‌Five Hours Of Recounting Votes, On YouTube, To Prove Election Deniers Wrong

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Frustrated with Mike Lindell’s well-funded lies about a stolen election, the Idaho secretary of state’s office took matters into their own hands. But can they actually convince anyone to abandon the Big Lie? 
 

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‌Five Hours Of Recounting Votes, On YouTube, To Prove Election Deniers Wrong

What do you do if you’re trying to win back the trust of voters convinced that the 2020 election was stolen? The Idaho secretary of state’s office had an idea: Pick two counties, dig up their boxes of ballots and just recount them, with little fanfare, and then post the video on YouTube.

Is this indulging the fiction that there’s any doubt about the 2020 results? Yes. But Chief Deputy Secretary of State Chad Houck told me that his office had been getting calls and emails asking for assurance ever since bedding magnate Mike Lindell held a “Cyber Symposium” in Sioux Falls, in August.

The recount, for what its worth, affirmed the election results: Trump won and Biden lost in the recounted counties, with the vote totals staying exactly the same save for a handful of ballots that were lost in the shuffle.

And Lindell, for what it’s worth, isn’t convinced: He started shifting the goalposts as soon as I read the recount results to him over the phone Thursday.

Then again, it’s not his opinion that matters — it’s Idaho voters’. 

The White House Released Plans To Get Out The Vote. Advocates Want More.

We reported a couple weeks ago on a 200-day homework assignment that Joe Biden had given to members of his Cabinet in the early days of his administration: Help get Americans involved in the Democratic process, specifically by using the federal government’s vast footprint to help people register to vote.

Well, the White House published agencies’ plans last week: A few brief paragraphs in a press release describing what advocates involved in the process told me was a promising start — but not representative of the government’s full potential.

“We hope and we expect, frankly, the agencies to iterate their plans, and specifically to think more creatively and to take on more ambitious commitments for integrating voter registration and voter access into their operations,” Laura Williamson, a senior policy analyst at Demos, told me after a listening session that the Biden administration held with advocates about the plans Friday.

Though the administration didn’t get into specifics Friday, Williamson said, “what we heard from the White House is that that is their intention as well.”

There are some standout initiatives: the Indian Health Service and Department of Veterans Affairs both said they would help patients with voter registration.

But there’s a lot left on the table: There’s no mention, for example, of using high-traffic real-estate like community health centers, healthcare.gov or the government’s college financial aid form, FAFSA, to help Americans register to vote. And there’s only sparse mention of designating federal office-fronts under the National Voter Registration Act — the law that turned state DMV offices into voter registration sites.

“There are a lot of federal agencies, and this is a step forward,” said the Brennan Center’s Lisa Danetz. But, she added, “I think a lot more could be done.”

Around The States

As states digest the 2020 census, local headlines increasingly feature newly drawn congressional map proposals. In sum, as The Washington Post’s Dave Weigel reports, “Where one party controls the process, it’s creating as little competition as mathematically possible. Where the power’s been handed to a nonpartisan commission, the maps may be more competitive than ever.” 

OREGON’s current congressional delegation is 4-1 Democrat-Republican. The newly proposed map, approved by both legislative chambers, would likely make that 5-1. 

GEORGIA’s first attempt at a new map shows the opposite, putting Rep. Lucy McBath’s (D-GA) reelection odds in danger.

A disappointment for Democrats: COLORADO’s independent redistricting commission draws a map that could make the state’s congressional delegation an even 4-4 split. 

Meanwhile, newly approved maps from MAINE and NEBRASKA “are fairly insulated from partisan gerrymandering,” Politico reports. 

Several ALABAMA voters are asking the federal court system to draw their congressional maps for them, alleging in a lawsuit that the current map is malapportioned.

Finally, some non-redistricting news: Making a pandemic accommodation permanent, from here on out, every registered, active voter in CALIFORNIA will receive a mail-in ballot sent to them every election.

Let’s remember the big picture, from the Brennan Center: “Between January 1 and September 27, at least 19 states enacted 33 laws that make it harder for Americans to vote.” 

The Latest In Audit Mania

Someone created a fake ARIZONA “audit” report that claimed the election shouldn’t have been certified, 10 months after the fact. There’s some indication the fake originated with the QAnon promoter Ann Vandersteel... whose name you may recognize from our coverage of the intersection between various conspiracy theories, including election denial, and the racist “great replacement” narrative.

Speaking of Mike Lindell: Former WISCONSIN Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman — who attended Lindell’s “Cyber Symposium,” sent out his first subpoenas in Republican lawmakers’ probe of the 2020 results. Green Bay’s clerk, Celestine Jeffreys, said much of what Gableman sought was already publicly available online.
 

And: Donald Trump is still complaining about the newly-announced “audit” in Texas, calling it “weak.” Local leaders see the review for what it is: “A political stunt” created to pacify the former president — so far unsuccessfully.

WaPo: Here’s what Congress can do to keep the next Trump from stealing an election
 

NYT: The I.R.S. Can Register Voters as Well as the D.M.V., and Maybe Better
 

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: High-stakes election tests Fulton amid state takeover threat
 

Texas Tribune: “God’s will is being thwarted.” Even in solid Republican counties, hard-liners seek more partisan control of elections.

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