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      States Push for New Voting Laws With an Eye Toward 2024

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      Republicans are focused on voter ID rules and making it harder to cast mail ballots, while Democrats are seeking to expand access through automatic voter registration.The tug of war over voting rights and rules is playing out with fresh urgency at the state level, as Republicans and Democrats fight to get new laws on the books before the 2024 presidential election.Republicans have pushed to tighten voting laws with renewed vigor since former President Donald J. Trump made baseless claims of fraud after losing the 2020 election, while Democrats coming off midterm successes are trying to channel their momentum to expand voting access and thwart efforts to undermine elections.States like Florida, Texas and Georgia, where Republicans control the levers of state government, have already passed sweeping voting restrictions that include criminal oversight initiatives, limits on drop boxes, new identification requirements and more.While President Biden and Democrats in Congress were unable to pass federal legislation last year that would protect voting access and restore elements of the landmark Voting Rights Act stripped away by the Supreme Court in 2013, not all reform efforts have floundered.In December, Congress updated the Electoral Count Act, closing a loophole that Mr. Trump’s supporters had sought to exploit to try to get Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the 2020 election results on the day of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.Now the focus has returned to the state level. Here are some of the key voting measures in play this year:Ohio Republicans approve new restrictions.Ohioans must now present a driver’s license, passport or other official photo ID to vote in person under a G.O.P. measure that was signed into law on Jan. 6 by Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican.The law also set tighter deadlines for voters to return mail-in ballots and provide missing information on them. Absentee ballot requests must be received earlier as well.Republicans, who control the Legislature in Ohio, contend that the new rules will bolster election integrity, yet they have acknowledged that the issue has not presented a problem in the state. Overall, voter fraud is exceedingly rare.Several voting rights groups were quick to file a federal lawsuit challenging the changes, which they said would disenfranchise Black people, younger and older voters, as well as those serving in the military and living abroad.Texas G.O.P. targets election crimes and ballot initiatives.Despite enacting sweeping restrictions on voting in 2021 that were condemned by civil rights groups and the Justice Department in several lawsuits, Republican lawmakers in Texas are seeking to push the envelope further.Politics Across the United StatesFrom the halls of government to the campaign trail, here’s a look at the political landscape in America.2023 Races: Governors’ contests in Kentucky, Louisiana and Mississippi and mayoral elections in Chicago and Philadelphia are among the races to watch this year.Democrats’ New Power: After winning trifectas in four state governments in the midterms, Democrats have a level of control in statehouses not seen since 2009.G.O.P. Debates: The Republican National Committee has asked several major TV networks to consider sponsoring debates, an intriguing show of détente toward the mainstream media and an early sign that the party is making plans for a contested 2024 presidential primary.An Important Election: The winner of a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in April will determine who holds a 4-to-3 majority in a critical presidential battleground state.Dozens of bills related to voting rules and election administration were filed for the legislative session that began this month. While many are from Democrats seeking to ease barriers to voting, Republicans control both chambers of the Texas Legislature and the governor’s office. It is not clear which bills will gain the necessary support to become laws.Some G.O.P. proposals focus on election crimes, including one that would authorize the secretary of state to designate an election marshal responsible for investigating potential election violations.“Similar bills have passed in Florida and in Georgia,” said Jasleen Singh, a counsel in the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We should be concerned about whether this will happen in Texas as well.”Under another bill, a voter could request that the secretary of state review local election orders and language on ballot propositions and reject any that are found to be “misleading, inaccurate or prejudicial,” part of a push by Republicans in several states to make it harder to pass ballot measures after years of progressive victories.One proposal appears to target heavily populated, Democratic-controlled counties, giving the state attorney general the power to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate voter fraud allegations if local officials decline to do so. Another bill goes further, allowing the attorney general to seek an injunction against local prosecutors who don’t investigate claims of voter fraud and pursue civil penalties against them.A 19-year-old registering to vote in Minnesota, where Democrats introduced a bill that would allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. Tim Gruber for The New York TimesDemocrats in Minnesota and Michigan go on offense.Democrats are seeking to harness their momentum from the midterm elections to expand voting access in Minnesota and Michigan, where they swept the governors’ races and legislative control.In Minnesota, the party introduced legislation in early January that would create an automatic voter registration system and allow applicants who are at least 16 years old to preregister to vote. The measure would also automatically restore the voting rights of convicted felons upon their release from prison and for those who do not receive prison time as part of a sentence.In Michigan, voters approved a constitutional amendment in November that creates a nine-day early voting period and requires the state to fund absentee ballot drop boxes. Top Democrats in the state are also weighing automatic voter registration and have discussed criminalizing election misinformation.Pennsylvania Republicans want to expand a voter ID law.Because of the veto power of the governor, an office the Democrats held in the November election, Republicans in Pennsylvania have resorted to trying to amend the state constitution in order to pass a voter ID bill.The complex amendment process, which ultimately requires putting the question to voters, is the subject of pending litigation.Both chambers of the Legislature need to pass the bill this session in order to place it on the ballot, but Democrats narrowly flipped control of the House in the midterms — and they will seek to bolster their majority with three special elections next month.“If the chips fall in a certain way, it is unlikely that this will move forward and it might quite possibly be dead,” said Susan Gobreski, a board member of the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania. “But it ain’t dead yet.”Gov. Josh Shapiro has indicated an openness to compromise with Republicans on some voting rules.“I’m certainly willing to have an honest conversation about voter I.D., as long as that is something that is not used as a hindrance to voting,” Mr. Shapiro said in an interview in December.First-time voters and those applying for absentee ballots are currently required to present identification in Pennsylvania, but Republicans want to expand the requirement to all voters in every election and have proposed issuing voter ID cards. Critics say the proposal would make it harder to vote and could compromise privacy.Mr. Shapiro has separately said he hoped that Republicans in the legislature would agree to change the state’s law that forbids the processing of absentee ballots and early votes before Election Day. The ballot procedures, which can drag out the counting, have been a flash point in a series of election lawsuits filed by Republicans.Georgia’s top election official, a Republican, calls to end runoff system.Early voting fell precipitously in Georgia’s nationally watched Senate runoff in December after Republicans, who control of state government, cut in half the number of days for casting ballots before Election Day.Long lines at some early-voting sites, especially in the Atlanta area, during the runoff led to complaints of voter suppression.But the G.O.P. lost the contest, after a set of runoff defeats a year earlier that gave Democrats control of the Senate.Now Brad Raffensperger, a Republican who is Georgia’s secretary of state and its top election official, wants to abandon the runoff system altogether, saying that the condensed timeline had put added strain on poll workers.Critics of ranked-choice voting cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican.Ash Adams for The New York TimesRepublicans in Alaska want to undo some voting changes approved in 2020.After a special election last year and the midterms, when Alaska employed a novel election system for the first time, some conservatives reeling from losses at the polls have directed their ire at a common target: ranked-choice voting.At least three Republican lawmakers have introduced bills seeking to repeal some of the electoral changes that were narrowly approved by voters in 2020, which introduced a “top-four” open primary and ranked-choice voting in general elections. In addition to deciding winners based on the candidate who receives the most votes, the bills also seek to return to a closed primary system, in which only registered party members can participate.Supporters of the new system contend that it sets a higher bar to get elected than to simply earn a plurality of votes.But critics have called the format confusing. Some have blamed it for the defeat of Sarah Palin, the Republican former governor and 2008 vice-presidential nominee, in a special House election in August and again in November for the same office.They also cited the system as being instrumental to the re-election last year of Senator Lisa Murkowski, a centrist Republican who angered some members of her party when she voted to convict Mr. Trump at his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 attack.Still, Republican foes of ranked-choice elections could face hurdles within their own party. According to The Anchorage Daily News, the incoming Senate president, a Republican, favors keeping the system in place.Nebraska Republicans aim to sharply curb mail voting.Nebraska does not require voters to provide a reason to vote early by mail, but two Republican state senators want to make wholesale changes that would mostly require in-person voting on Election Day.Under a bill proposed by Steve Halloran and Steve Erdman, G.O.P. senators in the unicameral legislature, only members of the U.S. military and residents of nursing homes and assisted living facilities could vote by mail.The measure would further require all ballots to be counted on Election Day, which would become a state holiday in Nebraska, along with the day of the statewide primary.The League of Women Voters of Nebraska opposes the bill and noted that 11 of the state’s 93 counties vote entirely by mail under a provision that gives officials in counties with under 10,000 people the option to do so.“This is an extreme bill and would be very unpopular,” MaryLee Mouton, the league’s president, said in an email. “When most states are moving to expand voting by mail, a bill to restrict vote by mail would negatively impact both our rural and urban communities.”In the November election, Nebraskans overwhelmingly approved a ballot initiative that created a statewide photo ID requirement for voting.A Republican bill in Missouri would hunt for election fraud.In Missouri, where Republicans control the governor’s office and Legislature, one G.O.P. bill would create an Office of Election Crimes and Security. The office would report to the secretary of state and would be responsible for reviewing election fraud complaints and conducting investigations.Its investigators would also be authorized to enter poling places or offices of any election authority on Election Day, during absentee voting or the canvass of votes. More

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      Matt Dolan, a Republican, Will Challenge Senator Sherrod Brown in Ohio

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      Mr. Dolan, a state senator whose family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, will compete for the Republican nomination against one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators.State Senator Matt Dolan of Ohio, a Republican, announced on Tuesday that he would run for the United States Senate against Sherrod Brown, one of the most vulnerable Democrats in 2024.It will be Mr. Dolan’s second Senate campaign, after he finished third in the Republican primary for an open seat in Ohio last year. The winner of that primary, J.D. Vance, went on to win the general election.Mr. Dolan’s family owns the Cleveland Guardians baseball team, and he used millions of dollars of his own money to fund his first campaign, in which he won about 23 percent of the primary vote — finishing significantly behind Mr. Vance and narrowly behind the second-place finisher, Josh Mandel.In his campaign announcement on Tuesday, Mr. Dolan, the chairman of the Ohio Senate’s finance committee, emphasized border security, fighting inflation and his support for the police. He accused Mr. Brown of “blind loyalty to his party.”“Ohioans want a problem solver who has successfully faced big challenges impacting our quality of life, not the political blame game that lacks commonsense solutions,” he said. “I have a proven conservative record of success that has yielded results for Ohio families, workers and businesses.”A tough line on immigration was also a hallmark of Mr. Dolan’s 2022 campaign, though he broke from his opponents’ hard-right line on at least one specific policy: He supported the preservation of H-1B visas that allow immigrants to work temporarily in certain industries.Mr. Dolan is a former chief assistant prosecutor in Geauga County, east of Cleveland, and a former assistant state attorney general.Ohio, a former swing state that has moved toward Republicans in recent years, represents one of several opportunities for the G.O.P. to pick up a Senate seat in 2024, with Democratic incumbents in the red states of Montana and West Virginia also up for re-election.Mr. Brown, a three-term senator and former representative, has won difficult races before, though, including in 2018, when he won re-election by more than six percentage points just two years after Donald J. Trump won in Ohio by eight.Mr. Brown has shown strong — and enduring, even in the past few years — appeal among the blue-collar voters who are essential in Ohio elections. As chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, he has pushed for more oversight of Wall Street and more consumer protections. He has also been a vocal proponent of expanding the child tax credit and other elements of the social safety net, including the Supplemental Security Income program for disabled and older Americans.A spokesman for Mr. Brown did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Dolan’s announcement, but Mr. Brown’s campaign quickly sent a fund-raising email to supporters calling Mr. Dolan “the first of what we expect to be many challengers jumping into the race.”Among others, Republicans are watching Frank LaRose, the Ohio secretary of state, who has not announced whether he will run but is widely expected to do so. More

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      Republicans lead charge to ban noncitizens from voting in local elections

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      Republicans lead charge to ban noncitizens from voting in local electionsEight states have passed laws against ballot access, even as some progressive cities are extending local voting rights Louisiana voters recently approved a constitutional amendment barring anyone who is not a US citizen from participating in elections, becoming the eighth state to push back against the growing number of progressive cities deciding to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections.Conservative donors pour ‘dark money’ into case that could upend US voting lawRead moreWhile noncitizens are prohibited from voting in federal elections and no states allow noncitizens to vote for statewide office, ambiguous language in constitutions has allowed localities to pass statutes legalizing noncitizen voting in local or school board elections. A short but expanding list of cities include two cities in Vermont, almost a dozen in Maryland, and San Francisco.Other cities are trying to join that list, including Boston and Washington DC, where the latter city’s council in October passed legislation allowing noncitizens who have lived in the city for at least 30 days to vote in local elections. New York City’s council also passed a measure in December to allow close to 900,000 green card holders and those with work authorization to vote in local elections, but a state trial court struck it down in June, finding it violated the state constitution. The ruling is currently being appealed.The potential for major cities like DC and New York to expand their electorates prompted backlash from Republican lawmakers.“This vote sends a clear message that the radical election policies of places like San Francisco, New York City and Washington, DC have no place in Louisiana,” Kyle Ardoin, the Republican secretary of state, said in a statement after the passage of the constitutional amendment, which he said will “ensure the continued integrity of Louisiana’s elections”.Louisiana law already prohibits anyone who is “not a citizen of the state” from voting, so voting rights advocates say the new amendment is an effort by Republicans in the state to limit voting based on false allegations that noncitizens are committing voter fraud by participating in elections.Louisiana’s amendment made it on to the 10 December ballot after it was passed by both chambers of the state legislature. Over 73% of Louisiana voters approved it, making Louisiana the latest in a series of states moving to explicitly write bans into their constitutions.Before 2020, just Arizona and North Dakota specifically prohibited noncitizens from voting in local and state elections, but voters in Alabama, Colorado and Florida all approved constitutional amendments in 2020 and Ohio approved one in November.Ohio’s amendment came after one town in the state, Yellow Springs, passed an initiative in 2019 to allow noncitizens to vote, giving voting rights in local elections to just a few dozen people in the small town. A few years later in 2022, Republican lawmakers proposed what would eventually become the constitutional amendment banning the practice and revoking the right from noncitizens in Yellow Springs.Fulvia Vargas-De Leon, senior counsel at LatinoJustice PRLDEF, a New York-based immigrant rights group, said the movement for ballot amendments is just one way that some lawmakers are trying to restrict voting rights.“It is a response to the expansion of the right to vote, and our concern is that since 2020, we’ve seen such attacks on the right to vote,” she said, adding that the pushback was coming because of an anti-immigrant sentiment “but also a larger effort to try to ban who has access to the ballot”.The United States allowed noncitizens to vote for much of its early history. From the founding of the country through 1926, noncitizens could vote in local, state and federal elections. But anti-immigrant sentiment led to lawmakers in most states to push for an end to the practice.“Resurgent nativism, wartime xenophobia, and corruption concerns pushed lawmakers to curtail noncitizen voting, and citizenship became a voting prerequisite in every state by 1926,” William & Mary professor Alan H Kennedy wrote in a paper published in the Journal of Policy History this year.In 1996, Congress passed a law prohibiting noncitizens from voting in federal elections, making illegal voting punishable by fines, imprisonment and deportation.But on the local level, the subject has re-emerged as a topic for debate in recent decades, as the populations of permanent noncitizen immigrants has grown in many cities.Advocates for noncitizen voting argue that documented immigrants pay taxes and contribute to their local communities and should have their voices heard when it comes to local policy.“We should have a representative democracy, where everyone who is part of the fabric of the community, who is involved, who pays taxes, should have a say in it,” said Vargas-De Leon, whose group intervened in the New York litigation and has filed the appeal.But conservative groups say that allowing noncitizens to vote dilutes the votes of citizens. Republican strategist Christopher Arps started the Missouri-based Americans for Citizen Voting to help states amend their constitutions to explicitly say that only US citizens can vote. He said that people who want to vote should “at least have some skin in the game” by completing the citizenship process.“We’ve been hearing for the past five, six years about foreign interference, Russia and other countries,” he said. “Well to me, this is a type of foreign interference in our elections.”It would also be a “bureaucratic nightmare”, he said, for states to have to maintain two separate voter rolls for federal and local elections, and could lead to illegal voting if noncitizens accidentally vote in a federal election.Though noncitizen voting still has not been signed into law in DC, Republicans in Congress have already introduced legislation to block it. One bill, introduced by the Texas senator Ted Cruz last month, would bar DC from using federal funds to facilitate noncitizen voting.“Allowing noncitizens and illegal immigrants to vote in our elections opens our country up to foreign influence, and allows those who are openly violating US law or even working for hostile foreign governments to take advantage and direct our resources against our will,” Cruz said in a statement.But Vargas-De Leon pointed to the benefits of expanding the electorate to include the country’s 12.9 million legal permanent residents and other documented immigrants.“All we’re trying to do here is ensure that everyone has a say in our government,” she said.TopicsUS newsThe fight for democracyUS politicsLaw (US)LouisianaOhioFloridaVermontfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The Election Is Over. Now Comes the Battle for Voting Rights in 2024

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      Voters rebuffed the most aggressive efforts to weaken democracy in the midterms. But battles over election districts and ballot restrictions that could prove crucial in 2024 have already resumed.WASHINGTON — With Raphael Warnock’s victory in the Georgia Senate race on Tuesday, the major midterm elections are over.But the battles over voting rules, restrictions and political boundaries that will help determine who wins the next ones barely paused for ballot-counting before resuming in force.Indeed, the day after Mr. Warnock’s election, the Supreme Court heard arguments in a potentially seismic case brought by Republicans in North Carolina that could give state legislatures significantly expanded power over election laws — and virtually unlimited authority to draw gerrymandered maps.The landscape is familiar. Democrats who took control of state legislatures in Michigan and Minnesota are preparing legislation to to broaden voting access, including measures in Michigan that would mandate absentee ballot drop boxes.Republicans, who control a majority of legislatures across the country, are proposing new restrictive legislation they say would combat election fraud, though it remains exceedingly rare. And though both parties have benefited from gerrymanders, Republicans are far more likely to make it a centerpiece of their electoral strategy.In the Ohio Legislature, Republicans are poised to pass bills that would stiffen the ID requirement for casting a ballot, limit the use of drop boxes and end automatic mailings of absentee-ballot applications to voters.In North Carolina, a Republican sweep of state Supreme Court races last month makes it likely that the State Legislature will be able to gerrymander existing nonpartisan maps of congressional and legislative districts before the 2024 elections.In Wisconsin, both parties are girding for an April election that will determine partisan control of the state’s already politicized Supreme Court — and either open or shut the door on a legal challenge to an impregnable Republican gerrymander of the State Legislature.Some of that jockeying for power always goes on beneath the radar of most voters. But in the wake of more direct attacks on democracy by insurrectionists at the U.S. Capitol and by election deniers in last month’s vote, the divergent legislative priorities of the two parties — and particularly Republican reliance on restrictive voting measures and supercharged gerrymanders — reflect what has become a ceaseless tug of war over the rules of American politics and governance.“It’s not the same thing as throwing out the vote count and putting in the wrong count,” said Wendy Weiser, who directs the Democracy Program at the left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “But it’s a form of unfair gaming of the system to gain electoral advantage, in a way that shuts out legitimate voters.”The Aftermath of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6A moment of reflection. More

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      They Used Robocalls to Suppress Black Votes. Now They Have to Register Voters.

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      An Ohio judge ordered Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, who concocted a 2020 robocall scheme to discourage mail-in voting, to spend hundreds of hours registering new voters.Two conservative operatives responsible for placing tens of thousands of calls in Midwestern states that made false claims about the legitimacy of mail-in ballots were sentenced by an Ohio judge to spend hundreds of hours registering new voters.The operatives, Jack Burkman, 56, of Arlington, Va., and Jacob Wohl, 24, of Irvine, Calif., orchestrated a robocall scheme that targeted Black neighborhoods in Ohio in 2020, prosecutors said.More than 8,000 of the roughly 67,000 phone calls the pair made across the Midwest, using a voice broadcasting service, were sent to phone numbers in Cleveland and East Cleveland, where many Black voters reside, prosecutors said. The calls were placed during the pandemic, ahead of the 2020 election, a time of heightened interest in absentee voting because of rising concerns about health and safety.The calls falsely stated that voting by mail meant the personal information of people who cast those ballots would be added to a public database and that they would be tracked by the authorities.“Don’t be finessed into giving your private information to the man,” the recorded message said, according to a court filing in Michigan, which said Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl specifically targeted “Black neighborhoods” in the Midwest, including Cleveland. “Stay safe and beware of vote by mail.”The Spread of Misinformation and FalsehoodsCovid Myths: Experts say the spread of coronavirus misinformation — particularly on far-right platforms like Gab — is likely to be a lasting legacy of the pandemic. And there are no easy solutions.Midterms Misinformation: Social media platforms struggled to combat false narratives during the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, but it appeared most efforts to stoke doubt about the results did not spread widely.A ‘War for Talent’: Seeing misinformation as a possibly expensive liability, several companies are angling to hire former Twitter employees with the expertise to keep it in check. A New Misinformation Hub?: Misleading edits, fake news stories and deepfake images of politicians are starting to warp reality on TikTok.The prerecorded messages claimed that mail-in voting would result in a cascade of negative consequences, including pursuit by the authorities for outstanding debts and warrants, and mandatory vaccines.On Tuesday, Mr. Burkman and Mr. Wohl were sentenced in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in Cleveland. At the hearing, which the defendants attended by videoconference, Judge John Sutula likened the robocall scheme to voter suppression efforts targeting Southern Black voters in the 1960s, Cleveland.com reported.“I think it’s a despicable thing that you guys have done,” Judge Sutula remarked, according to Cleveland.com.Mr. Wohl previously promoted false sexual assault allegations against Pete Buttigieg, then a Democratic presidential candidate, and Robert S. Mueller, the former special counsel.In the robocall case, Mr. Wohl and Mr. Burkman were each sentenced to completing two years of probation, working 500 hours at a voting registration center in Washington, D.C., and paying a $2,500 fine, a spokeswoman for the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office said. They will also be electronically monitored for 12 hours, starting at 8 p.m. each day, through the first six months of their probation period.Michael C. O’Malley, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor, called the sentence “appropriate.”“These two individuals attempted to disrupt the foundation of our democracy,” Mr. O’Malley said in a statement.The sentence arrived two years after they were indicted in Ohio for their voter intimidation scheme. They had initially faced up to 18 years in prison for multiple charges of bribery and telecommunications fraud but under a plea deal, the charges were merged into a single count each of telecommunications fraud, which they pleaded guilty to in October 2022.Mark Wieczorek, a lawyer representing Mr. Wohl, said that the sentence was “fair” and “in the spirit of justice.”“We think it’s a great sentence given the amount of charges he was originally indicted with,” Mr. Wieczorek said. “I think he is genuinely remorseful for his actions and took full responsibility for it.”Mr. Burkman’s lawyer could not be reached for comment.The pair also face similar charges in Michigan, where a case against them is still pending in the state’s Supreme Court, said John Nevin, a spokesman for the court. In 2020, they were charged with intimidating voters, conspiracy to intimidate voters, using a computer to intimidate voters and conspiracy to use a computer to intimidate voters, according to a criminal complaint. A judge in New York previously ordered them to call 85,000 people back to inform them that their initial calls about voting by mail had included false information. More

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      US court sentences Chinese spy to 20 years for stealing trade secrets

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      US court sentences Chinese spy to 20 years for stealing trade secretsXu Yanjun was accused of a lead role in a five-year Chinese state-backed scheme to steal commercial secrets from GE Aviation A US federal court has sentenced a Chinese intelligence officer to 20 years in prison after he was convicted last year of plotting to steal trade secrets from from US and French aviation and aerospace companies.Xu Yanjun was accused of a lead role in a five-year Chinese state-backed scheme to steal commercial secrets from GE Aviation, one of the world’s leading aircraft engine manufacturers, and France’s Safran Group, which was working with GE on engine development.Xu was one of 11 Chinese nationals, including two intelligence officers, named in October 2018 indictments in federal court in Cincinnati, Ohio, where GE Aviation is based.The Chinese ministry of state security intelligence officer was arrested in April 2018 in Belgium, where he had apparently been lured into a counter-intelligence operation – he had planned to secretly meet a GE employee on the trip.He was extradited to the United States, where he stood trial and was convicted in a jury trial on 5 November 2021 of attempted economic espionage, attempted trade secret theft, and two related conspiracy charges.Prosecutors had asked for a 25-year sentence to act as deterrent against similar actions, but Xu’s lawyers said in earlier court filings that such a sentence request exceeded those given to other people convicted of such crimes.“Xu targeted American aviation companies, recruited employees to travel to China, and solicited their proprietary information, all on behalf of the government of the People’s Republic of China,” the Justice Department said in a statement.“This case sends a clear message: we will hold accountable anyone attempting to steal American trade secrets,” said Ohio federal prosecutor Kenneth Parker.Last year, China’s foreign ministry labeled the charges against Xu “pure fabrication”.US officials say the Chinese government poses the biggest long-term threat to US economic and national security, and is carrying out unprecedented efforts to steal critical technology from US businesses and researchers.The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has said his agency opens a new counterintelligence case related to China about twice a day.TopicsOhioChinaEspionageUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Voters hold political fate of US in their hands as they cast midterm ballots

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      Voters hold political fate of US in their hands as they cast midterm ballotsVoters across the US described a range of urgent concerns, from reproductive rights to anxieties about the economy and crime

      US midterm election results 2022: live
      Millions of Americans took to the polls on Tuesday for the 2022 midterm elections, a series of bitter contests that will determine whether Democrats or Republicans control Congress for the next two years, as well as key state and local offices. The outcome could also help determine whether 2020 election deniers gain more political power, and potentially set the stage for still more discord among an increasingly fractious electorate.Voters across the US described a range of urgent concerns, whether over the ongoing assault on reproductive rights or anxieties about the economy and crime. Many also described a heightened level of worry about possible challenges to accurate election results and the disenfranchisement of voters, including protracted litigation that could sow dangerous distrust in the US’s electoral system.Americans in battleground states on why they’re voting: ‘I fear I won’t have rights’Read moreIn Columbus, Ohio, Ashley Sica said her vote for Democrat Tim Ryan in the US Senate race was decided after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade.“I voted based off of my values, and maybe not necessarily what I would do, but just thinking globally of choices that other people should be able to have. I don’t think that government officials should be in charge of what people do with their own bodies,” said Sica, whose polling place was Ohio’s largest Greek Orthodox church.Sica, a nurse, said the Roe decision prompted many women to vote in the midterms who otherwise probably would not. She also described fear over Republicans’ opposition to tighter gun control laws despite a series of deadly school shootings.“My children’s daycare is just a mile from here. There was an issue with someone shooting a gun around their daycare. So that’s another thing that kind of brought me out to vote for stricter laws in regards to guns,” Sica said. “Having kids that are of school age now really brings that kind of thing into focus, thinking about their safety and the safety of others.”Jeffrey Weisman, another Columbus resident, voted for the bestselling author and Republican candidate for the US Senate JD Vance, albeit without much enthusiasm. “I vote Republican pretty much all the way and that is my main reason why,” Weisman said.Vance has a slight polling lead over Ryan in a state that has increasingly given sizable majorities to Republicans. The neck-and-neck Ohio contest somewhat reflects the strength of Ryan’s campaign for a seat that could determine whether his party holds control of the Senate.The close race also reflects voters’ doubts about Vance’s sincerity; he dramatically moved away from calling Trump a “fraud” and “moral disaster” to becoming a dogged supporter to land Trump’s endorsement in the GOP primaries.Weisman, the owner of a retail jewelry store, said it didn’t matter that Vance was backed by Trump. “I like the Republicans’ stuff when it comes more to the economy. I’m a business owner and I feel that things are not going in the right direction with the Democrats in charge,” he said. “I’m hoping that maybe the Republicans in charge will get things going a little better economy-wise.”Weisman, who twice voted for Trump in presidential races, said he’d rather the former commander-in-chief stay out of the 2024 contest. “It’s a tough one. I like his politics. His mouth scares a lot of people. So, I personally do not think he can win because of the mouth, the ‘controversialness’ of him, and so I think that would be a tough road for him,” he said.Voters in Pennsylvania – a state which is poised to have one of the closest US Senate elections – were choosing between John Fetterman, the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, and Mehmet Oz, a Republican celebrity doctor.While Fetterman held a commanding lead in the polls for months, Oz has since closed the gap. Fetterman suffered a stroke in May, and still has difficulties with speaking and comprehending other speakers, as revealed in a debate with Oz two weeks ago. Fetterman and his team have insisted he is able to work and serve as senator; Oz’s campaign has mocked his health.“I liked Fetterman, except for the man had a stroke,” said Steve Schwartz, who just voted for Oz in Beaver county, approximately 30 miles north-west of Pittsburgh. “I don’t even know if he can drive to work yet. You don’t wanna hire him and then he’s going to be on disability for a little bit.” Schwartz, who also voted for the Republican candidates for governor and the US House, said he would have “seriously considered” Fetterman if not for his stroke.Beaver county, named after the Beaver River, which is either named after the Lenape chief King Beaver or the flat-tailed animal, voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and 2020. The former president’s margin of victory was smaller here than in other Pennsylvania counties.Mike Moore, a 41-year-old loan closer, said he had cast his vote for Fetterman.“I like the way he is. I’ve met him a couple of times, he seems like a real genuine guy. I kind of don’t like Dr Oz, because he doesn’t live in Pennsylvania – and that’s kind of like: ‘How can he represent me?’” Moore said, referring to Oz’s decades-long residency in a mansion in New Jersey; Oz claims he moved to Pennsylvania in late 2020.For Moore, the most important issue was “bipartisanship”, which appears unlikely given the tone of this election cycle. “This country is so polarized now, it’s a shame,” Moore said. “You know, we got to work together. We got to be Americans.”In Lansing, Michigan, the congresswoman Elissa Slotkin– – who is running in the most expensive House race in the country – said she was bracing herself for attempts to undermine the state’s election results.“This is what happens when a leadership climate is set in our country, trying to undercut democracy when one side loses,” she said on a small patch of tidily cropped grass outside the Eastern high school athletic club after casting her vote.“It’s unclear what my opponent will do if he loses. The good news is, we’ve seen this movie before, in 2020. We were prepared,” Slotkin said.A judge on Monday dismissed an effort by Republicans to throw out votes in Detroit, determining that their claim lacked a “shred of evidence”.Slotkin remarked that inflation was undeniably on everybody’s mind in Michigan, but added that the ballot initiative to protect abortion in Michigan is a “countervailing wind” following the US supreme court’s decision in July to overturn Roe v Wade. “I was at the Michigan State rally last night with campus organizers, and Roe v Wade is really motivating students,” Slotkin said.In nearby Detroit, at a polling site at the Greater Grace temple in the north-west of the city, 35-year-old Xhosoli Nmumhad said she decided to cast a ballot to support a constitutional amendment that would dramatically expand voting rights in Michigan. Nmumhad, 35, has only voted twice before – once in 2008 and then again in 2012, for Barack Obama – but said of her decision: “I believe everyone should be able to vote.”Ruth Draines, 72, another voter here, said she always participated in elections. This cycle, she was especially motivated by a ballot proposal that would amend Michigan’s constitution to protect access to abortion. “I don’t like the fact that they want to take away a woman’s right, because some women get raped and they don’t want to be reminded of that,” Draines said.In Kentucky, Ona Marshall, who co-owns one the two remaining abortion clinics in this state, said her polling station in Louisville was overflowing with voters around 11 am. “Not even in a presidential year have we seen that number of people, and this is mid-morning,” Marshall said.On the ballot in Kentucky is Amendment 2, a proposal that would restrict abortion in Kentucky. It’s unclear whether the surge of voters will cast their ballots in favor or opposition of the amendment, but Marshall remains optimistic.“Whatever happens, for our country and democracy, it’s extremely important that we have a higher turnout at the polls for every election, so to see it in a midterm election is definitely hopeful,” Marshall said.This morning in Georgia, Avondale Estates voter Coleman Williams said he felt the weight of the midterm elections. Georgia voters must chose between Democrat Stacey Abrams and incumbent Republican governor, Brian Kemp, in the gubernatorial race – and pick between Democrat Raphael Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker for US Senate.“I’ve watched the debates, and there’s just so much at stake for everyone,” Williams said. “I’m feeling nervous but hopeful because Georgia knows that we have to get out there, and we clearly have.”There were also the voters who found themselves so worried about the future of this country that they cast their votes early in case something happened. Beverly Harvey, a retiree and bingo organizer in the Villages, a sprawling age-55-and-up community in central Florida, was among them.“Most of my friends and I voted early. We wanted to make sure we got our vote in to try to save this country if we should not live long enough to vote on election day,” said Harvey, 75. “When you live in the Villages, you have to plan ahead.”Harvey’s top concerns were the border, crime and the economy. “We need to be doing for people here. I understand their need to escape their living conditions, but we have a lot of people in this country that are living in poor conditions as well,” Harvey said. As for crime, “I have four grandchildren, two in college, and I pray every day for their safety wherever they might be.”Meanwhile, Harvey and her friends are reeling from the soaring cost of living. They saved and saved for years, not to live “expensively” in their retirement, but just comfortably, Harvey said – which seems like an increasingly ephemeral goal.“We’ve lost so much of our savings toward our retirement that we’re really having to cut back on everything,” said Harvey. She said she “pretty much” voted “straight Republican”. As for the few Democrats Harvey voted for, she explained: “They agreed on the same things I do: the economy, the border, safety.”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsOhioPennsylvaniaMichigannewsReuse this content More