Can GOP States Build Their Own Voter Verification System?
Plus: It's Not the Law’s Fault that Trump Broke It.
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New from Me: Can Republican States Build Their Own Voter Verification System?
Supporters of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the embattled organization that helps states keep their voter rolls accurate, will take all the wins they can get these days. The state of Alaska just handed them one.
ERIC was designed as an opt-in system for states to share and update voter roll information automatically, cutting down on multiple registrations and opportunities for fraud. But Republicans, led by former President Trump, have demonized it as a get-out-the-vote effort favoring Democrats. Breaking the pattern of other Republican-led states, Alaska opted to stay in ERIC’s interstate compact after eight GOP-led states pulled out.
On paper, ERIC’s sharpest critics ostensibly agree with the system’s goals. The biggest, most credible organization pushing ERIC withdrawal is the Heritage Foundation, which keeps a thorough database of instances of voter fraud. A private, invitation-only conference the foundation co-sponsored earlier this year likely influenced Virginia’s departure from ERIC. Heritage suggested that if ERIC—that is, the states that have opted in to it—don’t make the changes they suggest, the states that are leaving ERIC might form an alternative to carry forward its cause of clean voter rolls on their own terms. It’s not clear they’ve worked out how—or even that an alternative is possible before the 2024 Presidential election.
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GABRIEL SCHOENFELD: It's Not the Law’s Fault that Trump Broke It.
What, if anything, is wrong with the Espionage Act of 1917? The question is pertinent right now because a certain former president of the United States is facing 31 counts of violating the law. In particular, Donald Trump is charged under the provision that makes it a crime to “willfully retain” national defense information without authorization and then fail to deliver it on demand to an officer of the United States entitled to receive it. He has also been indicted on six other charges in connection with the classified documents he hoarded at his Mar-a-Lago club, including conspiracy to obstruct justice; and making false statements to federal investigators.
In defending the former president, his allies and apologists are—as usual—hurling spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. One of the spaghetti strands is an attack on the espionage statute itself. A revealing instance is an article published in the Free Press by Eli Lake, a writer for the conservative New York Sun.
DANIEL MCGRAW: National Opinion Polls Don’t Matter. Swing State Opinion Polls Do.
LAST WEEK, AS I WAS STROLLING through Cleveland, along the banks of Lake Erie, and through a farmers’ market near the Cleveland Clinic’s main hospital, I took the opportunity to quiz some people I ran into about how they think the presidential race is going. The physical atmosphere was clear; the political atmosphere was much murkier. The general consensus was that it was “too close to call,” going down to the wire, dependent on what “wokeness” means. “The polls I am looking at say Biden is up by about one point, and that means Trump has a good chance of beating Biden,” one interlocutor told me.
Fine. The national polls do say that. But I followed up by asking them if they knew where the two potential candidates stood in state polls, which might be a better predictor for who will win the Electoral College—that is, who will serve the next term as president.
🚨OVERTIME🚨
Happy Tuesday! We’re back in the swing of things and ope, there go the goalposts.
Kevin McCarthy lets it slip… He thinks Donald Trump is headed to the clink. All the while accusing the FBI director and a U.S. Attorney of corruption.
I-95 to reopen… This weekend! An amazingly fast response from Pennsylvania. From Gov. Josh Shapiro’s office:
Governor Shapiro announced that demolition was completed in just four days – well in advance of experts' original predictions. Throughout the holiday weekend, crews made significant additional progress by filling the gap with ultra-lightweight foamed glass aggregate to build up to surface level. This innovative approach was made possible with the aggregate material from a local Delaware County business…
The Rickwood Field Game… I am still a Rob Manfred hater, but I am excited for this game next year.
Leaving BigLaw… To become a traffic judge.
Meanwhile in George Santosland… On Thursday we find out who helped post his bail.
Friends don’t let friends… Listen to Joe Rogan, who is afraid of being interviewed when he can’t set the terms.
Don Jr. has thoughts on “sweetheart deals…” Which is a bit ironic, considering…
Why every radio station… Sounds the same.
Meanwhile, in Alabama… “He became the first Black mayor of Newbern, Alabama. A white minority locked him out of town hall.” For three years.
RFK, Jr… Attack or ignore? Here’s James Fallows’s advice.
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