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Democracy

Arizona election official posts perfect response to woman who received two mail-in ballots

These kinds of clear, concise explanations are the best way to battle misinformation about how votes actually get counted.

A woman received two ballots in the mail. Is that a problem?

Since having elected leaders instead of kings is a hallmark of our democratic system, Americans share a common concern for election integrity. But for some, that concern has grown into full-blown conspiracy theories and misinformation about election fraud since before Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.

Despite dozens of lawsuits either being dismissed as groundless or lost on their merit in court, people still try to claim that the 2020 election was rife with fraud.

One of the primary targets of those fraud claims is mail-in ballots. People haven't seemed to wrap their minds around how mail-in ballots can be secure and how people can be prevented from voting twice if they happen to have more than one ballot mailed to them.

Turning Point USA field rep Aubrey Savela shared a photo of two official Arizona ballots with her name on them to X, with the caption, "Maricopa county at its finest… My first time ever voting in a presidential preference election and I received not one but two mail-in ballots.Thank you @stephen_richer."

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Kansas is voting on a constitutional amendment that would open the door to restrictive abortion laws.

Getting to the truth in politics is challenging as it is and it's hard enough just to get people to vote. The last thing we need is to have voters receive direct messages telling them that voting YES on an important ballot measure will do exactly the opposite of what it will do.

Yet that's what has been happening in at least one state.

In its current election, Kansas voters are being asked to vote for or against an amendment to the state's constitution that would impact abortion laws. The Value Them Both Amendment says that there's no constitutional right to an abortion and would grant legislators the authority to regulate abortions. According to NPR, it's the first ballot measure on reproductive rights in the U.S. since the Supreme Court's decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

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On Tuesday night, the Wayne County, Michigan Board of Canvassers gave half the country a minor heart attack when it appeared that the four board members were deadlocked on certifying the vote count. Wayne County is home to Detroit, the largest city in the state and the city with the highest percentage of Black voters in the country. Delaying the certification for a county that handed Biden tens of thousands of votes over Trump would disrupt the entire electoral process—which is exactly what Trump is trying to do.

The Board of Canvassers, who are in charge of certifying the vote count for the county, was split 2-2 along party lines (such a shocker) with the Democrats for and the Republicans against certifying the vote count right up until the final hours before the deadline. The two Republican members, after hearing passionate commentary from the public, changed course and voted in the final hour to move forward with certification. The vote for Wayne County has officially been certified and sent to the secretary of state.

However, in another not-shocking development, however, both of the Republican board members have released signed documents saying that they wish to rescind their agreement to certify. This comes after GOP board member Monica Palmer received a phone call from President Trump.

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All eyes have been on Georgia since election night, as a once-red stronghold tipped blue in the presidential race—securing a solid electoral victory for Joe Biden—and resulted in two run-off elections in the U.S. Senate races. And as President Trump continues to rage against the results and insist on trying to find widespread fraud where there is none (as evidenced by his 1 and 25 record with lawsuits so far, with the one being a procedural issue and not evidence of fraud), all eyes have been on Georgia's vote recount.

So far, the recount effort had turned up some missing votes in Republican-led counties resulting from human error. Nothing even close enough to the 14,000 votes it would take to sway the election results and nothing proving fraud in any way, but that doesn't stop Trump and his base from trying to spin it that way.

Refreshingly, throughout all of this madness, Georgia's secretary of state Brad Raffensperger—a lifelong Republican who says he has never voted for a Democrat—has held his ground to keep Georgia's election integrity intact. In fact, as the official who oversees elections in the state, the mild-mannered secretary of state been standing up to those who would try to politicize his position from his own party for months.

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