The Virginia Military Institute (VMI) hired its first Black superintendent shortly after Governor Ralph Northam allotted $1 million to investigate allegations of systemic racism there. VMI announced the appointment of retired U.S. Army Major General Cedric T. Wins on Friday.
Wins will serve as the interim superintendent at VMI – he is also a 1985 graduate. In his remarks on accepting the interim position with VMI, Wins only had positive words for the institution’s history.
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At a second Nashville-based “Stop the Steal” rally, hundreds of Trump supporters descended on the Tennessee State Capitol grounds downtown. Every person wore the hallmark shade of MAGA red. American flags waved alongside deep blue “Trump 2020” or “Keep America Great” flags. Cars decked out with patriotic and pro-Trump flags, stickers, and signs looped the capitol, blaring their horns as they passed. Some wore masks while others chose not to.
All throughout the event, the crowd would chorus chants of “Stop the steal!”, “We love Trump!”, or “Four more years!” Despite the reason behind the rally, the atmosphere was cheerful and confident. The organizers would pause between scheduled speakers to announce they’d found a lost license, or to hand out free copies of the Constitution to teenagers in attendance.
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A current narrative dominating mainstream media and many top Democratic officials is the total absence of voter fraud. Every top outlet or public figure mirrors the next in language. Reports are swept aside as “false or misleading,” and statements from various secretaries of state and county registrars are cited as proof that no fraud occurred.
The talking points in this election that argue against the possibility of voter fraud aren’t new, or even original. Especially in Virginia.
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Shortly before the Georgia ballot audit began, uproar broke out over the limited amount of monitors overseeing the process and omission of absentee ballot signature matching.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced a Risk Limiting Audit (RLA) on Wednesday. The audit consisted of a hand recount beginning Friday.
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The Trump campaign hosted a surrogate briefing call Thursday with updates on litigation, mostly concerning Pennsylvania. As in the previous call, the speakers reiterated that these legal proceedings take time to form and execute.
Speakers included Director of Battleground Strategy Nick Trainer, Director of Communications Tim Murtaugh, Deputy Campaign Manager Justin Clark, and Campaign Counsel Matt Morgan.
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According to a press release, Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has confirmed about 12,000 incident reports and over 400 affidavits filed concerning potential voter fraud.
McDaniel appeared on Fox Business to provide the brief update. The chairwoman shared that the campaign has issued nine lawsuits currently nationwide.Â
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Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) launched a website, “Radical Raphael,” detailing her Democratic opponent Raphael Warnock’s policies and past. The homepage has a picture of Warnock, titled “Raphael Warnock: The Most Radical and Dangerous Candidate in America.”
The website is a hint of the contentious general election runoff between the two.Â
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The Norfolk 2nd Amendment Preservation Coalition achieved all necessary signatures required to have the city council review its petition. This followed last Friday’s court decision to award the coalition as much time necessary to gather signatures.
“We think a decision like this is too important to let seven partisan city council members decide,” Republican Party of Norfolk Chairman and Norfolk 2nd Amendment Preservation Coalition Founder Robert “Bob” Brown said.
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IT professionals and software experts are coming forward to share how the controversial Dominion Voting Systems (Dominion) can be hacked. They also call into question components within Dominion shared by other voting systems.
The Tennessee Star interviewed career IT professional and security software expert Garland Favorito to learn more about vulnerabilities within Dominion Voting Systems’ software in Georgia.
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Virginia’s Republicans and conservatives are invited to join the March for Trump in Washington, D.C. this Saturday. A bus will depart from Richmond on Saturday morning for the event, also called “Million MAGA March.”
City of Richmond Republican Committee member Jennifer Anderson came up with the idea to bus Virginians to the rally. In an interview with The Virginia Star, Anderson shared that the widespread mistrust in election integrity inspired her to take action.
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Georgia Republican Party Chairman David Shafer is reporting Democratic activists that invite temporary voters for the general runoff election. The chairman appeared on The John Fredericks Radio Show to discuss his role in current investigations concerning election integrity.
“Well, we are following up on Facebook posts [inviting individuals to establish temporary residency] and we’re reporting them to the appropriate authorities.”
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The Trump Campaign hosted a press call on Wednesday to discuss their ongoing legal efforts in Georgia. Featured speakers on the call included Trump 2020 Campaign counsel Stefan Passantino, counsel Mark “Thor” Hearne, Communications Director Tim Murtaugh, Representative Doug Collins (R-GA-09).
Passantino opened the call by reasserting the fact that the estimated 71 million people who voted for President Trump “deserve to know that this election is free, fair, and secure.” He added that supporters of Joe Biden deserve to know as well to maintain confidence in the propriety of the nation’s elections.
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Georgian voters have another opportunity to register to vote in time for the upcoming federal general election runoff on January 5. The ballot includes both U.S. Senate seats for Georgia: Republican incumbents Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue facing Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff.
The deadline to register for the senatorial election runoff is December 7, and in-person voting will begin on December 14. Officials will begin mailing absentee ballots by November 18.Â
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A Loudoun County Public Schools Equity Advisor told parents that White students may only become equity ambassadors to “amplify the voice of Students of Color.” When the parent asked for in a followup email if their child could discuss the personal accounts of White students, the advisor said no.
“This LCPS endeavor is specific to amplifying the voice of Students of Color by engaging in discussions about their experiences regarding issues of racism, injustice, and inequity. Though all students (white or otherwise) are more than welcome to potentially serve as ambassadors, their focus would be to raise the voice of their classmates of color during these meetings.”
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A gathering of parked cars blared their horns as dusk fell over the parking lot. Parents arrived once more on a Tuesday evening to protest against distance learning at the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) board meeting.
After parents finished honking, they joined the meeting so that they can speak to the board directly. November 10th marked the fourth “Honk for Back-to-School” that parents and community members have attended. These individuals continue to protest the total distance learning at LCPS.Â
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In the disarray and distrust inspired by alleged voting irregularities in Georgia, it stands that the hallmarks of a trustworthy vote-counting process should be revisited.
The Tennessee Star contacted the elections officials a range of the most populated counties in the state to gain insider perspective and knowledge. However, several of the officials refused to offer comment, and the remainder didn’t respond by press time.
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A GOP poll watcher reported that officials allowed workers to use ballot machines that were missing security seals in Gwinnett County, Georgia. Beth Sexton first called into The Tennessee Star tipline to report the incident on Monday.
According to the report Sexton gave the tipline, a group of concerned-looking poll workers were gathered around a ballot machine. When Sexton approached them, she overheard them discussing missing security seals.
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A glitch-prone voting software called Dominion Voting Systems (Dominion) was used in all 159 of Georgia counties. Dominion classified their presence in Georgia as a “statewide voting system rollout.”
This past week, Dominion has caused delayed voting and reporting results in Gwinnett County, Morgan County, and Spalding County. Gwinnett County is the same location a whistleblower claimed had ballot machines used that were missing security seals.
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Democrats are advocating for blue voters to become Georgia residents for the upcoming runoff elections. Georgia doesn’t have a minimum residency requirement, which poses a legal loophole for both parties. Democrats could drum up enough voters to match general election turnouts and flip the state, and Republicans could ensure their hold on two Senate seats.
Additionally, the state’s voter I.D. laws allow individuals to use an out-of-state driver’s license to vote. However, the law defines residency as “without any present intuition of removing therefrom [the fixed habitation].”
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On Saturday, Fulton County officials discovered that the number of scanned ballots didn’t reflect the totals received. Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced the news of a rescan that afternoon.
Raffensperger dispatched a monitor, investigators, and Deputy Secretary of State Jordan Fuchs to moderate the process at State Farm Arena.
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Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) Director of Equity and Community Engagement Leah Dozier Walker will moderate a Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) event on equity. Walker also advocates other issues including Black Lives Matter, anti-racism, critical race theory, and social justice.Â
Earlier this year, Virginia Inspector General Michael Westfall accused Walker of appropriating government resources to set up her private consulting business. Westfall noted in his report that Walker had accumulated nearly 100 hours of unexplained absences the previous year, as well as offered consulting services that were almost the same as her state duties.
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The 2020 election outcomes revealed a telling political trajectory occurring in Virginia and the nation. Final tallies indicated that Republicans’ future chances of winning in the state may be ever-slimming. A consistent theme across the board – Republicans fell short with the unprecedented number of absentee voters.
Although Republicans increased their presidential vote totals from 2016 by about 185,000, Democrats increased their votes by nearly 400,000. In every election since 2008, Democratic candidates had only enjoyed about a 10,000 vote increase per year.
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Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s spokesperson stated that a viral post alleging that a 118-year-old man voted was true, but was probably due to a mistyped entry. Fact-checkers said that they discovered another individual with the same name in the area.
The post featured a screen recording: an individual typed in “William Bradley” into the state’s voter information page, followed by a birth date and zip code. Immediately, the search returned with Bradley’s city clerk information as well as a confirmation that an absentee ballot had been received.
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Fact-checkers have ruled a viral video “partly false” after it alleged that Governor Gretchen Whitmer sent health officials to bar poll challengers. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) was present during ballot counting at TCF Center on Wednesday.
It is reported that Whitmer sent MDHHS because the 40,000 square foot building was at capacity for COVID-19 restrictions. In the video, the woman stood alone on the second floor of the building. On camera, MDHHS officials were removing and barring entry to poll challengers.
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After conducting internal sweeps, the United States Postal Service (USPS) discovered over 2,000 more mail-in ballots for Pennsylvania and North Carolina on Thursday. D.C. Federal District Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered twice-daily postal center sweeps after a reported 300,000 ballots were reported as undelivered. Workers accrued about 40,000 mail-in ballots altogether by Thursday – 150,000 were discovered Wednesday. Postal leaders confirmed that more mail-in ballots were processed on Wednesday than on Election Day. Workers discovered nearly 1,700 ballots for Pennsylvania, and about 500 for North Carolina. Friday’s final sweeps trickled in a handful more mail-in ballots. A week before the election, election experts warned voters to cease sending in mail-in ballots due to USPS delays. In September, the USPS sent out a recommendation to mail ballots at least one week prior to Election Day. It appears that a collective surge of voters mailing their ballots in last-minute caused the delay. Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA-16), state Representative Joseph Hamm (R-Lycoming County), and four other plaintiffs sued Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar. During an address just before Halloween, Boockvar said they’d “cure” rejected mail-in ballots with provisional ballots. The Republican plaintiffs argued that voters with rejected mail-in ballots shouldn’t have received provisional ballots on…
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In the northernmost corner of the deep blue state of Virginia, a red stronghold emerged: “Loudoun County Republican Women’s Club.” President Patti Menders is responsible for the club’s newfound success. Menders is a first-generation American, the daughter of refugees from the Cuban exile instigated by Fidel Castro’s communist dictatorship.
Her work made the club the largest Republican Women’s Club in Virginia. Since her appointment last December, she has increased membership from 30-odd members to nearly 200: about a 600 percent increase.Â
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Governor Bill Lee announced Wednesday a $5 million grant for charter schools that had exhibited academic growth. The governor’s Emergency Relief Fund (GEER) will source the funds.
These grant will be referred to as “Charter School Support Grants.” Lee’s decision marked the first grant for charter schools during COVID-19.
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The masses turned in for the night during the early hours on Wednesday with President Donald Trump ahead of Democratic candidate Joe Biden by around 5 points. By sunrise, Biden had gained nearly 139,000 votes due to an alleged data error.
As Wednesday morning’s counts added to the early morning influx of votes, the race had slimmed down to less than one percentage point – a slightly larger margin than Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016.
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In viral video posted Wednesday afternoon, a woman alleged that Governor Gretchen Whitmer had ordered health officials to block poll watchers and challengers from entering a Detroit ballot counting facility.
The woman, Connie Johnson, shot the video using Facebook Live. She showed herself standing on the second floor of the TCF Center in Detroit. The following is her account of the ballot counting on Wednesday afternoon in Detroit.
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An unauthorized party accessed donor and fundraiser information for months from Virginia Hospital Center (VHC), who has served the Washington, D.C. area for 75 years. The company, Blackbaud, also reported many of its other clients’ donor and fundraising data jeopardized by the hackers.
VHC stored donors’ personal information. This included names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses – even birth dates and the last four digits of credit card numbers. Hackers had access to these records for approximately three months, from February to May. However, the last traces of hacking didn’t cease until early June.
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Incumbent John DeBerry lost Tennessee’s House District 90 to Democratic candidate Torrey Harris on Tuesday. DeBerry lost by nearly 55 points, or just over 11,000 votes.
Although DeBerry had served the office as a Democrat for the last 26 years, the Democratic Party removed him from the primary ballot over disagreements with his views on abortion and education.Â
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Tennessee’s elections were called for Republicans across the board not long after the polls closed on Tuesday night. The red state remained red, for the most part. One state-level seat flipped in Davidson County: a blue dot surrounded by red.
On the national scale, President Donald Trump won with an approximate 23 point lead over Democratic candidate Joe Biden. That lead is 3 points shy of his 2016 victory against Hillary Clinton. A total of just over 3 million votes were reported. Absentee votes favored Biden by just under one percent.
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Ahead of the election, Attorney General Mark Herring asked President Donald Trump to rescind his executive order on diversity training.
Herring co-signed a letter complaining about the potential limitations imposed on “implicit bias trainings for federal contractors and federal grantees.” Implicit bias refers to the idea that individuals aren’t aware of their attitudes or stereotypes about others.
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Incumbent Elaine Luria (D-VA-02) retained her seat in a battle against Republican candidate Scott Taylor that was similar to 2018.Â
In the first hour after polls closed, Taylor started out with a 23 point lead in the 17 percent of votes reported. From there on out, Taylor’s lead dwindled. Two hours after polls closed, Taylor was up by 18 points with 36 percent of the votes reported. An hour later, Taylor dropped to lead Luria by 10 points with 48 percent of votes. By 1 in the morning, Luria made her first gain ahead of Taylor, leading by 3 points with 85 percent of the vote.
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By the early morning hours of November 4, Virginia Beach mayor Bobby Dyer had secured his re-election by defeating both Jody Wagner and Richard Kowalewitch. Dyer won by about nine points against the runner-up, Wagner – an even larger margin than his 2018 victory.
The incumbent cruised ahead comfortably within the first hour, holding a 30 point lead at 27 percent of votes. Dyer gained two points from his lead at around 9 p.m. EST, which reflected 74 percent of voters. In two hours, Dyer retained his lead despite a 14 percent increase in voters factored. By two in the morning, the incumbent had winnowed down to an eight point lead representing 97 percent of voters.
Big and Rich country singer John Rich will host an election night watch party at his downtown bar, Redneck Riviera. The Tennessee Republican Party emailed invitations to the event on Monday.
Currently, President Donald Trump is favored to win Tennessee. The same holds true for Republican Bill Hagerty in his senate race against Democrat Marquita Bradshaw.Â
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University of Virginia (UVA) postdoctoral fellow and former George Mason University (GMU) professor David Walsh called for government overthrow if Democratic challenger Joe Biden loses the election.
“Here’s the thing: if the worst-case scenario happens next week, Americans don’t need to just ‘protest.’ They need to actively try to topple the government,” wrote Walsh. “Also worth nothing that the military has already made it clear that in such a scenario, they’re not going to back Trump.”
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The Lynchburg Republican Party lost in its lawsuit against the Lynchburg Registrar’s Office over ballot counting practices in this election. The two went to trial on Monday.
The lawsuit alleged that the registrar had failed one day to process absentee ballots with a Republican representative present, and had also failed to notify Republican representatives of preprocessing last Friday. The judge ruled in favor of the Lynchburg Registrar’s Office in under several hours.
Representatives Steve Cohen (D-TN-09) and Jim Cooper (D-TN-05) tweeted that voters should be fearful heading into Election Day. Both representatives issued their remarks on the day before the election.
The tweets from Cohen and Cooper reflect one of two messages: encouraging individuals to submit their votes and questioning the integrity of the election. The day before Election Day, Cohen suggested that the election’s aftermath should be feared.
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Well over 200 people showed up on a rainy, gray Sunday to a Trump Rally supporting their Republican candidates: Scott Taylor for Congress and Daniel Gade for Senate. The rally took place inside the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach.Â
Virginia Beach attorney Tim Anderson hosted the rally, with The Star editor-in-chief and Trump Virginia Delegation Chairman John Fredericks emceeing.
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Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) and other Democrats have accused White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany of violating the HATCH Act. Cohen retweeted an article from The New York Times that accused McEnany of breaking the law.
“Kayleigh McEnany’s violations of the #HatchAct would be a scandal in any other administration,” wrote Cohen. “Grifters and miscreants. Utterly appalling. #CultureOfCorruption”
Governor Ralph Northam will sign a bill granting earned sentence credits to violent offenders and sexual predators. Certain inmates will be eligible to reduce their sentencing by up to fifty percent.
The bill, House Bill (HB) 5148, includes those sentenced for certain classifications of murder, rape, robbery, abduction, kidnapping, lynching, terrorism, domestic assault, strangulation, genital mutilation, child pornography, and stalking.
Governor Bill Lee has officially extended the state of emergency for the remainder of 2020.
The executive order followed Lee’s own quarantine due to exposure from the coronavirus. The extension of the order means that Tennessee will receive further federal funding, mayors can continue to implement their own guidelines, and government officials can continue to meet virtually.
With three days until Election Day, voting turnouts far surpassed 2016 records for early voting. Turnout jumped from about 273,000 the first day to nearly 2.3 million in under two weeks.
These numbers represent over half of Tennessee’s registered voters. More ballots are still forthcoming.
Following Walter Wallace Jr.’s death, Gideon’s Army posted a picture that read “WALTER WALLACE: REST IN POWER.” Wallace reportedly was shot while charging at police with a knife, due to a psychotic episode. Following Wallace’s death, riots broke out in Philadelphia and across the nation.
Gideon’s Army is an organization that seeks to eliminate modern police systems entirely and replace them with “violence interrupters” and “trauma officers.” According to their site, these officials would provide conflict resolution and counseling to reduce crime.
Parents have submitted a letter to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos requesting a civil rights investigation into Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS). These parents requested that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to determine whether LCPS violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and the Constitution, as well as President Donald Trump’s “Executive Order on Combatting Race and Sex Stereotyping.”Â
The letter alleged that LCPS engaged in discrimination when it excluded non-Hispanic and non-Black parents from federally-funded focus groups; mandated staff training on “implicit bias,” including white privilege, white supremacy, and unconscious bias; restricted disciplinary action on minority students to make data proportional; and excluded staff and student members from opportunities based on race.
The Community Oversight Board (COB) approved a report issuing use of force consent decree recommendations. Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) will work with the COB to implement these recommendations.
Mayor John Cooper tasked members within the Community Oversight Board to explore use of force policies following the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.
In the initial draft of a student equity ambassador program informational packet, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) barred students who weren’t colored from admission into the program.
Under “III. Process for Selecting Student Equity Ambassadors” the second process listing guidelines specifically mentioned students’ skin color as a qualifying factor.
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House Delegate Lee Carter (D-Manassas) stated multiple times in the last several days that “police are a threat to public safety in every community.” These assertions coincided with the ongoing riots over the death of Walter Wallace Jr., a Black man that Philadelphia police shot for charging at officers with a knife.
Carter issued three tweets in a row, in each post repeating the same mantra that police threaten public safety.
The Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) revoked a cultural awareness training on Tuesday for violating President Trump’s Executive Order. DCS is reviewing the program, Cultural Awareness for Foster Parents, currently.
DCS sent the memo to agency provider trainers on the same day the curriculum was pulled.
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