Tag: voting

Nearly 100 Election Ballots Discovered Among Discarded Mail in Seattle Dumpster

Nearly 100 voters in Washington state have been issued replacement ballots after election workers recovered a large collection of undelivered mail from a dumpster at a Seattle park, just days before the midterm elections, according to KOMO News.

The incident came to light when a resident alerted King County Elections to suspicious mail disposal at Golden Gardens Park. County employees investigated and discovered two containers of discarded correspondence, including 92 election ballots that had never reached their intended recipients.

The KOMO report says that all 92 ballots have since been replaced, while federal postal authorities have been notified and are examining the circumstances surrounding the discovery.

King County Elections Chief of Staff Kendall Hodson said stolen mail occasionally turns up in public places during election season. According to Hodson, investigators generally find that criminals are searching for valuables or sensitive personal information rather than attempting to interfere with voting. Ballots are often simply thrown away with the rest of the stolen correspondence.

The U.S. Postal Service confirmed it was aware of the Seattle incident and indicated that its Office of Inspector General was handling the matter.

Election administrators also sought to reassure residents that the discovery does not mean the missing ballots could be used to cast fraudulent votes. Washington’s election system uses individual tracking identifiers for voters and ballots, along with a review process intended to prevent duplicate submissions.

Officials examine the signature accompanying every returned ballot against the voter’s registration records. Employees conducting those reviews receive instruction from the Washington State Patrol, and any questionable signatures trigger an additional verification process.

Rather than immediately rejecting a ballot with an uncertain signature, election workers contact the voter and provide an opportunity to establish that the ballot was legitimately submitted. Those discrepancies can be addressed until the day preceding the election’s official certification.

KCE spokesperson Halei Watkins explained that these overlapping controls are intended to prevent anyone from successfully submitting a ballot on another person’s behalf, even if election mail falls into the wrong hands.

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The Nevada Supreme Court Refuses to Rule on the Voters’ Right to Verify Their Vote is Counted

Voters across the country are denied by design the right to verify the only ballot that matters: the ballot that actually gets counted. In electronic tabulation your votes are computed from an electronic “version” of your ballot, a version you are never allowed to see. If you cannot see it, you cannot verify it before it’s counted.

This matters immensely because the explicit design of electronic tabulation completely rejects voter oversight of what goes into the count. The count determines results, and the design of electronic tabulation denies any and all voters the opportunity to personally confirm that their votes are exactly what is being counted. Rather, you are forced to assume it. Federal law, so we are told, is there to “help” Americans “feel confident” that their votes are counted accurately. But this is not so. Besides the fact that those who are not Americans are routinely voting, Americans are forbidden the opportunity to ensure that their votes–which are their commands–are in fact obeyed

A hand-counted paper process can help make the problem with electronic tabulation controlling the counting of the votes even clearer: in a hand count, the very paper voted on is the very paper counted. In that process, the voter can see that the paper they cast is exactly the same as what is read into the count. This cannot happen in electronic tabulation. Even if paper ballots are used in your state–and this includes mailed ballots–the paper only supplies a later scan. After the paper is surrendered and the scan is finished, we are forced to assume that accurate data is generated, if any relevant data at all, to supply the count and reveal the results.

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“THE NEW YORK TIMES GOT CAUGHT!” – Trump Nukes the New York Times After Admitting to Getting Duped by Fake Pollster With Completely Fabricated Numbers

President Trump on Thursday lit up the New York Times, slamming the outlet for using bogus numbers from a “totally fake” pollster while speaking to reporters, then later warning that his defamation lawsuit is growing stronger by the day.

As The Gateway Pundit reported, a fake pollster called Wedgewood, which admitted to being an “entirely fabricated polling firm,” duped mainstream media outlets with bogus polls across multiple swing states as part of a social experiment. It was “far too easy,” Wedgewood said.

“Despite having no history, formal credentials, or real data behind the vast majority of our releases, Wedgewood Polling was added to major polling aggregators, including The New York Times, FiftyPlusOne, and VoteHub, and repeatedly treated as a legitimate data source,” the fake polling outfit, self-described as an “experimental project,” said in a statement.

“Our fabricated numbers were given instant credibility across national media platforms – including being cited on air and in reporting by outlets such as MS NOW. The ease with which unverified figures were absorbed into mainstream political narratives highlights a systemic breakdown in media vetting and data aggregation.”

The Times admitted to removing 15 polls from the firm after it “acknowledged that almost all of its work was fake.”

President Trump responded on Thursday when a reporter asked him why Democrats are doing “so well” in the polls.

“I don’t know if they’re close. I mean, I just saw that the New York Times used the poll numbers of a totally fake, you know, a group that said there were fake numbers against me,” Trump said.

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California Officials Blame ‘Vendor Error’ For Sending Thousands Of Duplicate Ballots

A California county sent duplicate mail-in ballots to thousands of voters in what officials have characterized as a printing error, raising questions about election security amid heightened federal scrunity.

Tulare County, which includes part of Sequoia National Park, acknowledged the “error” in a statement posted on its website, blaming a government vendor for security lapse.

“As a result of a printer vendor error during the ballot replacement procedure, some Tulare County voters received duplicate vote-by-mail packets,” county officials wrote.

The California officials said that the issue affected a portion of voters centered in the City of Tulare. According to ABC 30, nearly 7,800 voters were sent the duplicate ballots.

“The vendor has accepted full responsibility and worked with County officials to send voters a mailer with accurate information and guidance,” the county added.

Tulare officials warned voters that state law only allows for one ballot to be cast per election and are ordered to destroy the duplicate ballot.

“DO NOT RETURN OR ATTEMPT TO VOTE THE DUPLICATE BALLOT,” Tulare County officials wrote in all caps.

ABC 30 reported that the error specifically affected 7,791 voters in a county with approximately 227,000 registered voters. California voter registration documents show that as of 2025, roughly 31% of registered voters were Democrats, compared with 39% who were Republicans.

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Hillary Clinton Slams Matthew McConaughey Over “Really Unfortunate” Calls to Support Independent Candidates

Failed Presidential Candidate and former First Lady Hillary Clinton appeared on a liberal podcast yesterday, where she slammed actor Matthew McConaughey over recent comments he made, innocently reminding people that they have the right to vote for whoever they want this election cycle.

McConaughey posted a social media video this week, reminding people that they don’t need to vote just Republican or Democrat this November, arguing that “Independents belong in the fight,” while noting, “I’m not telling you who to vote for.”

“They’ve been telling us for years that an independent vote is a wasted vote. Well, a great question for our times is: has that unwasted vote been working out for you?” he said.

“I’m telling you to look at your ballot, study up, see if they represent you, what you believe in, check if they can be that voice of reason in the middle for you, and if they can, treat them like a potential winner because they can be.”

Kara Swisher played the clip and asked Hillary Clinton for her thoughts on her “High Stakes” podcast yesterday.

It was basically a thought crime for Clinton, who suggested that it was irresponsible for McConaughey to use his platform in such a way, “two weeks before a midterm.”

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Supreme Court Says New Hampshire Can Ban Voters from Using Student IDs at Polls in Midterms – Ketanji Brown Jackson Dissents

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 7-1 that New Hampshire can indeed stop voters from using student IDs at polls during the midterm elections.

The high court paused a lower court’s ruling that allowed student IDs to be using as a form of voter identification.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.

“I respectfully dissent because—even, and perhaps especially, when an election is looming—I would not disturb a clearly justifiable federal-court order issued to ensure that the public receives accurate information about a State’s electoral processes,” Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in her dissent.

The Hill reported:

The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled New Hampshire’s top election official can fully stop voters from using their student IDs when showing up to the polls in the midterms — a request backed by the Republican National Committee (RNC).

A lower judge ruled officials had improperly gone further than a new state law placing restrictions on student IDs to get a ballot.

The judge said the state still needed to consider student IDs alongside other evidence when a voter lacks other ways to prove their identity.

The Supreme Court chastised the judge for intervening too close to November’s contests.

The high court has said such orders can cause voter confusion, known as the Purcell principle. The opinion points to the recent legal whiplash over Missouri’s redistricting as one recent example.

“Here, the District Court did not point to anything that would justify deviating from that principle,” the majority wrote in its unsigned, one-paragraph opinion.

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Increasingly Toxic To Candidates, Pro-Israel AIPAC Retreats From Endorsements And Direct Donations

In the latest indication that a sea change is underway where US support of Israel is concerned, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) on Wednesday announced it will stop endorsing political candidates and directly contributing to their campaigns and PACs. The move reflects a new political environment in which the receipt of AIPAC money and endorsements is now being exploited as a major political liability.

AIPAC isn’t abandoning the political battlefield, but is choosing to emphasize stealthy means of influencing election outcomes. AIPAC will continue operating its cryptically-named United Democracy Project independent super PAC. That entity is prohibited from coordinating with candidates or giving them money, but can spend a limitless amount to promote favored candidates or undermine their opponents. 

First reported by Jewish Insider, the major policy shift was disclosed in a letter to AIPAC members. “[The current election cycle is] one of the most challenging environments in recent memory,” wrote the group’s president, Bernie Kaminetsky, and three other officials. “We assess that the challenges we are confronting will continue to grow in the years ahead.”

Earlier this year, AIPAC suffered an expensive, high-profile loss in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary. The group’s super PAC spent more than $30 million on Rep. Haley Stevens, only to see her lose to Abdul El-Sayed, a fierce critic of the US-Israel relationship. In recent days, El-Sayed said that, contrary to the long-running characterization, “It’s time for us to realize that Israel is not actually our friend...an ally that takes your money to push you into wars you shouldn’t be fighting is not an ally.” Recent polls show El-Sayed with a 2-point lead over GOP nominee and former Rep. Mike Rogers.

On the other hand, AIPAC also participated in an important victory, as the group helped oust Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie in the GOP primary. Thanks to money spent by AIPAC’s United Democracy Project, the Republican Jewish Coalition, and the MAGA Kentucky PAC — which was created solely to oust Massie and funded by non-Kentuckian Jewish billionaires Miriam Adelson, Paul Singer and John Paulsen — the contest was the most expensive primary in US House history. Massie earned the Israel lobby’s wrath by opposing foreign aid to any country, voting against pro-Israel legislation and condemning Trump’s wars on Iran.

AIPAC has been increasingly perceived as a villainous participant in US politics, and social media has helped put the group in an unwanted spotlight. One key contributor to that reputational decline is Track AIPAC, which was launched in 2024. Tapping federal disclosures, Track AIPAC’s website and social media accounts publicize the extent to which candidates are taking money from AIPAC and other pro-Israeli political forces. It also publicizes how legislators vote on Israel-related legislation.

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Katie Hobbs Canvassers Busted by Muckraker Trying to Register Felons and Noncitizens to Vote – Hobbs RUNS When Confronted!

Muckraker on Thursday published an election report out of Arizona, using undercover reporters to catch the Democratic Party, nonprofit groups, and labor unions backing Incumbent Governor Katie Hobbs, attempting to illegally register noncitizens and felons to vote.

Muckraker caught multiple Democrat organizations allowing blatant voter fraud.

These suspect groups were caught attempting to register noncitizens to vote and mobilizing noncitizens and felons to vote in the upcoming election.

When Katie Hobbs was confronted with the findings, she ran away from questions.

Muckraker posted their latest investigation on Thursday.

Per Muckraker:

Here’s what we found:

Stand Indivisible Arizona (endorsed Gov. Hobbs in their 2026 ballot guide) — Our journalist posed as a Canadian citizen and asked to register to vote. The canvasser not only agreed to help the alleged non-citizen register, but when asked whether other Canadians could register too, she said, “Tell them to do it online.”

Worker Power (working to re-elect Gov. Hobbs) — Our journalist told a canvasser they were not a U.S. citizen. Despite this, at our journalist’s request, the canvasser marked “yes” on the citizenship question of the voter registration form.

When We Count (the DNC’s own registration program) — Our journalist posed as a felon on probation and asked to register to vote. The canvassers looked up the law and saw that a felon on probation is ineligible. Even so, they encouraged our journalist to register: “You should just do it.”

AFL-CIO (phone bank mobilizing voters for Gov. Hobbs) — Our undercover journalist asked a phone bank trainer whether to ask the people being called if they’re citizens. The trainer’s answer: “We don’t care.”

First, Muckraker caught a volunteer for Stand Indivisible Arizona, a liberal nonprofit group backing Hobbs and other Democrats’ campaigns, attempting to register a journalist posing as a Canadian citizen, as well as his Canadian friends at a voter registration drive at Paradise Valley Community College in Phoenix.

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Trump DOJ Takes California to Task After State Admits in Court They Have No Way of Verifying Citizenship Beyond What Voters Attest – Newsom’s Office Responds

California admitted in federal court that the state has no way of verifying citizenship beyond what voters attest.

First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli took California to task on Tuesday afternoon following the damning admission.

Via Bill Essayli: Massive concession: Los Angeles election officials just told a federal court they have no independent way to verify citizenship beyond what voters attest. (They simply take their word for it.) Under federal law, only citizens may vote in federal elections. Yet California has not acted on the list of 20,000 suspected noncitizens or agreed to set aside their ballots. American citizens’ votes are being diluted in California.

Newsom’s office responded to Bill Essayli and mocked his position as the First Assistant US Attorney.

Bill Essayli hit back at Newsom’s office by citing federal law.

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Post-Genocide Israel 2026: Fragmented, Divided, Segregated Election With Few Alternatives

Israel’s 2026 election is occurring in a highly polarized and incendiary political atmosphere that recalls 1995. Then, the Oslo process had split Israeli society between an increasingly radicalized right and a peace-oriented government. As the incendiary political climate was condoned by the right-wing Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu, Labor’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was publicly branded a traitor and assassinated by a Messianic Jewish extremist.

The analogy has its limits. In 1995 the central political question was whether Israel should negotiate with the Palestinians. In 2026, the argument is taking place after October 7, three years of war, the obliteration of Gaza, intensified West Bank settlement and displacement, and Israeli military operations involving Lebanon and Iran.

In the past 10-15 years, the country’s political center of gravity has shifted sharply toward security and military power, documented in my The Fall of Israel (2024).

Recent polls have the Netanyahu and opposition blocs tied at about 50 seats. Neither side has a reliable governing coalition, while the Israeli Arab parties held the balance – until their representation was undermined.

International media muses about the “knife-edge Israeli elections” between the incumbent Netanyahu and his rivals, tacitly suggesting that the latter offer “hope” and “change.” In reality, the Israeli vote is not a conventional left-right election, but a referendum on who controls the Israeli state after years of permanent war – and what kind of state emerges from it.

It’s not a pretty picture.

Two major blocs and the unaligned

In the 120-member Israeli parliament, the Knesset, no single party has a majority. Effectively, the rivalry is between two blocs of parties: the Netanyahu-led harsh-right and the rival bloc, led by former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot, that is portrayed as centrist (though it, too, is slanted toward right).

Current polling suggests that the election may produce no clear outcome. Each major bloc attracts about 50 seats. Garnering up to 20 seats, the smaller unaligned groups are expected to have a critical role in the next government coalition. Or so the conventional wisdom goes.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud remains committed to military primacy, opposition to Palestinian statehood and a security-centered conception of Israeli sovereignty.

Once again, Likud’s campaign presents him as the indispensable protector of Israel in a hostile region, despite the catastrophic October 7 failure occurring under his watch. That depiction is fully misaligned with the war crimes he remains accused of.

In the absence of effective opposition alternatives, Netanyahu’s main rival, the centrist-populist Yashar (“honest”) bloc, has promoted itself as a more moderate option. Yet, its leader Gadi Eisenkot is a security hawk and the architect of the Obliteration Doctrine that was first tested in Dahiya, Beirut in 2006-7 and perfected in the Gaza genocide 2023-26. Eisenkot regards Palestinian statehood as effectively “irrelevant.”

Recent reporting, however, reinforces the limits of the promised alternative: the opposition says it would curb extremist settler violence, dismantle illegal outposts and restore some cooperation with the Palestinian Authority, yet its leading figures still reject Palestinian statehood. A change of government could alter methods and international relations without changing the underlying territorial consensus.

Next come labor, far-right, religious and Arab parties, which each could attract about 7-11 seats.

Led by Yair Golan, the labor Democrats are the clearest major Jewish-Zionist force advocating a negotiated Palestinian settlement, while still maintaining a strongly security-oriented posture. For a year or two, the popular Golan has tried to consolidate and expand Israeli left. His dream is to restore the broad labor front that governed Israel until Likud’s election triumph in 1977. But that’s a tall order.

Since the mid-2010s, Israel has shifted toward the Messianic far-right, thanks to hardened domestic sentiments and billions of U.S. dollars in annual military aid and conservative American-Jewish funding. When the country is consistently rewarded for policies that international law considers crimes, this is hardly surprising.

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