Tag Archives: Election

Missouri lawmakers override gun, voter ID vetoes

Handguns for sale

By Kevin Murphy

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (Reuters) – Missouri lawmakers pushed through bills on Wednesday eliminating the need for permits to carry concealed weapons and requiring voters to show a photo identification before casting a ballot, overriding Democratic Governor Jay Nixon’s vetoes of the bills.

Both votes by the Republican-controlled state House and Senate reached the two-thirds majority required to enact legislation over the governor’s veto.

The weapons bill abolished a state law requiring a permit, training and background checks for people who want to carry a concealed weapon in the state.

The House voted 112-41 to override Nixon’s veto and the Senate voted 24-6.

Supporters of the bill said it will make the state safer by allowing more residents to carry firearms in self-defense, while still banning certain criminals and mentally incompetent people from having a gun.

In vetoing the bill in July, Nixon said the measure struck an extreme blow to sensible safeguards against gun violence.

Earlier on Wednesday, the state Senate voted 24-7 and the House 115-41 to override Nixon’s veto of a bill requiring voters to produce a government-issued ID instead of less official identification such as a utility bill or bank check.

The bill would not take effect until 2017, after this year’s presidential election, and only if voters in November pass a state constitutional amendment in support of the new law. That is necessary because the Missouri Supreme Court ruled 10 years ago that such a statute violated the existing state constitution.

Courts in recent months have blocked voter ID laws passed in several states by Republican-led legislatures after civil rights groups argued the measures were discriminatory against poor and minority voters.

In Missouri, voters without a photo ID can still vote if they sign an affidavit swearing that they lack any type of identification. However, election officials can take their picture, and steps must be taken to get a photo ID for later use, with the state covering the cost.

Supporters of the bill said it will help prevent voter fraud.

“Why not have more certainty in the election process?” Republican Representative Justin Alferman, the bill’s main sponsor, said in a statement before the vote.

Opponents had argued that the ID requirement places an undue burden on young, minority and low-income voters who tend to support Democratic candidates.

“Putting additional and unwanted barriers between citizens and their ability to vote is wrong and detrimental to our system of government as a whole,” Nixon said in explaining his veto.

(Editing by Steve Gorman and Simon Cameron-Moore)

Spy agencies concerned about possible U.S. election hacks: NSA chief

Eight year-old Emma Gray Bachrodt holds a "USA" sign while U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton speaks at a campaign voter registration event at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte

By Patricia Zengerle

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – American intelligence agencies are concerned about reports that foreign governments may be attempting to undermine the Nov. 8 U.S. elections through cyber attacks, Admiral Mike Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, said on Tuesday.

“We continue to be actively concerned,” Rogers told a Senate hearing, responding to a question from Senator John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Marcel Lettre, Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, testified that the government is taking any such activities “quite seriously” and said an “aggressive investigation” is under way.

McCain noted that one of the two states in which media reports said there was evidence of attempted Russian hacking was his home state, Arizona.

Some analysts have said Arizona, which recently has been reliably Republican in presidential elections, could be tilting more toward the Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, this year. McCain, a Republican, himself is in a tougher than usual re-election fight.

Rogers said he could not provide specifics about spy agencies’ current assessment of the alleged hacking in a public setting. But he added, “I will say this, that it continues to be an issue of great focus … for the foreign intelligence community, attempting to generate insights into what foreign nations are doing in this area.”

Under further questioning, Rogers declined to characterize the activity as by a foreign nation-state.

Lettre said the government would adopt a policy for dealing with any such activity once it had the results of the investigation.

“The FBI and the Department of Homeland Security has an aggressive investigation underway,” Lettre said.

U.S. security officials have said that, starting last year, hackers infiltrated computers of the Democratic National Committee, Clinton’s presidential campaign and her party’s congressional fundraising committee.

U.S. officials said they have concluded that Russia or its proxies were responsible, leading to calls by some Democrats and cyber security officials for the Obama administration to blame Russia publicly.

Kremlin officials have dismissed the allegations as absurd, but there is anxiety in Washington over the possibility that a foreign power might be using hacked information to meddle in the November elections.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Supreme Court leaves Ohio voting restrictions in place

Voters at the ballots

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to reinstate for the Nov. 8 general election Ohio’s “Golden Week”, which had allowed voters to register and cast ballots within the same seven-day period before it was repealed by a Republican-backed law two years ago.

Ohio Democrats had challenged the repeal on grounds that it discriminated against black voters, and had taken their case to the nation’s highest court after the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals had ruled against them in August.

The law was one of numerous measures enacted in recent years in Republican-governed states that Democrats and civil rights activists have said were intended to hamper voters, including African-Americans and Hispanics, who tend to favor Democratic candidates.

“Ohio Republicans can keep trying to make it harder for people to vote, but we will continue to fight them at every turn,” Ohio Democratic Party Chairman David Pepper said.

Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted, a Republican, countered that state election laws had made Ohio less vulnerable to voter fraud and “one of the easiest states in the nation in which to register and cast your ballot.”

The appeals court had reversed a May ruling by a U.S. district judge who blocked repeal of Golden Week, finding that the 2014 law violated voters’ rights.

The Supreme Court’s brief order did not note any dissenting votes on the short-handed eight-member court, evenly divided between liberal and conservative justices.

Ohio’s Republican-controlled legislature abolished Golden Week while also shortening the state’s early-voting period, during which ballots could be cast before an election, to four weeks from five weeks. Ohio often is a pivotal state in U.S. presidential elections.

In a separate Ohio voting-rights case decided on Tuesday by the 6th Circuit, a three-judge panel issued a split ruling.

Siding with a lower court, the appeals panel struck down a 2014 requirement that local election officials toss out absentee and provisional ballots if they contain an address or birth date that fails to perfectly match voting records.

But the panel reversed the lower court in upholding provisions restricting the assistance that poll workers can offer voters and reducing the number of days absentee voters have to remedy identification-envelope errors.

Golden Week was created to make it easier to vote in Ohio after lengthy lines at polling locations marred the 2004 election. In 2008, 60,000 people voted during Golden Week, and 80,000 did so in 2012.

The law erasing Golden Week was initially challenged in court by the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

In 2014, in an earlier round of litigation, the Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow the repeal to take effect for that year’s election.

The case is one of several voting disputes being litigated ahead of the November election and is the third application for emergency action to reach the Supreme Court in recent weeks from three different states. The justices have rejected all three.

On Aug. 31, the court rejected a bid by North Carolina to reinstate several voting restrictions, including a requirement that people show identification at the polls.

Last Friday, the court rejected an effort by Michigan to reinstate a ban on “straight ticket” voting, the practice of using one mark to vote for all candidates from one party.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland; Editing by Will Dunham)

Charisma Magazine: How the Very Future of America is at Stake

As August comes to a close, we are drawing closer and closer to November, and one of the most important elections in our country’s history. As many of our guests (and numerous other prophets) have shared, this election will determine the fate of America when it comes to God’s judgment. Despite the significance of this election, it still shocks me to hear that some of our fellow Christians say that they will not vote, or they are uncertain of who to vote for. If you are one of these people, I highly encourage you to read Charisma Magazine’s latest article. This article is written from the perspective of Dr. Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in California. He provides some amazing insight concerning both candidates’ views on political issues and their plans for America’s future. I pray that after reading this article, you will have a clearer perspective on the election, the issues, the candidates, and just how important your vote is!

Love,

Pastor Jim Bakker

Read the full article at CharismaNews.com

Feds to raise rates this year, likely in December after election

A man walks past the Federal Reserve Bank in Washington, D.C., U.S.

By Sumanta Dey and Deepti Govind

(Reuters) – The U.S. Federal Reserve is likely to raise interest rates in December, after the Nov. 8 presidential election, according to a Reuters poll that also predicted a pickup in economic growth but with still relatively subdued inflation.

That would be one full year after the last rate increase, something most Fed policymakers and private forecasters had not expected.

The poll forecast two more rises next year, taking the federal funds rate to 1.00-1.25 percent at the end of 2017.

A move in 2016 has been delayed, first on a sharp fall in global markets and then after Britain voted to leave the European Union.

But the Fed’s continued eagerness to tighten monetary policy underscores both the relative strength of the world’s largest economy as well as how tough the central bank is finding such a move.

Its peers from Europe to Asia are easing policy. New Zealand on Thursday cut interest rates to record lows, joining Australia, to stave off deflation and stem the rise in its currency. [ECILT/EZ] [ECILT/GB]

Of the 95 economists surveyed over the past week, 69 expect the federal funds target rate to rise to 0.50-0.75 percent by the fourth quarter from 0.25-0.50 percent currently. One forecast rates at 0.75-1.00 by year-end.

With a subdued inflation outlook, however, a slim majority of economists said a Fed rate hike this year would serve more as a confidence boost rather than a measure to quell pressure from rising prices.

After a weaker-than-expected 1.2 percent annualized pace of expansion in the second quarter, the U.S. economy is expected to grow 2.5 percent this quarter and slightly more than 2 percent in each quarter until the end of 2017, the poll found.

But respondents expected the core personal consumption expenditure price index, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, to average just 1.8 percent in the fourth quarter and stay below the central bank’s 2 percent target even at the end of 2017.

Cantor Fitzgerald analyst Justin Lederer said he expected one interest-rate move, in December.

“The election is one of the reasons why they can’t go sooner,” he said. “We don’t think the Fed will want to disrupt the election.”

The Fed’s November policy meeting is only days before the election. Economists gave a median probability of 58 percent of a move the next month, in December, up 8 percentage points from a poll last month.

Financial markets, however, are placing only a little more than one-in-three chance of a hike at the Dec. 14 meeting, according to data on the CME Group website.

A majority of economists said the probability of a September hike had risen after a report last week showed 255,000 new jobs were created in July and wage growth picked up pace, although that was still not their central view.

Respondents gave just a 25 percent chance of a hike for September, with only a handful of economists calling for one then.

A few banks said there would be no increase at all this year.

(Polling and analysis by Vartika Sahu; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

Court denies North Carolina motion to stay decision on voter ID law

election worker checking IDs

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court issued an order on Thursday denying North Carolina’s motion to stay the court’s decision last week striking down the state’s voter ID law.

The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said staying its ruling now “would only undermine the integrity and efficiency of the upcoming election.”

On Friday, the court ruled that the North Carolina law, which required voters to show photo identification when casting ballots, intentionally discriminated against African-American residents.

Attorneys for the state in a written motion earlier this week asked the court to put its ruling on hold while the state appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court and seeks to overturn the decision ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

The court’s move to strike down the state’s voter ID law was a victory for rights advocates that will enable thousands of people to vote more easily and could boost Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s support in the state going into the election.

The decision by the U.S. appeals court also canceled provisions of the law that scaled back early voting in the potential swing state, prevented residents from registering and voting on the same day, and eliminated the ability of voters to vote outside their assigned precinct.

The order noted that North Carolina officials already said they could conduct early voting at Board of Election offices for each county, in line with the ruling.

“Finally, we observe that our injunction merely returns North Carolina’s voting procedures to the status quo prevailing before the discriminatory law was enacted,” the order denying a stay said.

(Reporting by Eric Beech in Washington and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Eric Walsh and Diane Craft)

Protesters throw rocks, bottles at police outside Trump rally

A protester disrupts a rally with Trump and his supporters in Albuquerque

By Brendan O’Brien

(Reuters) – Protesters threw rocks and bottles at police officers who responded with pepper spray outside a rally for presidential candidate Donald Trump in Albuquerque, New Mexico, police said.

Hundreds of protesters tried to storm the convention center in New Mexico’s biggest city, knocking down barricades and throwing objects at a door and then hurling rocks and bottles at mounted police in riot gear, the Albuquerque Police Department said on Twitter on Tuesday and video posted online showed.

Several police officers were injured, the police tweeted.

Protesters chanted anti-Trump slogans, held anti-Trump signs and waved Mexican flags before the demonstration descended into chaos with some protesters standing on top of police cars.

Television footage showed officers responding by using pepper spray and smoke bombs to disperse the crowd.

Police said they made arrests both outside and inside the rally, where protesters continually interrupted Trump’s speech.

No one at the police department was immediately available for comment.

Protests have become common outside rallies for Trump, the party’s presumptive nominee, who has polarized opinion with his rhetoric against illegal immigration. He abandoned a rally in Chicago in March after clashes between his supporters and protesters.

He has accused Mexico of sending drug dealers and rapists across the U.S. border and has promised to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it.

According to CNN, his supporters chanted “build that wall” during his rally on Tuesday in Albuquerque where a little less than half of the population is Hispanic or Latino.

“Watching thugs (and) punks in Albuquerque – en route to California. They don’t even know what they are protesting,” Trump aide Dan Scavino said on Twitter.

Trump heads on Wednesday to a rally in Anaheim, California, which has a growing Latino minority.

(Editing by Louise Ireland)

Philippines election victor Duterte plans government overhaul

A poster of presidential candidate Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte at a residential district during the national elections in Davao

By Neil Jerome Morales

DAVAO, Philippines (Reuters) – The Philippines’ president-elect, rough-talking city mayor Rodrigo Duterte, announced plans on Tuesday for an overhaul of the country’s system of government that would devolve power from “imperial Manila” to long-neglected provinces.

Duterte’s win in Monday’s poll has not been confirmed, but an unofficial count of votes by an election commission-accredited watchdog showed he had a huge lead over his two closest rivals, both of whom conceded defeat.

By Tuesday afternoon, the ballot count showed Duterte had almost 39 percent of votes cast. He was more than 6 million votes ahead of the second-placed candidate with 92 percent of votes counted from an electorate of 54 million.

It is not clear when Duterte’s victory will be officially declared but he is expected to take office on June 30.

Votes were also cast on Monday for vice-president. One day on, counting showed the outgoing administration’s candidate, Maria Leonor Robredo, ahead of the son and namesake of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

Duterte’s spokesman, Peter Lavina, told a news conference that the new president would seek a national consensus for a revision of the constitution which would switch from a unitary form of government to a parliamentary and federal model.

The proposal to devolve power from Manila fits with Duterte’s challenge as a political outsider to the country’s establishment, which he has slammed as self-serving and corrupt.

“The powerful elites in Manila who will be affected by this system will definitely oppose this proposal,” said Earl Parreno, an analyst at the Institute for Political and Electoral Reforms.

Duterte’s spokesman said he would also seek peace agreements with rebel groups in the south of the archipelago, where the outgoing government has been using force to quell militancy.

The 71-year-old’s truculent defiance of political tradition has drawn comparisons with U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, as have his references to his libido.

That tapped into popular disgust with the ruling class over its failure to reduce poverty and inequality despite several years of robust economic growth.

SOUTH CHINA SEA TALKS

Duterte’s vows to restore law and order also resonated with voters. But his incendiary rhetoric and advocacy of extrajudicial killings to stamp out crime and drugs have alarmed many who hear echoes of the country’s authoritarian past.

U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and the Pacific Daniel Russel told reporters in Vietnam that Washington respected the choice of the Philippine people and “will gladly work with the leader that they select”.

Duterte made a succession of winding, bellicose and at-times comical remarks late on Monday as the votes were being counted, venting over corruption and bad governance and telling anecdotes from his 22 years as mayor of Davao city.

Wearing a casual checked shirt and slouched in a chair, he said corrupt officials should “retire or die” and reiterated his support for police to use deadly force against criminals.

“I’ll behave if I become president,” he said, adding that he would not make state visits to countries with cold weather.

In an early indication of his unorthodoxy, Duterte told reporters on Monday that if he became president he would seek multilateral talks to resolve disputes over the South China Sea.

The outgoing administration of President Benigno Aquino has asked a court of arbitration in The Hague to recognize its right to exploit waters in the South China Sea, a case it hoped could bolster claims by other countries against China in the resource-rich waters.

Duterte said negotiations should include Japan, Australia and the United States, which is traditionally the region’s dominant security player and contests China’s development of islands and rocky outcrops in the sea.

The influential Chinese state-run tabloid the Global Times, said that Beijing would not be naive enough to believe that a new president would bring a solution to the South China Sea disputes.

“Only time will tell how far the new leader, be it Duterte or not, will go toward restoring the bilateral relationship.”

FIGHTING THE ESTABLISHMENT

Duterte’s entertaining and profanity-loaded speeches have shed little light on his policies beyond going after gangsters and drug pushers.

He has been vague on what he would do to spur an economy that has averaged growth at around 6 percent under Aquino.

Duterte said on Monday he had been criticized for not discussing policy but would “hire the best economic minds”.

One of his advisers told Reuters spending on education would be lifted to benefit “disadvantaged regions” and rural development will be prioritized to spread wealth more evenly across the country.

“Everything seems to be in imperial Manila,” said Ernesto Pernia, professor emeritus of economics at the University of the Philippines. “He wants to give more attention to the lagging, the backward regions.”

Pernia said the pursuit of tax evaders and corrupt officials should bolster government revenues to fund extra spending.

(Additional reporting by Manuel Mogato in MANILA and My Pham in HANOI; Writing by John Chalmers; editing by Robert Birsel)

Turkey’s Election Results Return One Party Government

President Erdogan, campaigned with the slogan “it’s me or chaos”, and not even a part of the ballet but this President has much to gain with the results of the most recent election on November 1st.   The ruling Justice and Development party, or AKP, won more than 49 percent of the vote in the election Sunday, almost double that of the next party. The win restored the party’s single-party majority that it had lost in a June election.

The Islamist-leaning AKP party won 317 of the 550 seats in parliament but was short the seats needed to  call a referendum on changing the constitution and increasing the powers of the president.  Critics of the election feel it is only time before President Erdogan finds away in parliament for his presidential powers to increase.   

The leader of the HDP, Selahattin Demirtas, said: “This wasn’t a fair election. We could not campaign because we had to protect our people from a massacre.”

The HDP had suspended campaigning after the bombing in Ankara.

According to the BBC, European powers especially those in the EU are hoping that with the elections over they can gain cooperation from Turkey in the enormous refugee crisis faced by every European and middle east country.  These European leaders, in private, are highly critical of President Erdogan and his record on protecting human rights and the rule of law but feel that Turkey is pivotal in handling the crisis.  Erdogan is hoping to use this platform in order to gain access to the EU as a member.  

President Erdogan is demanding that the world recognize the results of this election saying, “The whole world must show respect. So far I haven’t seen such a maturity from the world.”

Huckabee Officially Announces Run For President

Mike Huckabee made it official Tuesday.

Huckabee made his announcement in front of a crowd in Hope, Arkansas, where he was raised.  He said that he wanted to take America “from hope to higher ground.”

Huckabee was unashamed of his Christian upbringing and love for the Lord in his announcement.

“We prayed at the start of each day [in school], and we prayed again before lunch,” Huckabee recalled. “And I learned that this exceptional country could only be explained by the providence of almighty God.”

Huckabee said that Americans have generally lost their way morally and that government leaders have made judges their God rather than the Lord.

“We’ve lost our way morally,” he said. “We’ve witnessed the slaughter of over 55 million babies in the name of choice, and we are now threatening our religious liberty by criminalizing Christianity and demanding that we abandon biblical principals of natural marriage.”

“Many of our politicians have surrendered to the false god of judicial supremacy, which would allow black-robed and unelected judges the power to make law as well as enforce it,” Huckabee continued, “upending the equality of our three branches of government as well as the separation of powers so central to the Constitution.”

Huckabee said that the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being.

“My friends, the Supreme Court is not the Supreme Being and they cannot overturn the laws of nature or of nature’s God,” Huckabee proclaimed, receiving applause.