08 November 22
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This year, there are plenty of election-denying heirs of Trump on the ballot, who are perfectly capable of playing the same games he did with the absolutely legal and unexceptional vote-counting process. It may not occur on the scale of 2020 since (a) not as many people will be voting by mail given post-pandemic conditions, and (b) the president of the United States has not been telling his supporters for months which voting method to use. But in close, tense races involving MAGA candidates, don’t be surprised to hear premature claims of victory followed by unsupported allegations of fraud or ballot-box stuffing.
The states where this is most likely to happen are battleground states with substantial voting by mail where Republican legislators have banned election officials from processing mail ballots until Election Day (Pennsylvania and Wisconsin) or soon thereafter (Michigan). Mail ballots must be opened, verified, then sorted for tabulation. Early processing bans mean these ballots won’t be counted immediately, until after the “Red Mirage” of Election Day voters appears. As Nick Corasaniti of the New York Times recently observed, these are states crackling with partisanship and bristling with MAGA hostility to Democratic voters. Thus efforts to change the mail ballot processing windows have been held hostage to voting restrictions that Democrats won’t accept:
Delays in the counting of mail ballots this year could again give a misleading impression of a large Republican advantage in states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin on election night, even if it is not as skewed of a picture as it was in 2020.
There are close Senate races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and close gubernatorial races in Michigan and Wisconsin.
The “Red Mirage” is less likely to occur in states with long histories of voting by mail and liberal polices on early ballot processing, notably Arizona and Florida, which typically produce fast counts on Election Night. And there could even be a “Blue Mirage” in Georgia and North Carolina, states that quickly count the early in-person votes that Deep South Democrats tend to favor. In Georgia, early in-person votes as of November 2 were running at nearly ten times the level of votes by mail. In North Carolina the ratio is more than ten-to-one.
Whether or not there is an early “mirage” sufficient to justify a victory claim, certain states are going to have very slow counts that give rise to conspiracy theories. That is particularly prone to happen in the 19 states that allow the counting of mail ballots postmarked by Election Day and received by varying later dates. These include the 2022 Senate or gubernatorial battleground states of Alaska, Kansas, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Utah, and Washington. States with both universal and quasi-universal voting by mail and liberal deadlines for receiving them often don’t confirm results for many days after Election Day. This is particularly a Pacific Coast phenomenon now that California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii are universal voting by mail states; Alaska has a generous mail-ballot deadline and ranked-choice voting. If control of the House depends on the outcome of the nine competitive contests in California, the three in Oregon, the two in Washington, or the at-large race in Alaska, it could take a while.
An additional wrinkle in the all- or mostly mail ballot states with extended deadline for receipt of mail ballots is the “Blue Shift” that often occurs in late mail ballots, disproportionately cast by Democratic voting groups and typically counted last. In the 2018 midterms, several California House seats where Republicans led in the wee hours of Election Night ultimately went Democratic, leading to some conspiracy-theory muttering by Republicans that provided a model for Trump in 2020.
In the end it’s close contests that most create the temptation for poorly supported victory claims or retroactive undocumented election theft allegations. Democratic candidates who don’t want to be the object of such chicanery would be best advised to win big.
Pussy Riot perform at EartH (Evolutionary Arts Hackney) in London on November 6, 2022. (photo: Dani Bolton/The Red Beanie)
For years the world saw Putin as almost a figure of fun – while in Russia he was already meting out brutality to dissidents and LGBTQ+ activists
This was a useful bit of context, or rather, a glass of cold water to the face, after years of somnambulance: no one is laughing at Vladimir Putin now, of course, but for years, he was almost a figure of fun, with his bare-chested, horse-riding photoshoots and florid turn of phrase. On the world stage, he was the uncle who might say dodgy things, but got invited anyway: what was the worst that could happen? This indulgent, pretty feckless view of Putin was overlaid by the sense that Russia merely did things differently; perhaps the state was a bit thin-skinned and hotheaded, maybe it didn’t prioritise human rights as much as one would like, but this was a cultural thing, probably related to the weather. If we had maybe expressed that view out loud more often, Russian citizens could have said: “No, actually, punk bands sentenced to hard labour for protest actions is very much a now thing, rather than an always thing.”
The subtitles weren’t working last night and the band were disappointed because a lot of incandescent poetry has gone into the lyrics, but they were magnificent. Alyokhina and Taso Pletner were in their trademark balaclavas; Diana Burkot, one of the founding members, broke her foot in Germany recently, and using crutches and wearing a plastic boot seemed to make her, if anything, more punk.
The visual continuity – not just the balaclavas, but the stagecraft, the choreography of defiance, took you straight back to that Moscow cathedral in 2012, and underlined what an exceptionally long time these Russian dissidents have been at it: protesting against Putin’s growing authoritarianism, brutal prison conditions, the erosion of LGBTQ+ rights, the invasion of Crimea in 2014, the misogyny baked into a system with no women anywhere near the levers of power, the subsequent invasion of Ukraine. There has never been any shortage of support – moral authorities from Barack Obama to Paul McCartney deplored the harsh prison sentences. But there has been a lack of symmetry: you can’t meaningfully recognise “the oppressed” without shunning the oppressor. That second shoe never really dropped in the early 10s, when the world was still desperately clinging to an idea of itself as carefree. Brutality meted out to LGBTQ+ activists on an ad-hoc, placard-meet-truncheon basis, becoming more systematised in the anti-gay purges in Chechnya, was likewise deplored without logical follow-through.
What good would it have done to have bestowed pariah status on Putin when he first displayed his pariah behaviour, rather than waiting for him to wage war? A decade-long head start might, at the very least, have left Europe less than entirely dependent on Russian gas, facing a continent-wide recession. Earlier economic sanctions might have put more pressure on the kleptocrat class around Putin, who might then have exerted their own pressure on him. Sure, it’s hypothetical; but you can say with relative certainty that doing more, sooner, would have been better.
I wouldn’t want to speculate on why the international community is so slow to react, when feminist and LGBTQ+ activists are oppressed – all I will say is that when you wait until the straight men are also in prison, you have left it too late.
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Pieper Lewis speaks Sept. 13 at a sentencing hearing in Des Moines, Iowa. (photo: Zach Boyden-Holmes/The Des Moines Register/AP)
Pieper Lewis was seen walking out of the building at the Fresh Start Women's Center in Des Moines shortly after 6:15 a.m. Friday, and at some point that day her GPS monitor was cut off, according to a probation violation report.
A warrant was issued for Lewis' arrest and the probation report asked for her deferred judgment to be revoked and have her original sentence imposed, KCCI reported. She could face up to 20 years in prison.
Prosecutors had called the probation sentence she was given in September merciful for a teen who endured horrible abuse, although some questioned the $150,000 restitution she was ordered to pay. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $560,000 to cover the restitution and pay for her other needs.
Polk County Judge David Porter told Lewis that her probation sentence "was the second chance you asked for. You don't get a third," the Des Moines Register reported.
If Lewis had successfully completed five years of closely supervised probation her prison sentence would have been expunged.
Lewis pleaded guilty last year to involuntary manslaughter and willful injury in the June 2020 killing of 37-year-old Zachary Brooks, a married father of two. Lewis was 15 when she stabbed Brooks more than 30 times in a Des Moines apartment.
Lewis has said that she was trafficked against her will to Brooks for sex multiple times and stabbed him in a fit of rage. Police and prosecutors did not dispute that Lewis was sexually assaulted and trafficked.
The Associated Press does not typically name victims of sexual assault, but Lewis agreed to have her name used previously in stories about her case.
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A Grizzly bear with her four cubs near Signal Mountain in Jackson, Wyoming, June 15, 2020. (photo: George Frey/Getty Images)
Two new lawsuits want to hold federal and state leaders accountable for failing to protect the iconic predators.
Though filed separately, the two claims share a common concern: that wolf and grizzly bear populations in the Northern Rocky Mountains will be decimated.
In the past year, leading wildlife biologists have spoken out with rising alarm about the fate of the predators in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, where Republican lawmakers have advanced some of the most aggressive laws and proposals targeting the two species in recent history.
“I feel that our public officials at the federal and state levels do not care anywhere near enough about fish and wildlife,” Robert Aland, a retired attorney and longtime environmental activist who brought the federal case, told The Intercept. “There’s urgency to this,” he added. “You really can’t reverse the consequences of a dead animal.”
By law, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service should protect against threats to endangered species at the federal level. State wildlife agencies, meanwhile, should promote science-driven, nonpartisan management of species that are not endangered. For wolves and grizzlies, environmental advocates say systems are failing at both levels.
In the first of the lawsuits, filed late last month in the federal court, Aland petitioned a judge to declare that the director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Martha Williams, is illegally occupying her position and order her removed.
Under the law, the director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is to have both scientific experience and education. As an attorney, Williams has an extensive history in the legal arenas of wildlife management but does not have a scientific degree. According to Aland, “This is in violation of the clear and unequivocal terms of the statute.”
Anything less than Williams’s removal, he argued, would lead to the “legal contamination” of several Endangered Species Act petitions concerning grizzly bears and wolves in the Northern Rockies.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to comment on Aland’s lawsuit. On October 26, five days after the complaint was filed, an external affairs office at the Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife’s parent agency, sent Aland an unsigned email saying: “The Department is fully confident that Director Williams is well qualified and has all the necessary authority to lead FWS.”
In the past year, many top wildlife researchers in the Rocky Mountains have warned of a return to the bad old days of the 1880s following political changes in the region.
Westward expansion in the 19th century featured a devastating war on wildlife that led to the extirpation of wolves and the near-total extermination of grizzly bears. In the generations since, conservationists and wildlife biologists, including many working for state and federal agencies, have gone to great lengths in their attempts to help the two species recover.
Wolves were among the first animals listed under the Endangered Species Act and the first to be removed, following their reintroduction in Yellowstone National Park and Central Idaho in 1995. A similar effort has been made to restore grizzlies to the region, an arguably even more difficult task given the animals’ slow rates of reproduction and sensitivity to human-caused mortality.
Grizzlies are still protected under the Endangered Species Act, though the trophy hunting lobby is agitating to have them removed. Wolves in the Northern Rockies, meanwhile, are not protected under the law, and environmental groups are fighting to see them relisted.
While politics have always shaped carnivore conservation, recent events have left many scientists horrified and outraged that decades of work could soon be lost.
In January, 35 of the region’s most prominent wildlife biologists wrote an open letter objecting to petitions from Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho to delist grizzly bears. The signatories included the longtime head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service grizzly bear recovery effort, who declared that he no longer supported delisting grizzly bears due to politically driven changes to carnivore management. If grizzlies were delisted, the biologists argued, they would likely face the same treatment that wolves across the Northern Rockies were already experiencing.
Outside the protected confines of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming has long permitted a shoot-on-sight approach to wolves across much of the state. Last year, Republican lawmakers in Idaho and Montana took major steps in the same direction, passing laws to drastically slash wolf populations — in Idaho by as much as 90 percent — by granting individual hunters and trappers the authority to wipe out entire packs, and legalizing wolf bounty programs, aerial hunting, the use of snares, night hunting with night-vision goggles and other measures long seen as far outside the ethical bounds of “fair chase” hunting, which requires that hunters not take unfair advantage over the animals they seek.
In Montana specifically, the biologists wrote, science-based wildlife management “was replaced by anti-predator hysteria.”
“It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to realize that if grizzly bears were delisted and turned over to state management,” the letter said, “that the Montana legislature and governor would do the same thing to grizzlies that they are currently doing to wolves.”
In addition to the states’ requests to delist the bears, Wyoming Republicans Rep. Liz Cheney and Sen. Cynthia Lummis have introduced bills to not only delist grizzlies, but also to bar public comment and prevent any judicial review of the decision.
“It tramples on our separation of powers,” Aland said. The 82-year-old is no newcomer to wildlife litigation. He has been a pro se plaintiff in several lawsuits against U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to keep grizzly bears listed as an endangered species. In his experience, citizen participation, particularly litigation, has proven “absolutely essential” in upholding the Endangered Species Act. His lawsuit seeking Williams is no different, he argued.
“There are three petitions to remove the grizzly bears ESA protection for a third time. That’s a scientific decision,” Aland said. Williams’s legal career wildlife management may help her navigate the cases, Aland argued, “but she’s not even close to qualified to make that biological, scientific decision.”
Aland’s litigation follows the traditional route of raising concerns about conservation through federal court, but the veteran environmental litigator noted that some of the most consequential decisions in wildlife management happen at the state level. “The state agencies have gotten a complete pass on everything,” he said. “They don’t get sued for anything, so they feel like they can operate with impunity.”
The second Rocky Mountain predator lawsuit filed last month aims to break that trend.
On October 27, the environmental groups WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote, filed suit in a county court against the state of Montana; its Fish, Wildlife and Parks department; and the panel of citizen commissioners who make policy for FWP.
Calling for an injunction halting the state’s wolf hunt, which began last month, the groups argue that Montana violated its own constitution in proceeding with last winter’s wolf hunt and that Republicans’ goals for reducing the wolf population were based on unreliable population modeling.
“We’re advocating for federal action, of course, to get wolves back on the endangered species list, to get those protections there, but we just don’t know when that’s going to happen,” Lizzy Pennock, a carnivore coexistence advocate for WildEarth Guardians, told The Intercept.
Over the past year, Pennock and her colleagues have grown increasingly concerned watching FWP, once considered one of the most respected state wildlife agencies in the country, become a conduit for an unscientific, partisan approach to wolf management that undermined years of hard-won compromise in the state. “We have been really frustrated with FWP and what’s going on and we wanted to take action at a state level,” she said.
WildEarth Guardians and Project Coyote worked with Jessica Blome, a California-based attorney with Greenfire Law. In 2021, Blome filed a similar state-level constitutional challenge in Wisconsin, after licensed hunters nearly doubled their 119-wolf quota, killing 218 wolves in less than 72 hours.
Pennock is hopeful that Montana’s constitution, which is uniquely strong in protecting the state’s natural resources, including its wild animals, can serve as a means to protect against the kind of undemocratic and unscientific policymaking of the past two years. As The Intercept reported in an investigation in July, the 2020 election of Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte ushered in a radical reordering of the state’s wildlife governance, stacking the commission overseeing FWP with representatives from the trapping and trophy hunting industry, as well as campaign donors.
Among the core claims in the WildEarth Guardians-Project Coyote lawsuit is an argument is that the justification for Montana’s ultra-aggressive wolf hunt is based on unreliable data.
Montana’s state legislature meets every two years for 90 days. During the 2021 session, Republican state legislators Bob Brown and Paul Fielder advanced a series of anti-wolf bills — all signed into law by Gianforte, endorsed by his handpicked FWP commissioners, and enforced by the department — based on the argument that Montana had too many wolves and at least 450 of the animals needed to be killed. “We’re not talking about necessarily ethical management of them,” Fielder said in the run-up to the 2021 hunt. “We want to reduce wolf numbers.”
Fielder pointed to a “new and improved model,” known as the “integrated patch occupancy model,” or iPOM, that FWP was using to estimate wolf population numbers in the state.
The WildEarth Guardians-Project Coyote lawsuit noted that iPOM — used only in Montana and only for wolves — has come under heavy criticism from some of the region’s leading wildlife management experts. The wolf legislation Gianforte signed in 2021 called for the killing of at least 450 wolves; the season ended well short of that mark, with 273 wolves killed. While anti-wolf Republicans have pointed to the total as evidence that a more intensive hunt is needed, wildlife biologists have argued that it may suggest that iPOM’s estimate of how many wolves live in the state — roughly 1,164 — was inflated.
“It’s hard to say what we know about the population because I don’t know how much we know, and I think that’s the point,” Pennock said.
The Montana legislature reconvenes in January. In a public meeting in September, Fielder signaled that the state would ratchet up its war on wolves in 2023. “It was stated on the floor last session that this is not about ethical or fair chase, it was about reducing the number of wolves. Management starts with M-A-N, man. We’ve got to take control of things,” he said. “As we go into this next Legislative session, we’ve got to look at how we can meet the intent of the Legislation that was passed in 2021.”
Conservationists are bracing for the worst. According to Pennock, “It’s gonna be a field day.”
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Voters at a polling precinct. (photo: Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)
And Tuesday only marks the beginning of the next phase in that season.
Gird for many of these elections to go on for days, if not weeks. This is all perfectly normal when there are close elections. It doesn't mean that there is fraud — despite the lies about his 2020 loss that former President Donald Trump has pushed and so many candidates he's backed have promulgated.
Republicans need a net gain of just five seats to take back the House. They're in the driver's seat and widely expected to reach that and then some. But the full extent of a GOP wave, if there is one, or whether Democrats pull off the surprise and hold the House, won't be known for a while.
Many of these races are expected to be close and will take a while to count all the vote. There are lots of competitive seats in California, for example. California polls don't close until 11 p.m. ET, so don't expect many of those to be known on election night. In past years, that's been the case, and it's taken a long time to know results — days and weeks.
For the Senate, all eyes are going to be on four states — Pennsylvania and Georgia in the East and Arizona and Nevada in the West. In Georgia, there's a libertarian on the ballot, who very likely will serve as a place for protest vote — meaning neither the Democrat nor Republican in the race might surpass the 50% threshold required to win the election outright.
If that happens, the election would go to a Dec. 6 runoff, which means control of the Senate quite possibly won't be known for a month after Election Day.
Election results often require patience. This one is no different.
Recent years have seen a rise in mail voting, and states have different rules for when those mail ballots are due. States have different procedures for when those ballots can be taken out of their envelopes to be processed and tallied, and this can lengthen the count.
Let's look at five states, all with crucial Senate races, where there could be delays and confusion:
Pennsylvania is one of the places we're expecting to see a pretty dramatic shift on Election Night. Vote tallying should be faster this year than in 2020, considering there will be fewer mail-in ballots likely, but those mail ballots will still take longer and will lead to confusion. Beware a "Red Mirage" and a later "Blue Shift." Lots of mail-in ballots will be reported early, and we know that Democrats have been far more likely to say they will be voting early or by mail. That could initially make it look like a Democratic lead, but then in-person ballot results will come in, likely showing Republicans pulling ahead in a close race. Then the rest of the mail ballot results will trickle in later in the evening because they take longer to tabulate and will likely favor Democrats and shift things even more. And Philadelphia simply takes a very long time to report its results. This is what always happens. It is not nefarious.
Wisconsin doesn't allow election officials to begin processing mail ballots until polls open on Election Day. Also, if Milwaukee (high concentration of Black voters) and Dane (University of Wisconsin, younger and more liberal voters) take a longer time to report, then you could see another Red Mirage.
Arizona saw a slow trickle in Trump's favor in 2020 as the hours went on. But others years have seen the opposite. It's unclear which way the shift will go this year, but there will probably be one. The 2020 presidential was called at almost 3 a.m. ET, but the vote counting continued for days and Biden's lead, though it held up, continued to shrink. Ultimately, the state was decided by just 0.3 percentage points, and Arizona has recently switched to automatic recounts for any contest that's separated by 0.5% or less. Arizona has been ground zero for election denialism with counts and recounts and an attempt at putting a fake slate of electors up in favor of Trump. So in addition to the close vote, the challenges and noise that will happen around the legitimacy of the vote could cause even more chaos.
Georgia has seen a huge population shift in Atlanta and the surrounding suburbs that have tilted the political hue bluer in recent years. And those suburbs report their results later than rural counties – so again there could be another Red Mirage here.
Nevada is a similar story to Georgia. It's a growth state, and most of that boom has been in Las Vegas, which is in Clark County, the largest population center in the state and where almost 70% of all the state's votes came from in 2020. Clark and Washoe (Reno), which went for Biden in 2020, count more slowly than the more rural counties that will overwhelmingly favor Republicans. Also, post-pandemic, Nevada is one state that has moved toward mail voting. People still have the option to vote in person, but every resident in the state was mailed a ballot unless they chose to opt out of receiving one.
Keep in mind also that election officials first report unofficial results. Certified results come days, if not weeks, later.
Legal challenges and recounts can also lengthen the time before a winner is determined. Expect that this will go on a while, so patience will be needed in this impatient time.
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"On Election Day, voters will weigh in on a total of 137 state ballot measures, policy questions put directly to the voters rather than settled by legislatures or the executive branch." (image: Amanda Northrop/Vox)
Medicaid, marijuana, the minimum wage, and more policy issues on the ballot in the midterm elections.
Some of the issues voters will have to decipher this year: Should circuit court judges in Howard County, Maryland, be required to serve as judges in the Orphans’ Court? What requirements should California have for kidney dialysis clinics? Quick — what do you say to expanding a Georgia agricultural tax exemption to cover, among other things, dairy products and eggs?
On Election Day, voters will weigh in on a total of 137 state ballot measures, policy questions put directly to the voters rather than settled by legislatures or the executive branch. They aren’t evenly distributed: 13 states have no ballot measures at all, while in Alabama, Arizona, and Colorado, voters are wrestling with at least 10 different propositions. There are even ballot measures about ballot measures, where voters are being asked if it should be harder to make policy this way in the first place.
The effects of most ballot measures, of course, are usually limited to states voting for them. But they’re still worth watching. Ballot measures can be a path forward for policies that state legislators won’t touch on their own (like the success of marijuana legalization campaigns). A successful ballot measure in one state can lead to a cascade of similar campaigns in the coming years (as has happened with Medicaid expansion, marijuana legalization, minimum wage, and more). Ballot measures matter for the same reason that they can sometimes be frustrating: They’re a direct opportunity for voters to determine policy on their own.
This year, as results roll in, here are nine ballot measures to watch, why they matter, and what we know about where voters stand. One caveat to keep in mind: Ballot measures are typically polled infrequently, if at all, so there could still be election night surprises.
1) Medicaid expansion in South Dakota
Also known as: South Dakota Constitutional Amendment D
A “yes” vote means: If the amendment passes, anybody making less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level (about $18,000 for an individual or $36,900 for a family of four) would qualify for Medicaid coverage.
What’s at stake: Since 2017, voters in six states have directly voted to expand Medicaid, making more low-income adults eligible for free public health coverage. South Dakota could become the seventh. Expansion would cover an estimated 45,000 South Dakotans.
Why does Medicaid expansion keep finding success with red-state voters, if not their elected representatives? Three reasons, people familiar with the campaigns say: hearing from neighbors who will benefit, bringing federal tax dollars back to the state, and protecting the solvency of rural hospitals and health clinics. One of the ads running in South Dakota features a farmer who says he wants to keep his family farm running but can’t afford health care right now.
What the polls say: Nationally, polling on all ballot measures — including this one — tends to be pretty scant, but an Emerson College poll in mid-October found that 51 percent of likely voters planned to vote in favor of the measure, with another 28 percent undecided.
Read more: Republican states keep refusing to expand Medicaid — until you ask their voters —Dylan Scott
2) Abortion in Michigan
On the ballot as: Ballot Proposal 3
A “yes” vote means: Adding an amendment to the Michigan constitution to “provide that every individual has a right to reproductive freedom,” including decisions related to pregnancy, prenatal care, contraception, childbirth, and abortion. The state legislature could regulate abortion after viability, with exceptions for the physical and mental health of the pregnant person.
What’s at stake: Abortion rights are at stake up and down the ballot in Michigan. If Republicans win back the governor’s mansion and maintain control of the state legislature, they could pass new restrictions on the procedure — but amending the state constitution to provide for a right to reproductive freedom would be a bulwark against those restrictions. The Republican candidate for governor, Tudor Dixon, has said that she would respect the results of the vote on the measure, even though she personally opposes abortion.
What the polls say: A late October poll by the Detroit News and WDIV found that 55 percent of voters supported the amendment, down from 61 percent earlier in the month. The margin of error was 4 percent.
Elsewhere: California and Vermont are also voting on state constitutional amendments to protect reproductive freedom or autonomy. In Kentucky, voters could amend the constitution to state that it doesn’t include a right to abortion. —Nicole Narea
3) Marijuana legalization in North Dakota
On the ballot as: Statutory Measure 2
A “yes” vote means: People over 21 could legally use marijuana and legally possess up to 1 ounce of the drug, and North Dakota would license up to seven marijuana cultivation facilities and 18 marijuana retailers.
What’s at stake: In the decade since recreational marijuana ballot measures began succeeding at the ballot box, they’ve failed only a few times — and one of those failures was in North Dakota in 2018, when an attempt to legalize recreational marijuana was roundly defeated. Nearly 60 percent of voters said no to the measure.
Now North Dakota (along with Missouri, where a legalization measure was also defeated in 2018) is trying again. This time, according to the Associated Press, the pro-legalization side is better-funded and a major opponent in 2018 isn’t jumping into the race.
Elsewhere: Missouri (where legalization also failed in 2018), Maryland, Arkansas, and South Dakota (where a successful legalization ballot measure was overturned by the state Supreme Court) are also voting to legalize pot this year. —Libby Nelson
4) A constitutional right to collective bargaining in Illinois
On the ballot as: Illinois Amendment 1
A “yes” vote means: Amending the Illinois constitution to include the right to collectively bargain and ban “right-to-work” laws, which allow workers to be exempted from dues for union representation.
What’s at stake: Other states have constitutional protections for collective bargaining rights, but Illinois would be the first where voters affirm them via ballot measure. Less than five years ago, the state had a Republican governor who prioritized weakening organized labor: former Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner promoted “right-to-work zones” — urging local towns or counties to vote on whether workers should have to pay dues when represented by a union.
When Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker was elected in 2018, he quickly signed a law banning “right-to-work zones.” But union advocates say they don’t want to keep playing ping-pong with each administration, and see the Illinois constitution as a more sturdy vehicle for ensuring worker rights.
What the polls say: For the amendment to pass, either 60 percent of people voting on the amendment must vote “yes,” or 50 percent of all ballots cast in the election (including ballots where voters left the question blank) must include a “yes” vote. A late October poll from The Hill, Emerson College, and WGN-TV found 54 percent of voters in favor.
Elsewhere: At the other end of the labor rights spectrum, Tennessee is asking voters whether to codify right-to-work laws in the state constitution (Amendment 1).
Read more: Two states, two visions for the future of labor —Rachel Cohen
5) Limiting medical debt in Arizona
On the ballot as: Proposition 209
A “yes” vote means: Capping the interest rates that can be charged for medical debt at 3 percent, and limiting debt collectors’ ability to seize a person’s house, belongings, automobile, or wages if they owe money for medical services.
What’s at stake: National groups that focus on medical debt issues are watching the Arizona initiative closely. It is undeniably in the weeds — fixed interest rates and rules governing wage garnishment are not exactly bumper sticker material — and yet if it succeeds at the ballot box, it could open up a new avenue for tackling medical debt outside of the conventional legislative process.
Estimates of the number of Americans with medical debt vary considerably, but recent figures from the Kaiser Family Foundation put the number at 41 percent of all US adults. One in 10 adults owed more than $5,000 for medical or dental services. The people who carry medical debt tend to have lower incomes, poorer health, and higher rates of disability, and they are more likely to be Black. Medical debt negatively affects mental and physical health, too, due to stress and people skipping care for fear of the cost.
What the polls say: Nothing. Although Arizona’s governor and Senate races have been polled extensively, those surveys haven’t asked about ballot measures.
Read more: A wonky Arizona ballot measure could unlock a new path to easing medical debt —DS
6) Killing the partisan primary in Nevada
On the ballot as: Question 3
A “yes” vote means: An overhaul of the state’s election system that would effectively kill the partisan primary, creating a nonpartisan primary, from which the top five candidates of any party would emerge to the general election. The general election would then be conducted under ranked-choice voting (which lets people vote for multiple candidates, ranked in order of their preference).
What’s at stake: The proposal’s backers say the idea — if it spreads — could help fix American politics by weakening the forces of partisanship, polarization, and extremity. The two parties, they believe, have become captured by their bases’ most extreme elements, who can discipline anyone breaking from the party line through a primary challenge.
These reforms probably wouldn’t live up to all their supporters’ ambitions — few reforms do. But they would present a clear path by which politicians of both parties disfavored by the party bases could make it to the general election.
Elsewhere: Other states are considering changes to voting laws. Michigan could add expanded absentee and mail-in voting to its constitution, and Connecticut could add in-person early voting. Nebraska and Arizona are voting on new voter ID requirements.
Read more: The plan to save America by killing the partisan primary —Andrew Prokop
7) A surtax to build electric vehicle infrastructure in California
On the ballot as: Proposition 30
A “yes” vote means: Raising taxes 1.75 percent on income over $2 million, and spending the estimated $3.5 to $5 billion it would raise on electric vehicle infrastructure and combating wildfires.
What’s at stake: Transportation accounts for 50 percent of the state’s pollution. California has set a timeline to phase out new gas and diesel cars and light trucks in the next 15 years, and the state’s budget for programs to cut transportation emissions would grow if the ballot measure passes.
The ballot measure has created some odd alliances. The ride-sharing company Lyft has provided the vast majority of the funding to pass the measure, at $45 million, because its investment in electric vehicles would help the company meet the state’s new requirements. The measure has other supporters, including public health and environmental groups like the American Lung Association and Union of Concerned Scientists.
The opposition to prop 30 is made up of a set of ultra-wealthy individuals, but also Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, who calls it a corporate giveaway to Lyft. Timber companies, curiously, are also against the measure, spending more than $1 million to defeat it, though it’s not clear to anyone exactly why.
One fear that opponents of the measure raise is that it might lead to some of these wealthy taxpayers seeking other ways to reduce their taxes or just leaving the state. But no one can exactly predict how the ultra-wealthy will respond. Most analyses show more lower-income people leaving the state because of unaffordability.
What the polls say: A mid-October poll from the Public Policy Institute of California found only 41 percent of voters in favor with 7 percent undecided, with a dramatic drop in support coinciding with Newsom appearing in commercials opposing the measure. —Rebecca Leber
8) Dedicated funding for pre-K in New Mexico
On the ballot as: Constitutional Amendment 1
A “yes” vote means: Authorizing lawmakers to draw new money from a state sovereign wealth fund to provide a dedicated funding stream for universal preschool and child care, and bolstering home-visiting programs for new parents.
What’s at stake: More than a quarter of New Mexico’s children under 5 live in poverty, one of the highest rates in the nation. The state has long ranked at the bottom of the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s national Kids Count project — an annual ranking for child well-being based on 16 indicators. Activists are hoping their efforts can serve as a model for other states as well as signal to the federal government that child care is not just needed but politically popular.
What the polls say: A poll sponsored by the Albuquerque Journal in August found that 69 percent of the state’s likely voters backed the amendment, and just 15 percent opposed it. A more recent poll led by Public Policy Polling in October found 51 percent of voters backed the amendment, with 26 percent opposed and 23 percent reportedly unsure.
Read more: New Mexico could vote to make pre-K a universal right —RC
9) A higher minimum wage in Nebraska
On the ballot as: Initiative 433
A “yes” vote means: Gradually increasing the state’s minimum wage of $9 to $15 by January 2026.
What’s at stake: Minimum wage hikes have a successful track record at the ballot box‚ including in Nebraska. In 2014, the state voted to raise its minimum wage from $7.25 to $9, the first time the state had offered a higher minimum wage than the federal floor, with nearly 60 percent of voters in favor of raising the wage.
The national “fight for $15” — the push for a higher minimum wage — has had some real success, getting nine states to either raise their minimum wage to $15 or commit to doing so. But over the decade since the campaign began, inflation has eroded the gains: To get the buying power of a $15 minimum wage in 2012, the year the campaign began, would require a minimum wage of near $20. It’s worth noting, too, that due to an extremely low unemployment rate in Nebraska, minimum-wage establishments like fast food restaurants have typically been paying higher wages in recent months.
What the polls say: A late September poll found 55 percent of voters in favor. —LN
'We have the collective capacity to transform,' says Mia Mottley at Cop27. (photo: Guardian UK)
Mia Mottley warns of a billion refugees by the middle of the century unless governments act now to tackle crisis
She said the prosperity – and high carbon emissions – of the rich world had been achieved at the expense of the poor in times past, and now the poor were being forced to pay again, as victims of climate breakdown that they did not cause.
“We were the ones whose blood, sweat and tears financed the industrial revolution,” she said. “Are we now to face double jeopardy by having to pay the cost as a result of those greenhouse gases from the industrial revolution? That is fundamentally unfair.”
She warned of a billion climate refugees around the world by the middle of the century if governments failed to tackle the climate crisis.
One of the biggest issues at the talks is climate justice – the fact that poor people are bearing the brunt of the damage to the climate, in the form of extreme weather, while rich countries have failed to live up to their promises to cut emissions and to provide finance to help the poor with climate breakdown.
Mottley, who was speaking at an event organised by Scotland’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, was scathing about the World Bank, which many countries think has not done enough to focus on the climate, and on countries that offer loans instead of grants.
“We need to have a different approach, to allow grant-funded reconstruction grants going forward, in those countries that suffer from disaster. Unless that happens, we are going to see an increase in climate refugees. We know that by 2050, the world’s 21 million climate refugees today will become 1 billion.”
Mottley is working with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, on an initiative to provide new means of finance to the developing world.
Macron used his speech to the Cop27 conference to insist that the war in Ukraine would not cause France to backslide on commitments to tackle the climate crisis.
More than 100 world leaders attended the conference on Monday, greeted by António Guterres, the UN secretary-general, warning that the world was on a “highway to hell”. He called on rich and poor governments to make a “historic pact” to help each other through the climate crisis, instead of being at loggerheads.
“We are in the fight of our lives and we are losing … And our planet is fast approaching tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible.
“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
He said the world faced a stark choice over the next fortnight of talks: either developed and developing countries working together to make a “historic pact” that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and set the world on a low-carbon path – or failure, which would bring climate breakdown and catastrophe.
“We can sign a climate solidarity pact, or a collective suicide pact,” he added.
He said the world had the tools it needed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in clean energy and low-carbon technology.
“A window of opportunity remains open, but only a narrow shaft of light remains,” he said. “The global climate fight will be won or lost in this crucial decade – on our watch. One thing is certain: those that give up are sure to lose.”
Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, said in his opening address to the summit that poor and vulnerable people around the world were already experiencing the effects of extreme weather. “The intensity and frequency of climate disasters have never been higher, in all four corners of the world, bringing wave after wave of suffering for billions of people. Is it not high time today to put an end to this suffering?”
Elsewhere at the conference, Boris Johnson, the former UK prime minister, said he embodied “the spirit of Glasgow”, referring to the Cop26 conference hosted by the UK last year that produced an agreement to limit global temperatures to 1.5C.
Rishi Sunak, the current UK prime minister, refused to answer a question from the Guardian on whether the £11.6bn of UK overseas aid earmarked for climate finance in developing countries would be spent within the five-year timeframe originally promised. Some fear that he could try to reduce the budget by stretching the spending over a longer period.
Sunak also announced the extension of a global initiative to reverse deforestation by 2030, originally set up at the Cop26 summit in Glasgow.
However, last night the Telegraph reported that Sunak is poised to announce a major gas deal with the US after Cop27, with talks about an “energy security partnership” in their final stages. The US is reportedly planning to sell billions of cubic metres of liquefied natural gas to Britain over the coming year.
Cop27 is likely to be a fraught and difficult fortnight of negotiations. Countries are meeting in the shadow of the war in Ukraine, a worldwide energy and cost of living crisis, and rising global tensions.
The talks got off to a slow start, with negotiators spending more than 40 hours over the weekend wrangling over what would be on the agenda. In the end, it was agreed that the vexed issue of “loss and damage”, which refers to the worst impacts of the climate crisis that are too severe for countries to adapt to – would be discussed.
Poor countries suffering loss and damage want a financial mechanism that will give them access to funding when disasters such as hurricanes, floods and droughts strike, destroying their infrastructure and tearing apart their social fabric.
It is not likely that these talks will provide a final settlement on loss and damage, but countries are hoping for progress on ways of raising and disbursing finance.
Nabeel Munir, chief negotiator for the G77 plus China negotiating block, said loss and damage was one of the principal demands for almost all developing and climate vulnerable nations.
“This is the beginning of what will be a slow and painful process, for developed and developing countries, and it wasn’t easy to get it on the agenda, but it’s there and it’s a beginning, and we wanted that to happen at a Cop hosted by a developing country,” Munir said. “It’s a big achievement that the other side is beginning to accept that what we’re saying is fair. Loss and damage is not charity, it’s climate justice.”
At most UN climate summits, activists and protesters play a key role. However, Egypt clamps down on dissent and its jails are full of political prisoners. Sisi’s government has promised that climate activist voices will be heard, but their activities have been curtailed, with protesters kept at a separate site and required to register in advance to be granted permission for even minor demonstrations.
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