The Trump administration is waging war on voting rights using justice department lawsuits, FBI investigations,. an executive order to limit voting by mail, moves mirroring the US president’s false claims he lost the 2020 election due to voting fraud, say election experts and ex-officials.
Since Donald Trump began his second term, numerous 2020 election denialists have been installed in key agencies such as the DoJ, the FBI. elsewhere to pursue widely discredited claims of fraud, which can intimidate election workers and voters in swing states that Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020.
The justice department has also filed lawsuits seeking sensitive voter data from 30 states – even though, by law, states control elections –. the FBI has launched investigations into debunked allegations of voting fraud in Georgia, Wisconsin and a few other swing states that Trump lost in 2020.
Trump in late March this year issued an executive order sharply tightening mail-in voting rules. which Trump has long claimed without evidence contribute to fraud. The order gives the United States Postal Service unprecedented powers to issue new rules making voting by mail harder.
The administration’s multi-pronged push to change voting rules is under way despite laws that empower states. Congress to set election rules, sparking lawsuits from states and nonpartisan voting rights groups.
Kirstin Garriss in Washington
There’s a transplant from Mar-a-Lago at the center of DCs mayoral primary race on Tuesday,. his name is nowhere on the ballot.
For the first time in more than a decade, Washington DC will have a new mayor this year as the city faces concerns about how to address public safety, housing affordability,. increased federal immigration enforcement in the district. How the next mayor handles Donald Trump is also key question on residents’ minds. with many closely watching to see if any of the president’s supporters are pouring money into the race, as well as the primaries for the city’s congressional delegate.
Two frontrunners, DC councilmember Janeese Lewis George. former councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, both Democrats, are vying to succeed Mayor Muriel Bowser, who led the city during both of Trump’s terms in office. In a Democratic stronghold, whoever wins the primary is likely to win the election in November.
Lewis George, a democratic socialist. two-term city councilmember, has been campaigning on what she calls a “people-first platform”, promising to lower childcare costs and utility bills, stabilize rent for tenants, and prioritize downpayment assistance for homebuyers.
McDuffie, a former at-large city councilmember. former prosecutor, has garnered support from much of Washington’s business community, including restaurants and realtors, while promising to expand affordable housing, improve public safety, and diversify the local economy.
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
Races for the Senate. governor in Oklahoma in primary elections begins today, as Donald Trump’s iron grip on the Republican party faces its next test.
Ahead of November’s midterms. president Trump has given his early backing to Kevin Hern in the seat previously held by Homeland Security secretary Markwayne Mullin in the deeply conservative state.
Hern has kept other potential big challengers at bay in Oklahoma. which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since 1990, reports AP.
But a bigger test of Trump’s influence -. has usually proved potent in Republican primaries this year - may come in a crowded race to succeed outgoing governor Kevin Stitt.
Trump endorsed former state senator Mike Mazzei last month, wading late into a primary that includes several prominent Oklahoma Republicans. They include attorney-general Gentner Drummond, former Oklahoma House speaker Charles McCall and Chip Keating, the state’s former public safety director.
It has raised the likelihood of an August runoff if no candidate receives at least 50% of the vote.
In other developments:
The United States. Iran have signed a memo of understanding giving them 60 days to find a way out of the war. The terms of the deal, which has not been publicly released, remain unclear. Vice-president JD Vance called the 1.5-page MOU a “very general document” whose details will be ironed out in the coming weeks of negotiations.
The future of the strait of Hormuz remains cloudy. US officials have offered conflicting forecasts for the future of the straight. with Trump saying that by the end of the week it “will be completely open,” while other officials say it may take longer for shipping to return to something approximating the pre-war status quo. Iran foreign ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghei, however, told reporters that Iran may still charge fees to pass through the straight.
Trump is in Évian-les-Bains. France, to attend the G7 summit, where Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is hoping world leaders will help him find a way out of his country’s four-year war. He spoke with Donald Trump ahead of the G7 meeting, which Russian leader Vladimir Putin is also attending.
California govenor Gavin Newsom is accusing Trump of directing the US justice department to investigate him and his wife. Newsom, a prominent Democrat, tweeted that Trump was coming after him because he is considering running for the president.
Discussion
Sign in to join the thread, react, and share images.