Connect with us

Politics and Current

North Carolina primary voters, still recovering from Helene, exceed 2020 voter turnout

Published

1 hour ago

on

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – More North Carolinians turned out to vote on the primary day early voting this yr than in 2020, whilst residents within the state’s mountainous western part continued to get better from devastating impacts Hurricane Helene.

Preliminary data shows a record 353,166 people solid ballots at greater than 400 early voting sites across the state on Thursday, up from 348,599 on the primary day of October 2020, the State Board of Elections reported Friday.

As North Carolina’s population and variety of registered voters proceed to grow, Thursday’s voter totals as a percentage of the state’s current variety of registered voters were barely down in comparison with the share of the electorate 4 years ago, in line with data provided by the board. On Thursday, the share was 4.54% of the state’s 7.78 million voters, while in 2020 on the primary day it was 4.78% of the 7.29 million registered voters on the time.

The variety of ballots solid and voters registered Thursday is predicted to extend as county boards of elections proceed to report data, said board spokesman Pat Gannon.

Lines and packed parking lots were common Thursday at voting locations in densely populated Piedmont counties and the mountain region, where historic flooding has destroyed homes, roads and bridges and damaged power and water systems. The board said Friday it had not received any reports of great issues or problems with the vote.

Thursday’s turnout “is a clear signal that voters are excited about this election, that they have confidence in the electoral process and that the hurricane will not prevent North Carolinians from exercising their right to vote,” state board Executive Director Karen Brinson Bell said in a message. release. Election officials said Thursday’s turnout likely benefited from clear, sunny weather.

Helene was the deadliest hurricane to hit the continental United States since Katrina in 2005, decimating distant towns throughout Appalachia and killing not less than 246 people, with just over half of those storm-related deaths in North Carolina.

Although power has been almost fully restored in western North Carolina, tens of 1000’s of individuals would not have access to scrub running water. Still, all but 4 of the 80 early voting sites originally scheduled for the 25 western counties hardest hit by the storm were open Thursday.

“Obviously, any time something this cataclysmic happens, it’s going to disrupt people’s lives,” first-time voter Bill Whalen, 75, of Asheville, said Thursday, but “at least in my area, there’s a general understanding of the importance of these elections and how important voting is.”

The early voting period, which runs through November 2 in all 100 counties, is amazingly popular in North Carolina. More than 3.6 million ballots were solid during early voting within the 2020 general election, or 65% of all ballots. A voter can concurrently register to vote and solid a ballot inside 17 days.

Traditional mail-in voting began a couple of days before Helene arrived within the state. As of Thursday, greater than 75,000 ballots had been received from state, military and overseas voters, the commission said.

In addition to president, North Carolina’s ballot also includes races for governor, attorney general and several other other statewide positions. All seats within the U.S. House of Representatives and General Assembly are also up for re-election.

Featured Stories

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Politics and Current

Kamala Harris Tells Hecklers to Go to ‘Smaller Rally’

Published

10 hours ago

on

October 19, 2024

By

Kamala Harris, New York Times

Vice President Kamala Harris stopped in the course of a campaign speech to assure hecklers that they were on the “wrong rally.”

Harris’ campaign rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, apparently went off with no hitch. As Harris began to talk about overturning former President Donald Trump’s nomination to the Supreme Court, she was interrupted by hecklers. Undeterred by the interruption, Harris took a moment to describe the stupidity.

“Oh, you are on the unsuitable rally. No, I believe you wanted to go to the smaller one down the road.

The reference to a “smaller” rally was a direct shot at her presidential opponent, Trump. the host often comments on crowd size and the scale of his political rallies.

In a speech at Mar-A-Lago Golf Course in Florida, Trump expressed disappointment with the media for underestimating the dimensions of his rallies.

“I recently hosted 25,000 people in Michigan. We just couldn’t accept them. We had so lots of them that nobody mentioned it. When it gets 1,500 people, I saw it on the ABC yesterday, what they said the the gang was so big. I actually have a crowd that is 10, 20, 30 times larger.

Trump references crowd size so often that his opponents now use it as a way to mock him.

Vice presidential candidate Tim Walz mentioned the big turnout at an August 10 campaign rally in Arizona. While praising the turnout, he cheekily asked the gang if anyone cared in regards to the number of individuals in attendance.

Former President Barack Obama also joined in on the difficulty through the Democratic National Convention in August.

There are lower than 30 days left until the 2024 presidential elections.


This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
Continue Reading

Politics and Current

Former GOP strategist says we must predict that Donald Trump’s supporters will fail badly and try to ‘burn down’ counting centers in black communities

Published

19 hours ago

on

October 19, 2024

By

Stuart Stevens, once a top Republican Party strategist, told MSNBC’s Cris Jansing on Tuesday that Americans should not be surprised if Donald Trump’s supporters resort to violence to secure victory.

Their likely targets: Black voters, said Stevens, a top adviser to Mitt Romney through the Utah senator’s 2012 presidential campaign.

It Was a Joke to Them Until We Went Inside: New Details Emerge as Feds Confirm Arrests of Over 200 Alleged Capitol Rioters
WASHINGTON – JANUARY 6: Trump supporters clash with police and security forces as they attempt to storm the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. – Demonstrators breached security and entered the Capitol as Congress was debating the certification of electoral votes in the 2020 presidential election (Photo: Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

“You know, they can no longer stop black people from voting the way they did in the 1960s with the same success, although in the face of these electoral challenges they are going to try and I think what is really to be concerned about here is the mindset that that if you really don’t think the Trump campaign can win, it’s either the popular vote or the Electoral College,” Stevens said. author of confessional 2020 “It Was All a Lie: How the Republican Party Became Donald Trump.”

Trump’s strategy of appealing solely to his base “doesn’t make sense,” said a veteran Republican strategist.

“He’s not trying to add voters,” Stevens continued. “And if they can come in and violently disrupt vote counting centers, how will states be able to certify the election? You burned down the center of a county in Arizona. How does the governor certify this election? So what kind of world are we in?”

It’s a bleak prospect, but one that cannot be dismissed given Trump’s actions following his loss to President Joe Biden in 2020. Special Counsel Jack Smith accused former President of Evidence Production as a part of a conspiracy to involve fraudulent voters in the certification process.

Trump faces multiple charges for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election results, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction of the election.

President Biden is amongst those concerned about the potential for a peaceful transfer of power if Trump loses.

“He means what he says, we don’t take him seriously, he means it – all this stuff about if we lose there will be carnage, there will have to be a stolen election,” Biden said in the speech recent interview from CBS News.

Stevens said Trump’s concerns about alleged voter fraud are rooted solely in race.

“It was like that from the beginning,” he said. “Where are all the suspicious voices? Detroit, Philadelphia, Atlanta. What do they have in common? High percentage of African-American voters. Those who voted to not certify this election were essentially trying to disenfranchise millions of Black voters. It’s that simple.”

Confronted with X skeptics calling him “unsustainable”, Stevens reminded them of: 2020 incident in Maricopa County, Arizona, where armed Trump supporters forced the county elections office to close. Underneath his tweet, one user wrote: “This is very close to my house and it’s really disturbing.”

In Michigan, Republicans nearly rioted outside the TCF Center in Detroit, where 2020 election employees counted greater than 170,000 absentee ballots in America’s largest majority-Black city.

Influenced by Trump’s claims that he won the election, Trump supporters stormed the ability.

“When officials declared the room overcrowded and stopped admitting Republican and Democratic poll watchers, Trump supporters felt their fears were confirmed: They began arguing with police and election officials, banging on windows and chanting “stop counting.” NBC reported.

Earlier this 12 months, Trump he said he would agree election results provided that “everything is fair.” He also repeated claims from 2020 that Democrats couldn’t win unless they committed voter fraud. Many of his supporters remain convinced that Trump won in 2020 and will likely be less willing to accept defeat again.

“Does anyone think they won’t try again if Trump loses?” asked Stevens.


This article was originally published on : atlantablackstar.com
Continue Reading

Politics and Current

Trump threatens to defund schools teaching about slavery

Published

1 day ago

on

October 18, 2024

By

During today’s bizarre appearance on FOX News, Donald Trump sat on a small couch with the network’s hosts and gave a teasing response when presented with a scenario about what to do with schools that teach the reality about American history.

“Suppose you have a liberal city.” said the FOX hostBrian Kilmeade.

“Let’s say it’s Los Angeles, San Diego and they just decide… ‘Oh, we’ll get rid of… the history,'” Kilmeade posed. “We have a new story. This is America built on the backs of slaves on stolen land, and this is the curriculum that comes along.”

“We don’t send them money,” Trump replied. “We would save half our budget.”

(Source: @theTNholler)

Trump’s threat to withhold funding for schools that taught that slavery was central to American history was a part of a broader speech he made during a segment on the shutdown of the U.S. Department of Education. The former president’s promise suits into certainly one of the key policy proposals specified by Project 2025, a policy document that Trump has repeatedly denied having any knowledge of or connection to, regardless that former Trump officials were key leaders of the Project 2025 initiative.

Project 2025 aimed to reduce federal involvement in education and return control to state and native governments. “Power to the states” rhetoric has been used up to now to undermine progress on civil rights and laws, allowing states to resist change. Trump and Project 2025’s proposal to close the Department of Education would have a dramatic impact on the education landscape, especially for America’s most vulnerable students: Black and Brown students.

This can be reflected in Trump’s strategy of withholding money from schools that teach about slavery greater attacks on DEI which the previous president supported, and his view that DEI is anti-white racism.

“I believe there is a clear anti-white bias in this country and it cannot be allowed to happen” – Trump once said TIME magazine.

The Department of Education is accountable for over 50 mANDlions of scholars in 18,200 school districts across the country.

Featured Stories


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending