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      A 50-Mile Art Road Trip Celebrates the Culture in Agriculture

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      It’s not every day that lifelong Wisconsin farmers take time out during the frenetic harvest season to do pirouettes and turns in their tractors like so many John Deere Baryshnikovs.“The Hay Rake Ballet” in an alfalfa field — set to opera music in front of a rapt crowd who oohed and aahed at every lift of the rakes used to move hay into rows — was a hit of the Farm/Art DTour, a 10-day, 50-mile self-guided driving tour of large-scale art installations and “pasture performances” along the pristine, hilly back roads of rural Sauk County, Wis.“The Hay Rake Ballet,” choreographed by Sarah Butler.Held every other October, the DTour draws more than 20,000 “D-Tourists” from Madison, Milwaukee and beyond. They come to soak up art in surprising contexts — a screaming pink abstract deer blind hoisted above a corn field, for instance, or a plucky dragon concealing a 250-foot-long irrigation system.“I think it’s neat that urban people get a kick out of what we see every day,” said Andy Enge, a dairy farmer and a star of the ballet, in which three tractors twirled around each other in a pas de trois.His 93-year-old father, Maurice, saw it differently. “If a man drove like that out in the hayfields, I’d fire them!” he said.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘The law is clear’: US states signal willingness to prosecute election crimes

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      Some US states are sending strong signals to county and local officials who might be tempted to intervene illegally in the 5 November election or refuse to certify results: fail to do your duty and risk criminal charges or hefty financial penalties.In at least five of the seven battleground states that could determine whether the next US president is Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump, top election and law enforcement officials have investigated, indicted and even jailed officials who tried to interfere with the vote or delay certification of results, a necessary but largely ceremonial step.County officials have also been warned that failing to certify results on time could force their local governments to foot the bill for unnecessary audits or recounts.The increased oversight of local election officials is aimed at preventing unfounded claims of fraud from slowing the certification of election results, which in turn could interfere with Congress’s certification of the presidential election results in a highly charged partisan atmosphere.Four years after Trump tried to overturn his 2020 defeat, officials in the swing states of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as in solidly Democratic Colorado, said they have become far more adept at handling those who overstep their authority, even with Trump still repeating false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that he will lose in November only through fraud.States that fail to certify results by certain deadlines could be left out of the state-by-state electoral college process that formally determines the winners of US presidential elections.“The law is clear and we won’t tolerate anyone not following it for any reason,” Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said in an interview. “There are times and places for challenging election results. The certification process is not one of them.”In this high-stakes election, the biggest of the swing states, Pennsylvania, has already overruled a county official, the Luzerne county manager, Romilda Crocamo, who tried to prevent the use in her district of drop boxes, where early voters can deposit their mail-in ballots.

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      The state attorney general, Michelle Henry, a former Republican appointed to her role last year by the state’s Democratic governor, said in an interview that her office would enforce election laws.“Should anyone not comply with the statutes, we will investigate that and there will be consequences … There’s both criminal and civil actions that could be taken to maintain the integrity of the process.”In Wisconsin, the criminal division of the state justice department is investigating Wausau’s mayor, Doug Diny, for removing a locked, empty drop box from outside city hall in September. Diny, a non-partisan conservative backed by Republicans, told reporters at the time that he did not feel the box was secure where the city clerk had placed it.The Wisconsin attorney general, Josh Kaul, a Democrat, also said his office would enforce election laws.“It’s our expectation that election officials will follow the law,” Kaul said in an interview. “But if we receive concerns that that won’t be the case, we’re prepared to act.”In Michigan’s Macomb county, where Republicans unsuccessfully sued to overturn the 2020 election results, three assistant clerks in the city of St Clair Shores face felony charges for allegedly allowing four residents to vote twice in the state’s 6 August congressional and state primary election.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMichigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, a Democrat, filed charges punishable by up to five years in prison against all seven.“Despite common talking points by those who seek to instill doubt in our election process, double voting in Michigan is extremely rare,” Nessel said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the fact that four incidents occurred in a municipality of this size raised significant concerns.“Michigan election laws were tightened in the aftermath of the 2020 vote.Delta county canvass board members Bonnie Hakkola and LeeAnne Oman, both Republicans, voted against certification of a local recall election on 14 May, after seeing nearly identical voting margins in three different races.State authorities responded two days later, with a stern letter. The two individuals ultimately resigned. The results were certified.Meanwhile, two Republican officials from Arizona’s Cochise county face felony election interference charges, alleging they delayed the canvass of votes in the 2022 elections.And in Nevada, the secretary of state, attorney general and a district attorney intervened recently to swiftly resolve an impasse over a county’s certification of a primary election’s results.In Colorado, in one of the starkest examples, a Republican former Mesa county clerk, Tina Peters, was sentenced to nine years in prison this month, after being convicted of illegally tampering with voting machines in 2020. More

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      ‘Malicious’ texts sent to Wisconsin youths to discourage them from voting

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      The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin has called on the Department of Justice to investigate text messages they say targeted and threatened to discourage young people from voting in the November election.The League of Women Voters says it initially learned of the alleged text campaign on 10 October, when the group received numerous complaints from voters who had received the text. Two people in their 20s who work with the League of Women Voters also received the message, which reads: “WARNING: Violating WI Statutes 12.13 & 6.18 may result in fines up to $10,000 or 3.5 years in prison. Don’t vote in a state where you’re not eligible.” The rules governing voter eligibility for college students are no different than for any other Wisconsin residents, who are required to have lived at their current address for at least 28 days before the election to vote there.Some Republican-controlled states have sought to clamp down on student voting, drafting legislation to restrict the use of student identification cards as a form of voter ID and close campus polling places. Most lawmakers justify the measures as a means of preventing voter fraud. Others have openly complained that voting is too easy for college students – who tend to favor Democratic party candidates.“They basically put the polling place next to the student dorm so they just have to roll out of bed, vote, and go back to bed,” Trump’s former attorney Cleta Mitchell told donors at a retreat in April 2023. During the meeting Mitchell reportedly emphasized the importance of limiting campus voting.In Wisconsin, Republican lawmakers proposed a bill in 2024 that would have required University of Wisconsin campuses to provide information to students on how to vote from their home state.Debra Cronmiller, the executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, said she hoped for “some accountability for trying to intimidate these voters” and that the apparent mass text was unusual.

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      “We have been planning as voting rights organizations, as national organizations, for many, many different scenarios of things that could disrupt our election,” said Cronmiller. “I think because we were as prepared as we were, is why we could respond so very quickly to this particular threat.”In their letter to the attorney general, Merrick Garland, the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin and the non-profit organization Free Speech for People claimed that the text message had “targeted young voters aged 18-25” and “reached many voters who are part of the University of Wisconsin system”. Now, the letter alleges, “many students and other young voters are fearful that they will face criminal prosecution if they register and exercise their right to vote – because of a malicious, inaccurate text sent by an anonymous party.”The groups asked the attorney general’s office to investigate and publicize the person or group behind the text messages. More

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      Harris Campaign to Fly Ads Over N.F.L. Games in Swing States

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      As the Harris campaign continues to court male voters, it is dialing up a deep shot, targeting a venue where it thinks it will reach quite a few of them: professional football.The campaign is spending six figures on flyover advertisements knocking former President Donald J. Trump and promoting Vice President Kamala Harris at four N.F.L. games that are taking place on Sunday in swing states, with teams in those matchups collectively accounting for six of the seven main presidential battlegrounds.The four games are in Wisconsin, where the Green Bay Packers will host the Arizona Cardinals; Nevada, where the Las Vegas Raiders will host the Pittsburgh Steelers; North Carolina, where the Carolina Panthers will host the Atlanta Falcons; and Pennsylvania, where the Philadelphia Eagles will host the Cleveland Browns. (Michigan is the only swing state left out, with its Detroit Lions playing in Dallas on Sunday.)In Las Vegas, fans will see skytyping planes fly over the stadium to draw a simple message in white: “Vote Kamala.” In the other venues, a plane with a banner will deliver a slightly longer plea: “Sack Trump’s Project 2025! Vote Kamala!” In Philadelphia, that message will include a nod to the home team: “Go Birds!”The campaign is part of an effort to attract hard-to-reach voters, especially men, said Abhi Rahman, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.“Our goal is to meet people where they are, and there is only a sliver of the electorate that is still undecided,” Mr. Rahman said. “What we know about these undecided people — majority male — is they don’t like to read political publications. They aren’t in the 24-7 world of policy and politics, so what we are trying to do is reach them in a different way.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Lawyers Should Not Assist Trump in a Potential Power Grab

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      As the presidential campaign begins its final sprint, Donald Trump has made crystal clear how he will respond if he loses. He will refuse to accept the results; he will make baseless claims of voter fraud; and he will turn, with even more ferocity than he did in 2020, to the courts to save him.Mr. Trump has made clear that he views any election he loses — no matter how close or fair — as by definition illegitimate. The question then is whether there will be lawyers willing to cloak this insistence in the language of legal reasoning and therefore to assist him in litigating his way back to the White House.Republican lawyers have already unleashed lawsuits ahead of Election Day. These legal partisans have pursued their efforts across the country but have concentrated on swing states and key counties. The moves are clearly intended to lay the groundwork for Mr. Trump’s post-election efforts in states where the margins of victory are close.Such post-election efforts will be credible only if credible attorneys sign on to mount them. So it is critical that lawyers of conscience refuse to assist in those endeavors. As Mr. Trump’s rhetoric grows ever more vengeful and openly authoritarian, a great deal turns on the willingness of members of the legal profession to make common cause with him.At least since 2000, every close presidential election has involved recounts or litigation. Both sides lawyer up, and a high-stakes game of inches ensues.Although the lawyers engaged in those efforts are playing hardball, their work is predicated on a shared set of premises: In elections, the candidate who gets the most votes prevails (whether that means winning state or federal office or winning a state’s electoral votes). And in a close election, skilled lawyers will seek to develop legal arguments that determine which votes count, and therefore who emerges as the winner.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Harris Says She Would Form Bipartisan Council of Advisers

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      As Vice President Kamala Harris has sought to stake out ground in the political center that might appeal to swing voters, she has campaigned with former Representative Liz Cheney, the Wyoming Republican, and pledged to appoint a Republican to her cabinet if elected. Ms. Harris added to that strategy while visiting the battleground state of Arizona on Friday, saying she would convene a bipartisan council of advisers on policy if she wins the White House.At a campaign event geared toward Republican supporters in Scottsdale, Ariz., Ms. Harris said the council would be an attempt to “put some structure” around policy discussions that reach across the aisle.“Wherever they come from, I love good ideas,” she said at the Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale. “We have to have a healthy two-party system.”The bipartisan council proposal is the latest effort by the Harris campaign to court Republican voters disaffected with former President Donald J. Trump. It also dovetails with the vice president’s attempts to counter her image as a California liberal. She has sought to move away from some of the progressive positions she took during her 2020 presidential run.On Friday, Ms. Harris argued that the council was in the “best interest” of all Americans because of the constructive feedback it would inspire.Ms. Harris has secured high-profile endorsements from conservative Trump critics — including from more than 100 former G.O.P. officials. The campaign has a newsletter and holds events under the banner of Republicans for Harris.The vice president has also campaigned in areas Democrats do not traditionally visit. Last week, she held a campaign event in Ripon, Wis., the birthplace of the G.O.P. She stood with Ms. Cheney, a conservative Republican and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, as Ms. Cheney declared that it was “our duty” to reject Mr. Trump and vote for Ms. Harris. More

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      Wisconsin Senate race tightens as rival attacks Baldwin over LGBTQ+ support

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      As the race between the Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin and her Republican challenger, Eric Hovde, tightens, the Hovde campaign and outside groups supporting the candidate have ramped up efforts to tie Baldwin to funding for LGBTQ+ care for youth – echoing the anxieties and biases of the rightwing “parental rights” movement.According to the non-partisan campaign analysis group Cook Political Report, the race between Hovde and Baldwin – in which Baldwin previously enjoyed an ample lead – is now a toss-up. Internal polling reportedly reflects that trend. The race in Wisconsin is one of a handful that could determine control of the Senate next year.A recent ad by the Senate Leadership Fund, a Super Pac that seeks to elect Republicans to the Senate, claims that “Baldwin supported providing puberty blockers and sex change surgeries to minor children”. Another ad, by the Hovde campaign, alleges Baldwin “ensured hundreds of thousands of our tax dollars went to a Madison nonprofit that pushes an aggressive LGBTQ agenda on kids”.The first advertisement, which claims Baldwin vowed support for “sex change surgeries” for minors on 4 October, 2023, appears to be referring to a post that Baldwin made on that date in support of Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’ decision to veto a GOP-backed bill that would have banned gender-affirming care for minors in Wisconsin.Baldwin’s full post reads: “Trans kids deserve to feel safe and welcome in Wisconsin, not discriminated against. They deserve the freedom to just be kids, play sports, and get the health care they need, all without politicians butting in. Thanks for standing up for LGBTQ+ kids, @GovEvers.”Research consistently indicates that gender-affirming healthcare, including puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, can be lifesaving for youth experiencing gender dysphoria – a condition that many trans people experience and that is associated with depression and even suicide. In Wisconsin, healthcare providers who offer gender-affirming care to minors do so only with parental consent and do not perform genital surgeries on minors.The second advertisement, alleging she helped fund a non-profit promoting an “aggressive LGBTQ agenda”, refers to federal dollars Baldwin earmarked for Briarpatch Youth Services, an organization that supports at-risk and homeless youth – and provides some programming for LGBTQ+ youth.In a September episode of the Vicki McKenna Show, a rightwing talk radio program in Wisconsin, Hovde falsely claimed that Baldwin had given taxpayer money “to a transgender clinic”, apparently in reference to her Briarpatch donation.“Briarpatch Youth Services deals with some of the most difficult situations facing youth, including youth homelessness,” wrote Jill Pfeiffer, executive director of Briarpatch, in an email. “Regardless of political talking points, we continue to focus on strengthening our community by making sure youth facing hardships have access to voluntary resources and services they need to flourish and succeed.”Although the number of transgender people in the United States has not changed significantly over time, with roughly 1% of youth aged 13-17 identifying as trans, the minority group has nonetheless faced increasing scrutiny and attacks in recent years. Anti-trans sentiment has dovetailed with the rise of the so-called “parental rights” movement, which seeks to limit discussions of issues like race, gender and sexuality in the classroom.In a statement, a Hovde campaign spokesperson, Zach Bannon, wrote that Hovde “believes any effort to push conversations about sexuality and gender identity on kids without parental knowledge is just plain wrong and taxpayer dollars should not be supporting those programs”, in reference to Briarpatch’s confidential support group for LGBTQ+ youth.This year Democrats, who narrowly control the Senate, face an unfavorable map – with sitting senators in places including West Virginia, Ohio and Montana defending seats in deep red jurisdictions. The Wisconsin race, which has narrowed in recent weeks, forms a critical piece of the puzzle.Arik Wolk, the Democratic party of Wisconsin’s Rapid Response Director, called the ads “a pretty desperate and disgusting attack that is mainly designed to detract from Eric Hovde’s record and unpopularity with the people of Wisconsin”. Wolk also pointed to a Hovde ad that draws attention to Baldwin’s partner Maria Brisbane’s work as a financial adviser and alleges Baldwin is “in bed with Wall Street” as an example of the Hovde campaign highlighting Baldwin’s identity as a gay woman. “Wisconsinites have made it clear that they support Tammy Baldwin, regardless of her sexual identity,” said Wolk.Bannon, the Hovde campaign spokesman, disputed this characterization in a statement – calling it an “effort to distract from the facts of this conflict of interest” and “a disservice to the people of Wisconsin who deserve transparency”. More

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      Liz Cheney Campaigns With Harris and Calls on Her Party to Reject Trump

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      It was an exercise in unsubtle and unlikely campaign optics: a Democratic vice president who is running for the presidency. A Republican former congresswoman who is the daughter of a staunchly conservative vice president. A small city known as the birthplace of the Republican Party in the middle of a battleground state.On Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris and former Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the most prominent Republican to endorse her campaign, traveled to Ripon in central Wisconsin where meetings in 1854 helped form the Republican Party. Just a mile away from a one-room schoolhouse where those gatherings were held, the pair tore into former President Donald J. Trump for his role in igniting a riot at the Capitol, and they warned of the threat he poses to democracy should he return to power.Ms. Cheney said that, in November, putting patriotism ahead of partisanship should not merely be an aspiration — “it is our duty.”Her remarks, delivered with an air of somber restraint, were as much a public indictment of Mr. Trump as they were an endorsement of Ms. Harris. Calling his candidacy “a threat unlike any we have faced before,” she called on conservatives to join her in an “urgent cause” to elect Ms. Harris and to reject what she called the former president’s “depraved cruelty.”“I know that she will be a president who will defend the rule of law,” Ms. Cheney said of Ms. Harris, “and I know that she will be a president who can inspire all of our children and, if I might say so, especially our little girls.”The joint appearance was one of the starkest examples to date of how Ms. Harris has endeavored to pitch herself as a unifying president who values pragmatism over partisanship. Her overarching goal is to win over moderate and independent voters who will be crucial to delivering her a decisive victory.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More