02c U.S. Politics – Election

Utah gerrymander struck down by judge in a win for voters– www.latimes.com
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It’s been more than 60 years since Utah backed a Democrat for president. The state’s last Democratic U.S. senator left office nearly half a century ago and the last Utah Democrat to serve in the House lost his seat in 2020.

But, improbably enough, Utah has suddenly emerged as a rare Democratic bright spot in the red-vs.-blue redistricting wars.

Late last month, a judge tossed out the state’s slanted congressional lines and ordered Utah’s GOP-run Legislature to draw a new political map, ruling that lawmakers improperly thumbed their noses and overrode voters who created an independent redistricting commission to end gerrymandering.

It’s a welcome pushback against the growing pattern of lawmakers arrogantly ignoring voters and pursuing their preferred agenda. You don’t have to be a partisan to think that elections should matter and when voters express their will it should be honored.

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Tragically, Mamdani is gaining momentum: Ironically, it is being made possible, made to happen, but the very people who benefited the most from capitalism. You can make this stuff up,  Imagine, a billionaire funding a communist who says there shouldn’t be billionaires. Deadly stupidity.

Big Tech workers are top Mamdani campaign donors, far exceeding Andrew Cuomo

NY Post reports;

Big Tech workers, including from Google and Meta, were among the biggest group of donors to Zohran Mamdani’s mayoral campaign — creating a fresh headache for companies in the Big Apple that could feel the brunt of the self-proclaimed Democratic socialist’s policies, The Post has learned.

The 33-year-old upstart has spooked New York business and tech leaders — many of whom fear that his vow to raise taxes on the wealthy and past calls to defund the police will spark a mass exodus similar to what San Francisco experienced under progressive leaders in recent years.

However, their underlings have thrown their financial support behind the front-runner for City Hall.

Rank-and-file Google employees donated nearly $40,500 to Mamdani’s campaign through July 11 — more than any other company or institution, according to NYC campaign finance data reviewed by The Post.

Meta workers chipped in more than $10,500, ranking seventh on the list, followed by Amazon employees, who donated nearly $9,000.

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A federal appeals court on Tuesday voided a Pennsylvania law requiring proper dating of mail-in ballots. The law required the rejection of mail-in ballots improperly dated by voters. The Pennsylvania Attorney General, now a Republican, defended the law on appeal after his predecessor, a Democrat, had declined to defend it in a lower court.

Numerous types of dating errors could result in ballot rejection, the appeals court noted:

Pursuant to this “date requirement,” if a return envelope’s date field contains a mistaken additional digit, a stray pen mark, or missing information (including a year) then the ballot contained within that envelope may not be counted. (citations omitted)

The law led to 10,000 discarded ballots in the 2022 General Election. Only 4,500 ballots were discarded in the 2024 General Election after Pennsylvania redesigned the return envelope to reduce the number of discarded ballots.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held that while the dating requirement only minimally burdened voters, the consequences of an improperly dated ballot outweighed any purported benefit of the requirement.

The challenge came after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania interpreted a part of the state election code requiring voters to “fill out, date and sign” their mail-in ballot. The state supreme court held that the dating requirement mandates discarding ballots that are improperly dated.

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Utah 3rd District Judge Dianna Gibson told Utah to redraw its congressional district map before the 2026 midterms.

The new map must “align with what voters approved in 2018.”

Utah has 30 days to submit four new maps that match Proposition 4.

Gibson will hold a conference with parties on Friday to discuss the next steps. A hearing on the proposed maps is scheduled for October.

Republicans could appeal Gibson’s decision, which would likely keep the current map until 2028.

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The redistricting war is officially on.

After weeks of bluster from dueling governors and state lawmakers, California and Texas raced forward with parallel action this week to draw new congressional maps, setting into motion a national redistricting fight that could upend the midterms and determine control of the House.

Texas Republicans on Saturday passed a new map that will help the GOP flip as many as five House seats — a partisan play at the hand of President Donald Trump. On Thursday, California Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Gavin Newsom preemptively agreed to send a retaliatory ballot measure to voters — the first step in potentially offsetting Texas’ maneuver by creating new Democratic-leaning seats.

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President Donald Trump has been warning for years that mail-in ballots and voting machines are riddled with vulnerabilities that invite fraud and undermine trust in elections. We’ve discussed these vulnerabilities here at PJ Media extensively, and now Trump is taking action on them. On Monday morning, President Trump announced on Truth Social that he will issue an executive order to put an end to mail-in ballots before the 2026 midterms and restore “honesty and integrity” to America’s elections.

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President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he would work to “get rid of MAIL-IN BALLOTS.” Democrats and their media allies reflexively attacked the president, insisting that mail-in voting is secure — as if repeating it often enough makes it true.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said on CNN that “Mail ballots are secure.” ABC News’ Hannah Demissie dismissed Trump’s claims as “without … evidence” before later conceding fraud does occur, but that it’s “rare” (as if any amount of voter fraud should be tolerated). ABC7 Eyewitness News said Trump “falsely” claimed mail-in ballots “lead to voter fraud.”

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace said Trump’s comments are “completely false” and claimed there is “zero evidence” to support his voter fraud claims in U.S. elections.

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Avowed socialist and New York City mayoral front-runner Zohran Mamdani garnered attention with his pledge to allocate tens of millions of taxpayer dollars to gender-affirming medical care, but far less publicized is his proposal to fund LGBTQIA+ “educational liaisons” in every public school.

Mamdani’s LGBTQIA+ policy memo states that only two LGBTQIA+ liaisons cover the 1,800 schools and 900,000 students under the purview of the NYC Department of Education. Under Mamdani’s plan, an Office of LGBTQIA+ Affairs would be created, costing taxpayers $3 million to expand staffing and place at least one liaison in every NYC school district.

Given Mamdani’s views on gender ideology, these positions would inevitably push affirmation-only “gender-affirming care,” embedding the “student-to-trans pipeline” and placing children at the center of trans activism.