Presidential Election of 2020

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      The Job Is Managing State Finances, but His Issues Are Jan. 6 and Abortion

      by

      Ryan Bizzarro, a Democrat and member of Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives, announced a bid to challenge the Republican incumbent, Stacy Garrity, by invoking issues galvanizing to Democrats.A Pennsylvania Democrat announced a bid for state treasurer on Tuesday by seeking to tie his Republican opponent to two of the country’s most incendiary issues: abortion rights and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.In his announcement video, Ryan Bizzarro, a member of the state House of Representatives, accuses the Republican incumbent, Stacy Garrity, of being “Pennsylvania’s highest-ranking extremist office holder.” He highlights her past support for abortion restrictions and her appearance at a rally in Harrisburg the day before the Capitol riot in which she appeared to endorse former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the election was rigged.Campaigns for a lower-profile office like state treasurer — where the duties include managing the government’s cash flow, not setting policy — have tended to fly under voters’ radars. But in a battleground state like Pennsylvania, where the presidency and a U.S. Senate seat will be fiercely contested in 2024, down-ballot races, too, can take on intense partisanship over issues with little connection to an official’s duties.“She’s one of those extreme folks we’ve got to get rid of,” Mr. Bizzarro said in an interview. His opening salvo takes a page from the playbook of Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat who ran in 2022 against a hard-right opponent by promising to protect abortion and voting rights. Abortion rights in particular proved a galvanizing issue for Democrats in the midterm elections after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But while Pennsylvania’s governor has immense sway over those issues, its treasurer does not.A campaign adviser to Ms. Garrity, Dennis Roddy, said that bringing abortion and Jan. 6 into the race was an effort to dodge the fact that Ms. Garrity has been a successful steward of Pennsylvania’s money.“She’s done a hell of a job, she’s well liked and this is just the usual ‘let’s nationalize an election we can’t win on the merits,’” he said.Mr. Bizzarro’s announcement video begins with harrowing scenes of the violent attack on the Capitol, then cuts to Ms. Garrity at a Jan. 5, 2021, rally in Harrisburg that was organized to pressure Pennsylvania lawmakers to decertify the state’s vote for Joseph R. Biden Jr. After courts in Pennsylvania had already rejected multiple claims of fraud by the Trump campaign and allies, Ms. Garrity insisted to the crowd, “The election from this November is tarnished forever.”Ms. Garrity, an Iraq war veteran who defeated a Democratic incumbent in 2020, has also shown an inclination to lean into national issues. Her campaign Facebook page recently criticized Mr. Biden’s “hasty and spineless retreat” from Afghanistan, equated “Bidenomics=Bideninflation” and joined a chorus of Republican critics of Senator John Fetterman’s shorts-and-sweatshirt wardrobe.In the past, Ms. Garrity, 59, has asked people to “please pray” for the Supreme Court to reverse Roe v. Wade and called to defund Planned Parenthood. In 2020, she boasted of being endorsed by Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, a group that says it exists “to end abortion.”Mr. Bizzarro, 37, the House Democratic Policy Chair, comes from a family of professional prizefighters in Erie County, Pa. It is unclear if he will have a primary competitor. He appears in his video inside a boxing ring. More

    • 113 Shares109 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Lawyers Assail Gag Order Request in Election Case

      by

      The former president’s legal team said that an order limiting his public statements about the case would strip him of his First Amendment rights.Lawyers representing former President Donald J. Trump against federal charges accusing him of seeking to overturn the 2020 election offered an outraged response on Monday to the government’s request for a gag order, saying the attempt to “muzzle” him during his presidential campaign violated his free speech rights.In a 25-page filing, the lawyers sought to turn the tables on the government, accusing the prosecutors in the case of using “inflammatory rhetoric” themselves in a way that “violated longstanding rules of prosecutorial ethics.”“Following these efforts to poison President Trump’s defense, the prosecution now asks the court to take the extraordinary step of stripping President Trump of his First Amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against President Biden,” one of the lawyers, Gregory M. Singer, wrote. “The court should reject this transparent gamesmanship.”The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Washington, came 10 days after prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, asked Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case, to impose a narrow gag order on Mr. Trump. The order, they said, was meant to curb Mr. Trump’s “near-daily” barrage of threatening social media posts and to limit the effect his statements might have on witnesses in the case and on the potential jury pool for the trial. It is scheduled to take place in Washington starting in March.The lawyers’ attempt to fight the request has now set up a showdown that will ultimately have to be resolved by Judge Chutkan, an Obama appointee who has herself experienced the impact of Mr. Trump’s menacing words.One day after the former president wrote an online post in August saying, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU,” Judge Chutkan received a voice mail message in her chambers from a woman who threatened to kill her. (The woman, Abigail Jo Shry, has since been arrested.)Gag orders limiting what trial participants can say outside of court are not uncommon, especially to constrain pretrial publicity in high-profile cases. But the request to gag Mr. Trump as he solidifies his position as the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination has injected a current of political tension into what was already a fraught legal battle.That tension has only been heightened by the fact that Mr. Trump has placed the election interference case — and the three other criminal indictments he is facing — at the heart of his campaign.His core political argument — that he is being persecuted, not prosecuted — may be protected in some ways by the First Amendment but has also put him on what could be a collision course with Judge Chutkan. Early in the case, she warned Mr. Trump that she would take measures to ensure the integrity of the proceedings and to keep him from intimidating witnesses or tainting potential jurors.Almost from the moment Mr. Trump was indicted, his legal team has raised a First Amendment defense, arguing that prosecutors had essentially charged him for expressing his opinions about the 2020 elections. In the new court papers, Mr. Singer repeated those arguments, adding that Mr. Trump’s public statements about the case had not intimidated anyone or prejudiced the jury pool.He also said the government’s proposed gag order was not narrowly tailored, as prosecutors had claimed. He called it “sweepingly broad” and “undefined,” encompassing any potential witnesses in the case — including those “who are actively waging political campaigns against President Trump.”“The prosecution would silence President Trump, amid a political campaign where his right to criticize the government is at its zenith, all to avoid a public rebuke of this prosecution,” Mr. Singer wrote.Mr. Trump has long made a habit of attacking his enemies in vivid and often vicious fashion, making use of social media in particular. But now that he is a defendant, facing four indictments in four cities, his penchant for threatening and bullying those in his way has bumped up against the traditional strictures of the criminal justice system.In their request for the gag order earlier this month, prosecutors said Mr. Trump had repeatedly referred to Mr. Smith as “deranged” and has called Judge Chutkan “a radical Obama hack” and a “biased, Trump-hating judge.”They also noted that Mr. Trump has attacked the residents of Washington who one day will be called upon to serve as the jury pool for his trial. In one post, Mr. Trump claimed he would never get a fair hearing from those who lived in the “filthy and crime-ridden” city, which he said “is over 95% anti-Trump.”Mr. Singer played down the impact of these statements, saying that Mr. Trump had “never called for any improper or unlawful action” and that no one had truly been harmed by his words.“Every hearing in this case has gone forward on schedule, without incident,” he wrote, “and there is zero reason to believe that will change due to President Trump’s political expressions.”Picking up an argument it has used before, Mr. Trump’s legal team also sought to paint the prosecution of the former president as a political attack launched by President Biden — even though the case is being led by Mr. Smith, who was appointed by the Justice Department as an independent prosecutor.“At bottom, the proposed gag order is nothing more than an obvious attempt by the Biden Administration to unlawfully silence its most prominent political opponent, who has now taken a commanding lead in the polls,” Mr. Singer wrote. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      As Trump Prosecutions Move Forward, Threats and Concerns Increase

      by

      As criminal cases proceed against the former president, heated rhetoric and anger among his supporters have the authorities worried about the risk of political dissent becoming deadly.At the federal courthouse in Washington, a woman called the chambers of the judge assigned to the election interference case against former President Donald J. Trump and said that if Mr. Trump were not re-elected next year, “we are coming to kill you.”At the Federal Bureau of Investigation, agents have reported concerns about harassment and threats being directed at their families amid intensifying anger among Trump supporters about what they consider to be the weaponization of the Justice Department. “Their children didn’t sign up for this,” a senior F.B.I. supervisor recently testified to Congress.And the top prosecutors on the four criminal cases against Mr. Trump — two brought by the Justice Department and one each in Georgia and New York — now require round-the-clock protection.As the prosecutions of Mr. Trump have accelerated, so too have threats against law enforcement authorities, judges, elected officials and others. The threats, in turn, are prompting protective measures, a legal effort to curb his angry and sometimes incendiary public statements, and renewed concern about the potential for an election campaign in which Mr. Trump has promised “retribution” to produce violence.Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts, law enforcement officials and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks or riots by angry or troubled Americans who have taken in the heated rhetoric.In April, before federal prosecutors indicted Mr. Trump, one survey showed that 4.5 percent of American adults agreed with the idea that the use of force was “justified to restore Donald Trump to the presidency.” Just two months later, after the first federal indictment of Mr. Trump, that figure surged to 7 percent.Given the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, scholars, security experts and others are increasingly warning about the potential for lone-wolf attacks by angry Americans.Jason Andrew for The New York TimesThe indictments of Mr. Trump “are the most important current drivers of political violence we now have,” said the author of the study, Robert Pape, a political scientist who studies political violence at the University of Chicago.Other studies have found that any effects from the indictments dissipated quickly, and that there is little evidence of any increase in the numbers of Americans supportive of a violent response. And the leaders of the far-right groups that helped spur the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 are now serving long prison terms.But the threats have been steady and credible enough to prompt intense concern among law enforcement officials. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland addressed the climate in testimony to Congress on Wednesday, saying that while he recognized that the department’s work came with scrutiny, the demonization of career prosecutors and F.B.I. agents was menacing not only his employees but also the rule of law.“Singling out individual career public servants who are just doing their jobs is dangerous — particularly at a time of increased threats to the safety of public servants and their families,” Mr. Garland said.“We will not be intimidated,” he added. “We will do our jobs free from outside influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”Security details have been added for several high-profile law enforcement officials across the country, including career prosecutors running the day-to-day investigations.The F.B.I., which has seen the number of threats against its personnel and facilities surge since its agents carried out the court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s private club and residence in Florida, in August 2022, subsequently created a special unit to deal with the threats. A U.S. official said threats since then have risen more than 300 percent, in part because the identities of employees, and information about them, are being spread online.“We’re seeing that all too often,” Christopher A. Wray, the bureau’s director, said in congressional testimony this summer.The threats are sometimes too vague to rise to the level of pursuing a criminal investigation, and hate speech enjoys some First Amendment protections, often making prosecutions difficult. But the Justice Department has charged more than a half dozen people with making threats.This has had its own consequences: In the past 13 months, F.B.I. agents confronting individuals suspected of making threats have shot and fatally wounded two people, including one in Utah who was armed and had threatened, before President Biden’s planned visit to the area, to kill him.Jack Smith, the special counsel, has sought a gag order against Mr. Trump.Doug Mills/The New York TimesIn a brief filed in Washington federal court this month, Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the Justice Department’s prosecutions of Mr. Trump, took the extraordinary step of requesting a gag order against Mr. Trump. He linked threats against prosecutors and the judge presiding in the case accusing Mr. Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election to the rhetoric Mr. Trump had used before Jan. 6.“The defendant continues these attacks on individuals precisely because he knows that in doing so, he is able to roil the public and marshal and prompt his supporters,” the special counsel’s office said in a court filing.Mr. Trump has denied promoting violence. He says that his comments are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, and that the proposed gag order is part of a far-ranging Democratic effort to destroy him personally and politically.“Joe Biden has weaponized his Justice Department to go after his main political opponent — President Trump,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the former president.But Mr. Trump’s language has often been, at a minimum, aggressive and confrontational toward his perceived foes, and sometimes has at least bordered on incitement.On Friday, Mr. Trump baselessly suggested in a social media post that Gen. Mark A. Milley, the departing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, might have engaged in treason, “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the penalty would have been DEATH.” (General Milley has been interviewed by the special counsel’s office.)The day before the threatening call last month to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan’s chambers in Federal District Court in Washington, Mr. Trump posted on his social media site: “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING FOR YOU!” (A Texas woman was later charged with making the call.)Mr. Smith — whom Mr. Trump has described as “a thug” and “deranged” — has been a particular target of violent threats, and his office is on pace to spend $8 million to $10 million on protective details for him, his family and senior staff members, according to officials.Members of his plainclothes detail were conspicuously present as he entered an already locked-down Washington federal courtroom last month to witness Mr. Trump’s arraignment on the election interference charges — standing a few feet from the former president’s own contingent of Secret Service agents.On Friday, a judge presiding over a case in Colorado about whether Mr. Trump can be disqualified from the ballot there for his role in promoting the Jan. 6 attack issued a protective order barring threats or intimidation of anyone connected to the case. The judge cited the types of potential dangers laid out by Mr. Smith in seeking the gag order on Mr. Trump in the federal election case.There have been recent acts of political violence against Republicans, most notably the 2017 shooting of Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana. Last year an armed man arrested outside the home of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh said he had traveled from California to kill the conservative Supreme Court jurist.But many scholars and experts who study political violence place the blame for the current atmosphere most squarely on Mr. Trump — abetted by the unwillingness of many Republican politicians to object to or tamp down the violent and apocalyptic language on social media and in the conservative media.In one example of how Mr. Trump’s sway over his followers can have real-world effects, a man who had been charged with storming the Capitol on Jan. 6 was arrested in June looking for ways to get near former President Barack Obama’s Washington home. The man — who was armed with two guns and 400 rounds of ammunition and had a machete in the van he was living in — had hours earlier reposted on social media an item Mr. Trump had posted that same day, which claimed to show Mr. Obama’s home address.At his rallies and in interviews, Mr. Trump has described the Jan. 6 rioters who have been arrested as “great patriots” and said they should be released.Scott McIntyre for The New York TimesIn his first two years out of office, Mr. Trump’s public comments largely focused on slowly revising the history of what happened on Jan. 6, depicting it as mostly peaceful. At his rallies and in interviews, he has described the rioters who have been arrested as “great patriots,” said they should be released, dangled pardons for them and talked repeatedly about rooting out “fascists,” “Marxists” and “communists” from government.Mr. Trump’s verbal attacks on law enforcement agencies intensified after the F.B.I.’s search of Mar-a-Lago, as they pursued the investigation that later led to his indictment on charges of mishandling classified documents and obstructing efforts to retrieve them. Some of his most aggressive comments were made as it became clear that the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, was likely to indict him last spring in connection with hush money payments to a porn actress.He posted a story from a conservative news site that featured a picture of Mr. Bragg with an image of Mr. Trump wielding a baseball bat right next to it.In another post, Mr. Trump predicted that there would be “potential death and destruction” if he were charged by Mr. Bragg. The district attorney’s office found a threatening letter and white powder in its mailroom hours later. (The powder was later determined not to be dangerous.)Professor Pape, of the University of Chicago, said that while the numbers of people who felt violence was justified to support Mr. Trump were concerning, he would rather focus on a different group identified in his survey: the 80 percent of American adults who said they supported a bipartisan effort to reduce the possibility of political violence.“This indicates a vast, if untapped, potential to mobilize widespread opposition to political violence against democratic institutions,” he said, “and to unify Americans around the commitment to a peaceful democracy.”Kirsten Noyes More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Aimee Harris Faces Sentencing in Theft of Ashley Biden’s Diary

      by

      Prosecutors said the woman, Aimee Harris, sold the diary to Project Veritas, a right-wing group, to enrich herself and hurt President Biden. Project Veritas, which appears on the verge of collapse after ousting its founder, has denied wrongdoing.A Florida woman who stole a diary and other items belonging to President Biden’s daughter before the 2020 election hoped not only to profit but also to damage Mr. Biden’s chances of winning the White House by selling the material to the conservative group Project Veritas, according to a court filing.In a blistering sentencing memo filed in Manhattan on Wednesday, federal prosecutors said that the woman, Aimee Harris, was unrepentant and had no respect for the law, describing her conduct as “far outside of lawful political activism of any kind.”Ms. Harris, along with Robert Kurlander, has admitted to taking part in a conspiracy to transport stolen materials from Florida, where Ashley Biden had been living, to New York, where Project Veritas is based.“Stealing personal belongings of a candidate’s family member, and selling them to an organization to exploit them for political gain, was wrong and illegal no matter the political agenda,” the memo said.Prosecutors have recommended a sentence of six months’ home confinement and three years of supervised release while having Ms. Harris forfeit the $20,000 that Project Veritas paid her for the diary and other materials. Mr. Kurlander, who also received $20,000 from Project Veritas, is scheduled to be sentenced next month. Each faces up to five years in prison.The filing comes as Project Veritas appears on the verge of collapse after the departure of James O’Keefe, the right-wing provocateur who founded the group. Mr. O’Keefe was ousted after employees complained about his treatment of them and questioned his use of Project Veritas’ funds, leading the group to hire a law firm to investigate the allegations. Project Veritas is suing Mr. O’Keefe, who declined to be interviewed by the law firm.James O’Keefe was ousted by Project Veritas, which he founded, after employees complained about his treatment of them and questioned his use of the group’s funds. Evelyn Hockstein/ReutersMr. O’Keefe’s lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said he had not seen the audit and criticized Project Veritas for failing to pay his client’s legal fees and those of other employees ensnared in the federal investigation that had been prompted by their work for the group.In an earlier tax filing, Project Veritas admitted to paying Mr. O’Keefe $20,512 in “excess benefits” in 2021, saying that charity funds had been spent to assist Mr. O’Keefe when he starred as Curly the singing cowboy in the musical “Oklahoma.”After Mr. O’Keefe’s departure, the group hired Hannah Giles as chief executive. She pledged in June to keep pursuing investigations. But on Wednesday, Jennifer Kiyak, the group’s human resources administrator, said another wave of layoffs was necessary to preserve “the possible future existence of Project Veritas.” She added that the group would pause its operations.The group is known for using deceptive tactics to carry out sting operations against left-wing organizations. It has also targeted reporters of The New York Times and has an ongoing defamation suit against the newspaper.The group is also bracing to see whether federal prosecutors in Manhattan charge anybody else associated with the theft and sale of the diary and other items. As part of the inquiry, federal investigators carried out search warrants at the apartments of Mr. O’Keefe and two former Project Veritas operatives, Spencer Meads and Eric Cochran.Project Veritas, which ultimately did not publish the contents of the diary, denies any wrongdoing.In their latest filing, prosecutors said that Ms. Biden had been living at a friend’s house in Delray Beach, Fla., but moved out in June 2020, leaving the diary and other personal items behind, including tax records, a digital camera, a digital storage card containing private family photographs, a cellphone, books, clothing and luggage.The owner of the house, a friend of Ms. Biden’s, said she could store the items there, prosecutors added, making clear that she did not abandon those personal belongings as Project Veritas has claimed.Ms. Harris moved in shortly after Ms. Biden left, staying in the same room as the president’s daughter. After finding the items, Ms. Harris conspired with Mr. Kurlander to sell them, prosecutors say, taking them to a fund-raiser for President Trump in Florida on Sept. 6, 2020.Before the event, Mr. Kurlander reminded Ms. Harris to bring the stolen property, telling her she had a “chance to make so much money.” Ms. Harris responded that she had additional items that she had not yet disclosed, adding: “I can’t wait to show you what Mama has to bring to Papa.”Robert Kurlander, who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiring with Ms. Harris to sell the diary, will be sentenced next month.Jefferson Siegel for The New York TimesBut the campaign made clear it was not interested in the items and told Ms. Harris and Mr. Kurlander to go to the F.B.I. Eventually, the pair got in touch with Project Veritas, which paid for them to fly to New York days later and stay at a luxury hotel in Manhattan. Later, a Project Veritas operative, identified in the filing as “Employee 1,” instructed Ms. Harris and Mr. Kurlander to return to the Florida house to retrieve additional items.But Mr. Kurlander demanded more money, according to prosecutors. In an exchange with the operative on an encrypted app, he stated: “We are doing everything we say we will do. It’s just not fair. We are taking huge risks. This isn’t fair.”That operative then flew to Florida to meet the pair, taking more stolen items, according to prosecutors, and shipping them back to New York. The Times has previously reported that Mr. Meads, a confidant of Mr. O’Keefe’s, was sent to Florida to meet the pair.In their sentencing memo, prosecutors castigated Ms. Harris. “Such criminal conduct,” they said, “does not merely hurt the victim, but seeks to undermine the political process.” More

    • 63 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Donald Trump’s Abortion Shell Game

      by

      As a candidate for president in 2016, Donald Trump promised to put “pro-life justices” on the Supreme Court. He even issued a list of potential nominees that featured some of the most conservative judges in the country.As president, Trump made good on his promise, appointing three of the six justices who voted last year to overturn the Supreme Court’s precedent in Roe v. Wade and end, after years of erosion, the constitutional right to an abortion.Each of these appointments — Neil Gorsuch in 2017, Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Amy Coney Barrett in 2020 — was a landmark occasion for the Trump administration and a major victory for the conservative movement. Trump used his court picks to energize Republican voters ahead of the 2020 presidential election and, later, took credit for the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that made Roe obsolete.The Dobbs decision, Trump said in a statement, was “the biggest WIN for LIFE in a generation” and was “only made possible because I delivered everything as promised, including nominating and getting three highly respected and strong Constitutionalists confirmed to the United States Supreme Court.” It was, he continued, “my great honor to do so!”As recently as last week, in remarks to the Concerned Women of America Summit, Trump bragged about the anti-abortion record of his administration. “I’m also proud to be the most pro-life president in American history,” he said. “I was the first sitting president ever to attend the March for Life rally right here in Washington, D.C.” The biggest thing, he emphasized, was his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who “ruled to end the moral and constitutional atrocity known as Roe v. Wade.”“Nobody thought that could be done,” Trump said.Whether or not Trump is personally opposed to abortion is immaterial. The truth, established by his record as president, is that he is as committed to outlawing abortion in the United States as any other conservative Republican.There is no reason, then, to take seriously his remarks on Sunday, in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” where he criticized strict abortion bans and tried to distance himself from the anti-abortion policies of his rivals for the Republican presidential nomination. “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake,” Trump said, taking aim at Gov. Ron DeSantis’s decision to sign a six-week ban into law in Florida in April. Trump also rejected the 15-week federal ban pushed by his former vice president, Mike Pence, and promised to negotiate a compromise with Democrats on abortion. “Both sides are going to like me,” he said. “I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable.”Trump is triangulating. He sees, correctly, that the Republican Party is now on the wrong side of the public on abortion. By rejecting a blanket ban and making a call for compromise with Democrats, Trump is trying to fashion himself as an abortion moderate, a strategy that also rests on his pre-political persona as a liberal New Yorker with a live-and-let-live attitude toward personal behavior.There is a real chance this could work. In 2016, voters did not see Trump as a conservative figure on either abortion or gay rights, despite the fact that he was the standard-bearer for the party that wanted restrictions on both. It would be a version of the trick he pulled on Social Security and Medicare, where he posed as a defender of programs that have been in the cross-hairs of conservative Republicans since they were created.But there’s an even greater chance that this gambit falls flat. There are the Democrats, who will have his record to highlight when they go on the offensive next year, assuming he’s on the ballot as the Republican nominee. There is the political press, which should highlight the fact that Trump is directly responsible for the end of Roe (so far, it mostly has). And there are his rivals, like DeSantis, who are already pressing Trump to commit to further anti-abortion policies in a second term.It’s probably no accident then that Trump went to Iowa — where the Florida governor is investing the full resources of his campaign — to remind voters of his role in ending Roe. “They couldn’t get the job done. I got the job done,” Trump said. “I got it done. With the three Supreme Court justices that I appointed, this issue has been returned to the states, where all legal scholars on both sides said it should be. Of course, now the pro-life community has tremendous negotiating power.”Trump is no longer the singular figure of 2016. He is enmeshed within the Republican Party. He has real commitments to allies and coalition partners within the conservative movement. He is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party, yes, but he can’t simply jettison the abortion issue, which remains a central concern for much of the Republican base.“We’re at a moment where we need a human rights advocate, someone who is dedicated to saving the lives of children and serving mothers in need. Every single candidate should be clear on how they plan to do that,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement issued in response to Trump’s comments on “Meet the Press.”Trump will have to talk about abortion again and again, in a context that does him no political favors.There is a larger point to make here. Because we are almost certain to see a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, it is easy to think that the next election will be a replay of the previous one in much the same way that the 1956 contest between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson was virtually identical to the one in 1952.But conditions will be very different in 2024 from what they were in 2020. Trump will not be an incumbent and, according to my colleague Nate Cohn, he may not have the same scale of Electoral College advantage he enjoyed in his previous races. He’ll be under intense legal scrutiny and, most important, he’ll be a known quantity.The public won’t have to imagine a Trump presidency. It will already know what to expect. And judging from Trump’s attempt to get away from his own legacy, he probably knows that a majority of the voting public isn’t eager to experience another four years with him at the helm.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

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump me atacó. Después, Musk lo hizo. No fue casualidad

      by

      Timo LenzenCuando trabajaba en Twitter, ahora conocida como X, dirigí al equipo que puso por primera vez una etiqueta de verificación de hechos en uno de los tuits de Donald Trump. Tras la violencia del 6 de enero, ayudé a tomar la decisión de suspender su cuenta en Twitter. Nada me preparó para lo que ocurriría después.Respaldado por sus seguidores en las redes sociales, Trump me atacó públicamente. Dos años después, tras su adquisición de Twitter y después de que yo dimití de mi puesto como responsable de confianza y seguridad de la empresa, Elon Musk echó más leña al fuego. He vivido con guardias armados en la puerta de mi casa y he tenido que trastocar la vida de mi familia, así como esconderme durante meses y mudarme una y otra vez.No es una historia que me guste recordar. Pero he aprendido que lo que me ocurrió no fue casualidad. No fue solo una venganza personal o la “cultura de la cancelación”. Se trató de una estrategia que no solo afecta a personas específicas, como en mi caso, sino a todos nosotros, ya que está cambiando a gran velocidad lo que vemos en internet.Los individuos —desde investigadores académicos hasta trabajadores de empresas de tecnología— son cada vez más objeto de demandas, comparecencias ante el Congreso y despiadados ataques en línea. Estos ataques, organizados en gran medida por la derecha, están teniendo el efecto deseado: las universidades están reduciendo sus esfuerzos para cuantificar la información abusiva y engañosa que se difunde en internet. Las empresas de redes sociales están evitando tomar el tipo de decisiones difíciles que mi equipo tomó cuando intervinimos ante las mentiras de Trump sobre las elecciones de 2020. Las plataformas no empezaron a tomarse en serio estos riesgos sino hasta después de las elecciones de 2016. Ahora, ante la posibilidad de ataques desproporcionados contra sus empleados, las empresas parecen cada vez más reacias a tomar decisiones controvertidas, lo cual permite que la desinformación y el abuso se enconen para evitar provocar represalias públicas.Estos ataques a la seguridad en internet se producen en un momento en el que la democracia no podría estar más en riesgo. En 2024, está prevista la celebración de más de 40 elecciones importantes, entre ellas las de Estados Unidos, la Unión Europea, la India, Ghana y México. Lo más probable es que estas democracias se enfrenten a los mismos riesgos de campañas de desinformación respaldadas por los gobiernos y de incitación a la violencia en línea que han plagado las redes sociales durante años. Deberíamos preocuparnos por lo que ocurra.Mi historia comienza con esa verificación de datos. En la primavera de 2020, tras años de debate interno, mi equipo decidió que Twitter debía aplicar una etiqueta a un tuit del entonces presidente Trump que afirmaba que el voto por correo era propenso al fraude y que las próximas elecciones estarían “amañadas”. “Conoce los hechos sobre la votación por correo”, decía la etiqueta.El 27 de mayo, la mañana siguiente a la colocación de la etiqueta, la asesora principal de la Casa Blanca, Kellyanne Conway, me identificó de manera pública como el director del equipo de integridad de Twitter. Al día siguiente, The New York Post publicó en su portada varios tuits en los que me burlaba de Trump y otros republicanos. Los había publicado años antes, cuando era estudiante y tenía pocos seguidores, sobre todo amigos y familiares, en las redes sociales. Ahora, eran noticia de primera plana. Ese mismo día, Trump tuiteó que yo era un “odiador”.Legiones de usuarios de Twitter, la mayoría de quienes días antes no tenían ni idea de quién era yo ni en qué consistía mi trabajo, comenzaron una campaña de acoso en línea que duró meses, en la que exigían que me despidieran, me encarcelaran o me mataran. La cantidad de notificaciones de Twitter arrunió mi teléfono. Amigos de los que no tenía noticias desde hacía años expresaron su preocupación. En Instagram, fotos antiguas de mis vacaciones y de mi perro se inundaron de comentarios amenazantes e insultos (algunos comentaristas, que malinterpretaron el momento de manera atroz, aprovecharon para intentar coquetear conmigo).Me sentí avergonzado y asustado. Hasta ese momento, nadie fuera de unos pocos círculos bastante especializados tenía idea de quién era yo. Los académicos que estudian las redes sociales llaman a esto “colapso de contexto”: las cosas que publicamos en las redes sociales con un público en mente pueden acabar circulando entre un público muy diferente, con resultados inesperados y destructivos. En la práctica, se siente como si todo tu mundo se derrumba.El momento en que se desató la campaña en contra de mi persona y mi supuesta parcialidad sugería que los ataques formaban parte de una estrategia bien planificada. Los estudios académicos han rebatido en más de una ocasión las afirmaciones de que las plataformas de Silicon Valley son tendenciosas contra los conservadores. Pero el éxito de una estrategia encaminada a obligar a las empresas de redes sociales a reconsiderar sus decisiones quizá no requiera la demostración de una verdadera mala conducta. Como describió en una ocasión Rich Bond, expresidente del Partido Republicano, tal vez solo sea necesario “ganarse a los árbitros”: presionar sin cesar a las empresas para que se lo piensen dos veces antes de emprender acciones que podrían provocar una reacción negativa. Lo que me ocurrió fue parte de un esfuerzo calculado para que Twitter se mostrara reacio a moderar a Trump en el futuro y para disuadir a otras empresas de tomar medidas similares.Y funcionó. Mientras se desataba la violencia en el Capitolio el 6 de enero, Jack Dorsey, entonces director general de Twitter, anuló la recomendación del departamento de confianza y seguridad de que se bloqueara la cuenta de Trump debido a varios tuits, incluido uno que atacaba al vicepresidente Mike Pence. En cambio, se le impuso una suspensión temporal de 12 horas (antes de que su cuenta se se suspendiera indefinidamente el 8 de enero). Dentro de los límites de las normas, se animó a los miembros del personal a encontrar soluciones para ayudar a la empresa a evitar el tipo de reacción que da lugar a ciclos de noticias furiosas, audiencias y acoso a empleados. En la práctica, lo que sucedió fue que Twitter dio mayor libertad a los infractores: a la representante Marjorie Taylor Greene se le permitió violar las normas de Twitter al menos cinco veces antes de que una de sus cuentas fuera suspendida de manera definitiva en 2022. Otras figuras prominentes de derecha, como la cuenta de guerra cultural Libs of TikTok, gozaron de una deferencia similar.En todo el mundo, se están desplegando tácticas similares para influir en los esfuerzos de confianza y seguridad de las plataformas. En India, la policía visitó dos de nuestras oficinas en 2021 cuando comprobamos los hechos de las publicaciones de un político del partido gobernante y la policía se presentó en la casa de un empleado después de que el gobierno nos solicitó bloquear cuentas implicadas en una serie de protestas. El acoso volvió a rendir frutos: los ejecutivos de Twitter decidieron que cualquier acción que pudiera ser delicada en la India requeriría la aprobación de los más altos mandos, un nivel único de escalada de decisiones que, de otro modo, serían rutinarias.Y cuando quisimos revelar una campaña de propaganda llevada a cabo por una rama del ejército indio, nuestro equipo jurídico nos advirtió que nuestros empleados en la India podrían ser acusados de sedición y condenados a muerte. Así que Twitter no reveló la campaña sino hasta más de un año después, sin señalar al gobierno indio como autor.En 2021, antes de las elecciones legislativas de Rusia, los funcionarios de un servicio de seguridad estatal fueron a la casa de una alta ejecutiva de Google en Moscú para exigir la retirada de una aplicación que se usaba para protestar en contra de Vladimir Putin. Los agentes la amenazaron con encarcelarla si la empresa no cumplía en 24 horas. Tanto Apple como Google retiraron la aplicación de sus respectivas tiendas y la restablecieron una vez concluidas las elecciones.En cada uno de estos casos, los empleados en cuestión carecían de la capacidad para hacer lo que les pedían los funcionarios de turno, ya que las decisiones subyacentes se tomaban a miles de kilómetros de distancia, en California. Pero como los empleados locales tenían la desgracia de residir dentro de la jurisdicción de las autoridades, fueron objeto de campañas coercitivas, que enfrentaban el sentido del deber de las empresas hacia sus empleados contra los valores, principios o políticas que pudieran hacerles resistirse a las demandas locales. Inspirados por la idea, India y otros países comenzaron a promulgar leyes de “toma de rehenes” para garantizar que las empresas de redes sociales contrataran personal local.En Estados Unidos, hemos visto que estas formas de coerción no las han llevado a cabo jueces y policías, sino organizaciones de base, turbas en las redes sociales, comentaristas de noticias por cable y, en el caso de Twitter, el nuevo propietario de la empresa.Una de las fuerzas más recientes en esta campaña son los “archivos de Twitter”, una gran selección de documentos de la empresa —muchos de los cuales yo mismo envié o recibí durante mis casi ocho años en Twitter— entregados por orden de Musk a un puñado de escritores selectos. Los archivos fueron promocionados por Musk como una forma innovadora de transparencia, que supuestamente exponían por primera vez la forma en que el sesgo liberal de las costas de Estados Unidos de Twitter reprime el contenido conservador.El resultado fue algo muy distinto. Como dijo el periodista de tecnología Mike Masnick, después de toda la fanfarria que rodeó la publicación inicial de los archivos de Twitter, al final “no había absolutamente nada de interés” en los documentos y lo poco que había tenía errores factuales importantes. Hasta Musk acabó por impacientarse con la estrategia. Pero, en el proceso, el esfuerzo marcó una nueva e inquietante escalada en el acoso a los empleados de las empresas tecnológicas.A diferencia de los documentos que por lo general saldrían de las grandes empresas, las primeras versiones de los archivos de Twitter no suprimieron los nombres de los empleados, ni siquiera de los de menor nivel. Un empleado de Twitter que residía en Filipinas fue víctima de doxeo (la revelación de información personal) y de acoso grave. Otros se han convertido en objeto de conspiraciones. Las decisiones tomadas por equipos de decenas de personas de acuerdo con las políticas escritas de Twitter se presentaron como si hubieran sido tomadas por los deseos caprichosos de individuos, cada uno identificado por su nombre y su fotografía. Yo fui, por mucho, el objetivo más frecuente.La primera entrega de los archivos de Twitter se dio tras un mes de mi salida de la empresa y unos cuantos días después de que publiqué un ensayo invitado en The New York Times y hablé sobre mi experiencia como empleado de Musk. No pude evitar sentir que las acciones de la empresa eran, hasta cierto punto, represalias. A la semana siguiente, Musk fue incluso más allá y sacó de contexto un párrafo de mi tesis doctoral para afirmar sin fundamentos que yo aprobaba la pedofilia, un tropo conspirativo que suelen utilizar los extremistas de ultraderecha y los seguidores de QAnon para desprestigiar a personas de la comunidad LGBTQ.La respuesta fue todavía más extrema que la que experimenté tras el tuit que Trump publicó sobre mí. “Deberías colgarte de un viejo roble por la traición que has cometido. Vive con miedo cada uno de tus días”, decía uno de los miles de tuits y correos electrónicos amenazantes. Ese mensaje y cientos de otros similares eran violaciones de las mismas políticas que yo había trabajado para desarrollar y hacer cumplir. Bajo la nueva administración, Twitter se hizo de la vista gorda y los mensajes permanecen en el sitio hasta el día de hoy.El 6 de diciembre, cuatro días después de la primera divulgación de los archivos de Twitter, se me pidió comparecer en una audiencia del Congreso centrada en los archivos y la presunta censura de Twitter. En esa audiencia, algunos miembros del Congreso mostraron carteles de gran tamaño con mis tuits de hace años y me preguntaron bajo juramento si seguía manteniendo esas opiniones (en la medida en que las bromas tuiteadas con descuido pudieran tomarse como mis opiniones reales, no las sostengo). Greene dijo en Fox News que yo tenía “unas posturas muy perturbadoras sobre los menores y la pornografía infantil” y que yo permití “la proliferación de la pornografía infantil en Twitter”, lo que desvirtuó aún más las mentiras de Musk (y además, aumentó su alcance). Llenos de amenazas y sin opciones reales para responder o protegernos, mi marido y yo tuvimos que vender nuestra casa y mudarnos.El ámbito académico se ha convertido en el objetivo más reciente de estas campañas para socavar las medidas de seguridad en línea. Los investigadores que trabajan para entender y resolver la propagación de desinformación en línea reciben ahora más ataques partidistas; las universidades a las que están afiliados han estado envueltas en demandas, onerosas solicitudes de registros públicos y procedimientos ante el Congreso. Ante la posibilidad de facturas de abogados de siete dígitos, hasta los laboratorios de las universidades más grandes y mejor financiadas han dicho que tal vez tengan que abandonar el barco. Otros han optado por cambiar el enfoque de sus investigaciones en función de la magnitud del acoso.Poco a poco, audiencia tras audiencia, estas campañas están erosionando de manera sistemática las mejoras a la seguridad y la integridad de las plataformas en línea que tanto ha costado conseguir y las personas que realizan este trabajo son las que pagan el precio más directo.Las plataformas de tecnología están replegando sus iniciativas para proteger la seguridad de las elecciones y frenar la propagación de la desinformación en línea. En medio de un clima de austeridad más generalizado, las empresas han disminuido muy en especial sus iniciativas relacionadas con la confianza y la seguridad. Ante la creciente presión de un Congreso hostil, estas decisiones son tan racionales como peligrosas.Podemos analizar lo que ha sucedido en otros países para vislumbrar cómo podría terminar esta historia. Donde antes las empresas hacían al menos un esfuerzo por resistir la presión externa; ahora, ceden en gran medida por defecto. A principios de 2023, el gobierno de India le pidió a Twitter que restringiera las publicaciones que criticaran al primer ministro del país, Narendra Modi. En años anteriores, la empresa se había opuesto a tales peticiones; en esta ocasión, Twitter accedió. Cuando un periodista señaló que tal cooperación solo incentiva la proliferación de medidas draconianas, Musk se encogió de hombros: “Si nos dan a elegir entre que nuestra gente vaya a prisión o cumplir con las leyes, cumpliremos con las leyes”.Resulta difícil culpar a Musk por su decisión de no poner en peligro a los empleados de Twitter en India. Pero no deberíamos olvidar de dónde provienen estas tácticas ni cómo se han extendido tanto. Las acciones de Musk (que van desde presionar para abrir los archivos de Twitter hasta tuitear sobre conspiraciones infundadas relacionadas con exempleados) normalizan y popularizan que justicieros exijan la rendición de cuentas y convierten a los empleados de su empresa en objetivos aún mayores. Su reciente ataque a la Liga Antidifamación demuestra que considera que toda crítica contra él o sus intereses empresariales debe tener como consecuencia una represalia personal. Y, en la práctica, ahora que el discurso de odio va en aumento y disminuyen los ingresos de los anunciantes, las estrategias de Musk parecen haber hecho poco para mejorar los resultados de Twitter.¿Qué puede hacerse para revertir esta tendencia?Dejar claras las influencias coercitivas en la toma de decisiones de las plataformas es un primer paso fundamental. También podría ayudar que haya reglamentos que les exijan a las empresas transparentar las decisiones que tomen en estos casos y por qué las toman.En su ausencia, las empresas deben oponerse a los intentos de que se quiera controlar su trabajo. Algunas de estas decisiones son cuestiones fundamentales de estrategia empresarial a largo plazo, como dónde abrir (o no abrir) oficinas corporativas. Pero las empresas también tienen un deber para con su personal: los empleados no deberían tener que buscar la manera de protegerse cuando sus vidas ya se han visto alteradas por estas campañas. Ofrecer acceso a servicios que promuevan la privacidad puede ayudar. Muchas instituciones harían bien en aprender la lección de que pocas esferas de la vida pública son inmunes a la influencia mediante la intimidación.Si las empresas de redes sociales no pueden operar con seguridad en un país sin exponer a sus trabajadores a riesgos personales y a las decisiones de la empresa a influencias indebidas, tal vez no deberían operar allí para empezar. Como a otros, me preocupa que esas retiradas empeoren las opciones que les quedan a las personas que más necesitan expresarse en línea de forma libre y abierta. Pero permanecer en internet teniendo que hacer concesiones podría impedir el necesario ajuste de cuentas con las políticas gubernamentales de censura. Negarse a cumplir exigencias moralmente injustificables y enfrentarse a bloqueos por ello puede provocar a largo plazo la necesaria indignación pública que ayude a impulsar la reforma.El mayor desafío —y quizá el más ineludible— en este caso es el carácter esencialmente humano de las iniciativas de confianza y seguridad en línea. No son modelos de aprendizaje automático ni algoritmos sin rostro los que están detrás de las decisiones clave de moderación de contenidos: son personas. Y las personas pueden ser presionadas, intimidadas, amenazadas y extorsionadas. Enfrentarse a la injusticia, al autoritarismo y a los perjuicios en línea requiere empleados dispuestos a hacer ese trabajo.Pocas personas podrían aceptar un trabajo así, si lo que les cuesta es la vida o la libertad. Todos debemos reconocer esta nueva realidad y planear en consecuencia.Yoel Roth es académico visitante de la Universidad de Pensilvania y la Fundación Carnegie para la Paz Internacional, y fue responsable de confianza y seguridad en Twitter. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in Elections

      Lawyers for Fake Trump Electors Hint at Defense Strategy in Georgia Case

      by

      The details came at a hearing on whether the three electors, co-defendants of Donald J. Trump in an election interference case, could have their cases moved to federal court.Lawyers for three Georgia Republicans charged in a racketeering indictment for casting false Electoral College votes for former President Donald J. Trump offered a glimpse of their defense strategy on Wednesday, telling a federal judge that they submitted the votes as part of their “duty” under federal law.The three defendants — David Shafer, the former chairman of the Georgia Republican Party; Cathy Latham, a party activist from a rural part of the state; and State Senator Shawn Still — were among 16 Republicans recruited to cast electoral votes for Mr. Trump at the Georgia State Capitol on Dec. 14, 2020, the same day that the legitimate electors for President Biden met to cast their votes for him.The three are among 19 people, including Mr. Trump, who were charged last month in an indictment that sketches out a multifaceted scheme to illegally overturn the former president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia. Crucial to the plan, the indictment says, was an effort to recruit Trump loyalists to “convene and cast false Electoral College votes” in Georgia.On Wednesday morning, lawyers for the three fake electors squared off against prosecutors from the Fulton County district attorney’s office in a hearing over whether the three were serving as “federal officers.” Such a designation could allow them to move their cases from state court to the federal system, where the jury pool would be somewhat more supportive of Mr. Trump.The defense lawyers are hoping that Judge Steve C. Jones of U.S. District Court will move the case to federal court — or throw out their clients’ cases completely.At the hearing, the lawyers for the would-be electors said that their clients had believed they were legally preserving Mr. Trump’s rights in case a lawsuit challenging the election at the time ended up in his favor.That lawsuit was filed by Mr. Trump and Mr. Shafer four days before the so-called safe harbor deadline of Dec. 8, 2020, when state-level election challenges were supposed to be wrapped up. Craig Gillen, a lawyer for Mr. Shafer, noted that a judge had not ruled on the lawsuit by the deadline. Therefore, he argued, Georgia, under federal law, lost its authority to decide who the legitimate electors were.That made it incumbent upon the Republican electors to cast votes for Mr. Trump, he said, so that Congress could decide which electoral votes from Georgia to ultimately count.“They did their duty,” Mr. Gillen said, arguing that they should be considered “contingent electors,” and not “fake electors,” as described by prosecutors and reporters.“It’s just too easy to say ‘fake’ without digging into what the law says,” he said.Anna Cross, a special prosecutor, countered that the electors had acted not out of duty, but in their own self-interest, and in the interest of their preferred candidate. She called the lawsuit filed by Mr. Shafer and Mr. Trump “meritless,” and said that the filing of such a suit just before the deadline should not be allowed to cause electoral “chaos.” (The lawsuit was voluntarily withdrawn by the plaintiffs on Jan. 7, 2021.)Not only were the electors not federal officials, Ms. Cross said, but they “were no electors at all.”While the hearing played out in federal court, pretrial jockeying continued in state court, where defense lawyers are seeking other ways to strengthen their hand as an Oct. 23 trial date for two of the 19 defendants, the lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro, approaches. On Tuesday, Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court ruled that defense lawyers could interview members of the grand jury that returned the indictment against Mr. Trump and his co-defendants — but only those who were willing to be questioned.On Wednesday, the office of Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, filed a notice pointing to potential conflicts of interest for several of the defense lawyers, though it was unclear if any were serious enough to merit action from Judge McAfee. Many of the suggested conflicts related to having prior connections to witnesses who might be called to testify during a trial.One of the state’s witnesses mentioned in the filing was L. Lin Wood, one of the lawyers who sought to overturn Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss. After the election, Mr. Wood, who was not charged in the case, embraced conspiracy theories and extreme rhetoric, at one point calling for putting former Vice President Mike Pence before a firing squad.In an interview, Mr. Wood said that he had been subpoenaed to testify but that he has nothing worthwhile to say.“A lot of people are putting out stories that I’m a government snitch or I flipped on President Trump,” he said. “That’s just errant nonsense.”Last year, Mr. Wood testified before a special grand jury that heard from 75 witnesses as part of the investigation into election interference in Georgia. More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in Elections

      Pennsylvania Will Start Automatic Voter Registration

      by

      Nearly half of all states have similar programs that combine getting a driver’s license or state ID card with registering to vote.Pennsylvania, a battleground state that could play an outsize role in the 2024 presidential election, will begin to automatically register new voters as part of its driver’s license and state ID approval process, officials said on Tuesday.The program, which was announced by Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, is similar to those offered in 23 other states and the District of Columbia, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Voters must meet certain eligibility requirements, which include being a U.S. citizen and a Pennsylvania resident for at least 30 days before an election. They also must be at least 18 years old on the date of the next election.“Automatic voter registration is a common-sense step to ensure election security and save Pennsylvanians time and tax dollars,” Mr. Shapiro said in a statement. “Residents of our Commonwealth already provide proof of identity, residency, age and citizenship at the D.M.V. — all the information required to register to vote — so it makes good sense to streamline that process with voter registration.”In the 2020 election and the midterm races last year, Pennsylvania was a hotbed of falsehoods about voter fraud, promoted by former President Donald J. Trump and his allies. Republicans in the state have mounted a series of unsuccessful legal challenges over voters’ eligibility and absentee ballots that did not have dates written on their return envelopes, which a state law requires.The move to automatic voter registration, which begins Tuesday, comes as both Republicans and Democrats keep an eye on the state as the 2024 race heats up.The state where President Biden was born, Pennsylvania could determine not only whether he is elected to a second term, but also whether Democrats maintain control of the closely divided Senate. Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat in his third term, is facing a key re-election test.In the near term, a special election in the Pittsburgh area on Tuesday was expected to determine the balance of power in Pennsylvania’s House of Representatives.Pennsylvania had about 8.7 million registered voters as of December 2022, according to state officials, who, citing census figures, estimated that about 10.3 million residents were eligible to register to vote. More