Commentary: Forget the Media Doomsaying — the GOP Will Be Ok

Congress Building

If you follow politics and didn’t know that voters in Charleston, South Carolina, elected the city’s first Republican mayor in almost a century and a half, you can be forgiven. A lot of people missed it because, while it was covered, the legacy media failed, unsurprisingly, to recognize it for the landmark it is.

The scant attention paid to the outcome of that race compared to, say, the GOP’s failure to take over the Virginia Legislature is a discordant note that throws off an otherwise harmonious national narrative that has the Republican Party hopelessly divided and unable to win elections now that Bidenomics is working.

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In Battle for Control of Virginia Legislature, Republicans Test New Commitment to Early Voting

Early voting has become a central issue in the Virginia legislature election, which is set to conclude on Tuesday and determine whether Gov. Glenn Youngkin will have a Republican majority to pass legislation.

The state Senate is currently controlled by Democrats, 22-18, with the state House controlled by Republicans, after winning 52 seats in 2021 to Democrats’ 48, according to Ballotpedia. Republicans gained control of the state House in 2021, when Youngkin won the governorship, Winsome Earle-Sears won the election for lieutenant governor, and Jason Miyares won the attorney general race.

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Election Integrity Issues for November Elections Begin with Absentee Ballots

As state and local elections are set to conclude on Election Day next month, election integrity issues have already begun with absentee ballots. 

Counties across the country have already run into problems with absentee ballots for local November elections, as Republicans such as former President Donald Trump and U.S. Senate candidate for Arizona, Kari Lake, have repeatedly criticized issues with absentee ballots. 

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Commentary: Everyone Can Agree on Election Integrity

At first glance, some Americans could mistakenly conclude that election integrity safeguards are deeply unpopular. After all, liberal politicians and the mainstream media regularly denounce commonsense measures like photo ID laws and routine voter roll cleanups.

No matter what they claim or how loudly they claim it, these voices do not speak for the majority of Americans. As recent polling conducted by Honest Elections Project Action shows beyond all doubt, an overwhelming bipartisan majority of Americans embrace commonsense voting laws that make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.

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18 States, DC Accept Ballots after Election Day, with North Dakota’s Deadline Facing Lawsuit

North Dakota is facing a lawsuit over its acceptance of mail-in ballots 13 days after Election Day and is among 18 states and Washington, D.C., that accept and tabulate ballots post-election.

The lawsuit, which was filed Wednesday against North Dakota State Election Director Erika White, alleges that the state’s law to accept ballots up to 13 days after Election Day violates federal law.

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Resolution Introduced to Offer Election Day Voter Registration in Ohio

A proposal in the Ohio Senate would allow Ohioans to register to vote on Election Day and force potential voters to register again if they have not voted in four consecutive years.

State Sen. Paula Hicks-Hudson, D-Toledo, introduced the resolution she says expands voting rights and is an effort to lessen the effects of voting legislation passed by the General Assembly last year.

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Former Arizona Chief Justice to Lead Investigation into Maricopa County Election Day Printer Issues

Former Arizona Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor will lead an investigation into printer issues that plagued Maricopa County on Election Day, according to a joint statement from the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors (BOS) Chairman Bill Gates and Vice Chairman Clink Hickman.

“Justice McGregor will hire a team of independent experts to find out why the printers that read ballots well in the August Primary had trouble reading some ballots while using the same settings in the November General. Our voters deserve nothing less,” said the officials. “Maricopa County appreciates Justice McGregor’s willingness to serve in this role. We look forward to her findings.”

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Top Maricopa Election Offices Couldn’t Reconcile 15k Disparity in Outstanding Votes: Internal Email

Recently disclosed internal communications between top election officials in Arizona’s Maricopa County in the immediate aftermath of Election Day reveal that they struggled to reconcile a discrepancy of almost 16,000 in outstanding ballot totals. 

The governor’s race in Arizona was decided by a margin of just over 17,000 votes.

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County Under a Cloud: Maricopa’s Decade-Long History of Election Issues, from 2012 to 2022

As voters, poll workers, and observers have voiced their concerns about issues they witnessed on Election Day in Maricopa County, Ariz., a review of the county’s history shows 10 years of election issues under various election officials.

Numerous issues occurred at vote centers on Election Day in Maricopa County earlier this month, from election machine problems to hours-long lines, according to widespread reports. However, election issues are not unique to the 2022 midterms in Maricopa, as some began a decade ago.

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Georgia Judge Allows Saturday Vote in Senate Runoff, After Warnock, Washington Democrats’ Suit

A judge in Georgia has ruled that state law allows counties to offer early voting on the Saturday after Thanksgiving – the only possible Saturday before Election Day – in the Senate runoff between Democrat incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP challenger Herschel Walker.

The ruling Friday was in response to a suit earlier in the week by the Warnock campaign, the state’s Democrat Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to the Associated Press.

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Prominent Pollster Says Time for America to Mandate All Ballots Be Counted on Election Day5

With states like Arizona, Nevada and Alaska taking days to determine midterm election results, influential pollster Scott Rasmussen says there is overwhelming support for America to mandate ballots be in and counted by Election Day.

“One of the 80% issues, and there aren’t a whole lot of 80% issues in America-one of them is that all ballots should be in by Election Day,” Scott Rasmussen said Wednesday night on the “Just the News, No Noise” TV show. “We should know the results on Election Day.”

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Commentary: A Post-Election Reflection

I am an American, but I haven’t set foot in the states for years. Yes, my daily Internet access provides me with the illusion that I’m in touch with life back home and that I know how people are thinking and feeling. But I can’t really be sure at all that I’m getting the right bead on things. 

So when a great many of the American political commentators and podcasters whom I most respect predicted a “red wave” or even a “red tsunami” on Election Day, I thought: Well, I hope so. How could I demur? After all, they’re at the center of the action. I’m not. 

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More Bail Reform Could Come No Matter Outcome of Issue One

While Ohioans can vote on some bail reform issues on Election Day, lawmakers and other policy groups continue to work on other aspects in the General Assembly.

The ballot wording on Issue One gives the legislature room to pass bills that would add to the requirements judges must use to establish bail. That, according to the Columbus-based Buckeye Institute, provides an opportunity to continue to tackle issues it believes are key.

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Commission Wants New Ohio Legislative Maps to Stay At Least Through General Election

The Ohio Redistricting Commission wants the Ohio Supreme Court to allow a second round of state legislative district maps to stand at least through this year’s elections.

The request comes as part of the commission’s response to challenges to the new maps that were forced to be redrawn after the court ruled the original maps illegally favored Republicans.

The commission asked for a decision by Feb. 11 or stay the issue until after the 2022 general election, allowing the revised plan to stay in effect until then.

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REVIEW: Hemingway’s ‘Rigged’ a Bone Chilling Page-Turner About the 2020 Election

Person with mask on at a computer.

We are a year overdue for the true story of the 2020 elections. Mollie Hemingway has at last delivered it to us in one tidy volume.

It’s a complex story, which makes for a weighty book. The research is thorough, the writing is evidentiary, the style is clinical—like investigative journalism and social science used to be. The endnotes alone run nearly 100 pages. 

Reading Rigged, one isn’t jarred by hyperbole, conjecture, or spin. Hemingway is unequivocal on progressive malice, yet she can be scathing of Republicans, too. She is particularly critical of Rudy Giuliani’s attempts to publicize fraud nationally, thereby undermining prior case-by-case efforts to get particular state courts to recognize particular violations of particular state laws. 

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Michigan Township Clerk Removed from Running November Second Election

Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast’s office will run the Nov. 2 election next week in Adams Township after the Michigan Bureau of Elections said Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott failed to comply with legal requirements for election security.

“The voters of Adams Township expect, deserve, and have a right to have their election carried out in accordance with all state and federal laws,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement. “I am confident that the Hillsdale County Clerk’s office will administer the election in a manner that ensures that it is legal, transparent, and secure.”

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Gableman: Wisconsin Audit’s Purpose Is to Determine What Was Supposed to Happen on Election Day

Michael Gableman

The latest update on Assembly Speaker Robin Vos’ election investigation comes with a promise and a warning.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Mike Gableman released a YouTube video on Monday, explaining his investigation into Election Day 2020.

“My job as special counsel is to gather all relevant information. And while I will draw my own conclusions, my goal is to put everything I know and everything I learn before you. So you can make up your own mind,” Gableman said. “But I think it’s critical to know that an obstruction of this office is an obstruction of each citizen’s right to know whether all ballots were appropriately counted; that our elections were managed with fairness, inclusivity and accountability.”

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Report: Minnesota Election System ‘Weakest in the Nation’

A Minnesota think tank released a new report this week exposing flaws in the state’s election system and recommending a number of possible reforms.

The “‘vote now, check later’ verification process” that Minnesota uses for same-day voter registrants has a number of “weaknesses,” according to the report.

Minnesotans who register to vote prior to Election Day are subjected to a verification process before their vote is counted. Same-day registrants go through the same verification process but only after the election.

“Their vote is counted,” the report says. “The county auditor runs the same verification using the Department of Public Safety database and the Social Security database. But if a problem is discovered, it is too late, because the vote has already been counted.”

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Chain-of-Custody Documents: View All the Ballot Transfer Forms from the November 2020 Election Provided by Fulton County to The Georgia Star News

On May 3, 2021, six months after the November 3, 2020 presidential election, Fulton County election officials provided The Georgia Star News with a thumb drive containing 30 files those officials said complied with an Open Records Request made by The Star News. The request made to Fulton County was one in a series of Open Records Requests made to all 159 counties in Georgia to produce all chain of custody documents, known as absentee ballot drop box transfer forms, from that election.

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Commentary: Elections Have Consequences; Cheating Doesn’t

Barack Obama liked to remind us that “elections have consequences.”

Boy, do they! For conservatives like me, the months since Democrats took over the White House and the Senate have been a tsunami of consequences. How do you think I like it when Joe Biden’s handlers aim 60 executive orders at the tip of his pen to effectuate a fundamental transformation of this country? Or when the Democrat-controlled Congress tries to push through statehood for the District of Columbia in order to guarantee their continued control of the Senate? Or when the southern border is turned into a 2,000-mile illegal-immigrant processing center?

Unfortunately, the dictum that “elections have consequences” is not recognized as a legitimate principle when Republicans defeat Democrats. That was obvious when Donald Trump won the 2016 election and spent the next four years being vilified as a Russian puppet, a racist and a danger to the republic. You see, Democrats consider elections to be their most legitimate means of seizing power, but not necessarily the most effective. For them, politics is the continuation of war by other means, and they have been waging war against not just Republicans, but against the Constitution for at least the last 50 years.

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Commentary: The Theory That the Trump Era Is over Is Wrong

The effect of President Trump’s address to the Conservative Political Action Committee on Sunday has become clearer this week. The key sentence was, “A Republican president will be returning to the White House.” Since the only other living Republican president, George W. Bush, is term-limited, Trump was speaking of himself.

The speech was not only the best and most interesting political speech delivered in the United States since President Reagan’s successful reelection campaign in 1984, it also broke new ground in three important respects.

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Georgia’s Protections, Checks and Balances on the Vote Counting Process

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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USPS Sweeps Discover Thousands of Absentee Ballots in Pennsylvania and North Carolina

  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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Trump Wins Ohio, Florida and Texas, Closes Electoral Vote Gap with Biden in Race to 270

President Donald Trump won the key battleground states of Ohio, Florida and Texas and he holds leads in all the others but Arizona as former Vice President Joe Biden’s path to victory narrowed.

Trump so far has been declared the winner in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

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Minnesota Voters Sour on State of Nation

Voters in Minnesota made their pick for president while holding negative views about the country’s direction, according to an expansive AP survey of the American electorate.

The race between President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden concluded Tuesday in a deeply divided nation struggling with a once-in-a-century pandemic and a severe economic downturn. AP VoteCast found that more than 3 in 10 Minnesota voters said the U.S. is on the right track and more than 6 in 10 voters said it is headed in the wrong direction.

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2020 Presidential Election Sets Records in Ohio

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) held a press briefing at the Ohio State House on Tuesday to discuss the 2020 US Election.

“Way back in March and April we started to roll up our sleeves and figure out how are we going to run a Presidential Election in the midst of a pandemic. Obviously, this is an historic election. One unlike anything we’ve ever seen,” said LaRose.

Ohio boasts 4,000 poll locations and 56,000 poll volunteers and to handle the estimated 6 million voters – which would break a record according to LaRose.

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In an Open Letter to Ohioans, Gov DeWine Calls for ‘Unity’ and for a Renewed Commitment to Fight the Coronavirus

Two days before the Election Day 2020, Governor Mike DeWine delivered an open letter to Ohioans. In it, he called for unity and for the people of the Buckeye State to renew their commitment to “fight the coronavirus.”

“On this Sunday before Election Day, I encourage you to vote if you have not already done so. Exercise and enjoy this sacred right that we, as Americans, hold so dear,” the letter begins.

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Ohio Governor Says Guard Will be Ready If Asked on Election Day

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine did not hesitate when asked if the Ohio National Guard would be used on election day to help keep the peace. Troops will provide support, although DeWine hopes a need doesn’t arise.

Speaking this week at a news conference to announce $5 billion of help for businesses across the state during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, DeWine said guard troops could be used in the same roles as during summer protests in some cities, as support for local law enforcement.

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20,000 Texas Mail-in Ballots Need to Be Redone Because of Barcode Problem

Approximately one-third the mail-in ballots in Tarrant County, Texas have been rejected by scanners due to a defect in their barcodes, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.

Heider Garcia, the county’s elections administrator, attributed the problem to the shop that printed that ballots, but assured that the ballots affected would still be counted, according to the Texas outlet.

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Judge: Virginia Can’t Count Some Ballots Without Postmarks

A judge ruled Wednesday that Virginia elections officials cannot count absentee ballots with missing postmarks unless they can confirm the date of mailing through a barcode, granting part of an injunction requested by a conservative legal group.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation sued the Virginia Department of Elections and members of the Virginia State Board of Elections earlier this month, challenging a regulation that instructed local election officials to count absentee ballots with missing or illegible postmarks — as long as the ballots are received by noon on the Friday after Election Day, Nov. 3.

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Dems With Power Flex Their Muscles Ahead of Election Day to Push Agendas, Punish Trump Supporters

As Election Day draws near, Democrat business owners and politicians are increasingly flexing their muscles to push their politics into peoples’ faces and punish those who have opposing views. There have been multiple reports in the past year about Trump supporters being fired for expressing their support for the president.

In the past couple of weeks, two more Trump supporters have been fired and a CEO of a major software company has sent a mass email to millions of customers telling them to vote for Joe Biden.

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