I do want to say again today that it’s important to place the long lines, where they happened, in the context of the repeat similar history, cycle after cycle, in that same location. Especially when official responses are so eerily similar, & therefore predictable, as years ago.
And there’s a big diff between understaffed PA or WI county officials submerged by an entirely unprecedented surge in mail voting, and officials in a county that has faced a particular documented issue in the past going thru the same things again.
Yes, it’s so key to keep in mind is that many things that go wrong are about human error, or good faith bad luck, etc! But we can’t abstract from (recent!) history of a place when assessing this.
Gwinnett started in-person voting today; but it’s been voting for years, like this.
A major red flag for Democrats: NYT/Siena has Senator Gary Peters leading GOP challenger John James by just 1% (43/42), even as Biden leads 48/40 in the same sample.
GOP is pouring money here, & YouGov found a gap too
(+3% for Peters +6% for Biden).
A loss for Dems here would be a major blow to their quest for a Senate majority, effectively requiring them to pick-up 5 GOP seats instead of 4 just to get to 50/50.
Dems respondents are splitting 97/1 for Biden, but only 87/4 for Peters.
GOP respondents are splitting 90/4 for both Trump & James.
So room to grow for Peters... but he'll have to contend with James keeping a positive rating (45/32) despite now-2 consecutive capmaigns.
That's more than 6 times the statewide rejection rate. A third of all ballots rejected statewide are in Guilford.
20% of mail ballots returned by black voters in Guilford County have been rejected so far, compared to 7% of those returned by white voters.
These voters should be contacted by county, & get to fix, tho that demands further action & mobilization. Anyone in state can track ballot here: northcarolina.ballottrax.net/voter/
& a reminder there’s a statewide battle under way on how easy it ought to be to fix:
Lindsey Graham & Jaime Harrison are debating in 5 minutes (& both are wearing a mask while the debate starts on stage — would Graham have a few days ago?). #scsen
Over the past few days, Gavin Newsom signed (and vetoed) a flurry of California bills linked to the criminal legal system.
And to keep it together, here's a thread of 10 important bills that he signed, & also 2 that he vetoed, with links that help flesh out what's going on.
1/ SB203 (signed) requires that minors be able to consult with legal counsel before a police interrogation.
Governor Newsom just vetoed legislation tonight that would have set up a pilot program for community programs of medical and mental health professionals to respond to some emergency calls instead of the police.
Statement from @AsmKamlagerDove, the lawmaker who authored the bill: “This bill was an... opportunity to advance racial equity and save lives in California. We will continue to pursue community alternatives to police response that are not controlled by law enforcement.”
Newsom said in his veto statement the reason is that “the Office of Emergency Services is not the appropriate place for the pilot program,” but he supports the “underlying goal.”