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Republicans in several states are pushing bills to give poll watchers more autonomy. Alarmed election officials and voting rights activists say it’s a new attempt to target voters of color.HOUSTON — The red dot of a laser pointer circled downtown Houston on a map during a virtual training of poll watchers by the Harris County Republican Party. It highlighted densely populated, largely Black, Latino and Asian neighborhoods.“This is where the fraud is occurring,” a county Republican official said falsely in a leaked video of the training, which was held in March. A precinct chair in the northeastern, largely white suburbs of Houston, he said he was trying to recruit people from his area “to have the confidence and courage” to act as poll watchers in the circled areas in upcoming elections.A question at the bottom corner of the slide indicated just how many poll watchers the party wanted to mobilize: “Can we build a 10K Election Integrity Brigade?”As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers — citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process.This effort has alarmed election officials and voting rights activists alike: There is a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often in ways that target Democratic-leaning communities of color and stoke fears that have the overall effect of voter suppression. During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promoted its “army” of poll watchers as he publicly implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.Republicans have offered little evidence to justify a need for poll watchers to have expanded access and autonomy. As they have done for other election changes — including reduced early voting, stricter absentee ballot requirements and limits on drop boxes — they have grounded their reasoning in arguments that their voters want more secure elections. That desire was born in large part out of Mr. Trump’s repeated lies about last year’s presidential contest, which included complaints about insufficient poll watcher access.Now, with disputes over the rules governing voting now at a fever pitch, the rush to empower poll watchers threatens to inject further tension into elections.Both partisan and nonpartisan poll watching have been a key component of American elections for years, and Republicans and Democrats alike have routinely sent trained observers to the polls to monitor the process and report back on any worries. In recent decades, laws have often helped keep aggressive behavior at bay, preventing poll watchers from getting too close to voters or election officials, and maintaining a relatively low threshold for expelling anyone who misbehaves.But now Republican state lawmakers in 20 states have introduced at least 40 bills that would expand the powers of poll watchers, and 12 of those bills in six states are currently progressing through legislatures, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.In Texas, the Republican-controlled Legislature is advancing legislation that would allow them to photograph and video-record voters receiving assistance, as well as make it extremely difficult for election officials to order the removal of poll watchers.The video-recording measure has particularly alarmed voting rights groups, which argue that it could result in the unwanted identification of a voter in a video posted on social media, or allow isolated incidents to be used by partisan news outlets to craft a widespread narrative.“If you have a situation, for example, where people who are poll workers do not have the ability to throw out anybody at the polls who is being disruptive or anyone at the polls who is intimidating voters, that’s essentially authorizing voter intimidation,” said Jon Greenbaum, chief counsel for the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.Republicans have been increasingly open in recent years about their intent to line up legions of supporters to monitor the polls. Following the lead of Mr. Trump, they have often framed the observational role in militaristic tones, amplifying their arguments of its necessity with false claims of widespread fraud. Just three years ago, the courts lifted a consent decree that for more than three decades had barred the Republican National Committee from taking an active role in poll watching; in 2020, the committee jumped back into the practice.In Florida, Republicans in the State Legislature passed a new election bill on Thursday that includes a provision allowing one partisan poll watcher per candidate on the ballot during the inspection of votes. The measure carries the potential to significantly overcrowd election officials. The bill also does not stipulate any distance that poll watchers must keep from election workers.In Michigan, a G.O.P. bill would allow challengers to sit close enough to read poll books, tabulators and other election records, and would let them challenge a voter’s eligibility if they had “a good reason.”The Republican drive to empower poll watchers adds to the mounting evidence that much of the party continues to view the 2020 election through the same lens as Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly argued that his losses in key states must have been because of fraud.President Donald J. Trump on the morning after the election. His campaign promoted an “army” of poll watchers.Doug Mills/The New York Times“It seems like the No. 1 goal of these laws is to perpetuate the Big Lie,” said Dale Ho, the director of the Voting Rights Project at the A.C.L.U. “So when you get these unfounded charges that there was fraud or cheating in the election and people say, ‘Well, that’s not detected,’ the purveyors of these lies say, ‘That’s because we weren’t able to observe.’”After the election last year, complaints that poll watchers had not been given enough access, or that their accusations of improperly cast ballots had been ignored, fueled numerous lawsuits filed by the Trump campaign and its Republican allies, nearly all of which failed.In Texas, the leaked video of the Harris County Republican Party’s training, which was published by the voting rights group Common Cause, recalled a similar episode from the 2010 midterm elections.That year, a Tea Party-affiliated group in Houston known as the King Street Patriots sent poll watchers to downtown polling locations. The flood of the mostly white observers into Black neighborhoods caused friction, and resurfaced not-too-distant memories when racial intimidation at the polls was commonplace in the South.The King Street Patriots would eventually evolve into True the Vote, one of the major national organizations now seeking more voting restrictions. Last year, True the Vote joined several lawsuits alleging fraud in the election (all failed) and led countrywide drives to try to recruit more poll watchers.Access for poll watchers is considered sacred by Texas Republicans; in the Legislature, they cited the difficulty in finding observers for drive-through voting and 24-hour voting as one of their reasons for proposing to ban such balloting methods.“Both parties want to have poll watchers, need to have poll watchers present,” State Senator Bryan Hughes, a Republican who sponsored the chamber’s version of the bill, said in an interview last month. “That protects everyone.”While the antagonistic language from the Trump campaign about its poll watchers was already a flash point in November, Democrats and voting rights groups are worried that relaxed rules will lead to more reports of aggressive behavior.In 2020, there were at least 44 reports of inappropriate behavior by poll watchers in Harris County, according to county records obtained by The New York Times. At one polling site on the outskirts of Houston, Cindy Wilson, the nonpartisan election official in charge, reported two aggressive poll watchers who she said had bothered voters and repeatedly challenged the staff.“Two Poll watchers stood close to the black voters (less than 3 feet away) and engaged in what I describe as intimidating behavior,” Ms. Wilson wrote in an email to the Harris County clerk that was obtained by The Times through an open records request.Ms. Wilson said she was not sure which campaign or party the observers were representing.Of course, plenty of interactions with poll workers went smoothly. Merrilee C. Peterson, a poll watcher for a local Republican candidate, worked at a different site, the NRG Arena, and reported no tensions of note.“We still had some of the problems of not thinking we were allowed to get close enough to see,” she said. “But once the little kinks were worked out, quite frankly we worked very well with the poll workers.”In Florida, crowding was the chief concern of election officials.Testifying before state senators, Mark Earley, the vice president of the Florida Supervisors of Elections, said that “as an association, we are very concerned” about the number of poll watchers who would now be allowed to observe the process of duplicating a voter’s damaged or erroneously marked ballot. He said it presented “very grave security risks.”Mr. Earley was backed by at least one Republican, State Senator Jeff Brandes, who found the provision for poll watchers unnecessary and dangerous.“I don’t think we should have to install risers in the supervisor of elections offices or bars by which they can hang upside down in order to ensure that there is a transparent process,” Mr. Brandes said.A crowd that included many Michigan Republicans banged on the windows as workers counted absentee ballots in Detroit on Nov. 4. Brittany Greeson for The New York TimesBut perhaps no other state had a conflict involving poll watchers erupt onto cable news as Michigan did. On Election Day and the day after in November, Republican poll watchers grew increasingly obstructive at the TCF Center in Detroit, where absentee ballots were counted as it became clear that Mr. Trump was losing in the state.It began with a huddle of Republican observers around midday on Nov. 4, according to affidavits from Democratic poll watchers, nonpartisan observers and election officials.Soon after, the Republicans “began to fan out around the room,” wrote Dan McKernan, an election worker.Then they ramped up their objections, accusing workers of entering incorrect birth years or backdating ballots. In some cases, the poll watchers lodged blanket claims of wrongdoing.“The behavior in the room changed dramatically in the afternoon: The rage in the room from Republican challengers was nothing like I had ever experienced in my life,” wrote Anjanette Davenport Hatter, another election worker.Mr. McKernan wrote: “Republicans were challenging everything at the two tables I could see. When the ballot envelope was opened, they would say they couldn’t see it clearly. When the next envelope was opened, they made the same complaint. They were objecting to every single step down the line for no good reason.”The chaos provided some of the basis for Michigan officials to debate whether to certify the results, but a state board did so that month.Now, the Republican-controlled Legislature in Michigan is proposing to bar nonpartisan observers from acting as poll watchers, allowing only partisan challengers to do so.While widespread reports of intimidation never materialized last year, voting rights groups say the atmosphere after the election represents a dangerous shift in American elections.“It really hasn’t been like this for decades, generally speaking, even though there’s a long and storied history of it,” said Michael Waldman, a legal expert at the Brennan Center. Aggressive partisan poll watchers, he said, were “a longstanding barrier to voting in the United States, and it was also largely solved. And this risks bringing it back.” More
President Mahmoud Abbas said elections could not take place unless Israel allowed voting in East Jerusalem. But privately, he also fears a poor result for his party, officials said.JERUSALEM — When the Palestinian Authority called in January for parliamentary elections, many Palestinians hoped the vote — the first in the occupied territories since 2006 — would revive Palestinian discourse, re-energize the independence movement and end a 14-year division between Palestinian leaders in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.But those hopes were dashed Thursday night when President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority announced that the vote, scheduled for May 22, would be delayed indefinitely.The news compounded an unsettled political dynamic across the occupied territories and the state of Israel, where both Israeli and Palestinian societies remain racked by political stalemate and division, where tensions are rising in Jerusalem and Gaza, and a return to peace negotiations appears less likely than ever.The official reason for the postponement was the refusal by the Israeli government to confirm that it would allow voting in East Jerusalem, which was annexed by Israel after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. East Jerusalem is mainly populated by Palestinians who participate in elections for the Palestinian Authority, a semiautonomous institution that exerts partial jurisdiction in other parts of the occupied territories.“We decided to postpone the legislative elections until guaranteeing that Jerusalem and its people take part,” said Mr. Abbas in a speech in Ramallah. “We don’t give up Jerusalem.”But the postponement also served another purpose: Mr. Abbas was concerned that if the election went ahead, his party, Fatah, might lose ground to two Fatah splinter groups, according to a Palestinian official and a Western diplomat briefed by the Palestinian leadership.A family in a Gaza Strip refugee camp watching President Mahmoud Abbas announce the election delay Thursday.Said Khatib/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIsraeli officials, meanwhile, were concerned that the elections would lead to a greater role in the Palestinian leadership for Hamas, the militant Islamist group that wrested control of Gaza from Mr. Abbas in 2007, and which has never recognized Israel.“It is a big mistake to go to these elections,” Kamil Abu Rokon, an Israeli general who oversaw administrative aspects of the occupation until earlier this month, said shortly before leaving his post. “My recommendation is not to cooperate.”Analysts also said the Israeli leaders were happy to keep their Palestinian counterparts divided, since it undermines the Palestinians’ ability to pursue a final status agreement with Israel as a unified bloc.Hamas condemned Mr. Abbas’s decision, describing it as a “coup” that lacked popular support.The development comes amid a volatile period across the West Bank, Gaza and the state of Israel. Israeli politics is also at an impasse, following an election in March — Israel’s fourth in two years — in which both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his opponents failed to win a workable majority.In Jerusalem, the situation is tense, following a march last week by far-right Jewish supremacists who chanted “Death to Arabs,” attacks on both Palestinians and Jews, and the provocative Israeli decision, now rescinded, to close a central plaza in East Jerusalem where Palestinians enjoy gathering during the ongoing month of Ramadan.That unrest broke months of relative calm in Gaza, where militants fired dozens of rockets toward Israel last weekend to protest the situation in Jerusalem.The city is at the heart of the pretext provided by Mr. Abbas to postpone elections.Under the interim agreements signed in the 1990s between Israeli and Palestinian leaders known as the Oslo Accords, the Israeli government is obliged to allow Palestinian elections in East Jerusalem.President Mahmoud Abbas casting a ballot in the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006, the last time elections were held.Muhammed Muheisen/Associated PressBut Israel has neither blocked the election nor agreed to allow it. The Israeli government has not made a decision either way, an Israeli official confirmed, despite requests by the Palestinian leadership. The Israeli police have detained several representatives of Palestinian parties who attempted to campaign in the city. Palestinian officials said that to proceed with an election without East Jerusalem would be tantamount to giving up Palestinian claims on the city and its sacred Islamic sites, including the Aqsa mosque.“It’s not that we are trying to avoid elections,” said Ziad Abu Amr, deputy prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, and an adviser to Mr. Abbas. “Jerusalem cannot be forsaken or abandoned. You can’t surrender to the fait accompli that Israel tries to impose on Jerusalem.”But insiders said Mr. Abbas had an ulterior motive for postponement.Long the engine of the Palestinian national movement, Mr. Abbas’s party, Fatah, now faces unprecedented challenges, not only from its longtime rival Hamas but also from ex-Fatah grandees whose campaigns chipped away at support for their former party.Were elections to go ahead, Fatah’s supporters would be forced to choose among three Fatah-linked factions — the official party; a splinter group led by an exiled former security chief, Muhammad Dahlan; and a second breakaway faction, headed by Nasser al-Kidwa, a former envoy to the United Nations, and Marwan Barghouti, a popular militant serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for five counts of murder.In the most recent poll, Mr. Abbas’s faction still came out on top, with about a quarter of the vote. But it was projected to fall far short of an overall majority because nearly as many voters said they would vote for the rival Fatah groups. Hamas polled under nine percent.No Palestinian official would admit publicly this week that these factors affected Mr. Abbas’s thinking. But speaking on the condition of anonymity, a Palestinian official and a Western diplomat briefed by the Palestinians said that he feared losing influence to his former allies.And after Mr. Kidwa and Mr. Barghouti broke with Mr. Abbas in March, a senior Palestinian official said in an interview with The New York Times that the move put the elections at risk because it risked undermining Fatah.Supporters of an exiled former Fatah security chief, Mohammed Dahlan, protesting the election delay in Gaza City on Thursday.Mohammed Abed/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“Fatah’s situation needs to be strong, it needs to lead the Palestine Liberation Organization and the national project,” said Wassel Abu Yousef, a member of the executive committee of the P.L.O., the official representative of the Palestinian people. “If there is harm to the national project, there will be heavy and powerful voices that will be in favor of postponing the elections.”Some Palestinians met the postponement with a shrug. Many felt the elections would not have occurred in a particularly free environment, while some always suspected they would be canceled. Others felt voting for a Palestinian Parliament would have little effect on the biggest problem in their lives: the Israeli occupation.Elections suggest “there is a sovereign entity in which people are participating in a democratic process,” said Yara Hawari, a senior analyst at Al Shabaka, a Palestinian research group. “But you can’t have a full democracy under occupation.”Many Palestinians were nevertheless furious at being deprived of a rare chance to choose their representatives. Crowds of protesters, many of whom were too young to vote in the last Palestinian elections, demonstrated against the decision in both the West Bank and Gaza.“The people demand the ballot box,” they chanted.Muhammad Shehada, a 28-year-old unemployed civil engineer from Gaza City, called the decision “a big disappointment.” The situation in Jerusalem was no reason to cancel the elections, he said: “The occupation controls Jerusalem, whether the elections are held or not.”The lack of elections also raises the specter of intra-Palestinian violence, since different factions will now have no peaceful forum in which to air their grievances and express their frustrations, said Mkhaimar Abusada, a political scientist at Al Azhar University in Gaza City.“Many Palestinians were hoping that elections would ease the tension and friction between the factions,” said Dr. Abusada. But the election delay, he said, “will leave the Palestinians fighting against each other.”Iyad Abuhweila contributed reporting from Gaza City, and Irit Pazner Garshowitz from Jerusalem. More
Unless the Brazilian defender is excused from working at a polling place next week, he may miss his club’s Champions League match at Chelsea.Real Madrid could be without one of its best defenders for a semifinal match in the Champions League next week because he was randomly selected to work a shift at the polls during local elections in Madrid.Marcelo, a fullback who started the first leg of Real Madrid’s semifinal against Chelsea on Tuesday in Spain, was randomly selected by the Spanish government to work at the polls next Tuesday, when there will be elections for seats in the Madrid Assembly, El Mundo reported. A second Madrid player, Victor Chust, was also selected, but he is injured and will not be missed by the team.All registered voters in Spain are eligible to be randomly selected to work at the polls. Though Marcelo, 32, was born in Brazil, he has played for Real since 2007 and has been a Spanish citizen for a decade.Spanish law allows for exemptions, which may be given for “professionals who must participate in public events to be held on the voting day that are scheduled before the electoral call when the party cannot be replaced and his nonparticipation forces suspension of the event, producing economic damages.”In the past, soccer players and others with pressing business have been excused from the polling duty. In 2019, for example, Aitor Fernández, a Levante goalkeeper, did not have to work the polls because his team had a match that day.Even leaving aside whether Marcelo is irreplaceable and whether the game would have to be canceled in his absence, there is another problem for Real’s appeal: In the case of Fernández, his game was the same day as the election. In Marcelo’s case, the second leg of the semifinal against Chelsea in London is not until the following evening. But Real Madrid is planning to travel to England a day early, the same date of the elections, and because of coronavirus protocols it may not be possible for Marcelo to make the trip on game day.El Mundo reported that Marcelo was “very upset by his electoral luck.” Real Madrid and Chelsea tied the first leg, 1-1, on Tuesday, when Chelsea’s Christian Pulisic became the first American to score in the semifinals of the competition.If he has to stay behind, Marcelo will at least pick up a small bonus: Poll workers are paid 65 euros ($78) for their day’s work.A logical replacement for Marcelo at left back would be Ferland Mendy, but it is not clear if he will be ready to return from a calf injury. More
On a recent evening I watched “The Present,” a short film by Farah Nablusi, a Palestinian filmmaker, which was nominated for an Academy Award for live-action short film (the winner in the category was “Two Distant Strangers). Ms. Nablusi’s 25-minute film is a powerful, heartbreaking account of the travails of Yusuf, a Palestinian man, and Yasmine, his young daughter, as they traverse an Israeli military checkpoint in the West Bank twice in a single day.“The Present” establishes its context quickly, opening with images of Palestinian men making their way through a narrow passageway at one of the numerous checkpoints that dot the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Palestinians going to work, visiting family or shopping on the opposite side of a security barrier have to bear this humiliating procedure every day.Yusuf sets out with Yasmine to buy an anniversary gift for his wife. He is held in a chain-link holding pen. The ostensible reason is that the Israeli guards want to search him and his possessions more thoroughly. Yasmine sits nearby, watching and waiting in silence.The scene brought back memories of my first visit to the West Bank in 1975, when I crossed the Jordan River and arrived at an Israeli security post. As a student at the American University in Cairo, I was excited about visiting Jerusalem and spending Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. I joined a relatively short line, which moved at a steady and efficient pace.A few feet away, I could see men, women and children in a much longer line fully enclosed by steel mesh fencing labeled “Palestinians and Arabs.” I saw several subjected to discourtesy and aggressive searches by Israeli soldiers.While I was distressed by what I saw, I knew that Israel had legitimate security concerns in the aftermath of the 1967 and 1973 wars, worries that had been heightened by attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets by Palestinian terrorist organizations.Half a century has passed, and the political and security landscape of the Middle East has profoundly changed.Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan. The Abraham Accords, brokered by the United States last year, have paved the way for four more Arab states — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco — to establish diplomatic relations with Israel. Hopefully, more Arab leaders will follow suit as there is no reason and little geostrategic sense in continuing to deny the reality and permanence of the state of Israel. (Unfortunately, the accords did nothing for the Palestinians except to obtain a suspension of Israeli plans to illegally annex the West Bank.)There also has been significant progress in reducing violence carried out by Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories. The exception is Hamas, which continues to launch rocket attacks into Israel from the Gaza Strip.In the West Bank, Palestinian security and intelligence services have worked closely with their Israeli, Arab and Western counterparts to disrupt extremist networks and prevent attacks. These Palestinian agencies have demonstrated an impressive degree of professionalism over the past two decades.Despite sharply reduced tensions between Israel and the Arab world, the Palestinian people themselves have seen no appreciable progress in their quest to live in their own sovereign state. Political fissures and the ineffective political leadership of the Palestinian Authority have contributed to stymying ambitions for Palestinian nationhood.But that could change. Legislative elections in May and presidential elections in July in the West Bank and Gaza offer Palestinians an opportunity to elect representatives capable of conducting a more effectual political dialogue within the Palestinian homeland and beyond. Palestinian candidates who do not bear the sclerotic reputations of political incumbents, if elected, would help soften the deep-rooted cynicism that many Israeli officials display toward Palestinian negotiators.The major hurdle will be to reverse the trend of diminished interest that the Israeli government has shown in pursuing a two-state solution. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has spearheaded relentless expansion of settlements in the West Bank. That expansion has brought along more concrete walls, security barriers and control points, further reducing the spaces where Palestinians can live, graze their flocks, tend their olive groves and vegetable gardens without being challenged by their occupiers.Unfortunately, during the Trump years, the United States ignored Palestinian interests and aspirations. Mr. Trump moved the American Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, rejecting the position of all previous U.S. administrations that it would endanger final status negotiations on that contested city. He senselessly severed funding to the Palestinian Authority and ended our contributions to the United Nations for Palestinian refugee assistance.In a welcome change, the Biden administration has authorized the release of $235 million for humanitarian, economic and development programs supporting Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza and elsewhere in the region.The concluding scene of “The Present” shows Yusuf, tired and hobbled with back pain, increasingly angry and on the verge of violence as he attempts to return home with the anniversary gift. His chilling, emotional outburst made me think of the frustration felt by every Palestinian who has to live with the stifling security measures and political oppression attendant to Israel’s military occupation.It was his little daughter, Yasmine, though, who gave me most pause and concern. She watched her father’s patience, dignity and humanity steadily erode.I can only imagine the imprint such experiences have on the young girls and boys who live in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. They grow up traumatized by injustice, discrimination and violence. They live with the feeling that their existence is controlled by people who don’t care about their welfare, their safety or their future.The Biden administration is dealing with a dizzying array of domestic and international problems but the Palestinian quest for statehood deserves the early engagement of his national security team. The United States needs to tell Israeli leaders to cease provocative settlement construction and the sort of oppressive security practices depicted in “The Present.”A clear signal from President Biden that he expects and is ready to facilitate serious Israeli-Palestinian discussions on a two-state solution would be of great political significance.John Brennan is a former director of the Central Intelligence Agency.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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
The 1.6 million voters who signed a petition for the Republican-led recall effort have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.Fueled by partisan fury and a backlash against pandemic shutdowns, a Republican-led campaign to oust Gov. Gavin Newsom of California has officially qualified for the ballot, setting the stage for the second recall election in the state’s history, officials said on Monday.In a widely expected filing, the California secretary of state’s office found that recall organizers had collected 1,626,042 signatures on their petition, more than the roughly 1.5 million required to ask voters to remove Mr. Newsom from office.The announcement sets in motion a series of procedural steps that will culminate in a special election. No election date has been scheduled, but it is expected to be sometime in November. Between now and then, the state will review the cost of the election, and voters who signed the petition will have 30 business days to ask to have their names removed if they so choose.State officials say, however, that those hurdles are unlikely to prevent a vote, even though only a year or so will remain before Mr. Newsom, who was elected in 2018, comes up for re-election.Several Republican candidates have already announced challenges to Mr. Newsom, including Caitlyn Jenner, a transgender activist; Kevin Faulconer, a former mayor of San Diego; and John Cox, a Republican businessman who lost to Mr. Newsom in 2018.More are expected to follow, although Mr. Newsom, a Democrat, is widely expected to prevail in the deep-blue state. In recent polls, a majority of California voters have said they were disinclined to remove him from office, and his approval ratings have improved as the coronavirus crisis has waned. Mr. Newsom’s backers have characterized the recall effort as a futile bid by extremists to make Republicans relevant in the state.Launched early in Mr. Newsom’s administration by conservative activists who took issue with his stance on immigration, the campaign gained traction late last year as the state struggled to contain the spread of the coronavirus.But the drive did not gather real momentum until early November, when its organizers, arguing that the pandemic had impaired their ability to circulate petitions, persuaded a judge to extend the signature-gathering deadline. That evening, Mr. Newsom attended a birthday dinner for a lobbyist friend at an exclusive wine country restaurant after exhorting Californians to stay at home to curb the spread of the coronavirus.On the night of the dinner, only 55,588 people had signed the petitions. One month later, there were nearly 500,000 signatures.Recall attempts are common in California, but few make it onto the ballot. The last governor to face one was Gray Davis, who was ousted by Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. More
BERLIN — For the past two and a half years, since it became clear that Chancellor Angela Merkel would not run for office again, there’s been one great unresolved question in German politics: Who will succeed her?Last week, after the two parties leading in the polls nominated their candidates, we got much closer to finding out. Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union eventually chose Armin Laschet, the party head. The challenger from the ascendant Green Party is Annalena Baerbock. With the addition of Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party, a credible candidate whose party is lagging behind in the polls, the lineup for September’s election is all but complete.After over 15 years of rule by Ms. Merkel, Germany is at a crossroads. In Mr. Laschet, a 60-year-old regional governor, and Ms. Baerbock, at age 40 the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor, voters have a stark choice between an icon of continuity and a herald of change. The person voters choose will shape the country’s future, perhaps for decades.So who exactly are the candidates? And what would a Germany led by any of them look like?Armin Laschet, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union and a regional governor, is an icon of continuity.Filip Singer/EPA, via ShutterstockAnnalena Baerbock, co-chair of the Green Party, is the youngest candidate ever to run for chancellor.Leon Kuegeler/ReutersLet’s start with Mr. Laschet. A practicing Catholic from Aachen, an old city that borders the Netherlands and Belgium, he shares with Ms. Merkel a Christian, humanitarian worldview. “He takes the C in C.D.U. very seriously,” Cem Özdemir, a Green Party lawmaker who has known Mr. Laschet for decades, told me. And like Ms. Merkel, Mr. Laschet is described as personally modest and mostly fair in political discussions and negotiations. “You usually get along with him quite well,” said Ulla Schmidt, a Social Democratic lawmaker who has known him for 35 years.Open to new ideas and different positions, Mr. Laschet is notable for having many friends across the political spectrum. As a young lawmaker in the early 1990s, he was among the first in his party to meet with representatives from the Green Party — at a time when many in the C.D.U. still thought of the Greens as a bunch of eco-punks who could not be trusted to run anything, let alone a country.Mr. Laschet was also one of the first in his party to openly embrace the idea that Germany is a country of immigrants. “He has earned himself a lot of respect in migrant communities, because he has listened to what they had to say,” Serap Güler, a Christian Democrat born to Turkish immigrants who serves in Mr. Laschet’s administration in North Rhine-Westphalia, told me.Along with his broadly pro-immigration stance, Mr. Laschet is enthusiastic about education, a tough combatant of organized crime and a vocal opponent of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, with which he has vowed never to cooperate. A true man of the political middle, he could be expected to govern the country competently and fairly. But his candidacy, already weakened by his poor ratings, is a gamble that Germans want more of the same.Ms. Baerbock, by contrast, offers something truly new. Born in 1980, she represents the generation that came of age after the country’s reunification. Raised in Hanover in the west, she now — by way of a stint in Brussels, where she was an office manager for a Green Party lawmaker in the European Union — holds a seat in Brandenburg in the east. Her approach is refreshingly relatable: A mother of two young children, who has spoken about the struggles of being a working mom, she’s unafraid to bring together the personal and the political.But she doesn’t shy away from substantive debates — about climate change or foreign policy — or difficult political negotiations. In 2017, for example, when the Greens were discussing a possible coalition deal with the Christian Democrats and the Free Democratic Party (which pulled out at the last moment, scuppering the plan), Ms. Baerbock demanded the country end its use of coal and even brokered a compromise, impressing opponents and colleagues alike with her tenacity and command of detail.Those qualities have been visible in her leadership of the party, a position she surprisingly won, along with a co-chair, in 2018. Famously afflicted by infighting between its left and right flanks, the Green Party under Ms. Baerbock has been notably united. That has contributed to the party’s remarkable ascendance, from a marginal environmental force to a serious contender for power. Once regularly polling at 5 percent or 6 percent approval, the party now stands at around 20 percent — with room to grow.In its slow but steady rise, the party moved to the political middle, in style and substance, and toned down some of its more radical ideas, such as the dissolution of NATO. Even so, the party’s platform for the national election is notably far-reaching, calling for a “social-ecological transformation” and a zero-emissions economy. (The Christian Democrats have yet to release their platform.) Many of the document’s details remain vague, but it is radical in its language and ideas.Were Ms. Baerbock to become the Greens’ first-ever chancellor — the party served as the junior partner in a national coalition with the Social Democrats from 1998 to 2005, but has never before stood a chance of reaching the chancellery — it would certainly be a great political experiment.Inexperience, political adversaries say, would be a major hindrance. While it’s true that Ms. Baerbock has no government experience, she’s known for her perseverance and willingness to fight. In the race to become the party’s candidate, she started as the underdog — her co-chair, Robert Habeck, was expected to clinch it — but she systematically and strategically built support, both inside and outside the party.It’s easy to see how she did it: In conversation, she comes across as a quick mind, as well as tough and disciplined. And she clearly has a talent for motivating and enthusing others. Unlike Mr. Laschet, whose candidacy was fiercely contested, she is loved by her party.In recent months, the government’s failure to stem the tide of new coronavirus infections, bolster the health service and roll out vaccinations has stung. Germans seem ready for something new. The question is: How new will it be?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: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More
Tensions had been rising since the president, a former American citizen, failed to hold scheduled elections, then extended his term in office by two years.NAIROBI, Kenya — Gunfire erupted across the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Sunday as security forces loyal to the president clashed with units that appeared to have sided with his rivals, stoking fears that Somalia’s simmering political crisis is spilling over into violence.The fighting, some of the worst in the Somali capital for years, followed months of tense talks between President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and opponents who accuse him of making an unconstitutional power grab.The talks collapsed after Mr. Mohamed failed to hold presidential and parliamentary elections by February, as scheduled, and then two months later signed a law extending his term in office by two years. His actions have drawn criticism from the United States and other Western allies.The moves effectively ended United Nations-mediated negotiations backed by the United States and added fuel to an already combustible political situation.The shooting started Sunday afternoon after soldiers aligned with the opposition took positions at several strategic locations in Mogadishu, drawing fire from pro-government forces. Analysts said the rift was influenced by the powerful clan divisions that have often been at the center of the turmoil Somalia has faced since its central government collapsed in 1991.As rival factions traded fire late into Sunday evening, alarmed Western officials appealed for a halt to fighting they feared might spiral into a wider confrontation that could unravel years of modest yet steady progress toward turning Somalia into a functioning state.Anti-government military forces in Mogadishu.Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated PressThe European Union ambassador to Somalia, Nicolas Berlanga, appealed on Twitter for “maximum restraint” on all sides. “Violence is unacceptable,” he said. “Those responsible will be held accountable.”The fighting also raised the possibility of dangerous fissures along clan lines inside the Somali military, and the worry that powerful foreign-trained units, including an elite American-funded commando squad, could get sucked in.Videos posted online by Somali reporters and news outlets Sunday night depicted long bursts of gunfire around Kilometer 4, a major junction in the city. Some of fighting occurred near Villa Somalia, as the presidential palace is known.Foreigners living in the highly protected zone around Mogadishu’s international airport said they had retreated into bunkers to avoid being hit by stray gunfire.The main clashes occurred outside the homes of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, a former president of Somalia, and Abdirahman Abdishakur Warsame, the leader of a major opposition party. In statements, both men laid blame for the attacks on President Mohamed, who is popularly known by the nickname “Formaajo.”At a hastily convened news conference, Hassan Hundubey Jimale, Somalia’s minister of internal security, denied that the government had attacked the former president’s home and blamed unspecified foreign countries for the clashes.Mr. Jimale gave no details about how many people had been killed or injured.Critics said Mr. Mohamed was making a high-stakes bid to stay in power.“It seems Formaajo has decided his final suicidal attack by attacking every opposition figure in town,” said Hussein Sheikh Ali, a former national security adviser who once worked under Mr. Mohamed.American officials said they had privately warned Mr. Mohamed, a one-time American citizen, against using the Danab, an American-trained commando force of about 900 soldiers, to crack down on his opponents. But they acknowledged that Mr. Mohamed has other options, including Turkish-trained troops estimated to number at least 2,600 men.Demonstrators burned photographs of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in Mogadishu.Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated PressA contingent of troops trained in Eritrea, whose authoritarian leader, Isaias Afwerki, is a key ally of Mr. Mohamed, are reported to have returned to Somalia in recent weeks.The election in 2017 of Mr. Mohamed, a former New York State official with a home in Buffalo, raised hopes he could set the country on a less corrupt and dysfunctional track. But disillusionment set in as Mr. Mohamed’s government silenced critics, expelled the top U.N. official and, last year, dragged its feet over scheduled elections.The opposition has refused to recognize Mr. Mohamed’s authority since his four-year term expired on Feb. 8 without planned presidential and parliamentary elections taking place.Talks between the two sides over the terms of any elections have been deadlocked since the fall. Opponents accused Mr. Mohamed and his powerful spy chief, Fahad Yasin, of attempting to rig the system by stuffing regional electoral boards with their supporters.Mr. Mohamed claimed his enemies were trying to shy away from an election, and now says he needs two years to bring forward plans for universal suffrage in Somalia. Under the current system, the president is chosen through an indirect, clan-based vote.Mr. Mohamed’s move to extend his term by two years on April 14, which some analysts called a “constitutional coup,” met with fierce criticism from the United States and other Western allies.In Mogadishu, the move caused some opposition leaders to retreat into their clan strongholds.Among those embroiled in the fighting on Sunday was Sadek John, a former police chief of Mogadishu who was dismissed in mid-April after he opposed Mr. Mohamed, according to a Somali police official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi, Kenya and Hussein Mohamed from Mogadishu, Somalia. More
