October, 13 2020, 12:00am EDT
Virginia's Online Voter Registration System Crashes on Eve of Deadline, a Repeat of 2016
State must grant extension to prevent disenfranchising thousands.
WASHINGTON
Virginia's online voter registration system crashed on Tuesday morning just before the final registration deadline for the November 2020 general election. Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law issued the following statement:
"Election officials in Virginia have again failed the public. The state's online voter registration portal has crashed on the eve of the registration deadline, leaving thousands of eligible people in the dark. This error is particularly astounding given that this same problem occurred at virtually the same time in 2016. We sued the state and secured an extension of the registration deadline allowing tens of thousands of voters the ability to register and vote. It is astonishing that Virginia has not learned from failures of the not-so-distant past."
Background:
The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law is working with its partners, examining the situation closely and exploring all options to provide relief for impacted people across Virginia. The national Lawyers' Committee sued Virginia regarding the same issue in 2016.
The Lawyers' Committee is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization, formed in 1963 at the request of President John F. Kennedy to enlist the private bar's leadership and resources in combating racial discrimination and the resulting inequality of opportunity - work that continues to be vital today.
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Watchdog Urges FEC to Investigate Trump Campaign Over Scheme for Legal Fees
"By not disclosing the vendors that actually provided legal services, the Trump-affiliated committees effectively blocked the public from knowing which attorneys and firms are being paid—and how much."
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A campaign finance watchdog on Wednesday filed a Federal Election Commission complaint accusing former President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign, affiliated political groups, and an accounting firm of violating U.S. law in a scheme "seemingly designed to obscure the true recipients of a noteworthy portion of Trump's legal bills."
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Trump—who is the presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee—faces 91 federal and state felony charges related to his role in the January 6 insurrection and his organization's business practices. He is currently on trial in New York for allegedly falsifying business records related to hush money payments to cover up sex scandals during the 2016 election cycle. The twice-impeached former president has been open about his use of campaign donations to pay his legal costs.
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The coalition supporting the amendment, Arizona for Abortion Access, highlighted on social media that the House-approved bill "did not include the emergency clause required to stop the 1864 ban from taking effect on June 8," meaning H.B. 2677 wouldn't apply until 90 days after the end of the legislative session.
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Arizona is one of multiple states where rights advocates are promoting abortion rights ballot measures this cycle. Reproductive freedom is also dominating political races at all levels, including the presidential contest. Democratic President Joe Biden is set to face former Republican President Donald Trump in November.
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While continuing to give Israel billions of dollars in support to wage war on the Gaza Strip, the Biden administration this week has declined to join the growing global demands for an international probe into mass graves discovered at hospitals in the besieged Palestinian enclave.
Two journalists on Tuesday questioned Vedant Patel, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, about the administration's response to the hundreds of bodies found at Gaza City's al-Shifa Hospital and Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis as well as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk's call for an independent investigation.
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The spokesperson interrupted Stanage to say, "We do."
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"Somehow I don't think the U.S. State Department would defer to Russia as a credible source to investigate itself if a mass grave were discovered in Ukrainian territory it had occupied," Finucane said on social media in response to Stanage's questioning.
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