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      In Voter Fraud, Penalties Often Depend on Who’s Voting

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      WASHINGTON — After 15 years of scrapes with the police, the last thing that 33-year-old Therris L. Conney needed was another run-in with the law. He got one anyway two years ago, after election officials held a presentation on voting rights for inmates of the county jail in Gainesville, Fla.Apparently satisfied that he could vote, Mr. Conney registered after the session, and cast a ballot in 2020. In May, he was arrested for breaking a state law banning voting by people serving felony sentences — and he was sentenced to almost another full year in jail.That show-no-mercy approach to voter fraud is what Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, has encouraged this year during his re-election campaign. “That was against the law,” he said last month about charges against 20 other felons who voted in Florida, “and they’re going to pay a price for it.”But many of those cases seem to already be falling apart, because, like Mr. Conney, the former felons did not intend to vote illegally. And the more typical kind of voter-fraud case in Florida has long exacted punishment at a steep discount.Last winter, four residents of the Republican-leaning retirement community The Villages were arrested for voting twice — once in Florida, and again in other states where they had also lived.Despite being charged with third-degree felonies, the same as Mr. Conney, two of the Villages residents who pleaded guilty escaped having a criminal record entirely by taking a 24-hour civics class. Trials are pending for the other two.Florida is an exaggerated version of America as a whole. A review by The New York Times of some 400 voting-fraud charges filed nationwide since 2017 underscores what critics of fraud crackdowns have long said: Actual prosecutions are blue-moon events, and often netted people who didn’t realize they were breaking the law.Punishment can be wildly inconsistent: Most violations draw wrist-slaps, while a few high-profile prosecutions produce draconian sentences. Penalties often fall heaviest on those least able to mount a defense. Those who are poor and Black are more likely to be sent to jail than comfortable retirees facing similar charges.The high-decibel political rhetoric behind fraud prosecutions drowns out how infrequent — and sometimes how unfair — those prosecutions are, said Richard L. Hasen, an expert on election law and democracy issues at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.“It’s hard to see felons in Gainesville getting jail terms, and then look at people in The Villages getting no time at all, and see this as a rational system,” he said.The Times searched newspapers in all 50 states, internet accounts of fraud and online databases of cases, including one maintained by the conservative Heritage Foundation, to compile a list of prosecutions in the last five years. But there is no comprehensive list of voter fraud cases, and The Times’ list is undoubtedly incomplete.Election workers in Riviera Beach, Fla., prepared ballots to be counted by machine after the November 2020 general election.Saul Martinez for The New York TimesThe number of individuals charged — roughly one and one-half per state per year — is infinitesimal in a country where more than 159.7 million votes were cast in the 2020 general election alone.For all the fevered rhetoric about crackdowns on illegal voting, what’s most striking about voter fraud prosecutions is how modest the penalties for convictions tend to be.Most fraud cases fall into one of four categories: falsely filling out absentee ballots, usually to vote in the name of a relative; voting twice, usually in two states; votes cast illegally by felons; or votes cast by noncitizens.Edward Snodgrass, a trustee in Porter Township, Ohio, said he was trying to “execute a dying man’s wishes” when he filled out and mailed in his deceased father’s ballot in the 2020 election. He was fined $800 and sentenced to three days in jail.Charles Eugene Cartier, 81, of Madison, N.H. and Attleboro, Mass., pleaded guilty in New Hampshire to voting in more than one state, a Class B felony, in the 2016 election. He was fined $1,000 plus a penalty assessment of $240, and had his 60-day prison sentence suspended on condition of good behavior.At least four Oregonians cast votes in two states in 2016; none were fined more than $1,000, and felony charges were reduced to violations, akin to traffic tickets.Two federal prosecutors in North Carolina, Matthew G.T. Martin and Robert J. Higdon, made national headlines in 2018 with a campaign to prosecute noncitizens who voted illegally. In the end, around 30 charges were brought, out of some 4.7 million votes cast in 2016. But prison sentences in those cases were few, and usually measured in months; fines, usually in the hundreds of dollars or less.Still, there are exceptions, often apparently meant to send a message in states where politicians have tried to elevate fraud to a major issue.Foremost is Texas, where convictions that would merit probation or fines elsewhere have drawn crushing prison sentences. Rosa Maria Ortega, a green-card holder who cast illegal votes in 2012 and 2014, was sentenced to eight years in prison for a crime she says she unknowingly committed. Crystal Mason, who cast a ballot in 2016 while on federal probation for a tax felony, drew five years for violating felon voting laws. The court has been ordered to reconsider her case.Both prosecutions were the work of the state attorney general, Ken Paxton, perhaps the nation’s most zealous enforcer of voter-fraud laws. Mr. Paxton runs a $2.2 million-a-year election integrity squad that claims a 15-year record of prosecutions, though some of its high-profile cases, like a lengthy one against a South Texas mayor, ended in acquittals.Many of the squad’s cases have turned out to be decidedly small-bore affairs. Mr. Paxton’s integrity sleuths recorded 16 prosecutions in 2020, all of them Houston-area residents who put wrong addresses on registration applications, The Houston Chronicle has reported. None resulted in jail time. A handful of states have followed Texas’s lead. In Tennessee, Pamela Moses, a Black activist who violated a ban on voting by felons — mistakenly, she said — drew a six-year prison sentence in 2021. Prosecutors abandoned the charge after she won a new trial.In Florida, Kelvin Bolton, 56 and homeless, attended the same presentation that Mr. Conney did, and also voted in 2020. He has been awaiting trial in the Gainesville jail for five months, unable to make the $30,000 bond slapped on him by a county judge.“I said, ‘Kelvin, why did you vote?’” his sister, Derbra Bolton Owete, said in an interview. “And he said, ‘Well, they told me I could vote, so I voted.’ ”An amendment to the Florida Constitution that voters approved in 2018 restored voting rights to Mr. Bolton and other former felons who had completed their sentences. But the Republican legislature passed a law requiring full payment of fines and court fees to complete a sentence. The state has no central record of what former felons owe, adding another hurdle to their efforts to regain voting rights.Because Mr. Bolton owes fines or court costs, he faces felony charges of perjury and casting illegal votes.People of means usually fare better.In Kansas, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, Steve Watkins, railed during his 2020 re-election campaign against a “corrupt” prosecutor after Mr. Watkins was charged with illegally misstating his residence for voting and with lying to law enforcement officers, both felonies. Mr. Watkins later quietly accepted a diversion plea, escaping a criminal record in return for paying court costs and hewing to requirements like staying out of legal trouble. (Mr. Watkins lost his re-election bid.)Steve Watkins, a Kansas state legislator, faced felony voting fraud charges in 2020 and lost his bid for re-election. He spoke at a rally in Topeka with President Donald Trump in 2018.Scott Olson/Getty ImagesIn North Carolina, prosecutors have yet to decide after six months of scrutiny the seemingly straightforward question of whether Mark Meadows, the former chief of staff to President Donald J. Trump and a former North Carolina congressman, essentially did the same thing.Mr. Meadows stated on a 2020 voter registration form that his residence for voting purposes was a mobile home in the western part of the state, although there is no public evidence that he ever actually lived there. A few prosecutions have approached the sort of broader allegations of fraud that are common in political messaging, though all were local affairs.A convoluted tale of election shenanigans in the Canton, Miss., city government produced charges against at least nine people in 2019, though punishment was minimal, and one woman was cleared. An absentee-ballot scheme that forced a rerun of the 2018 Ninth Congressional District race in North Carolina led to seven fraud indictments. The alleged ringleader, Leslie McCrae Dowless, a Republican operative, died before he could stand trial.In Florida, where attacks on voter fraud have been a staple of Mr. DeSantis’s term as governor, prosecutors have adjudicated at least 25 voting law cases since 2017. Until recently, penalties have been mild — probation, small fines, jail time served concurrent with other sentences.The 20 cases of voting by felons announced last month nearly double that total. But those prosecutions appear endangered, because the state itself approved the felons’ applications to vote and even issued them registration cards. The Republican who sponsored the state law requiring felons to pay court costs, State Senator Jeff Brandes, told The Miami Herald that he believed those who were charged had no intent to break the law.Asked about that, a spokesman for Mr. DeSantis noted that the governor said that local election officials vet registration applications, not the state. That contradicts what his own former secretary of state, Laurel Lee, told journalists in 2020, The Herald reported.“When people sign up” to vote, “they check a box saying they’re eligible,” Mr. DeSantis said at a news conference last week. “If they’re not eligible and they’re lying, then they can be held accountable.”Critics of Mr. DeSantis say his goal is less to stop fraud than to make political hay from Republican voters’ obsession with the subject, something the party has relentlessly stoked for years.“This is political grandstanding,” said Daniel Smith, an expert on elections and voting at the University of Florida. “Individuals are registering, being told they can vote, handed registration cards and then told they’ve committed a felony. It’s tragic.”Sometimes the focus on voter fraud can become self-fulfilling.An Iowa woman, Terri Lynn Rote, said she cast two ballots for Mr. Trump in 2016 because she believed her first vote would be switched to favor Hillary Clinton. “I wasn’t planning on doing it twice — it was spur of the moment,” she later told The Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier. “The polls are rigged.”A judge fined her $750 and sentenced her to two years’ probation.Kitty Bennett, Isabella Grullón Paz and Heather Bushman contributed research. More

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      Before Midterms, Election Officials Increase Security Over Threats

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      In Wisconsin, one of the nation’s key swing states, cameras and plexiglass now fortify the reception area of a county election office in Madison, the capital, after a man wearing camouflage and a mask tried to open locked doors during an election in April.In another bellwether area, Maricopa County, Ariz., where beleaguered election workers had to be escorted through a scrum of election deniers to reach their cars in 2020, a security fence was added to protect the perimeter of a vote tabulation center.And in Colorado, the state’s top election official, Jena Griswold, the secretary of state and a Democrat, resorted to paying for private security out of her budget after a stream of threats.As the nation hurtles closer to the midterm elections, those who will oversee them are taking a range of steps to beef up security for themselves, their employees, polling places and even drop boxes, tapping state and federal funding for a new set of defenses. The heightened vigilance comes as violent rhetoric from the right intensifies and as efforts to intimidate election officials by those who refuse to accept the results of the 2020 election become commonplace.Discussing security in a recent interview with The Times, Ms. Griswold, 37, said that threats of violence had kept her and her aides up late at night as they combed through comments on social media.At a right-wing group’s gathering in Colorado earlier this year, she said, a prominent election denier with militia ties suggested that she should be killed. That was when she concluded that her part-time security detail provided by the Colorado State Patrol wasn’t enough.“They called for me to be hung,” said Ms. Griswold, who is running for re-election. “It’s a long weekend. I’m home alone, and I only get seven hours of State Patrol coverage.”Even in places where there was never a shadow of a doubt about the political leanings of the electorate, election officials have found themselves under threat. In a Texas county that President Donald J. Trump won by 59 percentage points in 2020, all three election officials recently resigned, with at least one citing repeated death threats and stalking.One in five local election officials who responded to a survey earlier this year by the Brennan Center for Justice said that they were “very” or “somewhat unlikely” to continue serving through 2024. The collective angst is a recurring theme at workshops and conferences attended by election officials, who say it is not unusual for them exchange anecdotes about threatening messages or harassment at the grocery store. The discussions have turned at times to testing drop boxes — a focus of right-wing attacks on mail-in voting — to see if they can withstand being set on fire.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries winding down, both parties are starting to shift their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.Battleground Pennsylvania: Few states feature as many high-stakes, competitive races as Pennsylvania, which has emerged as the nation’s center of political gravity.The Dobbs Decision’s Effect: Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the number of women signing up to vote has surged in some states and the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage are hard to see.How a G.O.P. Haul Vanished: Last year, the campaign arm of Senate Republicans was smashing fund-raising records. Now, most of the money is gone.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to former President Donald J. Trump or to adjust their stances on abortion.Benjamin Hovland, a member of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, described the intimidation campaign as pervasive.“This isn’t a red-state issue or a blue-state issue,” Mr. Hovland said in a recent interview. “This is a national issue, where the professional public servants that run our elections have been subjected to an unprecedented level of threats, harassment and intimidating behavior.”In guidance issued in June, the Election Assistance Commission allowed for federal election grants to be used for physical security services and to monitor threats on social media.A poll worker sorting absentee ballots in Madison, Wis., in August. Officials recently budgeted $95,000 to start designing a more secure election center in the county.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesIn Wisconsin’s Dane County, which includes Madison, partisan poll watchers and a brigade of lawyers with the Trump campaign descended in 2020 to dispute the election results. County officials recently budgeted $95,000 to start designing a new and more secure election center.The move came after the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a risk assessment in April on the current election offices for the county and city, which are housed in the same building.“It’s kind of a sieve,” Scott McDonell, a Democrat and the county’s clerk for the past decade, said in an interview. More

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      'A man without morals': Chicago mayor chides Texas governor for expelling migrants – video

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      Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, criticised Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, accusing him of cruelty and racism for expelling dozens of migrants from Texas by bus. ‘With these continued political stunts, Governor Abbott has confirmed, what unfortunately many of us had already known – that he is a man without any morals, humanity or shame,’ said Lightfoot at a press conference on Thursday. Seventy-nine Venezuelans arrived at Chicago’s Union Station late on Wednesday, officials said. ‘Last night, we showed our mettle, the best of who we are,’ Lightfoot continued, praising the city’s effort to welcome the new arrivals.

      ‘They are human beings’: Chicago mayor welcomes migrants bussed by Texas More

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      ‘They are human beings’: Chicago mayor welcomes migrants bussed by Texas

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      ‘They are human beings’: Chicago mayor welcomes migrants bussed by TexasLori Lightfoot offers ‘open arms’ as Governor Greg Abbott escalates political stunt of sending asylum seekers to Democratic-led cities01:37The mayor of Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, has vowed to welcome immigrants bussed to the city from the Mexican border, as the hard-right governor of Texas opened a third front in his confrontation with the Biden administration and Democratic sanctuary cities.Lightfoot delivered a defiant speech on Thursday in which she accused Governor Greg Abbott of cruelty and racism, and pledged to respond to the Texan’s controversial scheme by greeting the released migrants with open arms.Pentagon rejects DC request for national guard help with migrants bussed to cityRead moreChicago received its first busloads of 79 migrants, in this case Venezuelans, on Wednesday night.They were dispatched by Abbott, who has already sent about 9,000 people who crossed the US-Mexico border without documents giving them entry to the US to Washington DC and New York City.The move is a point-scoring stunt designed to level blame for chaotic conditions on the southern border at the White House and Democratic-controlled cities.The Republican governor of Arizona, Doug Ducey, is pursuing a similar ruse albeit on a smaller scale.At a press conference, Lightfoot said she could not “fully make up for the cruelty that our new neighbours have experienced”. But she said: “We have and we will continue to welcome them with open arms. I refuse to turn our back on them at a time when they need support the most.”01:37She said that in opening up a new Chicago front, Abbott had shown himself to be a “cheap politician” and “a man without any morals, humanity or shame”. The migrants he was loading on to buses and carting across a strange country were “moms and dads, young children, elders who deserve our respect and dignity. They’re not cargo. They are not chattel. They are human beings.”Among the 75 arrivals to Chicago were seven infants, and a total of 20 children and teens, according to local authorities. They were met at the bus with an offering of food, clothes, a shower and shelter.Chicago is now bracing itself for the arrival of further busloads of migrants after the city became the third target of Abbott’s political gambit.It began in April when he initially targeted the nation’s capital, forcing Washington officials to scramble for ways to house the asylum seekers.The move was immediately controversial, inviting criticism even from fellow Republicans – some within the Texas assembly. The bussing was then expanded to New York earlier this month.Abbott has appeared on the conservative Fox News TV network presenting his ploy as a way of exposing the hypocrisy of Democratic leaders in northern “sanctuary cities”.He appeared on rightwinger Sean Hannity’s Fox News show at the time the New York scheme began and said: “These liberal leaders up in the north-east think, ‘That border crisis created by Joe Biden, that’s fine as long as Texas has to deal with it.’ But as soon as they have to deal with the real consequences of Biden’s border-caused crisis, they are up in arms.”The Democratic mayor of New York, Eric Adams, has counter-attacked by accusing the Texas governor of inhumanity. Migrants were having to endure bus rides lasting almost two days with restricted breaks and food.“I think that Governor Abbott, what he’s doing is just so inhumane,” Adams said.New York’s immigration commissioner, Manuel Castro, this week lamented the bussing as a “rightwing political extremist crisis”. He said Abbott was fomenting “anti-immigrant and anti-Latino hate, which impacts all of us whether we arrived here today or decades ago”.Under basic US immigration regulations, migrants passing through Mexico and crossing the border into the US who do not have documentation are released from custody after processing. They can move around the country while awaiting court decisions on their asylum applications.One of the paradoxical aspects of Abbott’s aggressive stance is that it is creating an additional burden on Texas taxpayers. The cost of travelling from the border state to another part of the US normally falls entirely on the migrants themselves, but under the bussing scheme the travel is provided free.Abbott has said the bus rides are voluntary for migrants, but that is also in dispute. They are often aiming to reach much closer destinations in the south-west, to join relatives, but do not have the money to get there and are offered the rides to northern cities and, apparently without liaison with those cities’ leaders, aid and prospects upon arrival.CNN used freedom of information powers to extract information from the Texas division of emergency management that showed that it has already spent more than $12m. The money went to Wynne Transportation, which provides the buses.Migrants arriving in Chicago will not be asked about their immigration status, and their information will not be shared with federal authorities or law enforcement, under city rules. They will be able to apply for a full range of public services.TopicsChicagoMigrationUS immigrationTexasUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Beto O’Rourke Sidelined With Bacterial Infection Amid Texas Run

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      The Democrat, who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, said that although his symptoms had improved, he would be resting at home on doctors’ orders.Beto O’Rourke, the former congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential candidate who is running to unseat Greg Abbott in the tightening race for Texas governor, said on Sunday that he would be sidelined from campaigning because of a bacterial infection.Mr. O’Rourke, 49, said on Twitter that he had gone to Methodist Hospital, in San Antonio, after feeling ill on Friday.“While my symptoms have improved, I will be resting at home in El Paso in accordance with the doctors’ recommendations,” he said. “I am sorry to have had to postpone events because of this, but promise to be back on the road with you as soon as I am able.”Mr. O’Rourke on Friday postponed a weekend of campaign stops in the Coastal Bend region of Texas after falling ill and had also left early from a book signing in San Antonio that afternoon, according to The Caller Times, a newspaper in Corpus Christi. A campaign spokesman said that Mr. O’Rourke did not have Covid-19 and did not provide more details, the newspaper reported.In his statement on Sunday, Mr. O’Rourke did not say when he expected to be back on the trail.His uphill candidacy, an attempt to wrest the Texas governor’s mansion from Republican control for the first time since Ann Richards’s underdog win in 1990, has relied heavily on traveling the state and meeting Republican voters, even inviting protesters to his events.“I can’t win this with Democrats alone,” Mr. O’Rourke said in a recent interview with The New York Times after an event in Texarkana.A poll earlier this month from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler found that Mr. Abbott, who is seeking his third term, was leading Mr. O’Rourke by 7 percentage points. More

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      Slew of trigger laws kick in as three more US states ban abortions

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      Slew of trigger laws kick in as three more US states ban abortionsTennessee, Texas and Idaho join eight other states as millions of women will lose access to abortion and in certain cases doctors will be punished for performing procedure A slew of trigger bans across three US states kicked in on Thursday as Tennessee, Texas and Idaho join eight other states that have formally outlawed abortion since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade in June.Depending on the state, trigger laws are designed to take effect either immediately following the overturn of Roe or 30 days after the supreme court’s transmission of its judgment, which took place on 26 July.Currently, nearly one in three women between the ages of 15 to 44 live in states where abortion has been banned or mostly banned. According to data obtained by the US census, that is nearly 21 million women affected.“More people will lose abortion access across the nation as bans take effect in Texas, Tennessee and Idaho. Vast swaths of the nation, especially in the south and midwest, will become abortion deserts that, for many, will be impossible to escape,” Nancy Northup, CEO of the Center of Reproductive Rights, said in a statement.“Evidence is already mounting of women being turned away despite needing urgent, and in some cases life-saving, medical care. This unfolding public health crisis will only continue to get worse. We will see more and more of these harrowing situations, and once state legislatures reconvene in January, we will see even more states implement abortion bans and novel laws criminalizing abortion providers, pregnant people, and those who help them,” she added.Thursday’s trigger bans strip away the right to abortion access for millions of women in Tennessee, Texas and Idaho and in certain cases punish doctors and healthcare providers for performing the procedure.In Tennessee, the state’s previous abortion law that bans the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy has been replaced with a stricter law. Aside from the exception of preventing the mother’s death or permanent bodily injury, the law bans abortion completely. It does not make any exceptions for victims of incest or rape.The law, called the Human Life Protection Act, makes it a felony for those who are caught performing or attempting to perform an abortion. Consequences include fines, prison time and the loss of voting rights.According to the law, abortions are prohibited from being performed based on mental health claims, including claims that the woman may “engage in conduct that would result in her death or substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function”.Texas, which already passed one of the nation’s strictest abortion laws last yearbanning the procedure beyond six weeks of pregnancy and offering no exceptions for incest or rape, will see a new trigger law take effect that makes the provision of abortion a first-degree felony. Consequences include life sentences and a civil penalty of $100,000 for each violation.“The criminal penalties will further chill the provision of care to women who need it,” Elisabeth Smith, director of state policy and advocacy for the Center of Productive Rights, told the Washington Post.Texas’s trigger ban comes a day after a federal judge in the state blocked an order from the Biden administration issued in the wake of the supreme court’s overruling of Roe that required hospitals to provide emergency abortions.According to Judge James Hendrix, a Donald Trump-appointee, the US Department of Health and Human Services overreached in its guidance interpreting the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labour Act. The 1986 law, also known as Emtala, requires people to receive emergency medical care regardless of their ability to pay for the services.“That guidance goes well beyond EMTALA’s text, which protects both mothers and unborn children, is silent as to abortion, and preempts state law only when the two directly conflict,” Hendrix wrote in a 67-page ruling.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, condemned the decision, calling it a “a blow to Texans”, and adding, “It’s wrong, it’s backwards, and women may die as a result. The fight is not over.”Abortions in Idaho were previously limited to a six-week period into pregnancy. However, Thursday’s trigger law completely prohibits abortion with the exceptions of reported cases of rape and incest and to prevent the death of the mother – but not necessarily to safeguard her health.The ban makes performing an abortion in any “clinically diagnosable pregnancy” a felony that is punishable by up to five years of jail time.Despite the sweeping ban, an Idaho judge barred the state at the 11th hour from enforcing its abortion ban in medical emergencies, making the ruling the exact opposite of Hendrix’s decision in Texas. The ruling from federal judge Lynn Winmill on Wednesday evening says that the state cannot prosecute anyone who performs an abortion in an emergency medical situation.“At its core, the supremacy clause says state law must yield to federal law when it’s impossible to comply with both. And that’s all this case is about,” Winmill wrote. “It’s not about the bygone constitutional right to an abortion,” he added.With such conflicting rulings, both cases could be appealed and the supreme court may be asked to intervene.TopicsRoe v WadeUS supreme courtAbortionRepublicansUS politicsTennesseeTexasnewsReuse this content More

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      Ads Begin in Texas Governor Race, With O’Rourke’s Highlighting Abortion

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      HOUSTON — With early voting now two months away, the ad competition has begun in the race for Texas governor. Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott released a first ad and, on Thursday, Beto O’Rourke, the former El Paso congressman and perennial Democratic hopeful, countered with two of his own.The O’Rourke campaign, looking for leverage in a tightening but still uphill campaign, focused on abortion, seeking to harness anger among women at the overturning of Roe v. Wade and to direct that anger at Mr. Abbott.Its two ads were released on the day that a so-called trigger law — made possible by the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade — went into effect in Texas. The law, signed last year by Mr. Abbott, bans abortion with no exception for rape or incest and with only limited medical exceptions.“From this day forward, Aug. 25, women all across Texas are no longer free,” several women say in one ad, speaking one after another. “All because of Greg Abbott’s abortion law.”“So I’m voting for Beto, who will give women our freedom back,” they conclude.Another 30-second ad from Mr. O’Rourke similarly seeks to link him to the idea of freedom, trying to recapture a word that is more often used by Republicans. That ad, also focused on the state’s abortion ban under Mr. Abbott, features a politically mixed Texas couple who are now both supporting Mr. O’Rourke.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAug. 23 Primaries: The Democratic establishment in Florida and New York had a good night. Here are some key takeaways and a rundown of who won and who lost.The Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s increasingly hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a special election in New York’s Hudson Valley is the latest example.Bruising Fights in N.Y.: A string of ugly primaries played out across the state, as Democrats and Republicans fought over rival personalities and the ideological direction of their parties.Challenging DeSantis: Florida Democrats chose Representative Charlie Crist, a former Republican, to take on Gov. Ron DeSantis, setting up a contest between a centrist and a hard-right G.O.P. incumbent.“This is a free country,” says the husband, Trey Ramsey, shown as a lifelong Republican who supported former president Donald J. Trump. “We need a governor who gets that, and that’s Beto.”The ad appeared to be part of a strategy by Mr. O’Rourke to challenge Mr. Abbott for wavering Republican votes, including in typically conservative strongholds around rural Texas. In recent weeks, he has crisscrossed the state, appearing in front of supportive crowds in deep-red areas but occasionally attracting vocal, and armed, protesters.In contrast to Mr. O’Rourke’s attacks, the governor’s campaign opted for a strategy for its first ad that has worked well in previous elections: a biographical portrait of the governor, a two-term incumbent who uses a wheelchair and has been in statewide elective office in Texas since the 1990s.An ad by Mr. Abbott tells a biographical story about his family, injury and recovery.Texans for Greg AbbottThe ad recounts his recovery from an accident that partly paralyzed him and is narrated by his wife, Cecilia, who is Hispanic. The governor’s campaign has said it believes Mr. Abbott can win a majority of Hispanic voters, who have been increasingly turning to Republicans, particularly in more rural areas of South Texas.“Hard work, perseverance and family: That’s what defines Greg Abbott and how he governs Texas,” Mrs. Abbott says.The ad is the first of what is likely to be a barrage of messages from Mr. Abbott, who has vowed to spend $100 million on the race and whose campaign has already secured some $20 million in television and digital space for ads.Mr. O’Rourke, also a proficient fund-raiser, started behind Mr. Abbott, who entered the race with tens of millions on hand. As of the July filing, the governor had $46 million on hand and Mr. O’Rourke had $24 million. The O’Rourke campaign has repeatedly stressed to potential donors the high cost of advertising statewide in Texas.Several polls in recent weeks put Mr. O’Rourke at five to seven percentage points behind Mr. Abbott, who won in 2018 by 13 percentage points. More

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      Alarm over Texas law forcing schools to display ‘In God We Trust’ signs

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      Alarm over Texas law forcing schools to display ‘In God We Trust’ signsCivil rights advocates say it ‘imposes religion’ as new law requires public campuses to display any donated items bearing that phrase Civil rights advocates are ringing alarm bells about officials distributing “In God We Trust” posters in Texas schools after a state law took effect requiring public campuses to display any donated items bearing that phrase.“These posters demonstrate the more casual ways a state can impose religion on the public,” Sophie Ellman-Golan of Jews For Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ) told the Guardian. “Alone, they’re a basic violation of the separation of church and state. But in the broader context, it’s hard not to see them as part of the larger Christian nationalist project.”The Southlake Anti-Racism Coalition (SARC) said they were “disturbed” by the precedent the posters’ distribution could set.“SARC is disturbed by the precedent displaying these posters in every school will set and the chilling effect this blatant intrusion of religion in what should be a secular public institution will have on the student body, especially those who do not practice the dominant Christian faith,” the group said in a statement.While the phrase doesn’t explicitly mention any specific religion, many argue that “In God We Trust” has long been used as a tool to forward Christian nationalism.Christians were instrumental in putting the phrase on coins during the civil war, Kristina Lee of Colorado State University wrote last year, and has since used the phrase as supposed evidence to prove the United States is a Christian nation.The flags’ distribution in Texas is not the first time that a government body has imposed the phrase.In Chesapeake, Virginia, the city council ruled in 2021 that every city vehicle was to carry “In God We Trust” motto, a move that would require a budget of about $87,000.Ellman-Golan of JFREJ said the issue is deeply connected to other concerns, such as women’s health and education in Texas.“We know that state governments in places like Texas are codifying white Christian nationalist patriarchy into law at an alarming rate,” she added. “The most dangerous examples of this are bans on abortion and gender-affirming care, as well as efforts to censor education.”Texas state senator Bryan Hughes, who is Republican and said he is the author of the “In God We Trust Act,” celebrated on Twitter, saying that the motto “asserts our collective trust in a sovereign God”.Meanwhile, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights organization, welcomed the initiative and said this might allow for an opportunity for students to learn about other faiths.“The notion of trusting God is common across faiths,” CAIR spokesperson Corey Saylor told the Guardian. “Applied through that lens, the posters can foster discussions among Texas students about their various faiths and enhance understanding.”Saylor did not comment about how safe Texas’s Muslim students might feel in Texas about their religion. About half of Muslim students in Texas’s Dallas-Fort Worth area have reported being bullied at school over their faith, according to a 2020 CAIR report.Sometimes in Texas, a fear of people from non-Christian backgrounds has prompted their being reported to police.For instance, In 2015, a 14-year-old Muslim boy in a Texas suburb was arrested after he brought a clock he made to school, and a teacher fearing it was a bomb called police on him. A few months later, a 12-year-old Sikh boy in another Texas suburb was arrested after a bully told his teacher he was carrying a bomb in his backpack.Saylor said the “In God We Trust” initiative’s success depended on “students of minority faiths’ [feeling] supported by educators to express how they understand trusting God”.TopicsTexasUS educationUS politicsReligionnewsReuse this content More