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      Florida officials investigate voters who signed abortion ballot initiative

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      Florida law enforcement officials are investigating voters who signed a petition to get a closely watched abortion rights measure on the ballot this fall, showing up at the homes of some residents unannounced in what activists say is an effort to intimidate voters.Organizers turned in more than 900,000 signatures in January to get a measure that would enshrine abortion rights in the state’s constitution. The deadline to challenge signatures has passed, but a state agency created by DeSantis to investigate voter fraud recently began investigating whether there was fraud in the gathering process.Isaac Menasche, a Fort Myers voter, said he signed a petition months ago when he was approached at a local farmer’s market. He wrote down his name, birthday, address, and scribbled a quick version of his signature. He didn’t think much of it until last week when a law enforcement officer showed up at his door and pulled out a copy of his signature on the petition, asking him to confirm that it was his – which it was.“The experience left me shaken. What troubled me was he had a folder on me containing my personal information – about 10 pages. I saw a copy of my driver’s license and copy of the petition I signed,” Menasche wrote in a Facebook post last week. “It was obvious to me that a significant effort was exerted to determine if indeed I had signed the petition. Troubling that so much resources were devoted to this. I wonder if the same could be said if the petition were for some innocuous issue.”The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, has defended the investigation. “They’re doing what they’re supposed to do,” he said at a press conference on Monday, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “It may be that the signature is totally different, and that voter will say, ‘No, I actually did do that.’ Maybe they signed their name. That is absolutely possible. And if that’s what you say, I think that’s probably the end of it.”But the investigation also comes as DeSantis and Florida Republicans have made other aggressive efforts to thwart the amendment, which needs the support of 60% of voters to pass this fall. The Florida agency for health care administration, a state agency, posted a webpage last week attacking the amendment, which DeSantis has denied amounts to electioneering.The Florida supreme court also allowed a misleading financial impact statement to be printed alongside the amendment on the ballot.Local election officials in Florida are responsible for verifying signatures that are turned in. Groups that sponsor the petitions are responsible for paying for the robust process, which requires verifying the voter’s signature with the one on file for registration purposes as well as their name, address and date of birth, said Lori Edwards, the supervisor of elections in Polk county (Edwards said the state had not requested any information from her office on the abortion amendment).The office of election crimes and security, a multimillion-dollar effort and first-of-its kind agency created by DeSantis to investigate voter fraud, said earlier this year that it had been “inundated with an alarming amount of fraud related to constitutional initiative petitions”.A spokesperson for Mary Jane Arrington, the supervisor of elections in Osceola county in central Florida told the Associated Press that her office had never received a request to review signatures that had already been validated in the 16 years she had been in her role.Florida Democrats and voting groups have ripped DeSantis for the investigation, saying it is an obvious effort to intimidate voters.“This is all about theater, this is all about intimidation of the voters as people are about to go to the ballot box,” Nikki Fried, the chair of the Florida Democratic party, said at a press conference on Monday.The Florida department of state told the Florida department of law enforcement in a letter earlier this summer it had opened an investigation into more than 40 people paid to circulate the abortion-focused petitions. The letter also says the department had obtained “credible information” that several petition circulators in Palm Beach county had submitted fraudulent signatures.The local supervisor of elections had secured some signed complaints from voters saying they did not actually sign petitions, the letter says. “Some of the above-named circulators also signed petitions on behalf of individuals who were deceased at the time the petition was allegedly signed. The circulators appear to have forged the voters’ signatures and inserted the voters’ personal identifiable information into the petitions without consent,” the letter says.The department of state provided copies of petition forms alleged to contain fraud, with the signature and voter information redacted. The agency also released three complaints from voters saying they had not in fact signed the petition.“We have a duty to seek justice for Florida citizens who were victimized by fraud and safeguard the integrity of Florida’s elections. Our office will continue this investigation and make referrals to FDLE as appropriate,” Mark Ard, a spokesperson for the Florida department of state, said in a statement.The campaign behind the amendment, Floridians Protecting Freedom, hired a private company, PCI Consultants, to handle most of the signature gathering. Angelo Paparella, the company’s president, said in an interview that his company reviewed all the signatures it collected before submitting them to local election officials. When they found some that looked fraudulent – a tiny fraction of the more than 1m they collected – they submitted those separately and flagged that they were suspicious.“My staff is pretty good at ferreting this out,” said Paparella, who has been collecting signatures in Florida since 1998. “Sometimes people are idiots and they try to take a shortcut, you know, taking names out of a phone book. It’s a very stupid thing to do. It’s a crime.”Still, he said, the tiny amount of fraud does not come anywhere close to the overwhelming number of valid signatures that were submitted.“If they find someone who committed any kind of forgeries, then prosecute them,” he said. “It takes nothing away from the nearly million valid signatures that the counties found.”It is not clear how many voters have been targeted in the abortion petition investigation, but the Tampa Bay Times reported that at least six counties had been asked to provide information on signatures that had already been approved.One of those counties is Alachua county, where state officials requested to review 6,141 petitions. All of them had been submitted by six circulators that the state believed had submitted fraudulent petitions. In Osceola county, the state requested to review around 1,850 petitions from specific circulators, Arrington’s office said. In Hillsborough county, officials wanted to review nearly 7,000 petitions to the state for review, the supervisor of elections’ office said.The state requested to review 17,000 signatures in Palm Beach county, according to the Tampa Bay Times. In Orange county, home to Orlando, they requested to review 11,500 petitions.The investigation is the latest salvo of the office of election crimes and security, whose mission has been criticized since voter fraud is extremely rare. In 2022, the agency drew scrutiny for arresting people with felony convictions who had voted but appeared to be confused about their eligibility. It has also pursued fines against voter registration groups for relatively minor errors. Many voter registration groups have ceased activity in Florida since.“It’s been clear from day one that the purpose of the election police was to harass voters who don’t have the same viewpoints as the governor,” said Brad Ashwell, the director of the Florida chapter of All Voting is Local, a voting rights group.“By going after a petition for Amendment 4, which is already on the ballot, Governor DeSantis is undermining the will of voters and stomping over their democratic freedoms for his own political gain.” More

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      US preparing criminal charges over Iranian hack targeting Trump campaign

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      The US justice department is preparing criminal charges in connection with an Iranian hack that targeted Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in a bid to shape the outcome of the November election, two people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.It was not immediately clear when the charges might be announced or whom precisely they will target, but they are the result of an FBI investigation into an intrusion that investigators across multiple agencies quickly linked to an Iranian effort to influence American politics.The prospect of criminal charges comes as the justice department has raised alarms about aggressive efforts by countries including Russia and Iran to meddle in the presidential election between Trump and Kamala Harris, including by hacking and covert social media campaigns designed to shape public opinion.Iran “is making a greater effort to influence this year’s election than it has in prior election cycles, and that Iranian activity is growing increasingly aggressive as this election nears”, Matthew Olsen, the assistant attorney general and the justice department’s top national security official, said in a speech on Thursday in New York City.“Iran perceives this year’s elections to be particularly consequential in impacting Iran’s national security interests, increasing Tehran’s inclination to try to shape the outcome,” he added.The Trump campaign disclosed on 10 August that it had been hacked and said Iranian actors had stolen and distributed sensitive internal documents. At least three news outlets – Politico, the New York Times and the Washington Post – were leaked confidential material from inside the Trump campaign. So far, each has refused to reveal any details about what it received.Politico reported that it began receiving emails on 22 July from an anonymous account. The source – an AOL email account identified only as “Robert” – passed along what appeared to be a research dossier that the campaign had apparently done on JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee. The document was dated 23 February, almost five months before Trump selected Vance as his running mate.The FBI, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subsequently blamed that hack, as well as an attempted breach of the Biden-Harris campaign, on Iran.Those agencies issued a statement saying that the hacking and similar activities were meant to sow discord, exploit divisions within American society and influence the outcome of elections.The statement did not identify whether Iran has a preferred candidate, though Tehran has long appeared determined to seek retaliation for a 2020 strike Trump ordered as president that killed an Iranian general.The two people who discussed the looming criminal charges spoke on condition of anonymity to the Associated Press because they were not authorized to speak publicly about a case that had not yet been unsealed.The Washington Post first reported that charges were being prepared.Justice department officials have been working to publicly call out and counter election-interference efforts. The response is a contrast to 2016, when Obama administration officials were far more circumspect about Russian interference they were watching that was designed to boost Trump’s campaign.“We have learned that transparency about what we are seeing is critical,” Olsen, the justice department official, said Thursday.“It helps ensure that our citizens are aware of the attempts of foreign government to sow discord and spread falsehoods – all of which promotes resilience within our electorate,” he added. “It provides warnings to our private sector so they can better protect their networks. And it sends an unmistakable message to our adversaries – we’ve gained insight into your networks, we know what you’re doing, and we are determined to hold you accountable.”Last week, in an effort to combat disinformation before the election, the justice department charged two employees of RT, a Russian state media company, with covertly funneling a Tennessee-based content-creation company nearly $10m to publish English-language videos on social media platforms with messages in favor of the Russian government’s interests and agenda. More

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      in Elections

      Judge dismisses two criminal counts against Trump in Georgia election case

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      Donald Trump had two counts tossed from his criminal case in Georgia over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, after the presiding judge decided on Thursday they fell under the supremacy clause in the US constitution that bars state prosecutors from charging federal crimes.“The Supremacy Clause declares that state law must yield to federal law when the two conflict,” the Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee wrote in his order.The judge decided that two charges against Trump and an additional count against several Trump allies, who were charged as co-defendants, should be struck. But he decided the remainder of the indictment – including the Rico racketeering charge – could remain.Trump now faces eight charges, down from 13 charges. Trump pleaded not guilty to the sprawling 2020 election interference case in Fulton county last year along with 18 other co-defendants. Four have since taken plea deals and agreed to testify against the other defendants.The charges that were dismissed against Trump – the filing of false documents and conspiring to file false documents – related to the Trump campaign’s gambit to submit fake elector certificates declaring Trump as the winner even though he had lost.The fake elector certificates were then sent to the National Archives ahead of the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021, which the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis charged as criminal forgery counts.“President Trump and his legal team in Georgia have prevailed once again. The trial court has decided that counts 15 and 27 in the indictment must be quashed/dismissed,” Trump’s lead lawyer, Steve Sadow, said in a statement.The 22-page order issued by McAfee comes as the fate of the case hangs in the balance ahead of the Georgia appeals court deciding whether Willis can continue with the case, following her alleged relationship with her deputy, Nathan Wade.McAfee declined to remove Willis from the case as long as Wade resigned to resolve the conflict of interest allegation, a decision that Trump’s lawyers have appealed.Trump’s attorneys continue to argue that Willis has a conflict of interest, but also argued that she should have been disqualified for comments she made about the case at a speech at Big Bethel AME church in downtown Atlanta. In the wake of revelations about her relationship with Wade, Willis attributed the legal attack to racist motivations.Separately on Thursday, McAfee rejected a motion from the former Trump lawyer John Eastman and Trump fake elector Shawn Still to toss the entire indictment on grounds that it relied on an overly broad interpretation of the Georgia state racketeering statute. More

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      Harris touts strong debate performance as Trump says he won’t face her again

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      Kamala Harris embarked on a drive to exploit her strong debate performance on Thursday, as the Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign pledged to intensify efforts to persuade voters in battleground states deemed essential to winning the White House.Meanwhile, her opponent Donald Trump – whose debate performance has been criticized even by some of his supporters – said that he would refuse to debate Harris again. “There will be no third debate,” he said in an angrily worded post on his Truth Social social media platform.Basking in her debate win, the US vice-president travelled to the crucial swing state of North Carolina for rallies in Charlotte and Greensboro before heading north to Pennsylvania, another vital piece of the electoral battleground, where she is set to hold two more events on Friday.Harris is locked in a knife-edge contests with Donald Trump across seven swing states that have become focal points in the campaign to win November’s poll. When Joe Biden was the Democratic nominee, Trump had established a firm lead in many of these states but Harris has now clawed back the gap and re-energized her party’s chances.View image in fullscreenFor his part, Trump – who has insisted he won Tuesday’s debate with Harris in Philadelphia, despite widespread doubts among his supporters – headed to Arizona, another state where the candidates are neck-and-neck, and which was narrowly won by Biden in the 2020 presidential election.While most recent surveys have shown Harris with a narrow but consistent nationwide lead, November’s election result will almost certainly rest on which candidate prevails in the seven battleground states – with Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Nevada also seen as vital.“Seeking to capitalize on her decisive debate victory Tuesday night against Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris is hitting the campaign trail to extend her momentum and further crystallize for voters the choice in the election that her debate performance made clear,” stated a memo from the Harris campaign released on Thursday.The memo said campaign staff had spent Wednesday poring over the 105-minute debate in a search for key moments that could be used for television and digital adverts that would be targeted at swing states.It also pledged that Harris – who has been criticised for avoiding the media since becoming the Democrats’ nominee – would hold a series of interviews with local media in battleground states. That includes a scheduled meeting in Georgia next week with the National Association of Black Journalists, which hosted Trump in August in an encounter that turned into a public relations disaster for the Republican nominee.Harris won broad praise for her display at Tuesday night’s debate, in which she was viewed as successfully baiting and laying traps for Trump – who, in turn, veered repeatedly off-message with broadsides about crowd sizes at his campaign rallies and a baseless rant about immigrants.Some Trump supporters blamed his sub-par showing on the influence of Laura Loomer, a noted conspiracy theorist, who travelled with him to the debate and had promoted a false rumour about Haitian immigrants eating pet cats and dogs, which the ex-president then repeated in the midst of the encounter.View image in fullscreenAuthorities in Springfield, Ohio, where the practice was said to have been taking place, have dismissed the story – which appeared to have been spread on far-right internet forums and for which there is no evidence.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut in a sign of its continuing fallout, police were reported to have evacuated Springfield city hall on Thursday following a bomb threat.Harris had demanded another debate with Trump and her campaign trolled him by posting the entire first event on X in the form of an “ad” – reflecting its confidence that she won the contest decisively. A snap CNN poll conducted immediately afterwards bore out that belief, with 63% of viewers seeing her as the victor.But Trump’s social media post – in which he ranted often in all caps about a variety of issues and claimed to have won the debate – appeared to scrap any hope of a rematch. “KAMALA SHOULD FOCUS ON WHAT SHE SHOULD HAVE DONE DURING THE LAST ALMOST FOUR YEAR PERIOD. THERE WILL BE NO THIRD DEBATE!,” he said referring to the first debate as his face off with Biden and his contest with Harris as the second debate.An estimated 67.1 million people watched the debate – nearly 16 million more than saw Trump’s contest with Biden in June.Harris, for her part, repeated her desire for another match up, despite Trump’s apparent firm refusal. At a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina, she said: “I believe we owe to the voters to have another debate, because this election and what is at stake could not be more important.”There was also fresh woe on Thursday for Trump when Alberto Gonzales, a former attorney general under George W Bush, became the latest Republican to endorse his opponent, invoking the Republican nominee’s incitement of the 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol when he was president.“As the United States approaches a critical election, I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump – perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation – eyes a return to the White House,” Gonzales said in a statement. “For that reason, though I’m a Republican, I’ve decided to support Kamala Harris for president.”He added: “Trump failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks [on January 6].” More

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      Bomb threat shuts down Ohio city hall after Trump spreads baseless migrants rumor

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      The city of Springfield, Ohio, has closed down its city hall due to a bomb threat issued to multiple facilities.Springfield has been the subject of national attention in recent days after Donald Trump’s campaign and rightwing Republicans amplified a false social media rumor of the community’s Haitian immigrants eating local pets. There is no evidence to back up the claims.In a Facebook post on Thursday, city officials said that they were alerted to the bomb threat via an email at 8.24am, adding that the email was sent to “multiple agencies and media outlets”.“As a precautionary measure, the building has been evacuated, and authorities are currently conducting a thorough investigation. Our primary concern is the safety and well-being of our employees and residents. We are working to address this situation as swiftly as possible,” city officials said.They went on to add: “We ask the community to avoid the area surrounding City Hall vicinity while the investigation is ongoing and to report any suspicious activity to the Springfield police division. We appreciate your patience and cooperation as we work through this matter.”Trump even referenced the conspiracy theory in Tuesday night’s debate with opponent Kamala Harris. Trump repeated the inflammatory falsehood, saying: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats … They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” His move triggered a wave of anger and ridicule.That same day, JD Vance mentioned the rumor on X, which has also been flooded with AI-generated images of Trump surrounded by dogs, cats and ducks, some of which appear to be armed and in protection of him.Meanwhile, during a Springfield city commission forum on Tuesday, Aiden Clark, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed last year when a minivan driven by an immigrant from Haiti collided with his school bus, has asked Trump and Vance to stop using his son’s name for “political gain”.“They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members. However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed, to mention Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio,” said Clark. More

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      Biden jokes as he puts on Republican’s Trump 2024 cap: ‘I need that hat’

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      In a bitter and fraught US election, a rare moment of jollity broke through when video of Joe Biden joking with a Trump supporter about his age and trying on his Trump 2024 hat went viral.At an event on Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Biden even joked with the man that he could not remember his own name.In a video of the exchange that went viral online, Biden is seen exchanging wisecracks with the man at an event on Wednesday in Pennsylvania.Then, when trying on the man’s Trump hat, Biden warned the crowd against eating “cats and dogs” in reference to debunked claims made by Trump during the debate on Tuesday that immigrants were eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio.The clip of the interaction shows the man wearing the Trump 2024 hat, approaching the president, and Biden offering him his own presidential seal cap to wear.“You remember your name?” the man sarcastically asks Biden, to which the president jokingly responds: “I don’t remember my name … I’m slow.”The man proceeded to call the president an “old fart”.“Yeah, I know man, I’m an old guy … you would know about that,” Biden responded.“He reminds me of the guys I grew up with,” Biden states to the crowd, while autographing the presidential hat for the man.“I need that hat,” Biden jokingly says, referring to the Trump hat, to which people in the crowd shout: “Put it on!”Biden proceeded to put the Trump 2024 hat on, and was greeted with cheers in the room.“I’m proud of you now,” the man is seen saying.“Remember, no eating dogs and cats,” Biden jokes.The exchange occurred during Biden’s visit on Wednesday to a fire station in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, the site of the Flight 93 crash on 11 September 2001, where he delivered remarks and spoke with some first responders on the 23rd anniversary of 9/11.The video of the exchange between Biden and the man in the Trump hat quickly went viral online on Wednesday, with an X account associated with Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign posting a photo of Biden wearing the hat with the caption: “Thanks for the support, Joe!”.The senior Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita also posted a photo of Biden in the hat, with the caption: “What’s Happening?”Another user wrote: “Biden wearing a Trump hat wasn’t on my bingo card.”A spokesperson for the White House said that the president tried on the hat in a gesture of unity and bipartisanship.“At the Shanksville Fire Station, POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that” said the White House senior deputy press secretary, Andrew Bates. “As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”Some X users celebrated Biden’s move, calling it “nice” to see “people from opposing parties joke around instead of attack each other”. More

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      A little about Robert Jenrick actually reveals a lot | Brief letters

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      Robert Jenrick’s website modestly sets out his unimpeachable credentials for leadership of party and country. The “About” section begins thus: “Robert has spent most of his life in the Midlands and comes from small town Britain. Born in 1980s Wolverhampton, his father, Bill, was a small businessman from Manchester and his mother, Jenny, was a secretary from Liverpool. They set up their own business fitting fireplaces around their kitchen table.” So Bob’s dad, a little chap just Bob’s age, came from two places and liked to keep the table warm?Stephen BakerTregynon, Powys Aditya Chakrabortty ends his article on the Tory leadership race (Opinion, 12 September) speculating on who’ll be in the final bout to lead Her Majesty’s opposition. I think he needs to keep up with the news.Michael RobinsonBerkhamsted, Herfordshire When I worked for the Blood Transfusion Service in Ireland in the 1970s, Guinness was always available for donors (Letters, 10 September). The most reliable donors were employees of the brewery who, as a perk of their job, got a daily ration of two pint bottles.Catherine O’ReillyLondon I took the ironing on (Letters, 10 September) when my girlfriend – now my wife – did an MA in chemistry when she was 23. She’s now 63 and still appears reluctant to take the task back.Ian Charlton Northallerton, North Yorkshire Donald Trump refers to Kamala Harris as a Marxist (Harris targets Trump for falsehoods on abortion and immigration in fiery debate, 11 September). Perhaps he needs a dictionary?Derek McMillanDurrington, West Sussex More

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      Bush’s attorney general endorses Harris, calling Trump ‘most serious threat to law’

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      Alberto Gonzales, a Republican attorney general under the George W Bush administration, has announced his endorsement of Kamala Harris.“As the United States approaches a critical election, I can’t sit quietly as Donald Trump – perhaps the most serious threat to the rule of law in a generation – eyes a return to the White House,” Gonzales, who served as the US’s 80th attorney general from 2005 to 2007, wrote in an article for Politico.“For that reason, though I’m a Republican, I’ve decided to support Kamala Harris for president.”Gonzales said Trump’s actions contravened “fidelity to the rule of law”, including the then president’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection on Capitol Hill.Pointing to the “intoxicating” nature of power and how Trump appears unlikely to “respect the power of the presidency in all instances”, Gonzales wrote:“Perhaps the most revealing example relates to Trump’s conduct on Jan 6, 2021, when he encouraged his followers to march to our nation’s capital in order to challenge the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.”Gonzales continued: “Trump failed to do his duty and exercise his presidential power to protect members of Congress, law enforcement and the Capitol from the attacks that day. He failed to deploy executive branch personnel to save lives and property and preserve democracy. He just watched on television and chose not to do anything because that would have been contrary to his interests.”He also noted Trump’s felony convictions, his civil liability for libel based on a sexual abuse, the pending federal elections interference case and the recently dismissed federal documents case, which he noted that the special counsel Jack Smith is continuing to pursue.Notably, Gonzales did not raise Harris’s policy track record as a reason for voting for her, writing in fact that she does not “not have the same depth of experience in foreign policy or the relationships with foreign leaders that Biden has”.Nevertheless, he called on the American public to “place their faith in her character and judgement”, saying that based on her speech at the Democratic national convention and her debate performance against Trump on Tuesday evening, she was “best suited, able and committed to unite us in a manner consistent with the rule of law”.Gonzales joins several other prominent Republicans who have crossed party lines and expressed their support for Harris, including the former Illinois representative Adam Kinzinger, Trump’s former press secretary Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci, and the former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan.Highest profile of all was the former vice-president Dick Cheney, who last week said he planned to vote for Harris. He joins his daughter, the former Wyoming Republican representative Liz Cheney, who also endorsed Harris.“In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” he said. “He can never be trusted with power again.” More