Defending Democracy
Beasley vs. Budd: With 12 weeks to go, Democratic Senate candidate finds surprising momentum
Pivotal contest that some had already conceded to the GOP is shaping up to be closer than expected With less than three months to go before the start of early voting, North Carolina’s closely watched contest for an open U.S Senate seat remains as close as it is contentious. Going into summer the race between Rep. Ted Budd and former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Cheri Beasley appeared tilted in favor of the Republican.
Republicans in Congress shy away from campaigning on national abortion platform
WASHINGTON — Republicans, hoping to flip control of Congress in the November elections, appear to have decided against campaigning on a unified abortion platform that would specify exactly what conservatives plan to do if given control of the U.S. House and Senate. Yet Republicans in Congress have written dozens of proposals that, if passed, would restrict abortion nationwide.
August 4 Crucial Conversation: Moore v. Harper: The latest NC gerrymandering case and its implications for American democracy
Join us Thursday, August 4 at 3:00 p.m. for a very special (and online) Crucial Conversation: Moore v. Harper: The latest NC gerrymandering case and its implications for American democracy At the end of its most recent term in June, the U.S. Supreme Court announced that it would hear a North Carolina redistricting case...
Trump ‘chose not to act’ as U.S. Capitol underwent attack, Jan. 6 panel says
Donald Trump ignored White House staff, family members and outside advisers who urged the president to call off the mob attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, according to testimony before the U.S. House panel investigating the insurrection at its eighth and final hearing of the summer Thursday night. Instead, Trump sat in the […]
Jan. 6 panel to detail Trump’s 187 minutes of delay as insurrection grew
The U.S. House committee investigating the Jan.6 attack and Donald Trump’s role in it will focus in a Thursday evening hearing on the former president’s refusal for more than three hours to call off the rioters storming the U.S. Capitol, committee aides said Wednesday. The hearing will be the eighth in the panel’s series to […]
U.S. Senate bills would ban fake electors, clear up Electoral College procedures
NC’s Tillis is a part of bipartisan group that negotiated compromise legislation WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of U.S. senators released legislation Wednesday that aims to clarify the 1887 law that governs how Congress counts Electoral College votes following a presidential election. The legislation caps off months of negotiations between Republican and Democratic senators, who […]
Election officials risk criminal charges under 31 new GOP-imposed penalties
Since the 2020 election, Iowa has enacted one new felony and two new misdemeanor offenses targeting election officials. The state’s omnibus election law, passed in 2021, criminalizes election officials who fail to perform their duties, don’t adequately maintain voter lists, or interfere with other people performing their duties in or near a polling place. The first offense carries a potential five years in prison.
Criminalizing the vote: GOP-led states enacted 102 new election penalties after 2020
During the 2020 election, Rhonda Briggins and her sorority sisters spent days providing voters in metro Atlanta with water and snacks as they waited in long lines at polling places. The lines for early voting and on Election Day at times stretched on for hours. As the national co-chair for social action with the Delta Sigma Theta sorority for Black women, Briggins felt compelled to help, and she and her sisters unofficially adopted one DeKalb County location where many elderly Georgians cast their ballots.
State elections board rejects NC GOP signature matching request for absentee ballots
The NC Board of Elections, in a 3-2 party line vote, rejected state Republicans’ request for signature verification on absentee ballots. Republicans wanted local elections officials to be able to compare voters’ signatures on their registration cards against signatures on requests for absentee ballots and on the returned ballots.
Trump tweet invited ‘wild’ mob to block transfer of power on Jan. 6, House panel says
The U.S. House panel investigating Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results described Tuesday how the president explicitly called on his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 for a “wild” protest — resulting in an insurrection. Trump exerted extraordinary influence over the mob, who marched to the Capitol on […]
Strong opposition to GOP request for signature matching on NC absentee ballots
More than 7,000 people wrote the State Board of Elections with their thoughts on the state Republican Party request to allow county elections officials to verify mail-in ballots by matching ballot signatures with those on voter registration documents. Most commenters opposed allowing local elections officials to use signature matching, with hundreds of people calling the […]
The best editorial of the weekend
If you get a chance, be sure to check out this weekend’s lead editorial in the Winston-Salem Journal/Greensboro News & Record twins. In “Another serious threat to American democracy,” the authors explain in painful detail just how serious all Americans should take a case brought by North Carolina Republican legislators (Moore v. Harper) that the […]