For the first time in as long as anyone can remember, Arizona’s largest public school district isn’t opening its schools to voters as polling sites.
The reasons have been building for years, but the final straw for Mesa Public Schools officials came last November with a small, low-turnout election that became mired in misinformation and menace. [snip]
In the eight years since Donald Trump was first on the ballot, hundreds of schools throughout this fiercely contested battleground county are no longer willing to assume the risks associated with holding elections. In 2016, 37 percent of county polling locations were schools, according to a Washington Post analysis of data obtained through a public records request. So far this year, it’s 14 percent.
Heightened school safety protocols and sustained attacks on voting systems and the people who run them — largely by Trump and his supporters — have prompted school leaders across America in both red and blue states to close their doors to the democratic process, according to interviews with nearly 20 school district leaders, county officials, school safety officials and election experts. In at least 33 states, the law says public buildings, including schools, can or should be made available as polling locations. In many districts, administrators now cancel classes on Election Day.
The challenge has been especially acute in Arizona, where Trump’s narrow loss in 2020 inspired ceaseless conspiracies, false assertions that his and other GOP losses were illegitimate and death threats against county leaders who oversee voting and the workers on the front lines of running elections. Trump allies like Kari Lake, a Republican who lost her 2022 race for Arizona governor and is now running for the Senate, have empowered self-styled election-fraud detectors who are critical of both elections and the public school system... (our emphasis)
The violent morons of MAGA world are succeeding in their intimidation tactics in this critical battleground state, and elsewhere. Much more pushback is needed by State and local officials, and if that fails, by the Federal Government to safeguard our elections, both the ballot and the voter.
Former President Donald Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, just days after the massive prisoner exchange between the U.S., Russia and other nations.
“By the way, I would like to congratulate Vladimir Putin for having made yet another great deal. Did you see the deal we made?” the Republican presidential nominee said at a campaign rally in Atlanta.
The historic prisoner swap, the largest such exchange involving the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War, saw 16 people, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, be released from Russian custody.
Trump, who has shown love to Putin before and once claimed the Russian leader wouldn’t release Gershkovich “for anyone else” but him, didn’t mention any Americans who returned home as part of the deal at his Atlanta rally.
“Now look, we want to get people in. You know we got 59 hostages, I never paid anything,” said Trump, who has falsely claimed that he gave “nothing” to secure the return of American prisoners in exchanges with other countries under his administration... (our emphasis)
Who possibly could have predicted that the racist convicted felon Malignant Loser would give credit for the hostage release to his fellow autocrat and puppetmaster Putin?! It almost makes you think he could be a self- serving, sociopathic traitor to his country.
