“Workers Say They Were Pressured to Pay for N.Y.C. Election Jobs”

bribery, election administration

Shayla Colon at the New York Times:

When a Republican employee of the New York City Board of Elections told a woman that if she paid $150, she could have a job working at the polls during local elections, the woman hesitated but eventually agreed.

Unable to afford the fee on her own, she said she went to her husband, who gave her the money, even though he felt uneasy about the deal.

The small payment, she said, seemed worth it for the chance to earn a few thousand dollars for election work.

Poll workers in the Bronx say her experience was not unusual — and that it has been going on for years.

The woman is among several election workers who say that Board of Elections staff members and officials of the Bronx Republican Party inappropriately pressured them into paying for jobs or that they saw their peers similarly pressured. Three people who paid for their positions spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of losing their jobs.

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“After flagging 2,000+ ballots, Iowa secretary of state says 35 noncitizens voted in 2024”

election administration

Stephen Gruber-Miller at the Des Moines Register:

Thirty-five noncitizens voted in Iowa in the 2024 election and another five noncitizens tried to vote but had their ballots rejected, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate announced Thursday.

Pate, a Republican, said an audit of the state’s voter registration list confirmed 277 noncitizens on Iowa’s voter rolls. While 22 of those confirmed noncitizens registered to vote in 2024, the vast majority of the 277 identified did not vote, try to vote or register to vote in 2024.

Last year, two weeks before Election Day, Pate’s office instructed county auditors to challenge the ballots of 2,176 people who had at some point in the past told the Iowa Department of Transportation that they were noncitizens. Many had become U.S. citizens since getting their driver’s licenses.

The 277 people Pate confirmed as noncitizens on Thursday amounts to 13% of the voters he instructed election workers to challenge last fall. In all, 1.67 million Iowans voted in the Nov. 5 election, for a voter turnout rate of 74.2%.

Opponents said Pate’s directive just days before the election had a chilling effect on legal voters, making them fearful to cast their ballot, and forced naturalized citizens to jump through extra hoops to prove their citizenship when they voted.

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“Meta vows to curtail false content, deepfakes ahead of Australia election”

campaigns

Reuters:

Facebook and Instagram-owner Meta Platforms said on Tuesday its independent fact-checking program in Australia would help detect and remove false content and deepfakes, as it aims to curb misinformation ahead of a national election due by May.

In a blog post, the social media company said any content that could lead to imminent violence and physical harm, and interfere with voting would be removed, while the distribution of misleading content through its platforms would be curtailed.

“When content is debunked by fact-checkers, we attach warning labels to the content and reduce its distribution in Feed and Explore so it is less likely to be seen,” said Cheryl Seeto, Meta’s Head of Policy in Australia.

News agencies Agence France-Presse and the Australian Associated Press will review the content for Meta, Seeto said.

Meta scrapped its U.S. fact-checking programs in January and reduced curbs on discussions around contentious topics such as immigration and gender identity, bowing to pressure from conservatives to implement the biggest overhaul of its approach to managing political content on its services.

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