaint said. He cast his own ballot in person on April 5, according to the complaint.While the dismissal means that the prosecutors’ case cannot move ahead, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which reported on Monday that the charges had been dropped, quoted the Ozaukee County district attorney, Adam Gerol, as saying that he would ask the attorney general to decide whether to file an appeal or issue an opinion. “It’s in the A.G.’s hands,” said Mr. Gerol, a Republican. He did not immediately reply to a message left at his office on Tuesday.The office of Josh Kaul, the attorney general, said in a statement on Tuesday that the Wisconsin Department of Justice would review the district attorney’s request and “proceed appropriately.” More

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      Nueva ley de votación en Texas: lo que ha sucedido en el juicio

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      Los críticos han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que la ley impida la participación de los votantes con discapacidades, los de edad avanzada y los que no hablan inglés.Durante años, Stella Guerrero Mata, de 73 años, una conductora de autobús escolar jubilada que vive cerca de Houston, había podido votar por correo sin ningún problema. Guerrero, que usa un bastón para caminar y tiene una larga lista de padecimientos, entre ellos diabetes, deterioro de la vista y dolor de espalda, esperaba volver a sufragar de la misma manera en las elecciones de medio mandato de 2022.No obstante, poco tiempo después de enviar su boleta por correo, recibió una carta que la dejó enojada y confundida. Su boleta no fue aceptada porque no incluyó el número de su licencia de conducir ni los últimos cuatro dígitos de su número de seguridad social, un requisito de una nueva y polémica ley de votación que se aprobó en 2021.“Mi voto fue rechazado”, denunció Guerrero Mata y agregó que se había dado cuenta de que era demasiado tarde para corregir el error. “Estaba enojada, porque mi voz no se iba a escuchar”.Guerrero Mata forma parte de un grupo de votantes que testificaron en un juicio que se está realizando en San Antonio sobre la extensa reforma electoral del estado, conocida como SB 1. La ley se aprobó por una mayoría republicana incluso después de que los legisladores demócratas abandonaron el recinto durante 38 días, lo que puso al estado en una lucha infructuosa para impedir que el proyecto de ley llegara a votación.Desde que entró en vigor, los críticos han expresado su preocupación por la posibilidad de que la ley impida la participación de los votantes con discapacidades, los de edad avanzada y los que no hablan inglés. El juicio federal, que ahora inicia su segunda semana, brinda una oportunidad inusual para escuchar directamente a los electores que querían votar pero no pudieron hacerlo.Una coalición de grupos defensores del derecho al voto, entre ellos el Fondo Educativo de Defensa Legal Mexicoestadounidense (MALDEF, por su sigla en inglés) y la Unión Estadounidense de Libertades Civiles (ACLU, por su sigla en inglés) de Texas, afirma en su demanda que la ley afecta a las personas que votan por correo, aquellas que se apoyan en ayudantes conocidos como asistentes para votar y quienes dependen de organizaciones comunitarias para saber dónde y cómo votar.La ley agregó nuevos requisitos de identificación para votar por correo, dificultó el uso de asistentes para sufragar, estableció sanciones penales para los trabajadores electorales si son demasiado enérgicos a la hora de controlar a las personas en los centros de votación y prohibió la votación disponible 24 horas, así como la votación desde un vehículo, medidas que se utilizaron, en particular, en el condado de Harris durante la pandemia.Los abogados que representan al estado han dicho que las nuevas reglas previenen un posible fraude electoral y que los votantes parecen adaptarse mejor con cada elección. Ryan Kercher, abogado del estado, opinó que la integridad electoral significa que los votantes “van a tener confianza en el proceso”. Además, Kercher añadió que la ley permite ampliar el horario de votación anticipada para alentar una mayor participación de los electores.Durante el contrainterrogatorio, otro abogado del estado, Will Wassdorf, le dijo a Guerrero Mata que había ingresado la información requerida en el formulario en el que solicitó una boleta por correo, pero que no lo hizo cuando envió por correo la boleta electoral. Luego, Wassdorf le mostró en una pantalla los espacios que había dejado en blanco.“¿Entiende que por eso se rechazó su boleta?”, le preguntó Wassdorf. Y Guerrero Mata respondió: “Ahora lo entiendo. En este momento, sí”.Un ejemplo de los nuevos requisitos para votar como el número de la licencia de conducir y los cuatro últimos dígitos del número de Seguridad Social del votante.Sergio Flores/ReutersCuando Fátima Menéndez, una de las abogadas demandantes, le preguntó si tendría la confianza de votar por correo en 2024, Guerrero Mata respondió que no estaba segura. “Siento que no se contaría”, mencionó.Un desfile de funcionarios electorales de Dallas, Austin, El Paso y el valle del Río Grande también testificaron que consideran confusas y vagas muchas de las nuevas regulaciones y que a menudo tuvieron dificultades para explicárselas a otros votantes que también estaban confundidos.“No sabía qué decirles a los votantes”, dijo Dana DeBeauvoir, secretaria del condado de Travis, en Austin, que supervisó varias elecciones antes de jubilarse. DeBeauvoir describió el supuesto problema del fraude electoral como “un unicornio”, en el mejor de los casos, “muy pocos entre millones de votos y, en la mayoría de los casos, no fueron intencionados”.Kercher insistió en eso durante el contrainterrogatorio. “Aunque el fraude electoral sea un unicornio, tenemos que estar alerta”, dijo.“Yo siempre lo he estado”, replicó ella.Se espera que el juez a cargo de este caso, Xavier Rodriguez, del Distrito Oeste de Texas, escuche los testimonios durante las próximas semanas antes de emitir una orden.Previamente, Rodriguez consideró que una parte de la ley era ilegal: el requisito de que los votantes escriban los últimos cuatro dígitos de su número de seguridad social o el número de su licencia de conducir cuando soliciten votar por correo y que los trabajadores electorales puedan emparejar uno de los números con los datos de registro del elector.Rodriguez, designado por el expresidente George W. Bush, determinó que el requisito violaba la Ley de Derechos Civiles porque cabe la posibilidad de que los funcionarios electorales rechacen a votantes que de otro modo calificarían para votar por correo pero que tengan dificultad para proporcionar esa información adicional.La ACLU de Texas asegura que alrededor de 40.000 solicitudes de boletas de votación por correo han sido rechazadas por errores relacionados con este requisito.Nina Perales, una abogada de MALDEF, argumentó durante su discurso inicial que los votantes con discapacidades están entre los más afectados.“Añadir más pasos al proceso de votación y exigir más formularios dificulta la votación y reduce el número de boletas emitidas”, dijo Perales. “Esto impone más y más obstáculos a los votantes discapacitados y provocará la privación de sus derechos”.La nueva ley de votación se convirtió en una prioridad para el gobernador Greg Abbott después de que el expresidente Donald Trump afirmó haber perdido las elecciones de 2020 debido a un fraude electoral, una aseveración que ha sido descartada por jueces de todo Estados Unidos. Sin embargo, Abbott amenazó con convocar una sesión especial de la legislatura hasta que los legisladores le enviaran el proyecto de ley de votación para que lo firmara.Después de la legislación, hubo una serie de cambios electorales adoptados en varias áreas urbanas de Texas, lugares en gran parte dominados por demócratas, los cuales fueron diseñados para facilitar que los votantes que cumplan con los requisitos emitan su voto. Por ejemplo, Houston atrajo la atención nacional al permitir que se sufragara desde los vehículos, las 24 horas del día, en el punto álgido de la pandemia.La defensa aún está por presentar su caso. Gran parte de la primera semana estuvo dedicada a votantes y funcionarios electorales, llamados por los demandantes, quienes detallaron sus dificultades con las nuevas reglas.Toby Cole, un abogado que perdió el uso de sus brazos y piernas tras un accidente cuando tenía 18 años y que vota con la ayuda de un asistente, testificó que se sentía incómodo compartiendo su información médica con los trabajadores electorales cuando votaba en persona, la forma de votación que prefiere, para que un asistente le ayude a emitir su voto.Cole dijo que conoce a muchos otros votantes con discapacidades que pueden optar por no votar en persona o simplemente no sufragar porque no se sienten cómodos compartiendo las razones por las que tienen derecho a recibir ayuda adicional.Él dice que ha podido votar porque es muy “persistente”.Kirsten Noyes More

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      ‘My Vote Was Rejected’: Trial Underway in Texas Over New Voting Law

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      Voting rights advocates say the law, intended to curb fraud, is impeding people with disabilities, older voters and non-English speakers.For years, Stella Guerrero Mata, a 73-year-old retired school bus driver who lives near Houston, has been able to cast her vote through the mail with little hassle. Ms. Mata, who uses a cane to walk and suffers from a long list of ailments, including diabetes, worsening eyesight and back pain, expected the 2022 midterm elections to be no different.But sometime after she placed her ballot in the mail, she received a letter with news that left her angry and confused. Her ballot was not accepted because she had failed to include her driver’s license number and the last four digits of her Social Security number, a requirement of a contested new voting law that was approved in 2021.“My vote was rejected,” Ms. Mata said, adding that she had realized it was too late for her to correct her mistake. “It made me feel angry, because my voice was not being heard.”Ms. Mata was one of several voters to testify in a trial, now underway in San Antonio, over the state’s sweeping election overhaul, known as S.B. 1. The law was passed by a Republican majority even after Democratic lawmakers staged a 38-day walkout, leaving the state in an unsuccessful effort to prevent the bill from coming to a vote.Since it went into effect, critics have raised concerns that the law would impede voters with disabilities, elderly voters and voters who do not speak English. The federal trial, now entering its second week, is providing an unusual opportunity to hear directly from voters who wanted to cast a vote but were not able to do so.A coalition of voting rights groups, including MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, claim in their lawsuit that the law hurts people who vote by mail, those who use the help of aides known as assisters to vote and those who rely on community organizations to learn about where and how to vote.The law added new voter identification requirements for voting by mail; made it harder to use voter assisters; set criminal penalties for poll workers if they are too forceful in reining in people at polling places; and banned 24-hour voting and drive-through voting, measures that were notably used in Harris County during the pandemic.Lawyers representing the state countered that the new rules prevent potential voter fraud and that voters seem to be adapting better with every passing election. Election integrity means that voters “are going to have confidence in the process,” said Ryan Kercher, a lawyer for the state. In addition, Mr. Kercher said, the law allows for expanded early-voting hours to encourage more voter participation.During cross-examination, another lawyer for the state, Will Wassdorf, pointed out to Ms. Mata that she had entered the required information in an application for a mail ballot, but that she did not do so when she mailed the actual ballot. Mr. Wassdorf then directed her attention to a video screen that showed the entries she had left blank.“Do you understand that that’s why your ballot was rejected?” he asked her.“Now I do. At this time, yes,” she replied.An example of a new mail-in ballot request requiring a driver’s license number and the last four digits of the voter’s Social Security number.Sergio Flores/ReutersAsked by one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers, Fátima Menéndez, if she would have the confidence to cast a vote by mail in 2024, Ms. Mata replied that she was not sure. “I feel like it would not be counted at all,” she said.A parade of election officials from Dallas, Austin, El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley also testified that they found many of the new regulations confusing and vague and that they often struggled to explain them to equally confused voters.“I did not know what to tell voters,” said Dana DeBeauvoir, a county clerk in Travis County, home to Austin, who oversaw several elections before she retired. Ms. DeBeauvoir described the purported problem of voter fraud as “a unicorn,” at best, “ones and twos out of millions of votes, and in most cases unintentional.”Mr. Kercher seized on that during cross-examination. “Even though voter fraud is a unicorn, we still have to be vigilant,” he said.“I always was,” she replied.The judge in the case, Xavier Rodriguez, of the Western District of Texas, is expected to listen to testimony for the next few weeks before issuing an order.Judge Rodriguez previously found one part of the law to be unlawful: its requirement that voters write down either the last four digits of their Social Security number or a driver’s license’s number when requesting to vote by mail and that election workers be able to match one of the numbers with the voter’s registration records.Judge Rodriguez, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled that the requirement violated the Civil Rights Act because elections officials may be turning away voters who otherwise qualify to vote by mail but have a hard time providing the extra information.The A.C.L.U. of Texas said that about 40,000 submissions for mail-in voting ballots have been rejected for errors connected to this requirement.Nina Perales, a lawyer with MALDEF, argued during her opening statement that voters with disabilities are among the most affected.“Adding more steps to the voting process and requiring more forms makes voting more difficult, and it reduces the number of ballots cast,” Ms. Perales said. “This imposes significant and more obstacles for disabled voters and will cause disabled voters to be disenfranchised.”The new voting law became a priority for Gov. Greg Abbott after former President Donald J. Trump claimed he lost the 2020 election because of election fraud, a claim that has been discounted by judges around the country. Nevertheless, Mr. Abbott threatened to call a special session of the Legislature until lawmakers sent him the voting bill to sign.The legislation followed a series of voting changes adopted in several urban areas across Texas, places largely dominated by Democrats, that were designed to make it easier for eligible voters to cast ballots. Houston, for example, drew national attention by offering 24-hour drive-through voting at the height of the pandemic.The defense has not yet begun presenting a case. Much of the first week was taken up by voters and election officials, called by the plaintiffs, who detailed their struggles with the new rules.Toby Cole, a lawyer who lost the use of his arms and legs after an accident when he was 18 and votes with the help of an aide, testified that he felt uncomfortable sharing his medical information with poll workers when voting in person, a method he prefers, in order to have an aide assist in casting his ballot.Mr. Cole said he knows of many fellow voters with disabilities who may choose not to vote in person or at all because they do not feel comfortable sharing why they qualify for extra assistance.He has been able to vote, he said, only “because I’m persistent.”Kirsten Noyes More

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      New Voting Laws Add Difficulties for People With Disabilities

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      Laura Halvorson was ready to vote. On Thursday afternoon, she sat in front of a ballot screen at the Igo Library in San Antonio, after spending a month preparing for this moment. It was the first time in years that she had been in a public place, other than a doctor’s office.Sitting in her wheelchair, she wore two masks — one a KN95, the other a part of her breathing machine. Because Ms. Halvorson, 38, has muscular dystrophy, a condition that progressively decreases muscle mass, and makes her more vulnerable to Covid-19, she needed to use a remote-control device supplied by poll workers to make her ballot selections.No one knew how it worked.The glitch was one of many obstacles she had to navigate, both on that day and over the previous weeks, to fulfill what she saw as her civic duty. For Ms. Halvorson and others with disabilities, casting a ballot can always present a challenge. But new voting restrictions enacted in several states over the past two years have made it even harder.A law signed last year by Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, a Republican, has made it more difficult for voters to cast ballots by mail and narrowed their options for voting in person, according to groups that advocate for people with disabilities and voting rights. Other Republican-led state legislatures, including in Georgia and Florida, have passed similar measures as a part of what they say are efforts to prevent voter fraud, despite rare occurrences of the crime.“Instead of embracing the more accessible forms of voting that sparked record turnout, including among voters with disabilities,” said Brian Dimmick, a senior staff attorney for the disability rights program of the American Civil Liberties Union, “states have doubled down on new and more restrictive voter-suppression laws.”None of the new laws single out those with disabilities, but advocates say they have left many people who would otherwise vote by mail with burdensome options: face the greater risk that their mail-in ballot could be thrown out — as Texas did at a higher-than-usual rate during the March primary — or go to the polls in person, which involves its own set of inconveniences or, worse, physical barriers, and often deprives people with disabilities of a sense of privacy and independence that other voters can take for granted.A polling place in Brooklyn. Nearly two million people with disabilities reported that they had some difficulty voting in the November 2020 election — double the rate of people without disabilities.Anna Watts for The New York Times“Voters with disabilities are being disenfranchised by all these new laws, from onerous ID requirements to longer lines, making the entire process less accessible,” said Shira Wakschlag, the senior director of legal advocacy at The Arc, a disability advocacy organization.Several Texas Republicans who supported the new voting law did not respond to requests for comment about its effect on people with disabilities, although a spokeswoman for Governor Abbott said in a statement that it “protects the rights of disabled Texans to request reasonable accommodations or modifications.” At a hearing last year, State Senator Bryan Hughes, the Texas bill’s author, described accommodations for voters with disabilities as potential security risks, and said narrowing them would stop others from “using those opportunities to cheat.”Voting could already be difficult for those with disabilities. About 17.7 million reported voting in the November 2020 election, according to a report by the Program for Disability Research at Rutgers University and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. Eleven percent of them, or nearly two million people, reported that they had some difficulty voting in that election — almost double the rate of people without disabilities.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Final Landscape: As candidates make their closing arguments, Democrats are bracing for potential losses even in traditionally blue corners of the country as Republicans predict a red wave.The Battle for Congress: With so many races on edge, a range of outcomes is still possible. Nate Cohn, The Times’s chief political analyst, breaks down four possible scenarios.Voting Worries: Even as voting goes smoothly, fear and suspicion hang over the process, exposing the toll former President Donald J. Trump’s falsehoods have taken on American democracy.The right to vote privately and independently was enshrined 20 years ago by Congress in the Help America Vote Act, which was the first law to require polling places to have accessible voting systems. The law also established the federal Election Assistance Commission, an independent body that sets guidelines for states and counties to accommodate disabled voters, which can be enforced by the Justice Department.Despite the law, Thomas Hicks, the commission chairman, said disabled voters still encountered problems, including those who are blind and have trouble locating accessible voting locations, and those who use wheelchairs and need voting machines to be low enough or adjustable to eye level.For Ms. Halvorson, a former special education teacher, the difficulties include being able to raise her hands and tap the screen of a voting machine, she said, because of her reduced motor skills. She lives with her partner, accompanied by different caregivers, in a one-story house in San Antonio, and also relies on a breathing machine to survive; a bad case of pneumonia in 2014 weakened her lungs, and she was not able to make a full recovery.Voting by mail made things simpler for her. But after reports that Texas had thrown out more than 18,000 mail-in ballots from its most populous counties during the March primaries, Ms. Halvorson — who cannot write on her own and feared having to appeal a rejected ballot — felt she had no other choice but to vote in person. She wanted to “see the ballot go in” herself, she said — even if it meant risking her health.“This election is too important to wait to find out if my vote counted,” she said.A week of research about voting in person led Ms. Halvorson to a new kind of machine that Texas had recently put in place, allowing a remote to be connected to the screen and used to make selections. She called her county clerk to ensure those machines would be present at the Igo Library, her local polling place. She did not hear back, she said.Ms. Halvorson entered her polling place on Thursday, on a trip that she began preparing for a month earlier. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesLydia Nunez Landry, a disability rights activist in Houston who has a different form of muscular dystrophy, said her experience using the remote on the first day of early voting went so poorly — including a poll worker seeing Ms. Landry’s chosen candidates — that she immediately filed a complaint with the Justice Department.“I’m just so angry,” Ms. Landry said. “They constantly are changing things, it feels like, to the disability community. We’re just so confused.”Ms. Halvorson wanted a caregiver to accompany her to the polling place in case she had a similar experience and needed help. She also scheduled a coronavirus vaccine booster shot exactly two weeks before the end of early voting..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How we call winners on election night. We rely on The Associated Press, which employs a team of analysts, researchers and race callers who have a deep understanding of the states where they declare winners. In some tightly contested races, we independently evaluate A.P. race calls before declaring a winner.Here’s more about how it works.On Thursday morning, Ms. Halvorson viewed an online guide to the candidates one more time. Her former service dog, Houston, wagged his tail as he put his paws in her lap and begged for treats.She drove to the library with one of her daytime caregivers, Shae-Lynn Lewis, in a large orange, wheelchair-accessible van. A parking spot for the disabled was available, which often is not the case, Ms. Halvorson said. Then it was time to take an inventory. Ms. Halvorson ticked off aloud what to bring inside: phone, identification, water bottle, hand sanitizer and wipes, and the absentee ballot she needed to turn in.Inside the library, a voting clerk wearing a U.S. Marine Corps veteran cap waved people through to the polling room.One of the tokens of Ms. Halvorson’s day. Ilana Panich-Linsman for The New York TimesMs. Halvorson and her caregiver entered and waited in line to turn in the absentee ballot and receive a remote. Ms. Halvorson later said her heart “was beating out of her chest” as she saw all the people around her without masks on in such close quarters.After securing the remote and pulling in front of a voting machine, she began trying to click through on the side buttons, but the screen did not respond. She said she asked for help, but none of the workers seemed to know how it worked, either.After a few tries, she said, the up and down buttons on the remote made the screen respond. It was still hard to read, however, as the font seemed to be enlarged and cut off the party affiliations for candidates she didn’t know.The Bexar County elections administrator, Jacquelyn Callanen, did not respond to requests for comment about Ms. Halvorson’s voting experience.While at least two dozen people entered and exited the voting area within minutes, Ms. Halvorson remained inside, trying to navigate the machine. After about half an hour, she was able to deposit her ballot.Later, she said she felt fortunate that her experience was not worse. Still, she said, “It should be smooth for literally everybody.”Before Ms. Halvorson left, one observer acknowledged her efforts. “The man gave me two ‘I voted’ stickers,” she said. “He said it’s because I had to go through twice as much as everybody else.”Ava Sasani More

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      GOP Voter Fraud Crackdowns Falter as Charges Are Dropped in Florida and Texas

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      Dealing setbacks to Republican-led voter fraud prosecutions, judges in Florida and Texas this week dropped charges against two former felons who had been accused of casting ballots when they were not eligible to do so because of their status as offenders.Robert Lee Wood, one of those two felons, was part of an August roundup spearheaded by Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, on voter fraud.On Friday, a circuit court judge in Miami-Dade County granted a motion to dismiss two felony charges related to voter fraud against Mr. Wood, 56, who spent two decades in prison for second-degree murder. Mr. Wood was among the 20 people who were recently arrested in Florida on voter fraud charges and became the first defendant to have them dropped.And on Monday, a district court judge in Texas set aside the indictment of Hervis Earl Rogers, a Houston man who gained widespread attention for waiting seven hours to vote during the 2020 primary election. Last year, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a Republican, charged Mr. Rogers with voting illegally because he was on parole.A lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud has not stopped Republicans from aggressively pursuing it in states where they hold power. Now, the unraveling of the two high-profile cases has compromised the legitimacy of those efforts.Bryan Griffin, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis, said in an email on Friday that the state disagreed with the dismissal of charges against Mr. Wood and would appeal the ruling.“The state will continue to enforce the law and ensure that murderers and rapists who are not permitted to vote do not unlawfully do so,” Mr. Griffin said. “Florida will not be a state in which elections are left vulnerable or cheaters unaccountable.”The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsBoth parties are making their final pitches ahead of the Nov. 8 election.Where the Election Stands: As Republicans appear to be gaining an edge with swing voters in the final weeks of the contest for control of Congress, here’s a look at the state of the races for the House and Senate.Biden’s Low Profile: President Biden’s decision not to attend big campaign rallies reflects a low approval rating that makes him unwelcome in some congressional districts and states.What Young Voters Think: Twelve Americans under 30, all living in swing states, told The Times about their political priorities, ranging from the highly personal to the universal.In Minnesota: The race for attorney general in the light-blue state offers a pure test of which issue is likely to be more politically decisive: abortion rights or crime.The ruling by Judge Milton Hirsch of the 11th Judicial Circuit was limited to jurisdictional issues and not Mr. Wood’s voting status. It said that state prosecutors did not have standing in what was a local criminal proceeding. The prosecutors had tried to argue that they did have jurisdiction, because Mr. Wood’s voter application and ballot were processed in another county.“Given that elections violations of this nature impact all Florida voters, elections officials, state government, and the integrity of our republic, we continue to view the Florida Office of Statewide Prosecution as the appropriate agency to prosecute these crimes,” Mr. Griffin said.Larry Davis, a lawyer for Mr. Wood, said in an interview on Friday that his client was approached in the summer of 2020 by a voter drive representative at a Miami-area Walmart asking if he wanted to register to vote.When Mr. Wood told the person that he was a convicted felon, the person said that a state constitutional amendment had restored voting rights to felons and so he filled out an application, according to Mr. Davis. The amendment, however, excluded people convicted of murder or felony sex offenses and required them to apply separately to have their rights reinstated.Mr. Wood received a voter card from the state six or seven weeks after filling out the application, said Mr. Davis, who described the dramatic scene when his client was arrested at 6 a.m. in August.“The house was surrounded with police that had automatic weapons,” Mr. Davis said. “They wouldn’t even let him get dressed and they took him to jail.”In Florida, a conviction of voter fraud requires proof of intent. Mr. Davis said “there’s absolutely no proof” that his client willfully broke the law.The legal setback for Mr. DeSantis, who is running for re-election in November and has White House ambitions, came days after the release of body camera footage from law enforcement officers in the Tampa area who carried out similar arrests. In the videos, the people arrested seemed puzzled and appeared to have run afoul of the law out of confusion rather than intent.Mr. Davis said that he had requested the body camera footage from Mr. Wood’s arrest, but had not yet received it.In the case of Mr. Rogers in Texas, Judge Lisa Michalk of the 221st District Court in Montgomery County, which is about 40 miles north of Houston, ruled on Monday that Mr. Paxton as Texas’s attorney general did not have the authority to independently prosecute criminal offenses under the Election Code.A spokeswoman for Mr. Paxton did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.In a statement, Mr. Rogers expressed his relief that the indictment had been set aside.“I am thankful that justice has been done,” Mr. Rogers said. “It has been horrible to go through this, and I am so glad my case is over. I look forward to being able to get back to my life.”Tommy Buser-Clancy, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas and one of the lawyers who represented Mr. Rogers, in a statement this week lamented what happened to Mr. Rogers.“He never should have been prosecuted in the first place, and this ruling allows him to put this traumatic ordeal behind him and move on with his life,” Mr. Buser-Clancy said. More

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      The ACLU Sues a Nevada County Over Its Plan to Hand-Count Mail Ballots

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      The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against a rural county over its move to start hand-counting mail-in ballots two weeks before Election Day, saying it would violate state and federal laws.The lawsuit is the latest effort to fight the Nye County commission’s plans to conduct the Nov. 8 election almost entirely with paper ballots and have the vote tallied by hand, in addition to machine tabulation. Election experts have warned that such measures could lead to lengthy delays and chaos.The changes, encouraged by Jim Marchant, the Republican who is running for the state’s top election post, are rooted in baseless conspiracy theories being circulated on the right that voting machines are being used fraudulently.Mr. Marchant, who has been vocal in challenging the 2020 presidential election result, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The suit was filed as an emergency request known as a writ and aims to stop the county from adopting the measures, said Athar Haseebullah, the A.C.L.U.’s executive director in the state.“They’re treating our democracy as if it’s a game,” Mr. Haseebullah said. “It should be deeply offensive to everybody who cares about the process of election integrity.”Mark Kampf, the Nye County clerk who was appointed to the post in August after the retirement of Sandra Merlino, who had warned against the changes, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.The hand-counting process would be done in public; a presentation at a Sept. 20 county commissioners meeting indicated it would be streamed live and that “citizens become poll watchers at home.”Mr. Haseebullah said that could have a “chilling effect” on voter turnout and potentially violate a state law that asserts that “no voting results of mail ballots may be released until all polling places are closed and all votes have been cast on the day of the election.”“There is a longstanding tradition in the U.S. of not releasing results before Election Day,” said Gowri Ramachandran, senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Elections and Government Program, which has urged the county against hand-counting. Voters could feel “manipulated by partial results coming out and making them feel like that their vote doesn’t count or their vote doesn’t matter,” Ms. Ramachandran said.Mr. Kampf dismissed such concerns in an interview with The Associated Press, saying that “no one sees the total result in any place.”The county is permitting the use of electronic voting machines for those with “special needs,” which the suit claims would violate state and federal privacy laws that prohibit inquiries about voters’ disability status. Mr. Marchant, who blamed fraud for his 2020 loss in Nevada’s Fourth Congressional District, helped organize the “America First” slate of secretary of state candidates this year, all of whom have repeated former President Donald J. Trump’s election falsehoods. Mr. Marchant is competing against Cisco Aguilar, a Democratic lawyer who once worked for former Senator Harry M. Reid.Democrats have long been successful in Nevada, but this year, they are facing potential losses up and down the ballot in the state. More

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      Supreme Court Allows Undated Ballots in Pennsylvania Election

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      A state law required mailed ballots to be accompanied by a signed and dated declaration, but a federal appeals court ruled that undated declarations sufficed.WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said on Thursday that election officials in Pennsylvania may count mailed ballots accompanied by voters’ declarations that were signed but not dated. The court’s order came in a tight race for a seat on a state court, but it is likely to affect other contests in the state as well.The court’s brief order gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications.The court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — dissented, saying that the court should address the issue presented in the case in time for the November elections.The case concerned a state law enacted in 2019 that permitted all registered voters to vote by mail. The law required voters using mailed ballots to “fill out, date and sign” a declaration printed on the outside of the return envelope that said they were qualified to vote.The Supreme Court’s order let stand a ruling from a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, which said the part of the state law requiring the declarations to be dated ran afoul of a provision of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. The provision prohibits government officials from denying the right to vote “because of an error or omission” if it “is not material in determining whether such individual is qualified under state law to vote.”The case arose from an election in November 2021 for a seat on the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas in which David Ritter, a Republican, leads Zachary Cohen, a Democrat, by 71 votes. The local elections board determined that it would also count 257 undated ballots, and challenges in state and federal court followed.It was undisputed that the undated ballots were received by Election Day and that the elections board had accepted ballots with incorrect dates, including birth dates, rejecting only missing ones.The suit, brought by five voters who had submitted undated ballots, argued that the federal law required that all 257 undated ballots be counted. The voters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, told the Supreme Court that requiring a date served no purpose.“The handwritten date is so inconsequential that the Board of Elections accepted ballots where voters wrote any date whatsoever on the return envelope, even dates from decades ago,” the voters’ brief said. “The county clerk affirmed he would have accepted envelope dates from the future. Yet voters who mistakenly omitted the envelope date were disenfranchised.”In March, Judge Joseph F. Leeson Jr. of the Federal District Court in Allentown, Pa., rejected the suit, saying that only the attorney general was authorized to sue under the federal law.The Third Circuit disagreed, saying that the voters were entitled to sue and that the requirement of a dated declaration did not help determine whether the voter was qualified. “The requirement is material if it goes to determining age, citizenship, residency or current imprisonment for a felony,” Judge Theodore A. McKee wrote, concluding that adding a date to a signature did not aid in those determinations.Justice Alito, writing for the three dissenters, said the federal law did not appear to address the requirement that voters date their declarations.“When a mail-in ballot is not counted because it was not filled out correctly, the voter is not denied ‘the right to vote,’” he wrote. “Rather, that individual’s vote is not counted because he or she did not follow the rules for casting a ballot.”Understand the Battle Over U.S. Voting RightsCard 1 of 6Why are voting rights an issue now? More