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      Local Election Officials in Georgia Oppose G.O.P. Election Bill

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      As Republicans rush to pass a second round of new voting and election rules, a bipartisan group of election officials is fighting back.ATLANTA — A year ago, when Georgia Republicans passed a mammoth law of election measures and voting restrictions, many local election officials felt frustrated and sidelined, as their concerns about resources, ballot access and implementation went largely ignored.This year, Republicans have returned with a new bill — and the election officials are pushing back.A bipartisan coalition of county-level election administrators — the people who carry out the day-to-day work of running elections — is speaking out against the latest Republican measure. At a legislative hearing on Monday, they warned that the proposal would create additional burdens on a dwindling force of election workers and that the provisions could lead to more voter intimidation.“You’re going to waste time, and you’re going to cause me to lose poll workers,” said Joel Natt, a Republican member of the Forsyth County board of elections, referring to a provision in the bill that he said would force workers to count hundreds of blank sheets of paper. “I have 400 poll workers that work for our board. That is 400 people that I could see telling me after May, ‘Have a nice life,’ and it’s hard enough to keep them right now.”Among other provisions, the bill would expand the reach of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation over election crimes; limit private funding of elections; empower partisan poll watchers; and establish new requirements for tracking absentee ballots as they are verified and counted.The bill passed the Georgia House this month, roughly two weeks after it was first introduced. Initially, the State Senate appeared set to pass the measure at a similar speed. The state’s legislative session ends on April 4, giving lawmakers less than a week to pass the bill.But county-level election officials worked behind the scenes, in letters and phone calls to legislators, expressing their concerns about the bill and dissatisfaction that they had not been consulted in the drafting process.The pushback comes as the impact of the wave of election laws passed by Republicans last year is beginning to be felt. In Texas, where a new law altered the absentee ballot process, election officials dealt with widespread confusion among absentee voters in the March primary. Mail ballot rejections surged, and county officials worked around the clock to help voters fix their ballots. Still, more than 18,000 voters had their ballots tossed out.A Guide to the 2022 Midterm ElectionsMidterms Begin: The Texas primaries officially opened the 2022 election season. See the full primary calendar.In the Senate: Democrats have a razor-thin margin that could be upended with a single loss. Here are the four incumbents most at risk.In the House: Republicans and Democrats are seeking to gain an edge through redistricting and gerrymandering, though this year’s map is poised to be surprisingly fairGovernors’ Races: Georgia’s contest will be at the center of the political universe, but there are several important races across the country.Key Issues: Inflation, the pandemic, abortion and voting rights are expected to be among this election cycle’s defining topics.The vocal opposition from Georgia election officials represents a shift from a year ago, when some individual officials, mostly Democrats, spoke out against the first Republican bill. But many local officials simply felt ignored by lawmakers who were eager to appear to be addressing Republican voters’ false beliefs about fraud in the 2020 election.The statewide association of local election officials is now working to “start taking stances on legislation like this, where the association would have a view that represents a majority of our members,” said Joseph Kirk, the elections supervisor for Bartow County, which is deeply Republican, who serves as a secretary for the association. He added that the group had not taken a stance on the election bill but that many members were voicing their opinions individually.At a conference this month, Ryan Germany, general counsel for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, encouraged members to speak up.“They really need to know what you guys think about this stuff because they hear from a lot of people, but I don’t think they hear from a lot of election officials,” said Mr. Germany, who spoke favorably about several provisions in the bill, according to audio of the event obtained by The New York Times.Dozens of voting rights advocates and county election officials crowded the State Senate Ethics Committee hearing on Monday afternoon, saying the bill would make it harder for election administrators to do their jobs.From left, State Senators Sally Harrell, Butch Miller and Jeff Mullis listened as Cindy Battles, right, testified during the hearing on Monday. Nicole Craine for The New York Times“There are so many unfunded mandates being passed by this body. You are not giving county election officials the budget that they need to run their elections,” said Cindy Battles, the policy and engagement director at the Georgia Coalition for the People’s Agenda, a civil rights group. “And then you are making it more difficult to get what they need.”Several officials pointed to a provision that would require elections administrators to account for all elections-related documents, including the pieces of paper that ballots are printed on. Mr. Natt, the vice chair of elections for Forsyth County’s board of elections, held up a ream of paper to represent one of the hundreds of blank sheets of paper that his office would need to count under the law.“That is a lot of counting. That is a lot of time and waste management,” he said.State Representative James Burchett, a Republican from southeastern Georgia and sponsor of the bill, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. He told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month that “the intent of the bill is to address issues that we’ve seen in the elections process.”During the hearing on Monday, State Senator Butch Miller, a Republican and member of the State Senate Ethics Committee, appeared to consider some of the officials’ concerns.“I think we’ll probably have additional work to be done,” he said. While Mr. Miller said he was not interested in sweeping changes to the bill, he also said he was not opposed to “tweaking them and accommodating certain issues.” The committee has not yet scheduled a vote on the bill.Election officials warned about language they considered too broad in a provision that restricts third-party donations to election offices. The proposal is popular among Republicans who believe grants from an organization tied to Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, had undue influence in the 2020 election. Some Georgia election officials said the legislation would require any organization that makes a donation to receive approval from the state board of elections. That could include churches or other local groups that offer their buildings as polling locations.“By a strict interpretation of this particular provision, that would be a grant of gift or donation,” Milton Kidd, the elections director in Douglas County, a deeply Democratic county, said in an interview.Mr. Kidd added that many churches did not have staff to handle the application process, which could threaten his ability to maintain enough polling locations.Officials also took issue with a provision requiring partisan poll watchers to be given “meaningful access” to observe the ballot-counting process. The language might jeopardize the privacy of the ballot, they said.“I am a big fan of poll watchers, of being observed, I want my polling places to have observation, it’s a very important part of the process,” said Mr. Kirk, the administrator in Bartow County, which is northwest of Atlanta. “But it’s also very important to have guardrails on that observation, to keep it from becoming disruptive, to make sure a person’s information stays safe.”A provision that gives the Georgia Bureau of Investigation the power to subpoena election records for fraud investigations has also stirred opposition, mostly among Democratic local officials, who view it as both unnecessary — the secretary of state’s office currently handles election investigations — and intended to scare off voters.“That just smacks of voter intimidation,” said Dele Lowman Smith, the chair of the DeKalb County board of voter registration and elections. “And that’s a big concern.” More

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      Mélenchon, a Fiery Leftist, Has Late Surge in French Election

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      Jean-Luc Mélenchon, a skilled orator and veteran politician, hopes to become the first left-wing candidate since 2012 to reach the second round of France’s presidential election.LE HAVRE, France — Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leading left-wing candidate in France’s upcoming presidential election, once likened himself to one of nature’s slowest animals.“Trust a wise and electoral tortoise like me,” he said at a rally in January. “Slow and steady wins the race.” And, he added, mockingly: “I’ve already tired a few hares.”Now, nearly two weeks before the first round of voting on April 10, Mr. Mélenchon — a veteran politician who launched his third presidential bid 17 months ago — is hoping that Aesop’s fable about the tortoise who came from behind proves prescient.For months, Mr. Mélenchon and other candidates jostled in the polls below President Emmanuel Macron, the centrist incumbent, and Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader, hoping to disrupt their widely expected rematch.But Mr. Mélenchon, 70, the leader of the far-left France Unbowed movement, has surged recently in voter surveys. He is now comfortably in third place with about 14 percent, largely ahead of his competitors on the left and within a few points of Ms. Le Pen, whose fierce competition with Éric Zemmour, an anti-immigrant pundit, has eaten into her support.A final victory for Mr. Mélenchon still seems remote. But a left-wing candidate reaching the runoff for the first time since 2012 would be stunning, especially in a race that was long-dominated by right-wing talking points on security, immigration and national identity.Supporters of the far-left France Unbowed movement this month in Paris. Mr. Mélenchon has surged recently in voter surveys.Christophe Petit Tesson/EPA, via Shutterstock“I’m starting to think it might be possible,” said Jérôme Brossard, 68, a retiree who was attending a small Mélenchon rally on a recent evening in Le Havre, a working-class port city on France’s northern coast.About 200 people gathered at a community center for the event, where walls were lined with posters reading “Another World Is Possible.” Some waved France Unbowed flags or wore stickers of the candidate’s face on their chest.Mr. Brossard said friends and family had recently shown interest in Mr. Mélenchon, raising his hopes and, for the first time ever, prompting him to paste campaign posters around town.Learn More About France’s Presidential ElectionThe run-up to the first round of the election has been dominated by issues such as security, immigration and national identity.On Stage: As the vote approaches, theaters and comedy venues are tackling the campaign with one message: Don’t trust politicians. Behind the Scene: In France, where political finance laws are strict, control over the media has provided an avenue for billionaires to influence the election.A Political Bellwether: Auxerre has backed the winner in the presidential race for 40 years. This time, many residents see little to vote for.Green Concerns: Despite the increasing prominence of environmental themes in France, the Green Party’s campaign has failed to generate excitement among voters.Mr. Mélenchon, a former Trotskyist and longtime member of the Socialist party who left in 2008 after accusing it of veering to the center, is a perennial but divisive figure in France’s notoriously fractious left-wing politics.A fiery, skilled orator with a reputation for irascibility — “I’m the Republic!” he once shouted at a police officer raiding his party’s headquarters in 2018 — Mr. Mélenchon has also staked out positions on contentious issues like secularism, race and France’s colonial history that have put him at odds with those on the left who support a stricter model of a secular, colorblind republic.But now, as the global economy strains to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine pushes up the prices of energy and essential goods, Mr. Mélenchon’s unabashedly left-wing platform, including a promise to impose price controls on some basic necessities, is resonating.Campaign posters in Tain-l’Hermitage, southeastern France, in January. In 2017, Mr. Mélenchon missed the second round of the presidential election by a mere percentage point.Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“That’s his favored terrain,” said Manuel Cervera-Marzal, a sociologist at the University of Liège who has written a book analyzing the France Unbowed movement.“He is doing an old-school, left-wing campaign that puts issues of inequality and purchasing power at its heart,” he said, adding that Mr. Mélenchon had softened his image of a “slightly bad-tempered” and “erratic” politician while preserving his “populist” strategy of pitting the people against the elite.Voters most attracted to Mr. Mélenchon — who skew young, unemployed and working-class — also make up their minds later than most, which helps explain why Mr. Mélenchon’s polling numbers have risen as the finish line approaches, according to Mr. Cervera-Marzal.But that is also the electorate most likely to stay home on election day, he warned.“It’s a crucial issue,” he said. “The lower abstention is, the higher Jean-Luc Mélenchon will go.”Mr. Mélenchon still faces many obstacles. Other left-wing leaders have resisted rallying to his campaign, castigating him for his pro-Russian comments before the invasion of Ukraine and saying his fiery nature made him unfit to govern.“We need to have a useful president, not just a useful vote,” François Hollande, France’s Socialist president from 2012 to 2017, told France Inter radio this month, as he attacked Mr. Mélenchon’s anti-NATO stance and his willingness to opt out of European Union rules.Mr. Mélenchon meeting with residents of a working-class neighborhood in Lyon in November. Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesIn 2017, Mr. Mélenchon missed the second round of voting by a mere percentage point, a bitter disappointment that his team is eager not to repeat. Mr. Mélenchon’s campaign has held hundreds of small but packed rallies and sent dozens of caravans to tour the country to attract disillusioned voters.“It’s time for the final all-out offensive!” said Adrien Quatennens, a France Unbowed lawmaker, at the rally in Le Havre. “It’s a vote that is worth a thousand strikes, a thousand protests!”Turnout was low in Le Havre for last year’s regional elections, but the city, with its dock workers and powerful trade unions, is still fertile ground for Mr. Mélenchon’s campaign. A third of the city voted for him in 2017.Sitting in the back row at the rally, Catherine Gaucher, 51, said she “had a bit of sympathy for the Greens at the beginning.”Who Is Running for President of France?Card 1 of 6The campaign begins. More

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      Adam Laxalt, Senate Candidate, Says He’s Already Gearing Up to Fight Election Fraud

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      In an audio recording obtained by The New York Times, Adam Laxalt, a Republican running for Senate in Nevada, said he’s already gearing up to fight election fraud.We have an item tonight from our colleague Nick Corasaniti, who reports on how a Republican running for Senate in Nevada has been anticipating an election-fraud fight in November.Nevadans still have 231 days until they head to the polls in November. But Adam Laxalt, the former attorney general of Nevada and a Republican candidate for Senate, is already laying detailed groundwork to fight election fraud in his race — long before a single vote has been cast or counted.In conversations with voters at an event at his campaign headquarters this month, Laxalt explained how he’s vetting outside groups to help him establish election observer teams and map out a litigation strategy.“I don’t talk about that, but we’re vetting which group we think is going to do better,” Laxalt told an attendee, according to an audio recording obtained by The New York Times from a person who attended the event and opposes Laxalt’s candidacy.At the event, Laxalt criticized the 2020 Trump campaign and outside groups for their handling of election-fraud claims, saying that they went on the offensive too late. “In 2020, it was nothing,” he said, according to the audio recording. “And then the campaign was late and the party was late. So, it’s just different now. There’s a lot of groups that are saying there’s election fraud.”And should he be unable to find help, Laxalt pledged that his campaign would shoulder the cost of bringing in lawyers and mapping out a strategy, even at the expense of other core programs necessary to run a campaign.“If I get into July and I’m like, ‘Dear God, no one’s going to do this right,’ we will pay from our campaign, which means less voter contact for the reason you said,” Laxalt told an attendee. “If someone’s not going to do it, we’ve got to do it. And I’m willing to lose on the other side because we’re going to take it off.”The ‘biggest issue’ of the campaignOf course, there was no widespread fraud in the Nevada presidential election in 2020, nor anywhere else in the country, as numerous audits, recounts, court challenges and investigations have confirmed. The secretary of state in Nevada spent more than 125 hours investigating allegations brought by the Nevada Republican Party and found no widespread fraud. And there has been no evidence in the run-up to this year’s election of any fraud in the state.But the pledge from Laxalt is yet another indication of how vital the specter of voter fraud remains to the Republican base, an issue deemed so critical that a statewide candidate would be willing to sacrifice one of the most essential campaign tasks to ensure a litigation path was in place, months before any actual voting occurred.When asked about the comments, Laxalt reiterated his criticisms of the 2020 election, particularly in Clark County, which is home to Las Vegas and the majority of Democratic voters in the state.“Every voter deserves more transparency and to be confident in the accuracy of their election results, and I will proudly fight for them,” Laxalt said in a statement.A court ruling against the Trump campaign in 2020 found no evidence “that the 2020 general election in Nevada was affected by fraud,” both in Clark County and throughout the state.Laxalt, who was one of the leaders of the Trump campaign’s effort to overturn the results in Nevada, has stated before that voter fraud is the “biggest issue” of the campaign and has publicly talked about establishing a large force of election observers and his plan to file election lawsuits early.“With me at the top of the ticket, we’re going to be able to get everybody at the table and come up with a full plan, do our best to try to secure this election, get as many observers as we can and file lawsuits early, if there are lawsuits we can file to try to tighten up the election,” Laxalt said in August in an interview with Wayne Allyn Root, a conservative radio host.Members of the media documenting a staff member counting ballots at the Clark County Election Department in Las Vegas in November 2020.Bridget Bennett for The New York Times‘It’s about the court of public opinion’Laxalt’s legal strategy foreshadows a likely new permanent battleground for political campaigns: postelection court battles.While election-related lawsuits have long been common in American politics, the traditional fights have often been over polling hours and locations or last-minute policy changes to voting rules. But in 2020, the Trump campaign drastically altered the legal landscape, filing 60 cases after Election Day. The campaign lost 59 of them. The single case the campaign won had to do with challenging a state-ordered deadline extension in Pennsylvania for the submission of personal identification for mailed ballots.Despite that losing record, Republican candidates like Laxalt appear poised to repeat the Trump legal strategy of trying to overturn an election in court, even months before there has been any votes or any theoretical voter fraud. Experts note that while these legal strategies are likely doomed to fail in courtrooms, they risk further eroding public trust.“At the end of the day, this isn’t just about the court of law, it’s about the court of public opinion, and seeing how dangerous these lies about our elections can be,” said Joanna Lydgate, who is a former deputy attorney general of Massachusetts and who co-founded the States United Democracy Center. “We saw the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6. We see those same lies showing up on the campaign trail all across the country.”In his conversations with voters, Laxalt reiterated that he wanted to amass a large coalition to tackle fraud as part of a “formal program,” and expected help from Republican Party leadership and “the senatorial committee,” a reference to the National Republican Senatorial Committee. He also discussed a group featuring Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, though the group’s title was inaudible.The attendees at the event seemed to support Laxalt’s plans, and he was sure to mention his most prominent endorser.“I was just in Mar-a-Lago last week with the president,” Laxalt said, referring to Trump. “And the president was just like, all over election fraud still, obviously.”What to readJason Zengerle looks into Tucker Carlson’s influence on conservative Senate candidates’ political ads for The New York Times Magazine.The confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson offer a preview of Republicans’ midterm attack lines, Annie Karni reports. The New York Times provided live coverage of the hearings.President Biden will ask allies to apply more aggressive economic sanctions against Russia, Michael D. Shear reports.in the momentJudge Ketanji Brown Jackson at the Supreme Court confirmation hearings today.Doug Mills/The New York TimesCrime and confirmation hearingsRepublicans made their strategy for the confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson painfully clear: A tour of grievance politics that criticized Democrats for transgressions spanning decades.For Democrats, however, there was also a political strategy. It just wasn’t quite as loud.As Democrats attempt to defuse allegations that they’re anti-law enforcement, an attack that some party leaders blame for losses in the House in 2020, they’ve gone full out in supporting the police ahead of the midterms. It’s a key line of defense that Democrats prepared for ahead of the hearings and another way to discredit an attack line that could hurt the party in future elections.Representative Val Demings of Florida has been highlighting her role as chief of the Orlando Police Department in her Senate race. President Biden called for funding the police in his State of the Union address. And Biden’s nominee spoke at length today about her family members in law enforcement, often in response to questions by senators.Jackson has two uncles and a brother who have served in law enforcement, noted Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont.“What do you say to people who say you’re soft on crime, or even anti-law enforcement, because you accepted your duties as a public defender?” Leahy asked.“Crime and the effects on the community and the need for law enforcement, those are not abstract concepts or political slogans to me,” Jackson responded.Thanks for reading. We’ll see you tomorrow.— Blake & LeahIs there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      While Democrats Debate ‘Latinx,’ Latinos Head to the G.O.P.

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      Democrats working to save their slim majority in the House in November’s elections have been sounding alarm bells lately over research showing that Republican attacks on culture-war issues are working, particularly with center-left, Hispanic and independent voters. Hispanic voters, many of us alienated by progressive labels and mottos like “Latinx” and “defund the police,” have been drifting rightward as Donald Trump marginally increased the G.O.P. Hispanic vote share in 2016 and again in 2020 — a phenomenon, it should be noted, that goes beyond Mr. Trump or any individual campaign.Democrats now understand that they are losing support among Hispanics on culture as well as pocketbook issues, leaving little in the message arsenal for the party’s candidates to use to stanch what appears to be a long-term bleed.The Democrats’ problems with Hispanics are especially glaring when you consider that Republicans are not exactly flawless when it comes to appealing to these voters. Both parties have committed a mind-boggling form of political malpractice for years: They have consistently failed to understand what motivates Hispanic voters, a crucial and growing part of the electorate.As the growth of the Hispanic eligible electorate continues to outpace other new eligible voting populations, the caricatures and stereotypes of “Hispanic issues” are proving further and further removed from the experience of most Hispanics. Yet, for all the hype and spin about Republican gains with Hispanic voters, the rightward shift of these voters is happening despite Republicans’ best efforts, not because of them.In the eyes of some on the American right, Hispanics are hyper-religious Catholics or evangelicals, entrepreneurial, anti-communist, social conservatives reminiscent of the ethnic white voters of yesteryear. To some on the left, we’re seen as angry, racially oppressed workers of the cultural vanguard who want to upend capitalism while demanding open borders. While none of these caricatures are accurate, in them there are enough grains of truth to lull self-righteous partisans on both sides into believing that they may be on the winning side of the emerging ethnically pluralistic American majority.In our current era of negative partisanship, voters are as often motivated to oppose the party they dislike or view as extreme as they are to support the party with which they align. Latinos, of course, are no different, and it is at the cultural extremes where Democrats face the greatest threat to losing what they have long viewed as the foundational base of their long-term majority prospects. As “culture” grows as a proxy for “race,” the electoral math for Democrats will most likely get bleaker as political campaigns continue as referendums on “critical race theory” and “defunding the police.” It will be worse still if Hispanics increasingly do not view themselves as an aggrieved racial minority.This understanding will help determine which party controls Congress and the White House, beginning with the 2022 midterms. Under newly drawn district lines, four of the most competitive House seats will have Hispanic populations of at least 38 percent and are in California, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado. Additionally, Hispanic voters will be essential components of Senate and other statewide contests in Arizona and Nevada. The Latino voters in these states and districts are important for both parties. As the Democratic Party drifts away from its working-class roots and emphasizes cultural issues, Republicans are well positioned to pick up these politically untethered voters and with them the reins of power.The recent debate over the term “Latinx” symbolizes the cultural alienation of institutions far removed from the realities of life for an overwhelming number of working-class Hispanics. “Latinx” was created as a gender-neutral alternative term in Spanish, a gendered language, that refers to males as “Latino” and females as “Latina’.”Commonly used by media, political and academic elites as a sign of gender inclusivity, it is virtually nonexistent in the communities it refers to. In 2020 Pew Research revealed that only 3 percent of Latinos use the term, while 9 percent of white liberals think it is the most appropriate term to use. In fact, only 14 percent of Latinos with just a high school degree or less had even heard of it.This was not a sign of intolerance but rather was emblematic of one class with the luxury of being consumed with such matters trying to impose their values on working-class families trying to keep up with paying the rent on Friday. Members of the Democratic Party don’t just live in a distinct cultural bubble removed from the realities of their blue-collar counterparts, they are so removed from the rapidly growing Hispanic working class that many of them are now literally speaking a different language.The growing cultural divide in America, in which Hispanics appear to be increasingly turned off by progressive mottos and movements, is linked to the education divide in America between college-educated and noncollege-educated voters of all ethnicities. According to Pew Research, Republicans increasingly dominate in party affiliation among white noncollege voters, who make up 57 percent of all G.O.P. voters. This in a country where 64 percent of voters do not have a college degree.The Democratic Party is losing its brand among white, working-class voters and Hispanics. This is especially pronounced among Hispanic men and Hispanic noncollege-educated voters, who are trending more Republican, just as their white noncollege-educated peers are. Latinos are increasingly voting similarly to noncollege whites, perhaps because they don’t view themselves all that differently from them. Pew Research studies on Hispanic identity have shown that fully half of the country’s Hispanics view themselves as “a typical American”; fewer responded as identifying as “very different from a typical American.”For all the discussion about diversity within the Latino community, and the now-trite adage that the community is not ‘‘monolithic,’’ in fact what unites most Hispanics is that they are an important share of the blue-collar noncollege-educated work force, and their presence in the labor force is only growing. The “essential workers” of the pandemic are disproportionately Black and Latino, and as a decidedly younger demographic, Hispanic workers are filling the roles of manufacturing, agricultural and construction trades in states with large Hispanic populations.Democrats have increasingly become a party shaped by and reliant upon white voters with college degrees. Compared with 40.1 percent of white adults age 25 and older, only 18.8 percent of Latino adults in this age group have a bachelor’s degree. Latinos are, and increasingly will be, a key part of the blue-collar work force of the future and their politics are reflecting that.From 71 percent support for President Barack Obama in 2012 to 66 percent for Hillary Clinton and 59 percent for Joe Biden in 2020, Democrats find themselves slowly but measurably losing hold of Latinos, the fastest-growing segment of the electorate. As Latino voters grow in number in key battleground states, they are increasingly rejecting the minority construct promulgated by the media, academia and Democratic politicians and consultants.The party that is able to express the values of a multiethnic working class will be the majority party for the next generation. As we continue to watch the country’s culture war increasingly divided by education levels, it is quite likely that Latino voters will continue to trend, even if marginally, into the ranks of Republican voters. The country stands on the precipice of a significant political shift. As President Ronald Reagan once quipped, quoting a Republican sheriff nominee, “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party, the Democratic Party left me.”Mike Madrid is an expert in Latino voting trends, was a visiting professor at the University of Southern California, where he taught “Race, Class and Partisanship,” and is on the board of directors of the League of Minority Voters.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

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      How Likely Is Another Civil War?

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      More from our inbox:Listen to Asian American VotersA Double Standard for Supreme Court NomineesHelping Students Fight DisinformationCovid’s Origins, and the Animal-Human LinkMr. Biden, Reach the HeartlandAt the Georgia State Capitol, demonstrating against the inauguration of President Biden on Jan. 20, 2021.Joshua Rashaad McFadden for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Jamelle Bouie starts out by documenting the public feeling that the United States is indeed facing a second civil war. But he takes a wrong turn by suggesting that this conflict will not happen because today’s conditions do not mirror those of our 19th-century version (“Why We Are Not Facing the Prospect of a Second Civil War,” column, Feb. 17).However, we are in a very precarious position. Large portions of our population have adopted an antigovernment position, fueled by our former president and his minions. Racism is now out in the open, as evidenced by the rantings of anti-diversity proponents in raucous school board meetings throughout the country. The country is more armed than ever, and thousands of these citizens belong to organized militia.We learn more details every day about how close we came last year to a coup engineered by the former president. Too many elected officials no longer display commitment to our democratic principles. The organized campaign of disinformation that is destroying our country is buttressed every day by extreme-right media outlets and commentators.Contrary to Mr. Bouie’s piece, there is a serious risk that we will lose this precious experiment called American democracy. Yet there is still a modicum of hope it can be averted. But that will require that we all take responsibility by speaking up for our Republic.James MartoranoYorktown Heights, N.Y.To the Editor:The plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the continuing trumpeting of the lie that the election was stolen approach the criterion that Jamelle Bouie sets for a second civil war: “irreconcilable social and economic interests of opposing groups within the society.”In her book “How Civil Wars Start: And How to Stop Them,” Barbara F. Walter, a professor of political science at the University of California San Diego, states that, according to the polity index score, which places countries on a scale from fully autocratic (-10) to fully democratic (+10), the United States is now a +5, which makes us an “anocracy,” a country that is moving from a democracy to an authoritarian regime.In just five years, we went from +10 to +5! “A partial democracy,” writes Ms. Walter, “is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy.”Now is the time to strengthen our democracy to avert another civil war.Allen J. DavisDublin, N.H.Listen to Asian American Voters  Doris LiouTo the Editor:Re “Will Asian Americans Desert Democrats?,” by Thomas B. Edsall (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, March 6):Mr. Edsall’s essay ponders whether Asian Americans are bolting from the Democratic Party, using isolated examples of Chinese American voters swaying recent races in two major cities, New York and San Francisco. However, his claim that this is evidence of Asian Americans moving to the right is a flawed analysis.First, these were complicated elections that cannot be boiled down to one or two issues. Second, how Chinese Americans voted in two cities cannot represent the political preferences of Asian Americans everywhere — just as the fact that Asian Americans helped flip historically Republican-held Senate seats in Georgia and Arizona does not necessarily mean Asian Americans are moving left nationwide.Although not often reported in media analyses, our Asian American Voter Survey polling data includes Asian American suburban moms, college- and non-college-educated, rich and poor, and a wide range of ethnic identities across all 50 states. One would not say the trends of white voters in Little Rock tell the story of white voters everywhere. This should not be done with Asian American voters either.To understand the future of our communities’ votes, one must look at who is listening, engaging and working on our behalf. Parties and political candidates who can do this the most effectively are more likely to win our vote; it’s as simple as that.Christine ChenWashingtonThe writer is executive director of Asian and Pacific Islander American Vote.A Double Standard for Supreme Court Nominees  Erin Schaff/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Another Working Mother for the Supreme Court” (Opinion guest essay, March 8):Melissa Murray opines that, at her confirmation hearings, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s status as a “working mother” might be for her a selling point among conservative senators, just as it had factored into their support of Justice Amy Coney Barrett at her hearings.Funny, I don’t recall any prospective male justices ever being asked about whether their status as “working fathers” might affect their abilities and opinions. Republicans clearly did not deem it relevant to find out if a nominee was a superdad — whether he could do laundry, help kids with homework and work outside the home, all at the same time!Lori Pearson WiseWinter Park, Fla.Helping Students Fight Disinformation  Alberto MirandaTo the Editor:Re “Combating Disinformation Can Feel Like a Lost Cause. It Isn’t,” by Jay Caspian Kang (Opinion, March 9):It is no revelation to me, a retired middle- and upper-school librarian, that students in lower-income environments and underfunded public schools do not register well on media literacy tests.The hiring of professional, credentialed librarians in these schools is often postponed and neglected in order to hire more subject-matter teachers to decrease class sizes, leaving no one with the training and skill sets to introduce these important literacy tools.It is a disservice to these vulnerable students not to provide a curriculum that addresses this gaping hole in their education.Sandra MooreTownship of Washington, N.J.Covid’s Origins, and the Animal-Human Link  Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Pair of Studies Say Covid Originated in Wuhan Market” (news article, Feb. 28):As we enter the third year of the pandemic, it is becoming increasingly clear that we may never know the full and exact details of the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in humans.Even as experts continue to uncover connections to the market in Wuhan, China, the spillover story may only remain a partial narrative, veiled by insufficient data. This is an uncertainty, like so many other unknowns on a shifting planet undergoing climate change, to which we must adapt.The one certainty we can rely on, however, is the inextricable link between humans and animals. From hunter-gathering to the industrial livestock production model, our relationships with animals cannot be unbound. What’s more, we’ve progressively dominated species and their habitats with dire consequences. This certainty is highlighted by the pandemic through which we are all living today.So, it’s time to start talking about our health differently. Public health does not exist in isolation from other beings. It’s time to become comfortable talking about public health as planetary health.Perhaps normalizing this discourse might have us, as a global community, face the destruction of natural habitats as the destruction of global human health. Perhaps it might have us cultivate a different type of care, a reciprocal care that might stand to benefit us all.Christine YanagawaVancouver, British ColumbiaMr. Biden, Reach the Heartland Ryan Peltier To the Editor:Re “What the Democrats Need to Do,” by Michael Kazin (Opinion guest essay, Sunday Review, Feb. 27):Mr. Kazin is right that President Biden could be more forceful in pushing for the stalled Build Back Better bill and the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.But the president needs to go beyond that and directly address the rural populace. He needs to tour the outposts of the heartland, the Rust Belt, the rural West and the South, bringing a message that Democrats have compassion for all Americans and that Democratic policies will make their lives better.We need to see more of the ol’ Empathetic Joe. The difference between a mountebank like Donald Trump and Joe Biden is that Mr. Biden can actually stand behind his promises to make America better — for all of us.Luc NadeauLongmont, Colo. More

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      Could Iowa and New Hampshire Lose First Spots in Primary Calendar?

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      After complaints about disenfranchisement and logistical snafus, the party is reconsidering Iowa and New Hampshire’s coveted spots in the presidential nominating process.For years, Democrats in Iowa and New Hampshire have battled criticism from others in the party who argued that the two states are not racially diverse enough to kick off the Democratic nomination process.But after a disastrous 2020 cycle, in which Iowa officials struggled to tabulate votes and neither state proved predictive of President Biden’s eventual victory, Democratic leaders are exploring with new urgency whether to strip the two states of what has been a priceless political entitlement: their traditional perch at the start of the party’s presidential calendar.Several ideas are expected to be heard on Friday by the Democratic National Committee’s rules and bylaws committee, which governs the nominating process. One calls for an application process for states based on several criteria, including diversity. Another idea, raised at a meeting in January, would consolidate all four of the current early-voting states — Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada — into a single first voting day before Super Tuesday.The debate has taken on new urgency in response to a steady drumbeat of criticism by activists, elected officials and some members of the rules and bylaws committee. The concerns raised include fears that Iowa’s caucus system disenfranchises some voters and that neither Iowa nor New Hampshire is racially diverse enough to act as a stand-in for the Democratic voting base.In the last election cycle, logistical challenges including late-arriving votes and inaccurate data also highlighted the shortcomings of Iowa’s caucus process and muddied its ability to name a winner.“To me it’s not about one state, it’s not about punishing,” said Mo Elleithee, a former spokesman for the Democratic National Committee and for Hillary Clinton who serves on the rules and bylaws committee.“We have a chance to show our values in our process,” Mr. Elleithee said. “Diversity, inclusion, and, given the job of the D.N.C. is to elect Democrats, by putting our people in front of as many battleground states as possible.”Members of the rules and bylaws committee, several of whom did not respond to requests for comment, have been told to expect to work on the issue throughout the summer with the intention of setting a firm nomination calendar by the fall.“We are not close to making a decision,” said Donna Brazile, a former chair of the Democratic National Committee who also serves on the rules and bylaws committee. On Friday, she said, “we start the conversation.”In 2020, Joseph R. Biden Jr. became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to win the party’s presidential nomination without winning either the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primaries.David Degner for The New York TimesIn January, during a virtual meeting of the same body, Mr. Elleithee and others made the case for overhauling the nominating calendar and were met with relatively little pushback — which some members took as a sign that even the delegations from Iowa and New Hampshire recognized that some change may be inevitable.State officials in Iowa and New Hampshire have fiercely resisted previous proposals to downgrade their primacy in the party’s nominating calendar, publicly and privately whipping allies to their side, but they have not yet begun to do so, according to committee members. Still, they said that any change to the system would be expected to demonstrate the party’s acknowledgment of the importance of smaller states and rural voters.Scott Brennan, an Iowan who sits on the rules and bylaws committee, did not respond to a request for comment but argued after the January meeting that Iowa’s small-state status has allowed barrier-breaking politicians to thrive.“Barack Obama was able to come to Iowa, the little-known senator from Illinois, and ultimately become the nominee,” Mr. Brennan said then.Mr. Brennan also referenced Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who is now the secretary of transportation. When Iowa’s caucuses were eventually tabulated in 2020, Mr. Buttigieg became the first openly gay candidate to win a presidential primary or caucus, with a narrow victory over Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.“Folks like that have chances to really shine,” Mr. Brennan said. “If Iowa is not first in the process, I think that goes away.”Ms. Brazile, who in 2000 became the first Black woman to direct a major presidential campaign, said the party benefited when states like Nevada and South Carolina were added to the early nominating schedule to improve the representation of Black and Latino voters.Supporters in South Carolina waited to meet President Biden before the state’s Democratic primary in February 2020.Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times“It’s very important that our primary calendar reflect those values,” Ms. Brazile said at the rules and bylaws committee meeting in January. “We need to thank South Carolina and Nevada for giving us quality nominees over the years. That diversity has uplifted the party and also the values we hold as American citizens.”Previous efforts to change the nomination calendar to minimize the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire have hit political roadblocks. Ambitious elected officials, often eyeing the next presidential cycle, have sought to avoid upsetting state officials in Iowa and New Hampshire, who have historically guarded their first-in-the-nation status with extreme urgency. Presidents have often felt indebted to voters in those states, quelling criticisms before they reach the highest levels of the party.But Mr. Biden owes no such obligation. In 2020, he became the first Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992 to win the party’s presidential nomination without winning either in Iowa or New Hampshire. On the night of the New Hampshire primary — where Mr. Biden finished fifth — he fled to South Carolina and argued against the importance of Iowa and New Hampshire, highlighting the dearth of Black voters in those states as a reason the results should be downplayed.“Tonight, I’ve just heard from the first two states, not all the nation,” Mr. Biden said at the time. “Up till now, we haven’t heard from the most committed constituency in the Democratic Party — the African American community.”He went on to win the South Carolina primary in a landslide. More

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      County Clerk Tina Peters Indicted in Colorado Voting Investigation

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      The Mesa County clerk, Tina Peters, is charged with 10 counts related to tampering with voting equipment. A Republican running for secretary of state, she has promoted false claims of fraud in the 2020 election.Tina Peters, a county clerk running as a Republican for secretary of state of Colorado, was indicted Tuesday evening on 10 criminal counts related to allegations that she tampered with election equipment after the 2020 election.The indictment, which the district attorney of Mesa County, Colo., announced on Wednesday, is connected to Ms. Peters’s work as the top county election administrator, a role in which she promoted former President Donald J. Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen. Because of Ms. Peters’s unusual scheme to interfere with voting machines, state officials “could not establish confidence in the integrity or security” of elections equipment, the indictment said.Ms. Peters’s case is a prominent example of how false theories about election fraud and Republican-led calls for “audits” of the 2020 vote count have created election-security threats involving the integrity of voting machines, software and other election equipment. And in running for secretary of state, Ms. Peters is among a group of brazenly partisan candidates who claim that Mr. Trump may have won the election and who are transforming races around the country for such once little-known offices.A grand jury indicted Ms. Peters on both felony and misdemeanor charges, including counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.In a statement, Ms. Peters accused Democrats of using the grand jury “to formalize politically motivated accusations” against her.“Using legal muscle to indict political opponents during an election isn’t new strategy, but it’s easier to execute when you have a district attorney who despises President Trump and any constitutional conservative like myself who continues to demand all election evidence be made available to the public,” she said.The grand jury also indicted Belinda Knisley, Ms. Peters’s deputy, on six counts. A lawyer for Ms. Knisley did not respond to a request for comment.The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office said Wednesday that Ms. Knisley and Ms. Peters were both in custody.The indictment focused on how passwords used to update voting machine software had been leaked online in August 2021.Beginning in April, Ms. Peters and Ms. Knisley “devised and executed a deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment, and set in motion the eventual distribution of confidential information to unauthorized people,” according to the indictment, which linked their actions to the release of the passwords and other confidential information.Jessi Romero, the voting systems manager at the Colorado secretary of state’s office, told the grand jury that the Mesa County elections office — which Ms. Peters led as county clerk and recorder — had contacted him in April to request that members of the public be allowed to observe a software update process in person. Mr. Romero responded that this was not allowed.On May 13, according to the indictment, Ms. Knisley requested an access badge and an official email address for a “temp employee” who would represent the county on site during the software update. But that person was not an employee and had no right to be on site under state regulations, the indictment said.“Relying on the misrepresentations” of Ms. Knisley — who later said she had been acting on Ms. Peters’s instructions — Mesa County granted the person an access badge for the election building. He later returned the badge to Ms. Knisley, the indictment said.But, according to the indictment, county records show that someone used that badge to enter secure areas of the election offices on May 23, two days before the scheduled software update.A few days earlier, according to the indictment, the security cameras in the election office had been turned off at Ms. Knisley’s request.Prosecutors have previously said they believe that Ms. Peters entered a secure area of a warehouse where voting machines were stored and copied hard drives and election-management software from the machines.The indictment does not explain why prosecutors believe Ms. Peters or Ms. Knisley wanted the material.In early August, the conservative website Gateway Pundit posted passwords for the county’s election machines. Shortly afterward, the Mesa County machines’ software showed up on large monitors at a South Dakota election symposium organized by the conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell and attended by Ms. Peters.A Colorado judge stripped Ms. Peters of her duties overseeing last year’s election after a lawsuit was filed by Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat. Ms. Peters announced last month that she would run for secretary of state against Ms. Griswold.“Officials who carry out elections do so in public trust and must be held accountable when they abuse their power or position,” Ms. Griswold said in a statement on Wednesday.The indictment was announced by the Mesa County district attorney, Daniel P. Rubinstein, and the Colorado attorney general, Phil Weiser.“The grand jury, randomly selected from the same pool of citizens that elected Clerk Tina Peters and chosen months before any of these alleged offenses occurred, concluded there is probable cause that Clerk Peters and Deputy Clerk Knisley committed crimes,” Mr. Rubinstein and Mr. Weiser said in a statement in which they added that their offices would provide no further comment “to maintain the investigation’s impartiality.”Reid J. Epstein More

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      Meet South Korea’s Swing Voters: Young, Broke and Angry

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      Frustrated over housing prices, a lack of job opportunities and a widening income gap, the once-reliable voting bloc is undecided and will most likely elect the next president.SEOUL — When he was a college freshman in 2019, Jeong Hyun-min sometimes had less than $10 to cover meals for three days. That same year, a scandal erupted in South Korea that still roils him today.While Mr. Jeong was cleaning tables and serving drinks at beer halls just to make ends meet, the country’s justice minister and his wife were accused of pulling strings to help their daughter glide into medical school, even fabricating an award certificate.“I realized what people had been saying all along: Your chances in this country are determined by what kind of parents you have,” said Mr. Jeong, a political science major at Daejeon University. “Fairness is the key if politicians want our trust back.”On Wednesday, South Koreans will elect a new president and all eyes are on young people, whose disillusionment with the government has made this one of the most tightly fought races in recent memory. ​Frustrated over sky-high housing prices, a lack of job opportunities and a widening income gap, young people who were once considered reliably progressive voters are now seen as undecided and will most likely tip the balance in the election.Jeong Hyun-min, a political science major, works part time distributing textbooks in a high school in South Korea.  “Fairness is the key if politicians want our trust back,” he said.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesUnlike previous generations, these voters are not easily swayed by old political dynamics, such as regional allegiance, loyalty to political bosses, fear of North Korea or a desire to ease tension on the Korean Peninsula. Instead, they talk of economic despair​ and general frustration as their primary concerns, themes captured in popular movies and TV dramas like “Parasite” and “Squid Game.”Many have adopted a saying: “isaenggeul,” or “We can’t make it in this life.”“In the past, young South Koreans tended to vote progressive, but now they have become swing voters,” said Prof. Kim Hyung-joon, an election expert at Myongji University in Seoul. “To them, nothing matters as much as fairness and equal opportunity and which candidate ​will ​provide it.”Young people near Konkuk University in Seoul. Unlike previous generations, these voters are not easily swayed by old political dynamics.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesYoon Suk-yeol, the leading candidate from the opposition People Power Party, has won over voters in their 60s and older by pitching their preferred conservative agenda. He has championed a stronger alliance with the United States and even threatened “pre-emptive strikes” against North Korea.Mr. Yoon’s rival, Lee Jae-myung, the candidate representing President Moon Jae-in’s Democratic Party, remains popular among voters in their 40s and 50s. He has called for a diplomatic balance between the United States, South Korea’s security ally, and China, its biggest trading partner.Few of these issues have roused South Koreans in their 20s and 30s, who make up one-third of the eligible voters, as much as they did older voters. Rather, on top of their minds is an uncertain economic future.“We will be the first generation whose standard of living will be lower than our parents’,” said Kim Dong-min, 24, a student at Konkuk University Law School.Kim Dong-min, 24, studying in the library at Konkuk University Law School. “We will be the first generation whose standard of living will be lower than our parents’,” he said.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesIn the decades following the 1950-53 Korean War, most South Koreans were ​equally ​poor. Those who found success were often referred to as “a dragon rising from a humble ditch.”Middle-class dreams were plausible as the postwar economy roared, churning out jobs. Education functioned as a vehicle of upward mobility. Millions of people migrated to the Seoul metropolitan area, where the best schools and most of the country’s wealth was eventually concentrated.Getting a degree from an elite university and owning an apartment in Seoul became symbols of social mobility. But in recent decades, the economy slowed, and that old formula has broken down. In a survey last year, nearly 65 percent of the respondents in South Korea said they were skeptical that their children’s economic future would be better than their own.In Seoul, the average household must save its entire income for 18.5 years to ​afford to buy a home.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesA majority of ​respondents in their 20s and 30s said they no longer saw education as the great equalizer, as admission into top universities depended largely on whether parents could bankroll expensive private tutors.“How would you feel when you are struggling in a marathon and you see others cruising along in sports cars?” said Oh Byeong-ju, 23, a senior at Dongguk University in Seoul.In South Korea, where nearly three-quarters of household wealth is concentrated in real estate, no index illustrates widening inequality quite ​like housing prices. Young couples whose wealthy parents helped them buy apartments — a tradition in South Korea — saw their property value in Seoul nearly double under Mr. Moon.The average household, on the other hand, must save its entire income for 18.5 years in order to ​afford an apartment in the city, according to estimates by KB Kookmin Bank.“It has become impossible to buy an apartment in Seoul, even if you work and save for your entire life,” said Park Eun-hye, 27, who works at Youth Mungan, a civic group that provides affordable meals for poor youths. “Whatever the candidates say sounds unconvincing. Young people instead invest what little money ​we save in stocks and cryptocurrencies.”Oh Byeong-ju, 23, a senior at Dongguk University in Seoul, says, “How would you feel when you are struggling in a marathon and you see others cruising along in sports cars?” Woohae Cho for The New York TimesSouth Korea’s poverty rate and its income inequality are among the worst in wealthy countries, with youths facing some of the steepest challenges. Nearly one in every five South Koreans between the ages of 15 and 29 was effectively jobless as of January, according to government data. That is far higher than the national average, 13.1 percent.Upon his inauguration, Mr. Moon promised “equal opportunities” for everyone. “The process will be fair,” he said. “And the result will be righteous.”Many young people claim fairness and equal opportunity — or their versions of those values — have been eroded instead. They bristled when Mr. Moon’s government formed a joint ice hockey team with North Korea for the 2018 Winter Olympics, arguing that it was unfair to replace elite South Korean athletes with inferior North Korean players.Posters featuring portraits of presidential candidates in Seoul.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesAnd last year, after a scandal revealed officials had used their position to seek personal gain in the housing market, young voters helped deliver Mr. Moon’s government a crushing defeat in the Seoul mayoral election.Rival political parties have since rushed to appease South Korean youth. Lawmakers lowered the minimum voting age to 18 from 19 and the age limit for running for Parliament to 18 from 25. Mr. Lee and Mr. Yoon, the two leading presidential candidates, have both apologized and have applied different tactics to win votes.Mr. Yoon’s popularity soared among men in the 20s after he promised to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Women and sidelined a campaign adviser who identified as a feminist. Anti-feminist sentiments are widespread among the young men.Park Eun-hye, 27, at Youth Mungan, a civic group that provides affordable meals for young people in Seoul.Woohae Cho for The New York TimesMr. Lee is more popular among women in their 20s, and he has promised to introduce harsher punishment for date rape and other sex crimes. He also campaigned to make companies reveal gender-wage gaps to their employees and to the public.But 20 percent to 30 percent of South Koreans in their 20s and 30s have said they may change their mind about their preferred candidate before they vote this week, according to surveys. “Our support shifts from one political party to another, issue by issue,” Mr. Jeong said. More