(NEW YORK) — Broad, bipartisan numbers of Americans are concerned that political divisions are increasing the risk of politically motivated violence in this country, with majorities across the board highly concerned about it in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll.
Who gets the blame, however, differs sharply among partisan and ideological groups.
A week after the attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a vast 88% of adults express concern that political divisions have gotten to the point that there’s an increased risk of politically motivated violence in this country. Sixty-three percent in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates, are “very” concerned.
By contrast, asking which political party is more to blame for this risk produces a closely divided, strongly partisan result: 31% blame the Republican Party, 25% blame the Democratic Party and 32% blame both parties equally. Just 11% don’t blame either or both.
Overall concern is striking for how it crosses political lines, with rare levels of partisan agreement. Ninety-five percent of Democrats, 87% of Republicans and 86% of independents are concerned about the risk of political violence. So are 95% of liberals, 89% of moderates and 84% of conservatives.
That said, there are gaps as to the degree. About three-quarters of Democrats and liberals are very concerned about the risk, dropping to 58% of conservatives and 56% of Republicans — albeit still majorities in all cases.
In another political measure, 93% of voters for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election and 83% of Donald Trump voters are concerned about the risk of violence. Although, again, there is a difference in intensity: 78% of Biden voters are very concerned, compared to 55% of Trump voters.
There are other differences among groups. Women are 10 percentage points more apt than men to be very concerned about the risk of politically motivated violence — 68% vs. 58%. Just among Democrats, this includes a 13-point gap in strong concern between women and men.
Additionally, older people are much more apt to be very concerned, declining linearly with age — from 75% of those ages 65 and up, down to 47% of 18- to 29-year-olds.
Placing blame
As noted, blame reverts to partisan predispositions. Sixty-six percent of Democrats blame the Republican Party for the risk of violence, and 56% of Republicans blame the Democratic Party. Political independents, for their part, are likeliest to blame both parties equally.
There’s also a sharp difference between men and women, reflecting political preferences between the sexes. Women broadly blame the Republican Party more than the Democratic Party (38% vs. 18%). Men blame the Democratic Party over the GOP, albeit more narrowly (32% vs. 24%).
Methodology
This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by landline and cellular telephone from Oct. 30 to Nov. 2, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. Results have a margin of sampling error of 4.0 percentage points, including the design effect. Partisan divisions in the full sample are 27%-27%-39%, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
(WASHINGTON) — In Wisconsin’s high-profile Senate race, an army of mothers 500 strong is canvassing and door-knocking for the Democratic candidate, Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, in an effort to get out the vote on Election Day.
The group, dubbed “Moms for Mandela,” started independent of his campaign with the aim of mobilizing women to make their views clear on abortion access and gun reform.
“I was so frustrated seeing Ron Johnson celebrating the overturning of Roe and kind of refusing to do anything about the continued mass shootings that have been happening in this nation,” said Kate Duffy, a 35-year-old mother from a suburb of Milwaukee, referring to the Republican incumbent, Sen. Ron Johnson.
Many of the women, who Duffy says come from various backgrounds and areas across the state, haven’t been involved politically prior to this midterm election. They’ve held roundtables sharing personal abortion stories, spoken at rallies and cultivated a modest social media following to spread the word. Some even order their coffee with the name “Vote for Mandela” as an unconventional way of starting conversations about the race.
“Many women are coming forward and sharing their stories of abortion or other reproductive health scenarios that they’ve been involved with and kind of sharing why that’s going to matter with this election,” said Duffy.
Suburban women like Duffy and the group she’s amassed could make the difference in which candidate comes out on top.
“We have one of the most intense urban rural divides in the entire nation,” said Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “And that opens the way for suburban voters to decide close elections.”
Both Barnes and Johnson have focused on issues aimed to galvanize women. Johnson has hit Barnes hard on crime.
“He is a soft on crime champion whose policies make Wisconsin less safe,” said Ben Voelkel, an adviser to Johnson’s campaign, said in a statement.
At the same time, Barnes’ attacks on Johnson have focused on abortion access.
“The fact that [Johnson] was so callous as to say women who don’t like the laws of their state, like our 1849 criminal abortion ban, can just move did not sit well with a lot of people and it pushed them into action,” Barnes said in an interview with ABC News.
While abortion access and crime issues have animated the race, ultimately, the economy and inflation will likely be top of mind for voters as they head to the polls, including women who often make purchasing decisions in their households, giving them a front row seat to the rise in costs due to inflation. In Wisconsin and elsewhere, that could hurt Democrats.
It’s something Johnson’s campaign has seized on, attempting to tie Barnes to President Joe Biden, whose approval numbers remain dismal generally, including on his handling of the economy.
“Mandela Barnes supports all the awful Biden economic policies that have led to 40-year-high inflation,” said Voelkel.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that white suburban women, who represent 20% of the electorate, favor Republicans for Congress by 15 percentage points.
Still, Duffy said she and her group of mothers are going to push to turn out voters for Barnes.
“I think we’re doing everything we can and I think that I hope that people can see past the messaging that they’re putting out there and know that Mandela Barnes and other Democrats are really going to help working class families of Wisconsin,” said Duffy.
Barnes has pointed to his own lived experience, saying that he can related to the economic struggles that everyday Wisconsinites are dealing with.
“He absolutely does not understand what people are going through,” Barnes said. “He doesn’t understand people’s economic concerns.”
Barnes believes economic messaging has been strong enough to get these voters to turn out for him.
“It’s about rebuilding the middle class,” said Barnes. “It’s a message that’s resonated.”
Time will tell if Barnes’ efforts and that of the mothers organizing on his behalf will yield an election night victory. According to analysis from FiveThirtyEight, Johnson is favored in the race.
(NEW YORK) — A New York judge has approved a preliminary injunction and an independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization in an order that follows several hours of oral arguments Thursday.
The judge chided the Trump defense team for failing to submit “an iota of evidence” that would rebut the New York attorney general’s allegations of “comprehensive demonstration of persistent fraud” within the Trump Organization.
In deciding to appoint a monitor to supervise parts of former President Donald Trump’s business and grant a preliminary injunction to stop, what the attorney general’s office described as “ongoing fraudulent activities,” Judge Arthur Engoron said Trump has “demonstrated propensity” to engage in fraud, specifically calling out the overvaluation of Trump’s New York City apartment.
Until he moved to Florida, Trump lived in an 11,000-square-foot triplex in Trump Tower. Between 2012 and 2016, Trump represented the size of the apartment to be 30,000 square feet and valued it as high as $327 million.
Former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg testified the valuation “overstated the apartment’s value by give or take $200 million,” according to the attorney general’s office.
“To the extent that defendants assert that the over-valuation of approximately $200 million was not intentional but an inadvertent mistake, such argument is irrelevant under Executive Law 63 (12),” Engoron wrote.
Trump’s attorney decried the judge’s ruling.
“This unprecedented Order effectively seizes control of the financial affairs of a highly successful private corporate empire based on nothing more than gross exaggeration of standard valuation differences common in complex commercial real estate financing transactions,” Trump’s attorney Christopher Kise said in a statement to ABC News.
“The New York Attorney General has stretched the bounds of her authority to set a very dangerous precedent,” he said.
The preliminary injunction prevents Trump from moving assets, so they’re available in New York should the state prevail in its $250 million civil lawsuit against the former president and his family.
“In the absence of an injunction, and given defendants’ demonstrated propensity to engage in persistent fraud, failure to grant such an injunction could result in extreme prejudice to the people of New York,” Engoron’s order said. “The relief sought is appropriately tailored to curbing unlawful conduct and ensuring that funds are available for potential disgorgement at the conclusion of this case.”
As for the independent monitor, the judge said the monitor’s function will be “narrowly tailored” to assure there is no fraud or illegality at the Trump Organization.
The monitor will be chosen later this month after the two sides submit candidates. The monitor will oversee the company’s preparation of Trump’s statements of financial condition and ensure accurate information is conveyed to lenders and third parties.
During oral arguments, Kise said this kind of relief should make every commercial real estate developer concerned about what he argued was the improper injection of the court into private business affairs.
On Wednesday, Trump asked a Florida court to shield his revocable trust from New York Attorney General Letitia James.
When he became president, Trump put his ownership of the Trump Organization into the revocable trust that he is now trying to shield from the attorney general’s lawsuit.
(WASHINGTON) — Despite not being a candidate, Donald Trump is looming large this midterm election cycle, but what difference he’s making won’t be clearer until Election Day or soon after.
The former president’s approval rating among Republicans remains high — even as he faces multiple investigations and the fallout from the Jan. 6 hearings — with 64% of registered GOP voters saying Trump should have a good or great deal of influence over the future direction of the party, according to an ABC News and Ipsos poll.
Trump acolytes appear up and down the ballot in congressional and statewide races, including nearly 200 individuals who support and spread his election denialism.
“Although Donald Trump is not on the ballot this year, the Trump political brand is and it continues to show great durability and effectiveness,” Mark Weaver, a veteran Republican strategist, told ABC News. Trump-backed candidates, Weaver noted, often similarly push back against elites and embrace his off-script, bullying demeanor.
This final campaign week, Trump is holding a blitz of rallies in swing states to fire up the Republican base. He will appear in Florida, Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania. And a super PAC backed by Trump has spent at least $8.6 million on ads in battleground states, though the spending hasn’t been nearly as much as other Republican groups have invested this cycle.
Trump spokesperson Liz Harrington told ABC News that Trump’s endorsements are having “an incredible impact on the midterms.”
“Across the country, Republicans have benefited from President Trump’s rallies, financial support, and leadership,” Harrington said.
But will Trump’s impact ultimately help or hurt the GOP?
Trump helped to shape the GOP midterm field during the primaries, and often touts his endorsements at rallies. Now, the question is whether his influence will help or hinder the Republican Party’s chances of taking back control of Congress.
“This is the year we’re going to take back the House,” Trump said at Texas rally in late October. “We’re going to take back the Senate. We’re going to take back America.”
In some cases, Trump’s picks drove more moderate Republican incumbents off the ballot — like Rep. Liz Cheney’s loss to Harriet Hageman in Wyoming, or Kari Lake’s defeat of Karrin Taylor Robson in Arizona’s gubernatorial primary.
And his endorsements haven’t always been celebrated by Republican leadership in their quest to take back control of Congress. Among his more controversial picks are former football star Herschel Walker in Georgia and celebrity Dr. Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania. Despite encouraging Walker to run for office, clearing the field of any serious Republican challengers, Trump hasn’t set foot in Georgia in this final campaign stretch, while Walker has limited his talk of the former president in as he makes his case to voters.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has questioned the “candidate quality” of some Republicans running as he’s tempered expectations that the GOP will win back control of the chamber. While McConnell didn’t mention Trump or any candidates by name, the former president shot back at McConnell, calling him a “hack politician.”
“A number of Senate candidates in swing states owe their nominations to Donald Trump,” Bill Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told ABC News. “That’s certainly true in Pennsylvania. It’s true in Arizona. It’s true in Georgia.”
Those three states could ultimately determine which party controls the Senate next year, and FiveThirtyEight polling averages show each of those races separated by 3 points or less.
Elections observers have voiced concern that in some races, a more moderate candidate might’ve been faring better in the general election than Trump’s more divisive pick.
In Ohio — a state Trump won by 8 percentage points in 2020 — his Senate pick, J.D. Vance, is leading by just 2 percentage points, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average, and has often traded leads with Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan.
“Everyone can imagine that a generic Republican might be doing stronger than that,” Henry Olsen, a senior fellow at the conservative Ethics and Public Policy Center, told ABC News. “A number of [Trump’s] more controversial choices will win, and a number will likely lose.”
Some Trump-backed candidates are trying to pivot to more moderate stances for the upcoming general election after adopting extreme positions in the primary seasons.
New Hampshire’s Don Bolduc, the Republican nominee for Senate, was a gung-ho election denier in the primary race but shifted his stance completely for the general election, telling Fox News in September he’s come to the conclusion the 2020 race “was not stolen.”
“Republicans in the post mortem will judge Trump’s impact largely by looking at how his Senate candidates fare,” Galston continued. “If Republicans fail to recapture or hold a majority in the Senate, I think a lot of them will say that is Trump’s fault.”
Polling, and historical trends, generally points to a Republican takeover of the House this cycle while the Senate is more in flux. According to FiveThirtyEight’s forecast, it’s a dead heat for control of the upper chamber.
Looking ahead to 2024
Trump’s actions in the midterms, his first test race since he left office, are all happening against a 2024 backdrop.
The former president is consistently suggesting he will run again for the presidency, telling the crowd at the Texas rally last month he’ll “probably have to do it again” to make the country “successful, safe and glorious again.”
“If Trump-allied Republicans are defeated in winnable races in swing states, that will have an impact on the 2024 conversation,” said Galston.
But if his endorsed candidates fare well, it could boost his profile even further in the GOP.
A host of other potential 2024 contenders are making their presence known this midterm cycle.
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin was in Arizona campaigning for Lake and other Republicans. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, widely considered to be one of Trump’s biggest competitors, has appeared at events in Kansas, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Trump will be in Florida on Nov. 6 to stump for Sen. Marco Rubio, but will notably not appear alongside DeSantis.
In a September ABC News poll, Republicans and GOP-leaning independents were split 47%-46% on whether Trump should be their 2024 nominee — a 20-point drop for Trump since his 2020 nomination.
(WASHINGTON) — About half the country has banned abortion sometime before viability and at least 14 states have ceased nearly all abortion services, since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending federal protections for abortion rights.
Recent polling suggests this is not in line with the stance of the majority of Americans. According to a recent survey by Pew Research, 62% of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Data from a recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows that about 6 in 10 Americans (61%) think abortion should be legal in all or most cases versus only 37% who think it should be illegal.
In the months since Roe was overturned, pro-abortion groups have focused on establishing abortion as a right under state constitutions.
In the first state-level test since Roe, Kansas voters decided to preserve access to abortion in an Aug. 2 election. This November, voters in five states, California, Vermont, Michigan, Montana and Kentucky, have abortion-related questions on the ballot.
While abortion is already banned in Kentucky, a conservative initiative that seeks to amend the state constitution to explicitly state that there is no constitutional right to abortion, will be on the ballot on Nov. 8.
If the ballot initiative — known as Amendment 2 — passes, “Kentucky will be just another state where abortion is illegal in all cases and women have to leave the state [and] travel great distances in order to get the care that they need,” Rachel Sweet, campaign manager at Protect Kentucky Access — an abortion rights advocacy group — told ABC News in an interview.
If the initiative passes and abortion rights are challenged in state court, any abortion-related legislation passed by lawmakers would be examined based on the merits of that legislation, Addia Wuchner, executive director of anti-abortion group Kentucky Right to Life, told ABC News in an interview.
Wuchner contends that the amendment on the ballot would not enshrine any policy into law and would allow lawmakers to pass legislation either way the pendulum swings. But, she also said, “Kentucky has a history of being pro-life [and] pro-family.”
Adding, “[T]here’s not a right in our constitution to terminate the life of another person.”
Even before abortions were banned in Kentucky, access was limited with only two abortion clinics in the state. In 2021, those clinics performed about 4,400 abortions, most of which were within the first several weeks after fertilization, according to a report from Kentucky Public Health.
Since Roe was overturned, 66 clinics across 15 states have stopped offering abortion services, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Some Americans are now at an 800-mile drive away from their nearest abortion clinic, according to data gathered by the Myers Abortion Facility Database.
Clinics across the U.S. provided 10,000 fewer abortions in the first few months after Roe was overturned, according to data gathered by #WeCount/Society of Family Planning..
Sweet said she has heard stories from people about their experiences with abortions or pregnancy loss, which she says have kept her going. Since Roe was overturned, Sweet also said she has seen people who have never canvassed or knocked on doors before sign up to talk to their neighbors about abortion rights, saying “they are ready and raring to go.”
About 20 abortion transport volunteers with an abortion rights group called the Kentucky Health Justice Network are driving Kentucky patients, who have no way of getting to clinics or can’t afford to travel for care, to out-of-state clinics. Patients are often referred to the group by out-of-state abortion clinics, where there are often few appointments and long wait times.
“The longest drive I personally have done was to Asheville, North Carolina, which is about a six-hour drive from Louisville each way,” Anastasia, a Kentucky Health Justice Network volunteer who asked that only her first name be used, told ABC News in an interview.
For that drive, she said she got up at around 2:30 a.m. that day and was home around 7 p.m.
“It’s satisfying in the sense that I’m helping someone in a very practical, visible way. But also … frustration that this type of help is necessary,” she said.
Despite the flux in the status of abortion access in many states, activists say their determination is unwavering.
“We’re all learning this together. I think that every week we learn something new, and every week something else changes. So I think that it’s been difficult for all of us to tread these waters. But I think that we’re all dedicated to our mission,” Savannah Trebuna, the abortion fund program director at the Kentucky Health Justice Network, told ABC News.
“The fact of the matter is, a person who does not want to be pregnant should have the option to not be pregnant,” Trebuna added.
(LAVEEN VILLAGE, Ariz.) — Former President Barack Obama continued his crisscrossing of midterm election battlegrounds Wednesday in Arizona — hoping to turn out voters so Democrats can hold the Senate and keep election deniers out of office.
“Our democracy is on the ballot, and nowhere is that clearer than here in Arizona,” Obama said.
A crowd of thousands, of all ages and races, packed inside Cesar Chavez High School in Laveen Village, held up their phones and stomped their feet as the former president delivered a roast and a warning on what he called the Republican “cast of characters” on the ballot in Arizona.
“They have decided it’s advantageous for them to just assert that Donald Trump won the last election, and now they want control over the next election. And their argument has no basis in reality,” Obama said. “If you’ve got an election denier serving as your governor, as your senator, as your secretary of state, as your attorney general, then democracy, as we know it, may not survive in Arizona.”
To shore up support, especially for incumbent Sen. Mark Kelly and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, the Democratic nominee for governor, Obama tailored his attack lines to their opponents, Republicans Kari Lake and Blake Masters. Both have former President Donald Trump’s endorsement and have echoed his election denialism.
“Why would you vote for somebody who you know is not telling the truth about something? I mean, on something that important. I don’t care how nicely they say it. I don’t care how poised they are or how well-lit they are,” Obama said, referring to Lake’s TV appearances.
For more from ABC News’ team of reporters embedded in battleground states, watch “Power Trip” on Hulu, with new episodes on Sunday.
Back in May 2016, when Obama was finishing his second term and Lake was still an anchor at a FOX affiliate in Phoenix, Lake interviewed him in Arizona where they discussed Senate Republicans blocking now-Attorney General Merrick Garland’s nomination to the Supreme Court. “Democracy only works when people play by the rules, where everybody is fair,” Obama told her at the time.
The former president said Wednesday he doesn’t remember thinking then that “she was the kind of person” to push conspiracies.
“I guess that stuff came later because she found it convenient — because she thought, ‘Well, here’s an opportunity to get attention,'” Obama said. “Listen, if we hadn’t just elected somebody whose main qualification was being on TV, you can say, ‘Maybe give it a shot. What’s the worst that could happen?’ Well, now we know. It doesn’t just work out just because somebody’s been on TV. Turns out, being president or governor is about more than snappy lines and good lighting.”
The crowd roared.
Notably, Lake contributed to Obama’s first presidential campaign and voted for him, but attributes that now to dissatisfaction with the Republican establishment.
“Katie, she may not be flashy,” Obama said of Hobbs before an outspoken attendee disagreed. “She could have been. She just chooses not to be, because she’s serious about her work.”
Hobbs, who has faced criticism for refusing to debate Lake, has run a low-key campaign when compared to her competitor’s large-scale rallies and moderated Q&A events. But Wednesday, she took a jab at Lake in front of her largest audience yet.
“Democracy is the system that sent Barack Obama to the White House, and democracy is the system that will send Kari Lake back to whatever dark corner of the internet she came from,” Hobbs said to cheers.
Several Democrats spoke at the rally, including secretary of state candidate Adrian Fontes and attorney general candidate Kris Mayes — and one lone Republican, Mesa Mayor John Giles, an outspoken Lake critic.
“Kari Lake is playing to an audience of one. I promise you if she’s elected, she’ll spend more time traveling to Mar-a-Lago than to Mesa,” Giles said. “Likewise, Blake Masters wants to go to the Senate to represent two people: One, a billionaire in California, the other, a want-to-be billionaire former president in Florida,” he added, referring also to Peter Thiel, a Masters-mega donor.
For his part, Obama said of Masters, “If you were trying to create, in a lab, a wacky Republican politician, it’d look a lot like this guy.”
The former president also knocked the 36-year-old conservative and venture capitalist for scrubbing his website after his primary win to soften some of his stances.
“His website had all kinds of lies about how the election was stolen, then after he won the nomination, poof, vanished. Along with his extreme views on abortion, poof,” Obama said. “I mean, this guy is supposed to know tech. Does he think like people can’t track that?”
Arizona Republicans, meanwhile, were quick to dismiss Obama’s visit and note that he never carried Arizona.
“Barack Obama has never won Arizona, and the fact that he is here is a testament to the toxicity of Joe Biden that has rubbed off on Mark Kelly and Katie Hobbs,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Ben Petersen said in a statement. “This election is a referendum on Biden’s abject failure on skyrocketing inflation, open borders and violent crime.”
Masters also brushed off the former president’s criticism of him and has dismissed any notion of a post-primary pivot, likening his website changes to a run-of-the-mill update. He responded by posting a family photo to Twitter, with his wife and three small sons, and saying, “This is what Democrats like Obama think is wacky.”
Lake, meanwhile, has countered characterizations of her election denialism to say Democrats have also not conceded elections and have raised doubts in results dating back to 2000.
President Joe Biden, notably, has not visited the Grand Canyon State and has not announced plans to do so, focusing instead on Florida, Maryland, New Mexico and California. But the White House announced Thursday plans for first lady Jill Biden to campaign with Kelly in Phoenix this weekend, the final weekend before Election Day.
At the same time, Biden, Trump and Obama will all be in Pennsylvania on Saturday, a state that has seen razor-thin margins in another Senate race that could determine the balance of power in Congress.
While Obama’s appearance could be seen as coming too late since a majority of Arizonans vote early, and early voting ends Friday, voters outside the rally in South Phoenix predicted he’s the one to bring more people to the polls.
“I’m hoping he can energize us,” Ann Wood of Phoenix told ABC News. “I think every single vote counts. It was so close last time, and I just hope it makes a difference.”
“It’s never too late,” said Nancy Shubert of Sun West City. “As Democrats, we’re very, very, very hopeful.”
Libby Cathey is one of seven ABC News campaign reporters embedded in battleground states across the country. Watch all the twists and turns of covering the midterm elections every Sunday on Hulu’s “Power Trip” with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
(WASHINGTON) — In the wake of the 2020 election, state and local election officials have faced a wave of threats and misinformation, prompting mass resignations up and down their ranks — and stoking fear among some experts that their replacements would put partisan loyalties above the free and fair administration of the election.
In the weeks and months after the 2020 vote, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School found that one-third of election workers reported feeling unsafe because of their job. Nearly one-fifth of respondents listed threats to their lives as a job-related concern.
ABC News reported in June 2021 that dozens of election administrators at the state and local level had resigned their posts at an alarming rate in places like South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Arizona. In August, ABC News reported that persistent threats and misinformation had prompted a “second wave” of resignations in at least nine states.
Election worker threats
In Georgia, two election workers, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, were forced into hiding after Rudy Giuliani and conservative media outlets accused the mother-daughter duo of conspiring to commit election fraud. The two testified about their experience before the Jan. 6 committee.
Stephen Richer, the Republican chief elections officer in Maricopa County, Arizona, faced an onslaught of death threats after overseeing a controversial audit of the 2020 election, which lead him to cease attending political events for fear of his safety.
In response to the wave of threats targeting election workers, the Justice Department launched a task force focused on these complaints — but results have been paltry, state and local officials have said. In August, the task force said it had reviewed “over 1,000” reports of threats — though only 11% had met the threshold for federal criminal investigation. Seven cases have been charged — one of whom was convicted and sentenced in October to 18 months in prison.
Georgia’s office of secretary of state has launched a text message alert notification tool for election workers to report threats or security issues.
With so many election officials leaving their jobs, democracy experts fear their departures will leave an “institutional knowledge” gap about election administration, and their replacements may harbor partisan motivations.
Indeed, as ABC News reported in January, many Republican-led efforts to recruit new poll workers took on a partisan bent. More recently, ABC News reported that allies of former President Donald Trump have used false election claims to recruit ex-military members as poll workers.
Voting machines
Electronic voting machines became a target of many falsehoods and disproven conspiracy theories in the wake of 2022, with Republican activists falsely claiming that certain devices were somehow manipulated to switch votes from Trump to President Joe Biden, among others.
Dominion Voting Systems, one of the nation’s largest voting machine purveyors, filed multiple lawsuits against conservative news outlets and Trump allies over the promulgation of “outlandish” conspiracy theories involving its product.
Tina Peters, a county recorder in Mesa County, Arizona, was indicted in May 2021 on charges associated with a security breach in her office. Peters, a Trump supporter and election denier, allegedly allowed an unauthorized person to obtain voter machine logs and a forensic copy of its hard drive. The documents later emerged on the internet. Peters has pleaded not guilty.
Concerns over voting software and hardware will be front and center again in 2022, and the Ballotwatch team will be on the lookout for both unfounded claims and legitimate vulnerabilities with election infrastructure.
Nevada Secretary of State, Republican Barbara Cegavske, recently approved a proposal to allow counties to hand-count votes this fall after Nye County, based on unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, decided earlier this year to abandon the Dominion voting machines it had relied on for years.
Access to the vote
Long lines and access to polling locations have long been the scourge of democracy advocates — and 2022 will likely be no different. Republican-led state legislatures have enacted dozens of laws restricting voting access since 2020, including many that would repeal 2020 exceptions for the covid-19 pandemic.
Since the beginning of 2021, lawmakers have passed at least 42 restrictive voting laws in 21 states, according to the Brennan Center. Among those laws, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that is in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
ABC News recently reported that the promulgation of election-related threats has made some schools and churches reconsider whether it is safe to continue serving as polling locations, prompting concerns among some election officials that voters may face more difficulty casting their ballots in November and beyond.
Voter intimidation and poll watchers
Partisan poll watchers representing both Republicans and Democrats have observed elections for decades. But in the run-up to the 2020 election, former President Trump’s allies sought to weaponize these actors for their own political benefit, demonstrating behavior that some democracy advocates say amounted to voter intimidation.
Ahead of the midterms, more of the same appears to be underway.
In Arizona, for example, multiple cases of alleged voter intimidation at drop box locations have already been referred to the Justice Department. Complaints described individuals loitering near the drop box locations, filming, and photographing voters as they returned their ballots and, in some cases, taking photographs of the voters’ license plates.
On Tuesday, a federal issued a temporary restraining order to prohibit some people accused of voter intimidation from gathering near ballot boxes and surveilling voters, ruling that observers must remain at least 75 feet away from drop boxes and banning open carry and body armor within 250 feet.
(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump asked a Florida court on Wednesday to shield his revocable trust from New York Attorney General Letitia James, who has filed a $250 million civil lawsuit against Trump and his family.
In a 41-page civil lawsuit laden with familiar grievances, the former president accused James of “intimidation and harassment” and of making repeated “attempts to steal, destroy or control all things Trump,” including the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust that contains his private estate plan, and decisions about the disposition of his assets upon death.
The lawsuit said the trust “requires protection from James’ demand to invade his privacy.” As part of her lawsuit, James has sought documents about the trust, its terms and its contents.
“These are private matters to President Trump, and under Florida law, revelation of a settlor’s revocable trust while the settlor is still alive threatens the settlor’s right to privacy guaranteed by Article I, Section 23 of the Florida Constitution and the common law,” Trump’s lawsuit states.
A spokeswoman for James issued a statement Wednesday night, saying, “Multiple judges have dismissed Donald Trump’s baseless attempts to evade justice, and no number of lawsuits will deter us from pursuing this fraud. We sued Donald Trump because he committed extensive financial fraud. That fact hasn’t changed, and neither will our resolve to ensure that no matter how powerful or political one might be, no one is above the law.”
James alleges that Trump and his family enriched themselves through “numerous acts of fraud and misrepresentations” for 20 years, and her lawsuit accuses the Trumps of “grossly” inflating the former president’s net worth by billions of dollars and cheating lenders and others with false and misleading financial statements.
The civil lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, seeks a $250 million judgment and a prohibition on any of the Trumps leading a company in the state of New York.
Trump’s filing comes hours before a hearing on Thursday in New York where a judge will hear oral arguments about the attorney general’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop alleged ongoing fraud.
The attorney general’s office claimed in a court filing last month that the Trump Organization allegedly appeared to be moving assets and taking other steps to restructure the business in an attempt to “evade liability.”
James also asked the court to appoint a monitor to oversee the Trump Organization’s preparation of financial statements to ensure accuracy.
(WASHINGTON) — The Justice Department has offered Trump aide Kash Patel an immunity deal to testify before a grand jury probing former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of documents marked as classified found at Mar-a-Lago, sources familiar with the matter told ABC News.
Patel appeared before a grand jury probing the handling of the documents last month and repeatedly invoked the Fifth Amendment.
The immunity deal for Patel wouldn’t necessarily shield him from prosecution and wouldn’t protect him from any information investigators receive independent of his testimony.
But experts argue the extension of an immunity offer, nonetheless, could signal the advanced stage the investigation is currently in and how investigators are increasingly zeroing in on Trump’s attempts to hold on to documents that were among the most highly protected government intelligence.
Patel didn’t immediately respond to a text message seeking comment, and it’s not clear how he or his team will respond to the DOJ’s offer. A lawyer representing Patel declined to comment. Department of Justice officials declined to comment.
On Aug. 9, the day after FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and found scores of documents marked classified, Patel issued a statement calling the raid “unlawful” and saying “corrupt government gangsters” had engaged in “the blatant weaponization of our government for political gain.”
On Monday, Patel appeared on “The Benny Show,” a right-wing podcast, and said, “I’m all in with the boss, and you know that.” Patel was responding to a question about whether he would accept the FBI director post if Trump were to be reelected in 2024.
“First I tell people, let’s win the midterms,” Patel said. “And then let’s see what he does and, you know, you and I think I know what he’s going to do. And then it’s a two-year lift and you know what, they’re going to come after us.”
(WASHINGTON0 — Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said he hopes Twitter’s new owner, Elon Musk, acts “responsibly.”
“He’s going to be in a position of responsibility with respect to an important platform, and we hope that he exercises that position responsibly,” Mayorkas told ABC News Chief Justice Correspondent Pierre Thomas during an interview at DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Musk, who acquired Twitter for roughly $44 billion last week, retweeted and since deleted inaccurate information regarding the assault of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.
The secretary noted that Musk removed the inaccurate post “rather rapidly.”
Mayorkas said that, ultimately, it’s up to Congress to regulate social media companies. The government, however, is within its purview to combat mis- and disinformation, he said.
“For example, if it involves the election — if there is false information that [says] you don’t need to vote on Nov. 8… if you miss [the] voting date, you can ask … for permission to vote five days later — with no factual basis, inaccurate information that could deceive an individual into missing their right to exercise their vote. That is something that we will correct,” he said. “That is our responsibility. That is our mission. And we execute it quite proudly.”
Disinformation from nation-state actors could be seen by a vast audience, he said, including during the 2022 midterm election, if it is not stomped out.
“Here in the online environment, the potential audience is vast,” he said. “And what we do, we have a responsibility to make sure that the American public receives accurate information.”
Earlier this year, DHS established and then quickly shut down a Disinformation Governance Board that was aimed at combatting disinformation but it was criticized by both sides of the aisle.
Mayorkas told ABC News that leaders have a responsibility to combat misinformation.
“The words of leaders matter a lot, and we need leaders to act responsibly,” he said. “It is the responsibility of government, not just the Department of Homeland Security. The responsibility of government. It is a responsibility of leaders. It is the responsibility of people in positions of trust to communicate accurate information to the American public and disabuse them of falsehoods.”
He is concerned about the “temperature” in the country and the divisiveness, the secretary added.
