Election chaos renews focus on gutted Voting Rights Act

 

FILE - In this June 9, 2020, file photo, Steven Posey checks his phone as he waits in line to vote at Central Park in Atlanta. Voters reported wait times of three hours. When some Georgia voters endured a pandemic, pouring rain and massive waits earlier this month to cast their ballot, President Donald Trump and other Republicans blamed local Democrats for presiding over chaos. (AP Photo/John Bazemore, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — When some Georgia voters endured a pandemic, pouring rain and massive waits earlier this month to cast their ballot, President Donald Trump and other Republicans blamed local Democrats for presiding over chaos.

“Make no mistake, the reduction in polling places is a result of a concerted effort by Democrats to push vote-by-mail at the expense of in-person voting,” said Justin Clark, the Trump campaign’s senior counsel. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

But the meltdown was also a manifestation of a landmark Supreme Court case that gutted a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. The 2013 decision — Shelby County v. Holder — was heralded by conservatives at the time for invalidating a longstanding “preclearance” process that required certain states and jurisdictions with high minority populations and a history of discrimination to get federal approval for any changes to voting procedures.

Seven years later, the fallout from that decision is colliding with unprecedented changes to the way elections are being conducted. In response to the coronavirus, many states are encouraging mail-in voting. That — combined with a reduction in poll workers — has prompted the consolidation of polling places.

That reduction would have been much harder to pull off in Georgia without the Supreme Court decision. Voting rights advocates are braced for more potential trouble on Tuesday when another round of states hold elections.

In Kentucky, the planned reductions in polling places are even sharper than Georgia, with fewer than 200 across a state that usually has nearly 3,700, prompting worries especially about the state’s most populous cities where Kentucky’s nonwhite population is concentrated.

Meanwhile, Trump has railed against voting by mail, arguing without evidence that it could contribute to fraud. Conservatives are trying to use an Arizona case over absentee voting to further weaken the Voting Rights Act. And concerns are mounting across the ideological spectrum that the changing nature of elections could leave some Americans questioning the result in November.

“Everything is happening at once right now,” said University of Georgia law professor Lori Ringhand, citing the pandemic, states like Georgia moving to new voting machines and years of legal wrangling over racial discrimination and election security. “It’s just a perfect storm happening in a political environment that has politicized the very act of making voting either easier or harder.”

Democrats worry that the GOP goal is to make voting harder. Trump is especially critical of moves that would expand voting by mail and warned without evidence on Monday that foreign countries may try to print ballots.

“That’s going to be Trump’s mantra through September, October: ‘They’re going to try to steal the election!’” said Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and onetime Democratic National Committee chairman.

Georgia Democratic Party Chairwoman Nikema Williams said the anxiety among many in her party is a reminder that a full-strength Voting Rights Act is needed, though she accepts that federal law won’t change before November.

“Your right to vote should not depend on your zip code, what county you live in,” she said.

Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has called for restoring the Voting Rights Act, but he has not released detailed proposals.

A key question is whether to attempt a new version of “preclearance” by updating the formula used to decide what states and local areas must submit to the process, since that formula is what the Supreme Court ruled impermissible. The path more likely to withstand the court’s scrutiny, said Ringhand, is for Congress to set standards that apply nationally.

A White House spokesman declined to comment when asked whether Trump might ever pursue a Voting Rights Act update.

The previous requirements were a key voting rights tool because it turned a usual legal principle on its head. Litigants usually must wait until after some harmful action before asking a court for relief, but “preclearance” put the burden on government officials to prove their proposed election rules would not harm minority voters.

Kentucky, which is among the states holding primaries on Tuesday, had not been affected by that provision.

Voting rights advocates sued there anyway under the remaining law’s general prohibition on discrimination, but a federal District Court ruled the overhauled precinct plan was allowable. That decision shows the difficulty citizens sometimes have in proving voting rights violations, especially when the challenge is theoretical, before an election has even taken place.

The burden could get even heavier if Republicans and conservatives get their way in an Arizona case. That dispute started with a challenge to the state’s ban on “ballot harvesting,” the practice of third parties rounding up absentee ballots.

A federal appeals court ruled against the law, using Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Congress spelled out in 1982 that it intended that part of the law to be applied as a “results” test, meaning courts would simply judge whether laws from elections procedures to district boundaries for elected posts had a discriminatory effect on minorities. Some conservatives now want the Supreme Court to rule that anyone challenging a law under Section 2 would have to prove that lawmakers intended to discriminate. That’s a much higher burden of proof required to strike down a law.

In the meantime, Ringhand lamented that voters are displaying diminishing confidence that any of the authorities involved are truly interested in fairness.

“I’m not sure there’s a great deal of trust in any of our decision makers right now, whether that’s legislators or state judges or federal judges or secretaries of state,” she said. “Trust is at an all-time low.”

Stock futures tumble, recover after Navarro clarifies US-China trade comments

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro argues former National Security Adviser John Bolton focused most of his attention on Iran instead of holding China accountable for human rights violations, information warfare and trade.
Stock futures sank Monday evening before recovering after top White House trade advisor Peter Navarro clarified comments he made to Fox News on the U.S. China trade deal potentially being kaput.
“My comments have been taken wildly out of context. They had nothing at all to do with the Phase I trade deal, which continues in place. I was simply speaking to the lack of trust we now have of the Chinese Communist Party after they lied about the origins of the China virus and foisted a pandemic upon the world" said Navarro in a statement.
Earlier during an interview with Fox News host Martha MacCallum, Navarro said, "It's over...They came here on January 15th to sign that trade deal, and that was a full two months after they knew the virus was out and about" he noted.
Dow futures fell over 400 points around 9:40 PM ET before cutting the bulk of those losses, while Nasdaq futures slipped nearly 1 percent, before bouncing back.
The tech-heavy index registered its 20th record of the year during Monday's trading session powered by stocks including Apple, Amazon, Microsoft.
President Trump also tweeted his own clarification Monday evening.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	10056.474777	+110.35	+1.11%
AAPL	APPLE INC.	358.87	+9.15	+2.62%
AMZN	AMAZON.COM INC.	2,713.82	+38.81	+1.45%
MSFT	MICROSOFT CORP.	200.57	+5.42	+2.78%

Navarro's comments followed critical remarks from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, just hours before, over China's handling of the pandemic and the potential of further action against the country.
“I think there is energy. I would start with Secretary [Mike] Pompeo when he had his most recent meeting, was very clear in, ‘We need answers,’” Mnuchin told FOX Business' Lou Dobbs.
“It’s not acceptable that China hasn’t opened up, hasn’t been forthright with what’s gone on with this disease. And there’s no question, the disease started there. How did it spread through the rest of the world, and it didn’t spread through China? That’s what we want to know" he stated.
FOX Business' Blake Burman contributed to this report.

Seattle will move to dismantle 'CHOP' zone after shootings, mayor says

Seattle will move to end the police-free zone known as the "Capitol Hill Organized Protest," or "CHOP," after two recent shootings, one of which was deadly, Mayor Jenny Durkan announced Monday -- signaling that a stunning chapter in the city's history could be drawing to a close.
The mayor said the violence was distracting from changes sought by thousands of peaceful protesters seeking to address racial inequity and police brutality. Activists set up "CHOP" in the city's Capitol Hill neighborhood about two weeks ago, barricading off the area after police evacuated a ransacked precinct building there.
"The cumulative impacts of the gatherings and protests and the nighttime atmosphere and violence has led to increasingly difficult circumstances for our businesses and residents," Durkan said at a news conference. "The impacts have increased and the safety has decreased."
City leaders have faced mounting criticism -- including from President Trump -- over the protest zone amid reports of violence inside the area and how police can respond to such incidents. Police had not been able to go inside the zone. The dismantling of the CHOP followed the death of a 19-year-old man in a Saturday shooting in which another person was injured.
On Sunday, a 17-year-old was shot in the arm on the edge of the area.
Demonstrators inside CHOP have been mostly peaceful -- handing out free food and playing music -- but a more dangerous atmosphere has become evident at night. Residents and business owners have voiced concerns over safety and access for emergency first responders.
Volunteer medics inside the zone brought the victims of Saturday's shooting to the hospital rather than wait for the police and fire departments, who were preparing to respond before entering.
"There should be no place in Seattle that the Seattle Fire Department and the Seattle Police Department can't go," Durkan said.
The protesters have issued a list of demands including calls to defund the police and for leaders to address other social-justice causes.
Trump frequently has lashed out at Durkan and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, both Democrats, over CHOP's existence, saying the zone is being run by "anarchists."
On Monday, some CHOP members called for changes to the zone over the violence. In an open letter addressed to organizers, a group of 25 activists and volunteers asked leaders to set up a safe use area on the outskirts of the zone, create different signage encouraging intoxicated persons to stay away and implement a curfew to prevent destructive behavior at night.
"We would like to acknowledge that no organizations, protests, or revolutions are perfect," the group wrote. "We must all be willing to collectively learn and react quickly to mistakes made within our movement. We do not want to see what was started with the intention of lifting the BLM message destroyed before us all."
Andre Taylor, who founded the anti-police-shooting organization Not This Time!, said Monday he's told CHOP leaders the violence would prompt the city to take back control of the area.
"If I put myself in the mayor's position, I have to act when violence is around," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Trump issues warning amid vandalism, effort to topple Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square Park

President Trump took to Twitter late Monday to announce that “numerous people were arrested” in Washington, D.C., as protesters attempted to tear down a statue of Andrew  Jackson in Lafayette Square Park and—once again—targeted the nearby St. John’s Episcopal Church.
“Numerous people arrested in D.C. for the disgraceful vandalism, in Lafayette Park, of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson, in addition to the exterior defacing of St. John’s Church across the street,” Trump tweeted. “10 years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!”
David L. Bernhardt, the secretary of the Interior Department, said he visited Lafayette Square and witnessed the destruction.  He said the country “will not bow to anarchists.  Law and order will prevail, and justice will be served.”
The full extent of the damage is not yet clear. The Lincoln Memorial and WWII Memorial had been defaced in earlier protests, and on Monday night, the Jackson statue was also defaced. Reuters reported that “killer scum” was written on the pedestal. Ropes were tied to the statue in an effort to topple it, but the statement said “law enforcement officers ensured that this would not happen.”
Protesters broke down a fence that was surrounding the statue just after dusk, Reuters reported. The statement said surrounding cannons in the statue were destroyed.
Social media posts from journalists in the area report that protesters are setting up camp near Lafayette Park in a similar fashion to Seattle’s CHOP. Fox 5 DC reported that protesters spraypainted “BHAZ” on the columns of St. John’s Church, which was apparently a reference to a “Black Autonomous Zone.”  The news station reported that U.S. Park Police and city police managed to close the area off to protesters. Reuters reported that these officers swung their batons in the effort.
NBC Washington reported that as of 10:30 p.m. local time, protesters were standing at the border of the park. Police said some officers were injured during these confrontations and some protesters threw unknown objects at these officers, police said. The report said that two people were arrested.
Police used a chemical irritant to disperse the crowd and officers were hit with objects. Fox News has confirmed that the U.S. Secret Service asked reporters to leave the White House grounds nearby. The specific reason wasn't clear.
Jackson, who has faced ire in the present day for his severe treatment of Native Americans, was the latest historical figure targeted by protesters demanding monuments and memorials to those with racist pasts be taken down.
Earlier this month, Trump clashed with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser over deploying federal forces in the city in order to protect government assets during unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody.
When things calmed down, Trump took to Twitter to write that the troops were headed home "but can quickly return, if needed. Far fewer protesters showed up last night than anticipated!”
Fox News' Louis Casiano, Kevin Corke, Ashley Cozzolino and the Associated Press contributed to this report

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Another shooting in Seattle protest zone leaves 1 wounded

SEATTLE (AP) — One person was wounded in what was the second shooting in Seattle’s protest zone in less than 48 hours, police said.

The shooting happened late Sunday night in the area near Seattle’s downtown that is known as CHOP, for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest,” police tweeted, adding that one person was at a hospital with a gunshot wound.

The person arrived in a private vehicle and was in serious condition, Harborview Medical Center spokesperson Susan Gregg said in a statement.

The zone evolved after weeks of protests in the city over police brutality and racism, sparked by the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The Sunday shooting followed a pre-dawn shooting on Saturday in a park within the zone that left a 19-year-old man dead and a 33-year-old man critically injured. The suspect or suspects in that first shooting fled the scene, and no arrests had been made as of Sunday, Detective Mark Jamieson had said.

It wasn’t immediately clear where within the zone Sunday night’s shooting took place. The Seattle Fire Department arrived at the scene at 10:46 p.m. and went to a staging area near the zone’s perimeter, fire department spokesperson David Cuerpo told the Seattle Times.

The fire department was soon notified that the injured person has already been taken away. Both victims in Saturday’s shooting — whose identities hadn’t yet been released — were also transported to the same hospital via private car.

Seattle police tweeted that they had heard of a second shooting that they were unable to verify, given “conflicting reports.”

Further details about what transpired Sunday night weren’t immediately available. It wasn’t clear whether anyone was in custody.

The CHOP zone is a several-block area cordoned off by protesters near a police station in the city’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. President Donald Trump, a Republican, has criticized Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan and Gov. Jay Inslee, both Democrats, for allowing the zone.

Federal government offices should move if DC becomes state, Grenell says

Richard Grenell, the former acting director of National Intelligence, weighed in late Sunday about this week's vote on a bill to admit Washington, D.C., as the country’s 51st state.

“DC was designed to be a temporary place where politicians would go for a short period of time—and then go back home to live under the laws they created,” he tweeted. “DC is too big, too entrenched, too insular, and too out of touch."
His tweet was in response to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, who tweeted in favor of granting the district statehood, “Washington, D.C., has over 700,000 residents—more than Wyoming or Vermont—and its residents pay federal taxes. But they don’t get an equal voice in our government. It’s time for D.C. statehood.”
The bill, which was introduced by Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., on Feb. 28 and co-sponsored by 29 senators. The District of Columbia would shrink down to the blocks containing the White House, Capitol, Supreme Court and National Mall and the remaining areas would become the state of New Columbia.
Many Republicans have opposed statehood for D.C. because the area would likely elect only Democrats. Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton won 90 percent of the D.C. vote in 2016.
The last time a D.C. statehood bill was brought up was in 1993 and was defeated in the house 277 to 153. While the bill is expected to pass the Democratic house, chances are slim it will pass the Republican-controlled Senate.

“If DC becomes a State then the Federal Government bureaucracies and offices should move to other States,” Grenell said. “No one State should get all the federal jobs.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Trump urges AOC to run against Schumer, says she’d win

President Trump urged Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to run against the state’s longtime Sen. Chuck Schumer in the 2022 primary in November, saying that she would be a “big improvement” and that she would likely win.
AOC: RALLY SABOTAGED BY TIKTOK FANS
Schumer, the Senate minority leader, has been a vocal critic of the president, but so has Ocasio-Cortez, who faces her own primary challenger this year for her House seat. Critics of the president say Trump's call on Ocasio-Cortez to run is simply an attempt to divide the party.
Trump retweeted a report from the Washington Times that said liberals “are kicking around the idea” of the “Squad” leader taking on Schumer, who represents to them the old establishment.
The paper pointed out that David Sirota, a senior adviser to the Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, wrote, “Just going to say something out loud that should be obvious: The fastest way to speed up the process of changing the corrupt, do-nothing, status-quo-protecting culture of the national Democratic Party is for @AOC to defeat @ChuckSchumer in a Democratic primary in 2022.”
This is not the first time that Trump played fight promoter between the two. Earlier this year he said that the freshman would “kick his a--.”
Ocasio-Cortez stunned the political establishment when she defeated 10-term Rep. Joe Crowley in the 2018 Democratic primary and went on to win the general election.
She has emerged since then as a standard-bearer for the Democratic Party’s left flank, calling for a “Green New Deal” and the elimination of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.
Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview in April that she is focused on winning her reelection to Congress rather than seek higher office. When Politico’s Playbook asked her if she would rule out a run against Schumer, she responded, “I don’t know.”
The Atlantic reported back in January that Schumer “is trying to ward off a 2022 primary challenge” from Ocasio-Cortez.
“That’s all I thought it was about,” a veteran trade lobbyist told the magazine. “He sees AOC over his shoulder at all times, apparently.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report

Deadly weekend in Seattle, Chicago, Minneapolis as New York City reports uptick in shootings

Major cities in the U.S. reported bloody weekends amid increased calls to defund and disband police departments in the wake of George Floyd’s death in police custody.
Chicago recorded at least 11 killed and 67 wounded during an outbreak of violence, according to Fox 32. The deaths included a 3-year-old and a 13-year-old girl. The teenage girl was home Saturday night when she was struck in the neck from the shot fired from outside. She was pronounced dead at Stroger Hospital.
CBS Chicago reported that eight of those shot were children and teens, four of them died.  The 3-year old was with his stepfather at about 6:30 p.m. on Saturday when he was struck in the back. Witnesses told the station that the gunfire came from a blue Honda.
“Tears are a natural reaction to these tragic stories of violence. But we need to do more than just cry,” Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said. “Let’s keep violent offenders in jail longer, and let’s revamp the home monitoring system. It’s not working.”
Investigators in Seattle are looking into a deadly shooting at CHOP, the Capitol Hill Organized Protest zone, that resulted in the death of a 19-year-old male.
Councilmember Kshama Sawant, who represents the neighborhood, reportedly said in a statement that “there are indications” that the shooting could be a “right-wing” attack. KING5 said it reached out to her for more details on the claim, but did not immediately get a response. No motive has been confirmed by the police.
Minneapolis, the city at the center of the national outrage over Floyd’s death, recorded one death and 11 injured in the uptown section of the city early Sunday morning. Fox 9 reported that it is believed suspects opened fire as patrons waited to go inside a restaurant.
"They had to have started over here on the sidewalk and made their way out to the middle of the street here shooting back and forth," Fred Hwang, a witness, told the station. "That's why there's broken glass here and over here and also right next to our building, there's a broken window."
The shooting drew the attention of Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who tweeted, “It breaks my heart to see another senseless act of violence in Minneapolis. Our city has been through so much, and we must promote peace by putting an end to gun violence.”
The New York Post reported Monday that there was one shooting in the city per hour on Saturday and cited a police chief who told the paper that defendants arrested for gun possession have been allowed to skip jail during the coronavirus pandemic. The paper reported that 24 people were shot citywide on Saturday alone.
The bloody weekend comes as cities across the country consider the future of policing. The Floyd case and the recent killing of Rayshard Brooks in Atlanta has strained the relationship between city leaders and police unions. Protesters say cities are spending too much money on these departments and not enough on inner-city programs. Police unions have said they felt abandoned by politicians and targeted in the press.
The liberal wing of the Democrat Party has called for cities to either dramatically defund or break up police departments outright.
Omar has said that the Minneapolis Police Department is “rotten to the root” and should be dismantled. She called the department a cancer that needs to be amputated so it does not spread.
Key Democrats, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden, are distancing themselves from the “defund” push.
“I don’t support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards of decency, honorableness and, in fact, are able to demonstrate they can protect the community, everybody in the community,” Biden told “CBS Evening News."
Bill de Blasio, the New York City mayor, earlier this month vowed to cut the department’s funding. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told Spectrum News 1 that some of the NYPD's $6 billion in annual funding should be redirected to address systemic racism. She said the $6 billion budget for the city police “costs us books in the hands of our children and costs us very badly needed” investment in public housing.
Supporters say defunding the police isn’t about eliminating police departments or stripping agencies of all of their money. They say it is time for the country to address systemic problems in policing in America and spend more on what communities across the U.S. need, like housing and education.
De Blasio did not identify exactly how much he plans to cut, but the NYPD announced last week that it was disbanding its anti-crime team. Commissioner Dermot Shea said roughly 600 plainclothes officers from the anti-crime unit will be reassigned to other teams.
The disbanding follows the suspension of an NYPD officer for discharging mace on a protester during a demonstration in the wake of George Floyd’s death. Two other officers have been suspended, a third was place on modified duty, and a precinct commander has been transferred.
President Trump has used calls to defund police to position himself as the law-and-order candidate.
“They’re saying defund the police,” he said. “Defund. Think of it. When I saw it, I said, ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘We don’t want to have any police,’ they say. You don’t want police?”
The Associated Press contributed to this report