On Friday, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz signed HF 4772 — an omnibus elections policy bill — into law, officially ending prison gerrymandering in the state. With this action, Minnesota joins the rapidly growing list of states that have taken action on this issue. The measure requires state and local governments to count incarcerated people at their home addresses when drawing new political districts during their redistricting process.
Prison gerrymandering is a problem created because the Census Bureau incorrectly counts incarcerated people as residents of their prison cells rather than their home communities. As a result, when states use Census data to draw new state or local districts, they inadvertently give residents of districts with prisons greater political clout than all other state residents….
Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio, widely seen as a potential vice presidential pick for former President Donald Trump, on Sunday refused to say whether he would accept the results of the 2024 presidential election, instead blaming Democrats for sowing doubts about the election.
The senator, appearing on NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” said, “I think you’re asking the wrong person. The Democrats are the ones that have opposed every Republican victory since 2000. Every single one.”
He added, “And you have Democrats now saying they won’t certify 2024 because Trump is an insurrectionist and ineligible to hold office. So you need to ask them.”
Rubio’s refusal to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election is notable because he did vote to certify the presidential election for then-President-elect Joe Biden. At the time, he said, “Democracy is held together by people’s confidence in the election and their willingness to abide by its results.”
Moderator Kristen Welker pushed back on Rubio, reminding him that no Democratic presidential candidate — including Hillary Clinton in 2016, when she lost to Trump — refused to concede the election.
Montana’s attorney general told supporters he skirted the state’s campaign finance laws by inviting another Republican to run against him as a token candidate in next month’s primary so he could raise more money for the November general election, according to a recording from a fundraising event.
“I do technically have a primary,” Attorney General Austin Knudsen said last week when asked at the event who was running against him. “However, he is a young man who I asked to run against me because our campaign laws are ridiculous.”
Knudsen separately faces dozens of professional misconduct allegations from the state’s office of attorney discipline as he seeks a second term. He made the comments about his primary opponent during the fundraiser on May 11 in Dillon, Montana, according to the recording obtained by the Daily Montanan, which is part of the nonprofit States Newsroom organization.
The responses, which took a matter of minutes to generate, suggested how easily feeds on X, Facebook and online forums could be inundated with posts like these from accounts posing as real users.
False and manipulated information online is nothing new. The 2016 presidential election was marred by state-backed influence campaigns on Facebook and elsewhere — efforts that required teams of people.
Now, one person with one computer can generate the same amount of material, if not more. What is produced depends largely on what A.I. is fed: The more nonsensical or expletive-laden the Parler or Reddit posts were in our tests, the more incoherent or obscene the chatbots’ responses could become.
And as A.I. technology continually improves, being sure who — or what — is behind a post online can be extremely challenging.
I can’t watch a basketball game on TV without seeing ads urging me to place a bet on one app or another.
I can’t walk down the street in New York City without seeing ads about the latest lottery jackpot.
And when I sit at my desk in the office, I spend hours studying another type of betting — trading in financial markets, where you can place wagers on companies, bonds, commodities and derivatives of all descriptions.
Yet the most consequential betting of all — wagers on elections in the United States — may soon be shut down by regulators.
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has ordered a ban on such betting on the financial exchanges known as prediction markets, where it’s possible to make wagers on who will win the 2024 presidential election and on a host of other matters. And the commission’s proposed new rule would give it the power to block trading on a broad range of other subjects.
Even so, the prediction markets, which allow people to place bets on the outcome of a wide range of events, including American elections, are fighting back in the courts. And despite the regulatory crackdown, many markets are open and running.
I’ve used prediction markets for years — never for trading but as a source of information gleaned from prices that represent the collective wisdom of thousands of people. All market pricing needs to be analyzed with a heavy dose of skepticism, of course, yet these markets are a useful adjunct to polls, economic and political models and traditional reporting, especially in a fraught election year like this one.
“Prediction markets on elections and other economically meaningful events have much greater social utility than essentially every other form of gambling that is currently legal,” said Eric Zitzewitz, a Dartmouth economist who has studied these markets extensively. “We learn nothing from a crap game, and very close to nothing that’s economically interesting from sports betting. But having a market price the odds of economically meaningful political outcomes is extremely valuable to those who are affected by them.”…
Two groups on the left with differing missions are joining forces to bolster their preferred candidates in state supreme court races in November, as such elections grow increasingly expensive and politically polarizing.
The two organizations — the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, the Democrats’ arm in fighting for state and congressional maps; and Planned Parenthood Votes, the political arm of the abortion health care organization — will initially target races in Arizona, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Ohio and Texas. The fund, with a budget of $5 million, will provide digital ads along with funding for canvassing and get-out-the-vote operations.
“Our aim is to protect the independence of state supreme courts, to ensure that they are composed of justices who are dedicated to interpreting the law in a neutral way, who will adhere to precedent and who will protect the fundamental rights of all citizens,” Eric H. Holder Jr., the former attorney general who is chairman of the redistricting group, said in a statement announcing the joint venture.
New York goes deep:
Money to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Money to the Zionist Organization of America. Money to the Republican Jewish Committee. So much money up and down the ballot and across the globe that a candidate’s… Continue reading
Hampton Dellinger for Politico:
Since the Hatch Act was passed in 1939, government workers have faced strict limits on their political activity. And rightly so. Federal employees should be on the job for the public good, not partisan ends. Violators… Continue reading
Politico:
Former President Donald Trump on Saturday floated the idea of a third term if he wins in November.
“You know, FDR 16 years — almost 16 years — he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to… Continue reading
NY Times. From Jamie Raskin to Chief Justice Roberts to a variety of election officials you have never heard of, these few quotes say it all.
“Public officials from Congress to City Hall are now regularly subjected to threats… Continue reading
Bolts Magazine: One more Republican legislative attack on ballot measures. The Arizona legislature seeks to make the process more difficult through a constitutional amendment imposing strict geographic requirements. These measures are highly problematic because ballot initiatives are one of… Continue reading