Voting Rights, Registration and Requirements

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      Alaska Elections: Where to Vote and What’s on the Ballot

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      Do not be misled by Alaska’ long history of voting for Republicans: Its slate of primaries and a special election on Tuesday offers plenty of intrigue, with multiple big names on the ballot such as former Gov. Sarah Palin and Senator Lisa Murkowski.The races pose another test of the power of an endorsement from former President Donald J. Trump. He is backing Ms. Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, for the state’s lone House seat, and also supports Kelly Tshibaka, Ms. Murkowski’s main Republican rival in the Senate primary.Here is a refresher on the rules for voting and what is at stake.How to voteThe registration deadlines for voting in person and requesting an absentee ballot have passed. Alaska does not have same-day registration for primaries, though it does for presidential elections.All registered voters, regardless of party affiliation, can participate in Alaska’s newly nonpartisan primaries.Where to voteAlaska’s voters can click here to look up their assigned place to vote. Absentee ballots returned by mail must be postmarked by Tuesday and received by state election offices by Aug. 26. They can also be hand-delivered to designated drop-off locations by 8 p.m. Alaska time on Tuesday, which is also when the polls close for in-person voting.Alaska offers no-excuse absentee voting — meaning voters are not required to provide a reason — with an option to receive ballots through the state’s secure online portal. Voters can choose to return their ballots by fax instead of mail but must do so by 8 p.m. on Tuesday.What is on the ballotMs. Murkowski was one of seven Republicans in the Senate who voted to convict Mr. Trump during his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, drawing a backlash from the former president and his supporters in her quest for a fourth term. Mr. Trump endorsed one her opponents, Ms. Tshibaka, a former commissioner of Alaska’s Department of Administration, in the primary.Another race creating national intrigue will decide who will fill the seat of Representative Don Young, a Republican who died in March, for the remainder of his term that ends in January. Mr. Young had held the seat since he was first elected to the House in 1973.The special election is headlined by Ms. Palin, who will face Nick Begich III, a Republican and the scion of an Alaskan political dynasty, and Mary S. Peltola, a Democrat and former state legislator. Voters will rank their choices in the special election. If no candidate receives a majority, officials will eliminate the last-place finisher and reallocate supporters’ voter to the voters’ second choices until one candidate has at least 50 percent.All three candidates, along with many others, are also listed separately on the regular primary ballot for the House seat, which will determine who will compete in November to represent the state for a full two-year term starting in January.Voters will also decide various races for governor and the State Legislature. Click here for a sample ballot. More

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      What’s On the Ballot and How to Vote in Connecticut’s Primary

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      Connecticut might be known as a campaign fund-raising powerhouse that rarely deviates from electing Democrats statewide, but even its primary on Tuesday is drawing the attention of former President Donald J. Trump.Mr. Trump made a late endorsement in the Republican Senate primary race. Its winner will challenge Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat on whom the former president has aimed his attention.The three-way Republican contest is not the only competitive race on the ballot.Here is a refresher on the rules for voting and what’s at stake.How to voteThe registration deadlines for voting in person and requesting an absentee ballot have passed. Connecticut does not have same-day registration for the primary, though it does for the general election.You have to be registered with a political party to vote in the primary. The cutoff for switching parties is three months before a primary.No-excuse absentee voting is no longer available in Connecticut, which mailed ballots to all voters at the onset of the pandemic. A referendum would be required for it to be reinstated.Where to voteClick here to look up your assigned place to vote. Absentee ballots must be returned — by mail or by hand to drop boxes or local clerks — by Tuesday at 8 p.m. Eastern time, which is also when the polls close for in-person voting.What is on the ballotRepublicans will winnow the field of candidates for the Senate, the House in southwestern Connecticut and secretary of the state, an open-seat race to decide who will oversee elections.Democrats have competitive primaries for state treasurer and secretary of the state.Voters will also decide various intraparty races for the Connecticut Legislature. Click here for your sample ballot. More

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      What’s On the Ballot and How to Vote in Minnesota’s Primary

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      Minnesota voters in the First Congressional District will see some names on the ballot twice on Tuesday. It is not a mistake.There is a special general election to decide who will serve the final four months remaining in the term of Representative Jim Hagedorn, who died in February, as well as a regular primary for the same seat.Not registered to vote? That is OK. The state’s same-day voter registration law means you can still head to the polls on Tuesday.Here is what else to know:How to voteIn-person voting ends at 8 p.m. Central time. Not sure if you are registered to vote? Check here, and use this state site for more information about same-day registration.In most places in Minnesota, voters can cast their ballots in person or by mail with an absentee ballot, if one was requested in advance.Some towns and cities with fewer than 400 registered voters have chosen to hold elections only by mail and delivered ballots to all registered voters before Election Day. Find out if that includes your town here.Mail-in ballots must be received by elections officials on or before Election Day. If you have not already mailed yours, deliver it by hand to the election office that sent it to you no later than 3 p.m. Tuesday. Voters may not return mail-in ballots to polling places. Check the status of your mail ballot here.Where to voteFind your nearest polling place at the secretary of state’s website.What is on the ballotIn addition to the special election and regular primary for Mr. Hagedorn’s seat, Representative Ilhan Omar, a well-known member of the progressive clique known as the squad, is seeking her third term in office and is once again facing a primary challenge from a moderate candidate. This time it is Don Samuels, who is running on a pro-law enforcement platform.There are other statewide contests and some local races, too. See a sample ballot here.Michael C. Bender More

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      Forbidden From Getting Help Returning Absentee Ballots, Disabled Voters Sue Wisconsin

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      Several disabled voters are suing Wisconsin’s Elections Commission in federal court after learning that they can no longer get help returning absentee ballots, a reversal that they argue is unconstitutional.The lawsuit, filed on Friday in United States District Court in Madison, seeks to restore a decades-old precedent that allowed people with disabilities to receive assistance from family members and caregivers with the return of absentee ballots.The accommodation was struck down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court on July 8 in a 4-to-3 ruling by the court’s conservative majority, which concluded that only voters themselves could return their absentee ballots in person. The ruling did not address the handling of ballots that are returned by mail.It also prohibited the use of most drop boxes for voting in Wisconsin.The lawsuit filed on Friday concerns only the issue of who is authorized to return absentee ballots, something that Republicans have sought to clamp down on in Wisconsin and other states, falsely claiming that Democrats engaged in fraudulent ballot harvesting during the 2020 election.Timothy Carey, 49, who has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and lives in Appleton, Wis., is one of four plaintiffs listed in the lawsuit. He said in an interview on Tuesday that he had voted absentee for 30 years, enlisting the help of a nurse or his parents to return his ballot. As someone who relies on a ventilator and cannot use his hands, he said a mandate that he return his own ballot presented a particular hardship.Key Themes From the 2022 Midterm Elections So FarCard 1 of 6The state of the midterms. More

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      2020 Election Deniers Seek Out Powerful Allies: County Sheriffs

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      LAS VEGAS — An influential network of conservative activists fixated on the idea that former President Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election is working to recruit county sheriffs to investigate elections based on the false notion that voter fraud is widespread.The push, which two right-wing sheriffs’ groups have already endorsed, seeks to lend law enforcement credibility to the false claims and has alarmed voting rights advocates. They warn that it could cause chaos in future elections and further weaken trust in an American voting system already battered by attacks from Mr. Trump and his allies.One of the conservative sheriffs’ groups, Protect America Now, lists about 70 members, and the other, the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, does not list its membership but says it conducted trainings on various issues for about 300 of the nation’s roughly 3,000 sheriffs in recent years. It is unclear how many sheriffs will ultimately wade into election matters. Many aligned with the groups are from small, rural counties.But at least three sheriffs involved in the effort — in Michigan, Kansas and Wisconsin — have already been carrying out their own investigations, clashing with election officials who warn that they are overstepping their authority and meddling in an area where they have little expertise.“I’m absolutely sick of it,” said Pam Palmer, the clerk of Barry County, Mich., where the sheriff has carried out an investigation into the 2020 results for more than a year. “We didn’t do anything wrong, but they’ve cast a cloud over our entire county that makes people disbelieve in the accuracy of our ability to run an election.”In recent years, sheriffs have usually taken a limited role in investigations of election crimes, which are typically handled by state agencies with input from local election officials. Republican-led state legislatures, at the same time, have pushed to impose harsher criminal penalties for voting infractions, passing 20 such laws in at least 14 states since the 2020 election.“This is all part and parcel of returning to a world where we’re using the criminal law in a way to make voting harder,” said Sophia Lin Lakin, the interim co-director of the Voting Rights Project at the A.C.L.U. “All the things that used to feel more fringy no longer feel so fringy, as we’re starting to see this very much collective effort.”Richard Mack, center, the founder of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, appeared at FreedomFest, a recent event in Las Vegas attended by a range of libertarians and conservatives.Alexandra Berzon/The New York TimesThe sheriff of Racine County in Wisconsin, the state’s fifth-most-populous county, is trying to charge state election officials with felonies for measures they took to facilitate safe voting in nursing homes during the pandemic.In Barry County in Michigan, a rural area that voted overwhelmingly for Mr. Trump, the sheriff has been investigating the 2020 election after becoming involved with efforts by people working on Mr. Trump’s behalf to try to gain access to voting machines.And the sheriff of Johnson County in Kansas, which includes suburbs of Kansas City and is the most populous county in the state, has said he is broadly investigating the county’s 2020 election. At a recent meeting with election officials, he questioned their procedures and integrity, according to a written account from the county’s top lawyer, who sent him a letter expressing concern that he was interfering in election matters.The Johnson County sheriff, Calvin Hayden, said in an interview that sheriffs faced a learning curve.“We don’t know anything about elections,” he said. “We’re cops. We have to educate ourselves on the system, which takes a long, long time.”More From Democracy ChallengedRight-Wing Radio Disinformation: Conservative commentators falsely claim that “Democrats cheat” to win elections, contributing to the belief that the midterm results cannot be trusted.Jan. 6 Timeline: We pieced together President Donald J. Trump’s monthslong campaign to subvert American democracy and cling to power.The Far-Right Christian Push: A new wave of U.S. politicians is mixing religious fervor with conspiracy theories, even calling for the end of the separation of church and state.A Cautionary Tale on Democracy: A New Hampshire man pushed through a drastic budget change in his “Live Free or Die” town, angering the community — and jolting it out of indifference.Hatching election plans in Las VegasThe three sheriffs gathered with a few hundred others at a forum this month in Las Vegas hosted by the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association.Attendees included leaders of True the Vote, a group whose work spreading discredited theories of mass voter fraud inspired the conspiratorial film “2000 Mules”; Mike Lindell, the Trump ally and MyPillow chief executive; and other prominent figures in the 2020 election-denial movement.Speakers urged more sheriffs to open investigations of the 2020 election, which they compared to a rigged sporting event, presenting evidence that rehashed long-disproved theories. One speaker said the way that betting odds had changed on election night constituted proof of a stolen election.Some of the arguments centered on the premise of “2000 Mules”: that an army of left-wing operatives wrongfully flooded drop boxes with absentee ballots in 2020. Many, including William P. Barr, Mr. Trump’s former attorney general and Georgia state officials, have pointed to major flaws in the supposed findings and the flimsy evidence presented.Still, Richard Mack, the founder of the constitutional sheriffs association, said the accusations made in “2000 Mules,” which was released in May, were a “smoking gun” and had persuaded him to make election issues his group’s top priority.Mr. Lindell said in an interview that he and his team had offered the three sheriffs “all of our resources,” including computer experts and data on voters, but that he had made no financial commitments.Mr. Mack speaking at FreedomFest. He said in an interview that accusations of voter fraud made in the conspiratorial film “2000 Mules” were a “smoking gun.”Alexandra Berzon/The New York TimesThe Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which was formally founded about a decade ago by Mr. Mack, is dedicated to the theory that sheriffs are beholden only to the Constitution and serve as the ultimate authority in a county — above local, state and federal officials and statutes. The group, whose leaders have promoted Christian ideology in government, has been active in supporting fights against gun control laws, immigration laws and federal land management.Protect America Now, founded by Sheriff Mark Lamb of Pinal County, Ariz., and Republican operatives, was announced shortly after the 2020 election. Its principles closely align with many of the constitutional sheriffs association’s, but it has employed more traditional political methods such as running ads.Attempts to interview Mr. Lamb, who has not announced local investigations into election issues, were unsuccessful. Discussing his partnership with True the Vote at a Trump rally in Arizona on Friday, he said sheriffs would do more to hold people accountable for violating election laws. “We will not let happen what happened in 2020,” he said.For conservative activists focused on voter fraud, an alliance with law enforcement seemed natural.True the Vote initially approached state and federal law enforcement agencies with its election claims, but did not provide sufficient evidence to warrant an investigation, officials said.In partnership with Protect America Now, the group has now raised $100,000 toward a goal of $1 million for grants to sheriffs for more video surveillance and a hotline to distribute citizen tips.True the Vote’s executive director, Catherine Engelbrecht, said in a speech at the Las Vegas event that in sheriffs, she had found a receptive audience for her claims.“It’s the sheriffs,” she said. “That’s who we can trust.”A troubled history of law enforcement at the pollsSome conservative activists have also floated the idea of increasing the presence of sheriffs wherever ballots are cast, counted and transported, echoing a proposal by Mr. Trump in 2020 that didn’t gain steam.Deputizing volunteers could even be an option, said Sam Bushman, the national operations director for the constitutional sheriffs association.Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for secretary of state of Nevada and an attendee in Las Vegas, said that if elected, he would try to “bring sheriffs back in” to the election process.“The deputies are going to be there at the locations to watch for any anomaly,” he said in an interview.Jim Marchant, the Republican nominee for secretary of state in Nevada, said he would like to involve sheriffs in the election process.John Locher/Associated PressFor voting rights groups, the potential presence of law enforcement officers at polling locations evokes a darker period in American democracy, when the police were weaponized to suppress turnout by people of color.Because of this history, state and federal protections limit what law enforcement can do. In California and Pennsylvania, for example, it is a crime for officers to show up at the polls if they have not been called by an election official. In other states, including Flor­ida, North Caro­lina, Ohio and Wiscon­sin, officers must obey local elec­tion offi­cials at the polls, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.Sheriffs interviewed at the Las Vegas event said they were aware of such restrictions and did not want to impede voting. The Barry County, Mich., sheriff, Dar Leaf, said he was more focused on 2020 rather than looking ahead. Others, like Mr. Hayden, said they were considering increased video surveillance of drop boxes.Mr. Mack said, “I don’t think any sheriff is trying to intimidate people not to vote.”Some sheriffs from rural Trump-voting counties said they hadn’t observed major problems to fix in their own counties but supported more sheriff involvement overall. Richard Vaughn, a sheriff in rural Grayson County in Virginia, said he wanted officers to be involved in observing vote counts, and would support election investigations “in areas where there are allegations.” “A lot of people are losing confidence,” he added.Wide-ranging investigative scrutinyElection experts say the activities of the three sheriffs already raise concerns.Sheriff Hayden of Johnson County, Kan., said he had started investigating elections after receiving 200 citizen complaints.He is scrutinizing “ballot stuffing,” “machines” and “all of the issues you hear of nationally,” he said in an interview. Asked what he meant by ballot stuffing, he described the practice of delivering absentee ballots on behalf of other voters. (During the 2020 election, Kansas did not have a law regarding that practice; last year, it passed legislation allowing people to return no more than 10 ballots from other voters.)Mr. Hayden said in a statement that he disagreed with the county lawyer’s depiction of his meeting with election officials and that he was treating the elections work like any other investigation.“Our citizens want to have, and deserve to have, confidence in their local elections,” he said.Election workers sorting mail ballot applications in Olathe, Kan., in 2020. The sheriff of Johnson County, which includes Olathe, has said he is investigating elections.Charlie Riedel/Associated PressMr. Leaf has led an effort to try to investigate voting machines.Emails obtained last year from his department by the news site Bridge Michigan showed that a lawyer identifying Mr. Leaf as his client had communicated about seizing machines with Trump allies who were trying to prove 2020 election conspiracy theories.In December 2020, Mr. Leaf met with a cybersecurity specialist — who was part of the Trump allies’ network — to discuss voting machine concerns, Mr. Leaf said in an interview.Mr. Leaf said he had also been provided with a private investigator for election matters by another lawyer of his, who previously helped Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump, bring a conspiratorial lawsuit seeking to overturn Michigan’s 2020 results.At one point, someone connected to Mr. Leaf’s investigation gained access to a voting tabulator, according to state police records. State authorities intervened and began investigating Mr. Leaf’s office.Over 18 months, Mr. Leaf’s investigative efforts have changed focus several times, and he has had three search warrant requests rejected for lack of evidence, Julie A. Nakfoor Pratt, the county’s top prosecutor, said in an interview.Mr. Leaf said in a statement, “I took an oath and obligation as sheriff to investigate all potential crimes reported to my office, including election law violations.”In Wisconsin, Mr. Schmaling has tried to charge statewide election officials with violating the law by temporarily suspending election oversight work in nursing homes.Those officials, who serve on the Wisconsin Elections Commission, the state’s bipartisan arbiter of election matters, voted for the suspension in March 2020, as the pandemic was first raging. After investigating a complaint in November 2021, Mr. Schmaling said he had found eight instances of potential fraud.No fraud charges were filed in any of the cases.But in November, Mr. Schmaling issued criminal referrals for five of the six members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, recommending that the district attorneys in the counties where they live charge them with crimes including felonies.Three of the district attorneys have dismissed the referrals; two have not yet made a decision.Mr. Schmaling, who said his nursing home inquiry took up hundreds of hours, described his decisions as routine. “The bigger picture for me is we exposed something that was wrong, something illegal,” he said. “My goal is to make certain that the law is followed.”But others involved said the actions were an overreach of power.“The idea that the solution for an election whose results you didn’t like is, after the fact, to threaten criminal charges for that public work of a government official is shocking,” said Ann Jacobs, the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, who faced a criminal referral. “It is chilling. It is the antithesis of how democracy works.” More

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      Mail Ballots Are at Issue as States Consider New Rules and Legal Action

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      As the nation prepares for yet another pandemic election, the rules for voting by mail remain a flash point in many states, a conflict that is being waged in courtrooms and state houses over Republican-backed restrictions.Here’s what happened this week:In North Carolina, the State Board of Elections rejected a signature-matching requirement for absentee ballots that was proposed by the state Republican Party. The measure, denied by a party-line vote on Thursday, would have let counties compare signatures on applications and return envelopes for absentee ballots with those on voter registration cards.The board’s three Democrats said that the verification method would conflict with state law and would contribute to voters being treated differently, which they cautioned would be unconstitutional. The panel’s two G.O.P. members contended that checking signatures “simply builds trust in the system.”North Carolina is not the only battleground state where Republicans and Democrats are clashing over mail-in ballots.Pennsylvania’s top election official, Leigh M. Chapman, a Democrat who is the acting secretary of the commonwealth, sued three counties on Tuesday over their refusal to include undated mail-in ballots in their official tallies from the May 7 primaries.A state court had directed counties in June to report two sets of tallies to Ms. Chapman’s office, one that included ballots without dates handwritten on their return envelopes as required by law and one that did not.The three counties — Berks, Fayette and Lancaster, which are controlled by Republicans — have prevented the state from completing its final certification of the primary results, state elections officials said.The lack of dates on ballot envelopes was a point of contention in the Republican Senate primary that was narrowly won by Dr. Mehmet Oz over David McCormick. Disputes over such ballots have resulted in legal action in state and federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.The conflict over mail-in voting is not limited to purple or red states.In deep-blue Massachusetts, the Supreme Judicial Court on Monday denied a lawsuit filed by the state Republican Party that had sought to block no-excuse mail-in voting from becoming permanent.The party had argued that voting by mail, made popular during the pandemic and codified as part of a law signed last month by Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican, is unconstitutional.The court’s order in Massachusetts was not the only setback this week for Republicans.In Texas, a lawsuit challenging voting restrictions that were enacted in 2021 was for the most part allowed on Tuesday to move forward by a federal court judge in San Antonio.The secretary of state and state attorney general, offices held by Republicans, had sought to dismiss the legal action by several voting rights groups.The restrictions forbade balloting methods introduced in 2020 to make voting easier during the pandemic, including drive-through polling places and 24-hour voting. They also barred election officials from sending voters unsolicited absentee-ballot applications and from promoting the use of vote by mail.Voters must now provide their driver’s license number or the last four digits of their Social Security number on applications for mail-in ballots and on return envelopes. More

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      Trump: A Brat, but Not a Child

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      “President Trump is a 76-year-old man. He is not an impressionable child. Just like everyone else in our country, he is responsible for his own actions and his own choices.”Those were the words of Representative Liz Cheney on Tuesday in her opening statement at the Jan. 6 House select committee’s seventh hearing, as she swatted away what she said was a new strategy among Donald Trump’s defenders: claiming that he was manipulated by outside advisers and therefore “incapable of telling right from wrong.”Basically, Trump lied about the election because he was lied to about the election.But, as Cheney pointed out, Trump actively chose the counsel of “the crazies” over that of authorities, and therefore cannot, or at least should not, “escape responsibility by being willfully blind.”Willful blindness is a self-imposed ignorance, but as Thomas Jefferson put it: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse, in any country. If it were, the laws would lose their effect because it can always be pretended.”If Trump is a pro at anything, it is pretending. He is a brat, but he’s not a child.Cheney’s argument immediately recalled for me the case of Pamela Moses, a Black woman and activist in Memphis.In 2019, Moses wanted to register to vote. A judge told her that she couldn’t because she was still on felony probation.So Moses turned to another, lower authority — a probation officer — for a second opinion. The probation officer calculated (incorrectly, as it turns out) that her probation had ended and signed a certificate to that effect. Moses submitted the certificate with her voter registration form.The local district attorney later pressed criminal charges against Moses, arguing that she should have known she was ineligible to vote because the judge, the person with the most authority in the equation, had told her so.Moses was convicted of voter fraud and sentenced to six years and a day in prison, with the judge saying, “You tricked the probation department into giving you documents saying you were off probation.”How is this materially different from what Trump did as he attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election? All the authorities — Bill Barr, head of the Department of Justice; White House lawyers; and state election officials — told him he had lost the election, but he sought other opinions, ones that confirmed his own view.This is not to say that the prosecution and conviction of Moses were justified, but rather to illustrate that we live in two different criminal justice realities: People without power, particularly minorities and those unable to pay expensive lawyers, are trapped in a ruthless and unyielding system, while the rich and powerful encounter an entirely different system, one cautious to the point of cowardice.Earlier this year, Moses’ conviction was thrown out because a judge ruled that the Tennessee Department of Correction had withheld evidence, and the prosecutor dropped all criminal charges against her.Still, by the time the ordeal was over, Moses had spent 82 days in custody, time she couldn’t get back, and she is now permanently barred from registering to vote or voting in the state.This is the least of the consequences Trump ought to face: He should be prohibited from participating in the electoral process henceforth.Some of the laws Trump may have broken in his crusade to overturn the election — like conspiracy to defraud the government — are more complicated than an illegal voter registration, but that is par for the course in a system that tilts in favor of the rich and powerful. Petty crime is always easier to prosecute than white-collar crime.This is a country in which the Internal Revenue Service audits poor families — households with less than $25,000 in annual income — at a rate five times higher than it audits everybody else, a Syracuse University analysis found.The way we target people for punishment in this country is rarely about a pursuit of justice and fairness; it simply reflects the reality that the vise squeezes hardest at the points of least resistance.The fact that Trump has thus far faced few legal repercussions for his many transgressions eats away at people’s faith.I believe this has contributed to our cratering confidence in American institutions, as measured by a recent Gallup poll. There are many factors undermining the faith Americans once had in their institutions, to be sure, but I believe a justice system rife with injustice is one of the main ones. In the poll, only 4 percent of Americans had a great deal of confidence in the criminal justice system.The only institution that did worse on that metric was Congress, with just 2 percent.We have a criminal justice crisis in this country, and people are portraying Trump’s behavior like that of a child in hopes of keeping him from facing consequences in a country that jails actual children.According to the Child Crime Prevention and Safety Center, “Approximately 10,000 minors under the age of 18 are housed in jails and prisons intended for adult offenders, and juveniles make up 1,200 of the 1.5 million people imprisoned in state and federal detention facilities.”There is no excuse for what Trump has done, and if he is not held accountable for it, even more faith in the United States as a “country of laws” will be lost.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 and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and Instagram. More

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      Black Church Leaders in Georgia Intensify Their Voting Rights Push

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      Good evening. Tonight we have some news from Georgia courtesy of our colleague Nick Corasaniti, who reports on a voting rights project by Black religious leaders.In the months leading up to the 2020 election, Bishop Reginald Jackson undertook an expansive get-out-the-vote operation for the 534 African Methodist Episcopal churches he oversees in Georgia, holding registration drives, voter education programs and efforts for coordinated Sunday voting.That work appeared to pay off: Strong Black voter turnout helped power the victories of Joe Biden, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff in Georgia.But now, after Georgia Republicans passed an extensive law last year with a variety of balloting restrictions, Jackson and other Black faith leaders across the state worry that they need to do more to help Black Georgians exercise their right to vote.So this week, more than a dozen of these faith leaders are starting Faith Works, a project with an initial budget of $2.6 million that will seek to organize voting operations across more than 1,000 churches in Georgia.The enterprise is a first for Black churches in Georgia, leaders say, with a formal fund-raising and operations center that will bridge different regions and denominations. Informally, the leaders call themselves “the Faith Avengers.”The initiative, which will be housed in a 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization founded by the church leaders called Transforming Georgia, will offer small grants to churches to help customize get-out-the-vote operations, begin a social media advertising campaign, coordinate faith leaders’ messages on voting and build partnerships with other voting rights organizations, which are numerous across Georgia and have large national followings.“Faith leaders across the state worked ourselves to a frenzy to make sure we got out the vote in 2020,” Jackson said. “We have to work doubly hard to overcome the barriers put in place now for the 2022 election.”In Georgia’s primary elections in May, turnout surged past previous milestones, setting off a fresh debate over the impact of the voting law, which had largely been untested. Among other provisions, the law instituted strict new identification requirements for absentee ballots, limited drop boxes and expanded the Legislature’s power over elections.Bishop Reginald Jackson said, “We have to work doubly hard to overcome the barriers put in place now for the 2022 election.”Matthew Odom for The New York TimesBut Jackson and other civil rights leaders remain fearful that the primary election was not necessarily an accurate test of the law, and that the legislation’s provisions could still make voting harder in their communities.Their new voting push builds on a long history of civic activism in Black churches, especially in both fighting to protect the right to vote and ensuring that members exercise that right.Voting after Sunday church services, often known as “souls to the polls,” is a tradition going back decades in Black communities across the country, and church leaders in Florida and Virginia began to organize such efforts more formally in 1998.The Rev. Timothy McDonald, a Baptist minister in Atlanta who was one of the original national organizers of “souls to the polls,” said he viewed Georgia’s new voting law as a call to arms.“We’ve been at this for over 40, almost 50 years, going back to when I served as the full-time assistant pastor of Dr. King’s church, Ebenezer,” he said, referring to the historic Atlanta church once led by Martin Luther King Jr., where Warnock is now pastor. “We were fighting the same battles.”Much of Faith Works’s initial focus will be on the program of grants for churches, which could pay for things like buses for “souls to the polls” efforts, call lists and phones for phone-banking operations or mailers to members.Church leaders will also hold voter education programs, coupled with a social media advertising campaign, to make sure voters know about their rights under state law, and how to work through potential confusion or challenges stemming from the new legislation.The leaders of Faith Works have also hosted town-hall meetings with key national voting rights figures, joined by hundreds of pastors from across Georgia. On Thursday, more than 350 joined a call to discuss voting rights with Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s civil rights division. The leaders have also met with Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, and Cedric Richmond, a former senior Biden adviser.The goal, leaders say, is to leverage the trust and influence of the Black church in key communities, especially in rural areas where turning out first-time and infrequent voters can be a challenge for national groups.“Let’s be clear: People will trust their pastors,” said the Rev. Lee May, a pastor from outside Atlanta. “They trust their churches, and we want to really utilize that and helping to get people to turn out to vote.”What to readGov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a favorite of Republicans who want to move on from Donald Trump, is usually an avid partisan warrior. But as the leader of a state where a majority of voters want to keep most abortions legal, he’s being far more cautious on that issue, Maggie Haberman, Patricia Mazzei and Michael Bender write.Another dramatic hearing of the Jan. 6 committee unfolded on Tuesday, with the panel sharing texts from within Trump’s inner circle expressing disgust with the president’s actions, along with unsent tweets that may alter the narrative of just how planned the events at the Capitol might have been. Catch up with our live coverage here.By most measures — with one glaring exception — people around the world are better off than ever. So why doesn’t it feel that way, especially to Americans? In his Interpreter column, Max Fisher explores.“This is how we all feel about politics right now”: Read the story of a teenage boy’s submission for a New York county’s “I voted” sticker design contest. His sticker:Ulster County Board of Elections— BlakeIs 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