Vox - The 2020 general election has arrivedhttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2021-01-06T10:14:02-05:00http://www.vox.com/rss/stream/213042322021-01-06T10:14:02-05:002021-01-06T10:14:02-05:00How Joe Biden plans to use executive powers to fight climate change
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<figcaption>President-elect Joe Biden speaks about climate change and the wildfires on the West Coast in Wilmington, Delaware, on September 14. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>10 ways Biden plans to fight climate change, with or without Congress.</p> <p id="dqhJOm">Democrats have <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/1/6/22213094/jon-ossoff-beats-david-perdue-georgia-senate-election">won control of the Senate</a>, thanks to two tight Tuesday runoff races in Georgia. </p>
<p id="DsiGrI">With the Senate question largely resolved, President-elect <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/6/21534594/joe-biden-wins-2020-presidential-election">Joe Biden</a> can now start to focus on policy, including his ambitious <a href="https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/#">agenda to deal with climate change</a>, which calls for an aggressive shift to clean energy, carbon neutrality by the middle of the century, and massive federal investment to drive these changes. Contrast that with President Donald Trump, who put forth no plan to deal with climate change and actively undermined existing policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p id="jBgYRN">Biden is also likely to undo most, if not all, of Trump’s environmental rollbacks with his executive powers. Trump has repealed or weakened <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/climate-environment/trump-climate-environment-protections/">125 environmental regulations</a>, like protections for endangered species and environmental risk assessments for infrastructure. Trump has also <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2020/12/tongass-national-forest-loses-vital-protections">opened protected wilderness</a> for fossil fuel development and logging. </p>
<p id="aRJ7NW">Some of the most notable rollbacks are of rules seeking to cut greenhouse gases, like the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/6/19/18684054/climate-change-clean-power-plan-repeal-affordable-emissions">Clean Power Plan</a>, energy efficiency standards, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/5/20942457/california-trump-fuel-economy-auto-industry">fuel economy regulations</a> for cars and trucks. Many of these rollbacks are also tied down in ongoing lawsuits across state and federal courts that may take months to resolve. </p>
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<cite>Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>President Trump put forth no plan to deal with climate change and actively undermined existing policies to limit greenhouse gas emissions.</figcaption>
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<p id="ZGbNf9">Just untangling this mess alone may end up keeping Biden’s hands full. “It’s not just flipping the dial and going from Trump back to Obama,” said Barry Rabe, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan who studies environmental policy, told Vox in November. “It could actually take much of an entire term in office to reverse that reversal.”</p>
<p id="83Zyh0">And without drastic action soon, greenhouse gases will continue to increase in the atmosphere, the planet will continue to heat up, the most vulnerable will suffer, and disasters worsened by climate change will extract an increasingly dear toll from the US economy. </p>
<p id="sHtyf8">Biden’s most ambitious ideas — particularly using $1.7 trillion in government money — require Congress to go along. And as <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2021/1/6/22216677/georgia-senate-election-results-black-voters-turnout-warnock-ossoff">Vox’s Ella Nilsen writes</a>, even though Vice President-elect Kamala Harris can be the tie-breaker for simple majority votes in the Senate once she takes office, “Passing Democratic bills will be extremely difficult in a 50-50 Senate. It will be tough to even pass broad bipartisan bills.” </p>
<p id="cTocHU">There’s a lot a president can do from the White House without Capitol Hill, however. The questions are how quickly the head of government can get these things done and how much of what gets done will last through another administration. </p>
<h3 id="2zBNqc">Biden has a strong list of executive actions to pursue on climate change</h3>
<p id="JYpKDM">Even if Biden were to reverse Trump’s policies on climate change, that would only get the US back to where it was four years ago. At that point, US greenhouse gas emissions were flat and the country was not on track to meet its <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/09/united-states-will-miss-paris-climate-targets-without-further-action-study-finds">climate change goals</a> under the Paris climate agreement. </p>
<p id="w067sS">To make up for lost time and to advance, the US needs more policies to limit greenhouse gases and facilitate the shift to clean energy. </p>
<p id="LauuF0">However, as David Roberts <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21547245/joe-biden-wins-2020-climate-change-clean-energy-policy">explained</a>, it’s unlikely that Biden would be able to pass this agenda through Congress as part of a Green New Deal-type package. Congressional Republicans like Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell have already <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/mcconnell-reportedly-eyes-constraints-possible-biden-cabinet-picks-n1246581">dropped hints</a> that they plan to stymie Biden’s agenda when he takes the White House, and most bills will have to clear a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. </p>
<p id="sg6i4c">That means a more piecemeal approach may be needed.</p>
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<cite>Jon Cherry/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will likely lead Senate Republicans in blocking President-elect Biden’s climate agenda.</figcaption>
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<p id="uFuDIh">Some of these tactics could include stricter efficiency standards for appliances, more stringent fuel economy rules for vehicles, and appointing members of the <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/neil-chatterjee-replaced-as-ferc-chairman">Federal Energy Regulatory Commission</a> who factor climate change into energy policy, according to Ann Carlson, a professor of environmental law at the University of California Los Angeles, in an email. </p>
<p id="madDFD">The Biden campaign seems to have realized this as well. One of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21516594/joe-biden-climate-change-covid-19-president">climate policy survey questions</a> Vox posed to the Biden campaign was about how Biden plans to use the powers of the presidency to put points on the board. </p>
<p id="hsshUy">Campaign press secretary Jamal Brown told us that Biden has come up with at least 10 executive actions to pursue off the bat: </p>
<ul>
<li id="Hg5mZv">Requiring aggressive <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/it-cannot-survive-why-trump-s-rollback-methane-rule-might-lose-court">methane pollution limits</a> for new oil and gas operations.</li>
<li id="ZKYfMI">Using the federal government procurement system — which spends $500 billion every year — to drive toward 100 percent <a href="https://www.energy.gov/eere/femp/federal-agency-use-renewable-electric-energy">clean energy</a> and zero-emissions vehicles.</li>
<li id="eiaIyV">Ensuring that all US government installations, buildings, and facilities are more efficient and climate-ready, harnessing the <a href="https://www.epa.gov/greenerproducts/buying-green-federal-purchasers">purchasing power and supply chains</a> to drive innovation.</li>
<li id="BCLbQ6">Reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation — the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/1/11/16874696/greenhouse-gas-co2-target-2017-paris-trump">fastest growing source of US climate pollution</a> — by preserving and implementing the existing Clean Air Act, and developing rigorous new fuel economy standards aimed at ensuring 100 percent of new light- and medium-duty vehicles will be electrified and annual improvements are made for heavy-duty vehicles.</li>
<li id="TYdtMC">Doubling down on the liquid fuels of the future, which make agriculture a key part of the solution to climate change. Advanced biofuels, made with materials like switchgrass and algae, can create jobs and new solutions to reduce emissions in planes, oceangoing vessels, and more.</li>
<li id="26cyTv">Saving consumers money and reducing emissions through new, aggressive <a href="https://environmentamerica.org/news/ame/appliance-efficiency-standards-could-cut-climate-pollution">appliance and building efficiency standards</a>.</li>
<li id="Y1Q59l">Committing that every <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/15/climate/trump-environment-nepa.html">federal infrastructure investment</a> should reduce climate pollution, and require any federal permitting decision to consider the effects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.</li>
<li id="qCvf1R">Requiring public companies to <a href="https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/au/Documents/audit/deloitte-au-audit-clarity-disclosure-climate-related-risks-070220.pdf">disclose climate risks</a> and the greenhouse gas emissions in their operations and supply chains.</li>
<li id="z0GACD">Protecting biodiversity, slowing extinction rates and helping leverage natural climate solutions by conserving 30 percent of America’s lands and waters by 2030.</li>
<li id="yvvExm">Protecting America’s natural treasures by permanently protecting the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22163821/arctic-refuge-oil-drilling-trump">Arctic National Wildlife Refuge</a> and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attacks on federal lands and waters, establishing national parks and monuments that reflect America’s natural heritage, banning new oil and gas permitting on public lands and waters, modifying royalties to account for climate costs, and establishing targeted programs to enhance reforestation and develop renewables on federal lands and waters, with the goal of doubling offshore wind by 2030.</li>
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<p id="T8yyOr">These actions are only a slice of how Biden plans to address climate change, and there may be more. There are also more contentious executive actions Biden could potentially take, like revoking authorization for the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/3/24/15047962/trump-approves-keystone-xl">Keystone XL pipeline</a> or denying oil and liquefied natural gas export licenses. </p>
<p id="gXmenf">However, executive actions alone won’t be enough to bring the US on track to have a carbon neutral economy by 2050. The private sector — power companies, manufacturers, businesses — will also have to act, which may require a combination of incentives, regulations, and advances in technology. </p>
<p id="eQ2C2N">And while climate change is a high priority for Biden, he will also be facing the Covid-19 pandemic and will be shaping the government’s response to the virus that is currently <a href="https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/us-all-key-metrics">killing over 3,400 Americans every day</a>. Balancing the two crises of Covid-19 and climate change will be a formidable task. </p>
<h3 id="pmb8CF">Biden’s domestic climate agenda could end up stalled in the courts, but he can push for more action around the world</h3>
<p id="KOSdWB">The idea behind executive actions is to use authorities under existing laws rather than passing new ones. </p>
<p id="d4vjLE">However, while executive orders don’t need approval from Congress, they can still be challenged by courts. For example, the Supreme Court in 2016 stepped in to stay the implementation of Obama’s <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/committees/environmental-energy/practice/2016/021716-energy-supreme-court-stays-epas-clean-power-plan/">Clean Power Plan</a>, which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Trump later repealed the plan and replaced it with a much weaker regulation. </p>
<p id="UEpuu4">For Biden, the judicial landscape would be even less hospitable than it was for Obama. With a 6-3 Republican majority on the Supreme Court and <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/trump-has-appointed-216-new-federal-judges-it-could-230-election-day-1532901">more than 200 Republican federal judicial appointments</a> over the last four years, lawsuits from states and industries that would be subject to any executive action could bog down forward movement on climate change. But if these actions do survive legal challenges, they become far more durable policies. </p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">This is not the game-changing moment that many were hoping for, and we will be stuck working within the narrow confines of bipartisan climate solutions for at least the near-term. It makes our work harder, but also all-the-more important. 7/7</p>— Zeke Hausfather (@hausfath) <a href="https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1324052006894399488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 4, 2020</a>
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<p id="h9S6ix">One area where Biden does have a lot of room to maneuver on climate change is <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/21505488/joe-biden-foreign-policy-climate-change">foreign policy</a>. Biden has already pledged to rejoin the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21545960/paris-agreement-accord-exit-leaves-trump-biden-election-2020-climate-change">Paris climate agreement</a> as soon as he enters office. From there, Biden wants to use the US’s weight as an economic and diplomatic player to push other countries to do more on climate change. </p>
<p id="6aSUri">“He will lead a major diplomatic effort to get every major country to ramp up the ambition of their domestic climate targets, including convening a climate world summit to directly engage the leaders of the major carbon-emitting nations of the world to persuade them to join the United States in making more ambitious national pledges, above and beyond the commitments they have already made,” Brown told Vox. </p>
<p id="IFs563">While the US is the <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/4/24/18512804/climate-change-united-states-china-emissions">largest historical emitter</a> of greenhouse gases and currently ranks second in emissions behind China, it only comprises 15 percent of humanity’s current emissions output. That means addressing climate change would require nudging other countries to curb their own emissions and shift to clean energy. </p>
<p id="cAV0KO">There are also other international agreements on issues that touch on climate, like the Montreal Protocol that places limits on <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2020/09/10/rare-bipartisan-climate-agreement-senators-forge-plan-slash-use-potent-greenhouse-gas/">hydrofluorocarbons</a> (HFCs), a class of potent, heat-trapping gases. The recent <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/climate/climate-change-stimulus.html">legislation to fund the government</a> passed by Congress commits the US government to reducing HFCs by 85 percent from current levels over the next 15 years. </p>
<p id="c0iVHA">The US can also leverage its power as a major economy to sway the rules of trade, using agreements to hold trading partners accountable for their contributions to climate change. </p>
<p id="zhXpO2">But here, too, the Covid-19 pandemic looms large. International cooperation will be needed to limit the spread of the disease between countries, and a major international climate meeting has already been postponed due to the pandemic. Many countries are also facing their own economic crises and may push climate change concerns to the back burner. </p>
<h3 id="k8eWjh">The good news: Americans are more motivated to tackle climate change than ever</h3>
<p id="xPX9FM">Biden has leaned heavily on his experience as vice president during his campaign, but it’s clear that 2021 will not be like 2009. For instance, there will be an ongoing economic crisis and a raging pandemic to deal with immediately.</p>
<p id="UmHGv4">On the other hand, when Biden is sworn in, he will be taking the reins of a country that is much more motivated to tackle climate change than his previous turn in government. Addressing climate change continues to rank as a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/16/u-s-concern-about-climate-change-is-rising-but-mainly-among-democrats/">high priority</a> according to polls across the US. Since Trump pulled out of the Paris accord, a <a href="https://www.americaspledgeonclimate.com/">coalition of states, cities, and companies</a> have stepped in to enact their own goals to limit greenhouse gases. They’ve also been in the trenches challenging Trump’s rollbacks and building a legal framework for state and local action on climate change. </p>
<p id="MiuaHf">“For four years, we’ve fought tooth and nail against the Trump Administration’s efforts to dismantle critical protections [for the environment] and reverse hard-fought progress,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a November 4 <a href="https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-becerra-future-planet-stake-trump-administration-formally">statement</a> about the US withdrawing from the Paris accord.</p>
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<cite>Jemal Countess/Getty Images for Climate Power 2020</cite>
<figcaption>Climate activists project flames and commentary on the side of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC, on October 21.</figcaption>
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<p id="AxDPob">Meanwhile, some of the big industry blocs that have resisted policies around climate change have begun to fracture. In August 2020, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/17/climate/california-automakers-pollution.html">five automakers</a> — Volvo, Ford, Honda, BMW, and Volkswagen — reached a deal with the state of California to impose tougher emissions limits on themselves, defying the Trump administration’s efforts to relax those rules. </p>
<p id="I9kgBR">Some appliance manufacturers have pushed back against Trump’s efforts to relax efficiency standards for appliances like <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/climate/trump-dishwasher-regulatory-rollback.html">dishwashers</a>. Major power utilities are also betting big on <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-4-top-u-s-utilities-are-grappling-with-the-energy-transition">clean energy</a>. For example, <a href="https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/arizona-public-service-carbon-free-power-2050">Arizona Public Service</a>, the largest power utility in Arizona, committed to producing all of its electricity from carbon-free sources by 2050, despite the fact that the state does not have a mandate to do so. Even <a href="https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2020/9/25/21452055/climate-change-exxon-bp-shell-total-chevron-oil-gas">major oil companies</a> are starting to grapple with how they will cope in a world where carbon dioxide emissions must be constrained. </p>
<p id="EZkAeF">These divides could provide an opportunity for Biden to create coalitions that want action on climate change and from there, nudge the holdouts to do more. But such alliances are fragile and it will take finesse to keep such a group from falling apart. “I think Biden can assume that he would have some industry support to work with,” Rabe said. “This would require really careful political work to hold that supportive coalition together.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/21549521/climate-change-senate-election-joe-bidenUmair Irfan2020-11-19T18:20:00-05:002020-11-19T18:20:00-05:00Alaska voters adopt ranked-choice voting in ballot initiative
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<img alt="Hands holding a ballot with some choices filled in." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yRGCX1C_HNl1dFZYhrao4UM8eYI=/93x0:2760x2000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67820584/GettyImages_594745352.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Voters in Alaska have approved ranked-choice voting. | Brianna Soukup/Portland Portland Press Herald via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The voting reform measure is meant to combat polarization and increase voter choice.</p> <p id="3wYOW5">In a tight vote that came down to about 4,000 ballots, Alaskans approved a measure to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/6/12/17448450/maine-ranked-choice-voting-paul-lepage-instant-runoff-2018-midterms">join Maine</a> in conducting their elections using ranked-choice voting by <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/3/21546902/live-results-ballot-initiatives-democracy-reform">approving the ballot initiative Measure 2</a>.</p>
<p id="NLyeB4">Measure 2 makes sweeping changes to how Alaska administers elections. Instead of two primaries, in which each political party nominates a candidate for the general election in November, the state will hold one open primary from which the top four candidates, regardless of party affiliation, proceed to the general election.</p>
<p id="sorm9Y">Ranked-choice voting lets voters list the candidates in order of preference.</p>
<p id="X92inA">“This is a victory for all Alaskans regardless of their political leaning,” Shea Siegert, manager of the Yes on 2 for Better Elections campaign, <a href="https://alaskansforbetterelections.com/alaska-voters-approve-landmark-nonpartisan-election-reforms/">said in a statement Wednesday</a>. “We now have an electoral system that lives up to Alaska’s independent streak by saying ‘to hell with politics let’s do what is right for Alaska.’”</p>
<p id="uhRmdJ">Alaska’s outcome was a victory for voting reform campaigners, who have argued that changing how we vote might address hyperpartisanship and polarization while giving third-party candidates a better chance at elected office. Opponents have warned it could be a logistical headache, though so far the cities and states that have adopted ranked-choice voting have conducted their elections without major problems. Massachusetts considered a similar law this November but rejected it.</p>
<p id="fq57Ut">Ranked-choice voting works like this: Instead of just<strong> </strong>picking one of the candidates on the ballot, you rank them from most preferred to least preferred. While it is new in the United States, it has been successfully used for a century in Australia and in Ireland.</p>
<aside id="P9SRKN"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Live results: Ballot initiatives on democracy reform","url":"https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/11/3/21546902/live-results-ballot-initiatives-democracy-reform"}]}'></div></aside><p id="3b9vjI">The idea is that this allows voters to choose their favorite possible candidate. Most of the United States has what’s called a first-past-the-post electoral system, where the candidate who receives the most votes becomes president. First-past-the-post systems incentivize strategic voting (voting not for your favorite candidate but for your preferred candidate with a real shot at victory), and they have driven the rise of a two-party system like the one in the US.</p>
<p id="8duXId">And while first-past-the-post voting systems are not the only factor that has led to the two-party system or to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/1/24/21076232/polarization-america-international-party-political">increasing polarization of America</a>, they’ve certainly contributed. First-past-the-post systems mean third-party candidates rarely win, even if many voters prefer them; each voter expects that voting for a third party constitutes “throwing away” their vote.</p>
<p id="h88hHH">Imagine a person were deciding between President Donald Trump, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins, and Libertarian Party candidate Jo Jorgensen. Our hypothetical voter likes both Hawkins and Jorgensen better than Biden but would prefer Biden win than Trump.</p>
<p id="dcqkO5">Under first-past-the-post voting — the voting system most Americans voted with this election — our hypothetical voter might feel forced to vote for Biden. Under ranked-choice voting, they would list (for example) Hawkins first, Jorgensen second, Biden third, and Trump fourth. When ballots are counted, the ballot counters will eliminate the candidate with the fewest first-place votes and “move” their vote to their second-place candidate.</p>
<p id="GqDFbm">You can see how it works on this ballot from Maine, which conducted the first-ever general statewide election with ranked-choice voting this November.</p>
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<cite>David Sharp/AP Photo</cite>
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<p id="QHNfnE">As a result, third-party candidates get more votes because voters don’t feel like they’re throwing their vote away by supporting them. And the process generally favors candidates whom lots of voters find acceptable over polarizing candidates whom many voters hate.</p>
<p id="WjZFt6">“Ranked-choice voting rewards candidates who can appeal most broadly because candidates compete to be voters’ second and third choices as well as their first,” voting reform expert Lee Drutman <a href="https://www.vox.com/polyarchy/2019/3/21/18275785/electoral-college-ranked-choice-voting-president-democracy">wrote for Vox in 2019</a>. Studies find that in areas with ranked-choice voting, campaigns are <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ncr.21307">more civil</a>. Ranked-choice voting might also <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0261379417304006">increase representation of women and minorities</a>, who seem to benefit when the electoral conditions encourage coalition building.</p>
<p id="Wzh9nW">That’s a particularly <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/2020/10/29/on-ballot-measure-2-republicans-and-democrats-ally-against-an-independent-supported-push-for-election-reform-in-alaska/">big deal in Alaska</a>, where independents account for 57 percent of registered voters but hold only three seats in the state legislature.</p>
<p id="CmLZLY">Another implication of Ballot Measure 2 is that Alaska’s moderate Republican senator, Lisa Murkowski, is in less danger of being primaried from the right — <a href="https://www.adn.com/politics/article/alaska-senate-race-untold-story-lisa-murkowski-s-write-decision/2010/11/12/">which is what happened in 2010,</a> when a more conservative Republican won the party’s nomination, forcing Murkowski to run an unprecedented successful write-in campaign to keep her seat. In a ranked-choice voting system, Murkowski only needs to be one of the top four candidates in the primary to advance to the general election.</p>
<h3 id="dLKP8s">A growing conversation about how we vote</h3>
<p id="2OeiqP">Ranked-choice voting is used all over the world, but until two decades ago — when San Francisco adopted it — it was rarely used or discussed in the US.</p>
<p id="ztqRX2">US election experts, concerned about growing polarization and voter disenchantment, began encouraging other cities and states to adopt it. It did nicely in San Francisco, and <a href="https://www.fairvote.org/where_is_ranked_choice_voting_used">other cities signed on</a>. Eventually, the movement hit the national stage: In 2018, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/7/24/20700007/maine-san-francisco-ranked-choice-voting">Maine became the first state</a> to adopt ranked-choice voting. In 2019, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/11/1/20941870/ranked-choice-voting-new-york-city">New York City signed on as well</a>. In the 2020 election cycle, presidential candidates Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Michael Bennet endorsed it.</p>
<p id="Lx9aIq">These early adopters allow us a window into some important questions about ranked-choice voting. In particular, critics have worried it will be harder for the election office to tabulate and that it will confuse voters or lead to more spoiled ballots.</p>
<p id="FuJYRe">No such problems were reported in this year’s ranked-choice primaries, and ranked-choice voting works fine in many other countries. But Maine’s high statewide turnout in the 2020 general election represented the system’s first time in the spotlight for most Americans. With both Maine and Alaska now using ranked-choice voting, this method of conducting elections will have a chance to prove that it works — or that it doesn’t — in combating the rising tide of polarization.</p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/19/21537126/alaska-measure-2-ranked-choice-voting-resultsKelsey Piper2020-11-19T18:00:00-05:002020-11-19T18:00:00-05:00How fake news aimed at Latinos thrives on social media
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<img alt="A Latina woman wearing a shirt that reads “Mi Familia Vota” and carrying two small bags with a white long-stem rose in each." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/-Ao3qed9wGESyYuq252J6Etz8jY=/325x0:5658x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67820500/1229353448.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>An attendee at a rally for Latina voters in Las Vegas in October. | Melina Mara/Washington Post via Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Democrats are paying attention after a surprising number of Latino voters in swing states supported Trump.</p> <p id="LmXZKB">One of the big surprises of the 2020 election was how even though most Latino voters across the US voted for Joe Biden, in some counties of competitive states like Florida and Texas, a <a href="https://www.vox.com/21551025/latino-national-vote-biden-trump-2020-florida-texas">higher-than-expected percentage of Latinos supported Donald Trump</a>. One factor that many believe played a role:<strong> </strong>online misinformation about the Democratic candidate.</p>
<p id="Nr3rm9">It’s still too early to know exactly why these voters favored Trump, a candidate who made <a href="https://www.vox.com/2015/7/8/8911467/donald-trump-immigrants-boycott">demonizing Latino immigrants a cornerstone of his campaign</a> and administration. For one, Latinos in the US are a diverse group of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/09/16/key-facts-about-u-s-hispanics/">almost 60 million people</a> who represent more than 15 origin countries and encompass a range of generational, socioeconomic, and religious identities. And we’re still waiting for more complete demographic data on voter turnout. </p>
<p id="Ie4vE5">But Democrats are increasingly worried about the influence of misinformation on social media aimed at Latino voters in the runup to the election. The misleading narratives continue to spread on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, as well as in closed chat groups like WhatsApp and Telegram, in addition to the more traditional platforms like television, radio, and talking points coming directly from elected officials.</p>
<p id="FcUKHK">Several misinformation researchers told Recode that they’re seeing alarming amounts of misinformation about voter fraud and Democratic leaders being shared in Latino social media communities. Biden is a popular target, with misinformation ranging from exaggerated claims that he embraces Fidel Castro-style socialism to more patently false and outlandish ones, for instance that the president-elect supports abortion minutes before a child’s birth or that he orchestrated a caravan of Cuban immigrants to infiltrate the US Southern border and disrupt the election process.</p>
<p id="xgeltK">“What I’ve seen during this election looks to be a multifaceted misinformation effort seeking to undermine Biden and Harris’s support amongst the Latino community,” said Sam Woolley, a misinformation and propaganda researcher at the University of Texas Austin. “I think that political groups understand that the Latino vote matters and they are showing they are willing to use any and all informational tactics to get what they want.” </p>
<p id="Oz7IRJ">Democratic strategists looking ahead to the 2022 midterm elections are concerned about how this might sway Latino voters in the future. They acknowledge that conservatives in traditional media and the political establishment have pushed false narratives as well, but say that social media misinformation deserves special attention: It appears to be a growing problem, and it can be hard to track and understand.</p>
<p id="i3jzx3">Timothy Durigan, a security analyst for the Democratic National Committee, said that while Democrats “survived” the threat of misinformation this cycle, there hasn’t been the kind of structural change from social media companies that would prevent such viral misinformation from continuing to spread. </p>
<p id="NhdGsw">The DNC regularly flags content it believes violates social media policies, and the organization promotes counter-messaging against viral conspiracies. But the volume of misinformation is overwhelming. </p>
<p id="VDDmTL">“We’re limited in what we’re able to do,” Durigan said. </p>
<p id="37u5Db">Some of the misleading messages — like that Biden is a radical socialist — aren’t uniquely aimed at the Latino community; Trump often made this claim during his campaign. But these comparisons take on a new intensity with some immigrants from countries like Cuba or Venezuela who have lived under socialist governments and may be deeply opposed to them. </p>
<p id="IoLybF">And they may be more likely to believe a message shared by friends, family members, or people from their cultural community in a WhatsApp or Telegram group rather than an arbitrary mainstream US news outlet; <a href="https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/survey-research/trust-social-media/">research has found</a> that people believe news articles more when they’re shared by people they trust.</p>
<p id="g0jeYC">“What we’re worried about moving forward is that many of these groups and influencers aren’t necessarily going to stop sharing misinformation, but will move into platforms <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/parler-app-free-speech-influencers/">like Parler</a>, WhatsApp, and Telegram, which is going to make it much more difficult to monitor,” said Flavia Colangelo, a researcher at GQR, a research firm that advises Democratic campaigns on Spanish-language disinformation.</p>
<p id="VAgEbA">Politicians and social media researchers are still working on the full post-mortem of what happened in the 2020 election with Latino voters, but they’re already finding clear takeaways about what kinds of viral misinformation spreads, how it gains traction, and what companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter can do to minimize its impact — if they decide to do so. </p>
<h3 id="EhcTZ0">Misleading narratives on socialism, abortion, and racial tensions</h3>
<p id="aveAU4">One of the most pervasive themes of the misinformation targeting Spanish-speaking communities in the US during the election is the false idea that Joe Biden is a radical socialist, along the lines of the late Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro or late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez. Biden has repeatedly disavowed socialism and is in fact criticized by some progressive Democrats for being too centrist. Other misleading narratives attack Democrats’ stances on religious freedom, abortion, and race relations.</p>
<p id="1ZIRZ2">The Trump campaign itself has targeted Latino voters with this message, running Spanish-language ads on Facebook, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLKOAoICmbyV3HOousjVGsnPRcMryiZqM-">YouTube,</a> and <a href="https://blog.4president.org/2020/2020/10/donald-trump-releases-spanish-language-tv-ad-peligro-danger.html">Spanish-language TV stations</a> in states like Florida and Arizona promoting this message of Biden’s “extremism.” </p>
<p id="VdGLPm">“Socialist Joe Biden has embraced the extremist politics of the left. Don’t let his radical politics be implemented in our grand country. Learn more about his progressive ideas,” reads a translation of one Spanish-language Facebook ad run by the Trump campaign, which ran in the months ahead of the election. </p>
<p id="aeUm7J">That specific Facebook ad had between 1.6 million and 1.9 million impressions on the platform and cost the Trump campaign over $26,000, according to data compiled about political ads on Facebook from July 1 until November 3 by Laura Edelson, a researcher at the NYU School of Engineering’s Ad Observatory project, which tracks Facebook ads. </p>
<p id="7vZ72g">On Facebook and YouTube, making a claim like “Biden is an extreme socialist” isn’t a violation of their policies. What the platforms ban is misleading content about voting, as well as content linked to <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/6/21504890/facebook-qanon-ban-conspiracy-theory-movement">harmful conspiracy theories like QAnon</a>. (After Recode provided examples, YouTube removed a popular Spanish-language channel that was promoting QAnon conspiracies, as well as a political video containing coronavirus misinformation.)</p>
<p id="PFmLCS">Misinformation spreading in Latino communities wasn’t a problem for Democrats just in the presidential campaign, it cropped up in congressional races, too. Democratic House Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a first-generation Latina who lost her Florida reelection campaign, has <a href="https://twitter.com/DebbieforFL/status/1329091118319865858">publicly blamed a “targeted disinformation campaign to Latinos”</a> as one of the main reasons for her loss.</p>
<p id="q8TwRL">“Not only did House Republicans benefit at the ballot box from harmful disinformation that targeted Hispanic and Latino voters, but they shamelessly embraced that disinformation as a central pillar in their 2020 campaign strategy,” said Benjamin Block, a digital rapid response director for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. </p>
<p id="yr8cME">And political ads were only one part of these misinformation campaigns. Researchers say a growing network of Spanish-language political news influencers, including Aliesky Rodriguez, Eduardo Menoni, and John Acquaviva, have built devoted followings on social media through US political commentary oriented to a Latino audience — much of it rife with misinformation or misleading narratives. </p>
<p id="Zeq8rn">Such influencers often start on YouTube or Facebook and then carry on the conversation in private WhatsApp and Telegram group chats, many of which have tens of thousands of members who post thousands of messages a day. These private chats are also more difficult for fact-checkers to monitor.</p>
<p id="yOvIlm">“It’s rare that we see such a sort of emergence of parallel conversations amongst multiple social media groups like WhatsApp, and social media sites in one specific region,” said Woolley.</p>
<p id="DOOcmu">One prominent Florida-based Cuban-American personality, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/news/meet-the-cuban-youtuber-hoping-to-turn-south-florida-into-maga-country/">Alex Otaola,</a> whose YouTube videos rack up hundreds of thousands of views, went so far as to falsely claim that Democrats were going to send a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Sensacionazo/posts/3662915170426244">caravan of Cuban immigrants</a> to storm the US border to disrupt the election. He also made a video announcing a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/317773811646161/posts/3496343567122487">“lista roja” (red list)</a> he planned to give to Trump, naming Cubans living in the US who Otaola baselessly asserted were Castro loyalists planning to subvert Trump’s presidency. Less than a month before the election, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rdRyLCxMxM">Otaola landed a visit with Trump</a>, where he delivered the list to the president in person.</p>
<p id="CxroQn">A spokesperson for YouTube told Recode that Otaola’s caravan video does not violate its policies.</p>
<p id="dBhVpX">“As we announced a <a href="https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/authoritative-voting-information-on-youtube/">few months ago</a>, our <a href="https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2801973?">deceptive practices policy</a> prohibits misleading viewers about how to vote: for example, content aiming to mislead voters about the time, place, means, or eligibility requirements for voting. Expressing views on the outcome of a current election or process of counting votes is allowed under our policy.” </p>
<p id="6kvfDP">Another prevalent theme in many Spanish-language social media groups is the idea that Biden isn’t a “real” Catholic. As <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/latino-voters-targeted-abortion-misinformation-campaigns-n1245136">NBC News has reported</a>, one of the lies used to bolster this claim is that Biden is in favor of abortion minutes before a scheduled birth. Even though Latinos identify with various ideologies and religions, a majority — <a href="https://www.pewforum.org/2014/05/07/the-shifting-religious-identity-of-latinos-in-the-united-states/">around 55 percent — of Latino Americans</a> identified as Catholic in a 2013 Pew poll. </p>
<p id="dsTSHh">“When Latinx people see this content, they think, ‘that’s a compatriot, I’m going to trust them,’” said Jaime Longoria, an investigative researcher focusing on Spanish-language disinformation with the research nonprofit First Draft News. “It feels like a huge oversight for me that these platforms have allowed all this misinformation to keep spreading.” </p>
<p id="HtgAvM">Another tactic these campaigns employ is exploiting racial tensions in Latino communities — in many cases, to align the Black Lives Matter movement with anarchy and anti-Latino prejudice. These tactics ramped up in the summer as images of protests broke out across the country for racial justice this summer in the wake of police killings of Black people. (Biden and other Democrats have largely been supportive of this movement, although <a href="https://www.vox.com/21562565/ballot-measures-policing-first-step">Biden has not backed</a> some activists’ calls to defund the police.) </p>
<p id="Oeloz3">“In my research, one of the first things I noticed is a lot of content online whose sole purpose was to antagonize Latinx people against Black people,” Longoria said. </p>
<p id="wqsm7h">In one viral video that was posted in several Latino social media communities, a group of Black protesters is seen insulting migrant Latino workers at a construction site in Washington, DC. A caption for the original video, posted on an entertainment blog, read, “Protesters tell Mexican workers to stop stealing your jobs,” <a href="https://dcist.com/story/20/10/27/trayon-white-ward-8-construction-workers-protest/">according to DCist</a>. </p>
<p id="pZw6wh">Another video seemingly aimed at pitting Latinos against Black people showed a Black woman disrupting a Latino child’s birthday party. The woman disrupting the party was falsely linked to the Black Lives Matter movement in a caption posted by the Facebook page “Infodemik.” Facebook <a href="https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/10/fact-check-black-lives-matter-had-nothing-to-do-with-woman-caught-on-video-destroying-hispanic-childs-birthday-party.html?fbclid=IwAR14Bs-a2TdqLGi0tAwsL07sHYYnDnxSEiF96VvHm-6M5zOvi18u6QFqLkE">flagged the video as false</a> after an investigation by its third-party fact-checkers, but one instance of the video alone has some 180,000 shares and 77,000 comments on the platform. </p>
<p id="CTfwLi">These kinds of tactics can have a real impact on their targeted audience. Saiph Savage, who researches misinformation at the National Autonomous University of Mexico’s Civic Tech Lab, said there is a “data void” in the Latino community for Spanish-language news about US politics. There are only two major Spanish-language broadcast news networks in the US: Univision and Telemundo. This leaves room for media operations — not just on the internet, but also via local radio channels and newspapers — to spread less-accurate reporting, Savage said.</p>
<p id="9mwpk4">And increasingly, some members of the Latino community feel that the <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2014/04/liberal-bias-univision-telemundo-jillian-kay-melchior/">major Spanish-language networks are biased against conservatives</a>, perpetuated in part, Savage and Longoria said, by viral conspiracy theories spread online — including the unproven accusation that star Univision anchor Jorge Ramos is working on behalf of the Democratic Party.</p>
<h3 id="OcyEOd">Looking ahead to 2022, Democrats are worried</h3>
<p id="Cd48JK">Though the 2020 election is over, misinformation about it continues to spread on social media. Some Latino American online influencers are promoting conspiracy theories about voter fraud — many in line with widely debunked claims Trump has been making — comparing unproven corruption in the US election to countries such as Venezuela and Cuba.</p>
<p id="XcWJy1">In a YouTube live video posted last week with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O89wnL8eyo0&feature=youtu.be&t=2027">over 40,000 views</a>, three popular Latino social media influencers warned viewers about a California woman claiming that her dog was sent a mail-in ballot, as an example of mass voter fraud — despite the fact that the anecdote has been <a href="https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/dog-voted-presidential-election/">widely discredited</a>. </p>
<p id="rEc17F">“You don’t even see this in the tyrannical, communist dictatorship of Nicolas Maduro,” said Eduardo Menoni, a popular Venezuelan social media personality who now lives in Colombia, according to his Facebook page, in the video.</p>
<p id="7J8Y4T">As <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/8/21539959/election-2020-house-democrats-control-majority">Democrats face a weaker House majority than anticipated</a>, which could erode further in 2022, they worry about the continued threat of misinformation like this influencing a key voting bloc.</p>
<p id="FIlWpt">Party officials from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the DNC are calling on social companies like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter to do a better job moderating their platforms.</p>
<p id="plCdoG">“The DCCC took on the threat of organic disinformation, but that work cannot fall on the shoulders of campaigns and party committees alone,” said Block, who heads up the DCCC’s disinformation research efforts. “Social media companies must step up to the plate and combat organic disinformation to protect voters who use their platforms.” </p>
<p id="bEyjal">The DNC’s Durigan told Recode that Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging software, <a href="https://qz.com/1220212/hispanics-use-whatsapp-more-than-any-other-ethnic-or-racial-group-in-the-us/">which Latinos use more compared to any other ethnic or racial group</a> in the US, is a particular area of concern for the party. </p>
<p id="yRb9L3">“That product is kind of inherently problematic,” Durigan said. “They have marketed pretty aggressively their encrypted communication software with capability for fairly large group conversation and easy forwarding.”</p>
<p id="AkuFqu">A spokesperson for Facebook said that the company takes Spanish-language misinformation seriously. Ahead of the 2020 election, the company added two new US-fact-checking partners who review content in Spanish on Facebook and Instagram. It also put a <a href="https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2020/factchat-sent-a-half-million-messages-in-46-days-to-fight-electoral-misinformation-in-the-u-s/">Spanish-language version of a chatbot in WhatsApp</a> to answer people’s questions about the election, as well as a <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/8/13/21365873/facebook-voter-information-center-fact-checked-voting-information-register-to-vote">Spanish-language version of its voting information center</a> on Facebook and Instagram.</p>
<p id="Kth3lv">Facebook also limits people from spreading a message to five people or groups at a time in order to limit the spread of viral misinformation, and in <a href="https://blog.whatsapp.com/Keeping-WhatsApp-Personal-and-Private">April it took further steps</a> to limit viral claims to only being forwarded to one chat or group at a time. But several Democratic operatives said that new policies still don’t go far enough, and that the company should be doing more to limit and fact-check viral false claims within the app. </p>
<p id="0Akid5">But as social media companies face pressure from Democrats to do more about viral Spanish-language misinformation, Republicans continue to accuse tech companies of censoring conservative views when they more aggressively enforce their rules around political misinformation. This puts companies like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in a political tug-of-war over how legislators on opposite sides of the aisle think they should be running their companies. </p>
<p id="EgKaQm">At the same time, the Democratic Party has been called on to take accountability for its own failings to combat false narratives. Several party operatives told Recode that in order to combat viral disinformation on social media, the party also needs to increase its efforts to reach Latino voters on the ground, specifically in <a href="https://www.vox.com/21551025/latino-national-vote-biden-trump-2020-florida-texas">states such as Florida and Texas</a>. In Arizona, Democrats effectively worked with local Latino progressive groups to do grassroots door-to-door outreach, which Colangelo believes helped minimize the impact of viral misinformation to some extent.</p>
<p id="RSNpUh">“Countering disinformation online requires offline trust-building,” Colangelo said. “It’s introducing the candidate early and saying, ‘Here’s the Democratic Party, here’s what we stand for, here’s what we’ve done for your community, and here’s what we plan to do next.’ So when someone comes in and says, ‘this candidate is a socialist and they’re going to raise your taxes’ — voters already know that’s not true.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/recode/21574293/social-media-latino-voters-2020-electionShirin Ghaffary2020-11-17T12:00:00-05:002020-11-17T12:00:00-05:00How long can Trump keep disputing the election results?
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ZU6EKxf5DQCW0PRTZWNwhoCgBPY=/400x0:3600x2400/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/67805534/GettyImages_910561318.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>President Donald Trump during the World Economic Forum annual meeting on January 26, 2018, in Davos, Switzerland. | Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Actual deadlines are fast approaching.</p> <p id="zUJ54d">President Donald Trump’s effort to dispute Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election is well into its second week, with no end yet in sight.</p>
<p id="CUemfb">Despite Trump’s failure to produce any evidence of widespread voter fraud and a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/16/politics/lawsuits-michigan-pennsylvania-wisconsin-georgia/index.html">floundering legal effort</a> so far, the president’s public rhetoric has remained defiant. “Those responsible for the safeguarding of our Constitution cannot allow the Fake results of the 2020 Mail-In Election to stand,” <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1328152466752491526">Trump tweeted Sunday night</a> (earning a warning label for misinformation from Twitter). “The World is watching!” Most <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/10/21557852/bill-barr-election-memo-mitch-mcconnell-speech-fraud">leading Republicans</a> have not yet acknowledged Trump’s defeat either.</p>
<p id="4AuaFV">So ... how long is this going to go on, exactly?</p>
<p id="8foBl0">No one knows for sure what Trump will do. But deadlines looming in the next few weeks may prevent his <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21559082/trump-dispute-election-fraud-electors">effort to overturn the election results</a> from having any legal chance of success.</p>
<p id="CkB9Ud">First, the various states all <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/How_and_when_are_election_results_finalized%3F_(2020)">have their own deadlines</a> to certify the election results, making them official. In several key states, those deadlines are fast approaching — for instance, Georgia’s is this Friday. Trump has been trying to slow down or block these certifications, but he’s had little success so far. </p>
<p id="UmMTVl">Second, the Electoral College will meet and cast the votes that will formally make Joe Biden the president-elect on December 14. Unless Trump can somehow get his own electors appointed in states Biden won, that would make it truly official that he’s lost.</p>
<p id="le98FA">If Republicans have indeed just been “<a href="https://twitter.com/AshleyRParker/status/1326024025777246208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1326024025777246208%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=about%3Asrcdoc">humoring</a>” Trump or indulging him for the time being, as some claim, the state certifications and the Electoral College vote provide an obvious opportunity for them to make it clear to him that enough is enough. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, for instance, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/10/21557852/bill-barr-election-memo-mitch-mcconnell-speech-fraud">said last week</a> that “the process” and “our system” will resolve post-election disputes.</p>
<p id="MkXZFG">Faced with criticism that Trump hasn’t let the transition process officially get started for Biden yet, Republicans <a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4922052/senator-mcconnell-president-trump-within-rights-challenge-election-results-court">like McConnell</a> have tended to point to the disputed election of 2000 as a precedent. That dispute was wrapped up in mid-December — so perhaps we’re looking at a similar timeline for the GOP acknowledging the outcome of this one.</p>
<p id="Xf4Pt1">Sources close to Trump <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/12/21562334/trump-election-conceding-contesting-biden-2024">have suggested to reporters</a> that, even if he never rhetorically concedes that he lost, by then he will probably recognize the practical reality and stop fighting to block a Biden presidency. But, of course, we won’t know that for sure until he actually does it.</p>
<h3 id="CW7rbS">Certification deadlines are in late November and early December</h3>
<p id="NwBbh6">The various states have set deadlines to certify their results in November and December, and the Washington Post’s Elise Viebeck and Daniela Santamariña put together an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/12/vote-certification-deadlines-ga-mi-wi-nv-az-pa/?arc404=true">excellent rundown of all the important dates to watch</a>. </p>
<p id="EPGAJQ">Each certification that Biden won in a swing state will be a blow to Trump’s efforts to dispute the election.</p>
<p id="gfsqYW">First up among the key states Biden won is <strong>Georgia </strong>— its deadline is this <strong>Friday, November 20</strong>. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has made clear he views this as a hard deadline. Currently, Georgia is conducting a statewide audit of all its votes by hand, and it’s <a href="https://www.wjbf.com/csra-news/statewide-ga-voting-audits-continue-expected-to-be-done-wednesday/">reportedly</a> on track to wrap up by 11:59 pm on Wednesday. (Biden leads by 14,000 votes there, so it’s very unlikely the audit will put Trump ahead.)</p>
<p id="5RcYE0">There is one potential wrinkle here: Though the audit has sometimes been referred to as a “recount,” it technically is not one. And after Georgia certifies its vote, Trump’s campaign would be able to request an actual recount <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/recount-laws-key-states-presidential-race-n1246618">that the state would pay for</a>. So there might be a bit more action in Georgia after the certification deadline — though, again, Biden’s lead is likely too big to be overcome in a recount.</p>
<p id="1pwShf">The next domino to fall may be <strong>Michigan</strong>, which has its certification deadline early next week, on <strong>Monday, November 23</strong>. Biden’s lead in Michigan — 146,000 votes, a 2.65 percent margin — is the biggest in any of these contested states. Still, one potential issue here is that results must be certified by the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers, which has two Democratic and two Republican appointees. Some are worried that the GOP appointees might <a href="https://www.crainsdetroit.com/other-voices/commentary-stop-investigation-and-finalize-michigans-vote-biden">decide to ignore</a> the clear outcome in their state due to <a href="https://t.co/Mv5cPbmdGe?amp=1">conspiracy theories about fraud</a>. On Monday, we’ll find out whether they will.</p>
<p id="4BKUfL"><strong>Pennsylvania</strong> does not have a specific state deadline to certify results, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020/11/12/vote-certification-deadlines-ga-mi-wi-nv-az-pa/?arc404=true">according to Viebeck and Santamariña</a>, but its deadline for county-level certifications is also <strong>Monday, November 23</strong>. The Democratic secretary of the commonwealth, Kathy Boockvar, will then have the authority to certify the result. </p>
<p id="tP9crk"><strong>Nevada</strong> is next, with <a href="https://nvcourts.gov/Supreme/News/Notice_of_Supreme_Court_Canvass_of_2020_General_Election_Results/">certification scheduled to take place</a> on <strong>Tuesday, November 24</strong>. But the final key deadlines are after Thanksgiving — <strong>Arizona</strong> on <strong>November 30</strong>, and <strong>Wisconsin </strong>on <strong>December 1</strong>. (Trump <a href="https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/11/16/trump-campaign-would-pay-nearly-8-million-wisconsin-recount/6316022002/">can ask for</a> a recount in Wisconsin, but he’d have to fork over the hefty sum of $7.9 million to do so; he has to decide on it by this Wednesday.) It’s also worth noting that these are all deadlines for states to certify, but they can potentially do it earlier than the deadline.</p>
<h3 id="toqK2I">The electoral votes make things official in mid-December</h3>
<p id="DNsLIP">Generally, in these states, certification is tied to the next stage in the process — the appointment of the electors, the 538 people who will comprise the Electoral College and cast the votes that will technically choose our next president. If Biden is certified the winner in a state, his electors get appointed (though Republican state legislatures could theoretically try to challenge this, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21562815/biden-trump-fraud-state-legislatures-electors">such a challenge would be legally dubious</a> at best).</p>
<p id="TkqBIp">If Biden electors are appointed in the states Biden won, then everything would be on track for him to win. The electoral votes themselves technically would not be cast until <strong>December 14</strong>. Once those votes are cast, they will be publicly known (though Congress technically won’t “count” those votes until January). </p>
<p id="EXCqoN">This is the “process” and the “system” that McConnell has pointed to that will settle the election’s outcome. This is also about when the 2000 election, which Republicans have pointed to as a precedent (although it was much closer and the contestation was serious), was settled.</p>
<p id="JRpDYJ">So if the key state results are certified in late November and early December as planned, and especially once the electoral votes are cast in mid-December, it will become much harder for Trump to sustain this dispute.</p>
<p id="uVQJau">That doesn’t mean he won’t keep trying. But <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/12/21562334/trump-election-conceding-contesting-biden-2024">recent reports have suggested</a> that Trump sees the writing on the wall and is thinking about how to make a face-saving exit — perhaps by announcing a 2024 campaign.</p>
https://www.vox.com/21569656/trump-disputes-election-conceding-certifications-electorsAndrew Prokop2020-11-13T16:40:00-05:002020-11-13T16:40:00-05:00Trump’s own officials say 2020 was America’s most secure election in history
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<figcaption>US Department of Homeland Security Under Secretary Chris Krebs speaks during the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity Summit on July 31, 2018, in New York City. | Kevin Hagen/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Homeland Security put out a statement with state and local officials that countered the president’s fraud claims.</p> <p id="eB1RqW">The 2020 US election was the most secure in American history, <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election">according to US elections officials</a>.</p>
<p id="page-title">“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double-checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result,” the coordinating bodies on election infrastructure and security said in a joint statement issued by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).</p>
<p id="09qleK">The statement directly contradicts President Donald Trump, who has made <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21559082/trump-dispute-election-fraud-electors">unfounded allegations</a> of widespread voting irregularities and fraud. The president is using these claims to challenge the vote counts in several key states that delivered President-elect Joe Biden his apparent Electoral College victory. </p>
<p id="cMfKBB">The Trump campaign has filed dozens of lawsuits, some of which have <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/05/931836686/election-update-trump-campaign-files-lawsuits-in-attempt-to-change-election-resu">already been dismissed</a>. But the barrage of legal action and Trump’s false claims — often bolstered by right-wing media and some of the president’s allies in the Republican Party — have <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21558781/trump-tweet-election-rigged-republicans-violence-results-joe-biden-voting">undermined overall faith in the electoral process</a> and in the safety and security of US elections.</p>
<p id="RsFzTP">In the statement, election officials noted that though some states may do recounts, “All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary.” This beefs up the security of the vote and allows officials to correct and identify mistakes in the counting process. </p>
<p id="bEDiak">But the statement made one thing very clear: “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.” </p>
<p id="IIGHTo">Or as Chris Krebs, the head of CISA, put it: “TLDR: America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too.”</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Election Infrastructure Subsector - SCC/GCC Joint Statement on the 2020 Election. TLDR: America, we have confidence in the security of your vote, you should, too. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Protect2020?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Protect2020</a> <a href="https://t.co/nT9ZnHTbSv">https://t.co/nT9ZnHTbSv</a></p>— Chris Krebs #Protect2020 (@CISAKrebs) <a href="https://twitter.com/CISAKrebs/status/1327047087024984064?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2020</a>
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<p id="srCjbx">Learning the lessons of 2016 and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html">fearing further<strong> </strong>foreign interference</a><strong> </strong>in 2020, CISA <a href="https://www.nextgov.com/cybersecurity/2019/03/2018-midterm-elections-were-most-secure-us-history-dhs-cyber-chief-says/155539/">undertook massive efforts in</a> 2020 to protect America’s election infrastructure. Krebs made securing elections a priority and received bipartisan backing for his efforts to do so. </p>
<p id="geL2dL">In 2020, CISA set up a 24/7 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/dhs-is-planning-largest-ever-operation-secure-us-election-against-hacking/">“war room”</a> that election officials could contact to report suspicious activity in real time, and had CISA officials at the ready to deploy to polling places, if necessary, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/10/30/dhs-is-planning-largest-ever-operation-secure-us-election-against-hacking/">according to the Washington Post</a>. CISA also beefed up its public communication before and after the election on potential threats, including setting up a <a href="https://www.cisa.gov/rumorcontrol">“rumor control”</a> web page that debunks election disinformation.</p>
<p id="9YwlKW">Of course, countering election disinformation is infinitely more difficult<strong> </strong>when the president of the United States <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/9/21/21401149/russia-2020-election-meddling-trump-biden">is the main purveyor</a> of that disinformation. Krebs <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/11/12/cyber-official-chris-krebs-likely-out-436342">has reportedly told people</a> he believes he’ll be fired soon, in large part because his efforts to correct false claims about election vulnerabilities has, not surprisingly, put him on the wrong side of the White House. </p>
<h3 id="AVSNkD">The 2020 election faced a lot of challenges. But the system worked. </h3>
<p id="OlaXTI">Krebs and CISA are not the only voices here. America’s election officials agree that this US election was not only secure but incredibly successful given the unprecedented challenges<strong> </strong>states faced. </p>
<p id="iaKhzE">The <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19 pandemic</a> forced election officials across the country to quickly adapt protocols, <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/election-officials-national-security-experts-and-business-leaders-support">often with limited resources</a>. Some states vastly <a href="https://www.vox.com/21401321/oregon-vote-by-mail-2020-presidential-election">expanded mail-in voting</a>. Election officials had to manage public health concerns at polling places, like social distancing and sanitation, and had to come up with innovative solutions such as <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/3/21547521/covid-19-voting-safety-election-day">deploying curbside voting</a>. </p>
<p id="9LXn1Z">“The 2020 general election was one of the smoothest and most well-run elections that we have ever seen, and that is remarkable considering all the challenges,” Ben Hovland, a commissioner on the Election Assistance Commission, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-virus-outbreak-general-elections-elections-4060823b211ce91959b26f46efb73636">told the Associated Press.</a></p>
<p id="E3yXK7">The New York Times spoke to election officials <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html">in every state</a>, including plenty of Republican officials, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html">all stated</a><strong> </strong>there was no evidence of widespread fraud or irregularities in this election. “There’s a great human capacity for inventing things that aren’t true about elections,” Frank LaRose, the Republican secretary of state in Ohio <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html">told the Times</a>. “The conspiracy theories and rumors and all those things run rampant. For some reason, elections breed that type of mythology.”</p>
<p id="OPG52U">Some states have begun running post-election audits; in Arizona, for example, half the counties conducted post-election audits, and none of them found any evidence of systematic voter fraud. That includes Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located; authorities there found no irregularities, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/12/politics/arizona-audits-no-fraud/index.html">according to CNN</a>. Pima County, where Tucson is located, discovered just a <a href="https://twitter.com/AnaCabrera/status/1326964329632116748?s=20">two-vote discrepancy</a>. The state, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21551153/presidential-election-results-trump-biden">where he leads by more than 11,000 votes</a>, has already been called for Biden.</p>
<p id="voUuqS">International election observers from the Organization of American States <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/international-observers-say-no-voter-fraud-us-election-oas-2020-11">also said they witnessed no fraud or voting irregularities</a>. Another international election watchdog, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), said the US elections were <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-accused-of-undermining-democracy-by-osce-observers-2020-11">“well managed,”</a> though they warned against Trump’s rhetoric undermining faith in the results.</p>
<p id="R3iaFM">As more states conduct recounts or post-election audits, discrepancies are going to emerge. But voter fraud is extraordinarily rare in the United States — just a handful of cases out of the tens of millions of ballots cast. </p>
<p id="Tt6szo">NYU’s Brennan Center for Justice did a study in 2007 that found the <a href="https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/resources-voter-fraud-claims">incidence of voter fraud</a> to be between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent, which made it more likely that an American would be struck by lighting than “he will impersonate another voter at the polls.” A Washington Post report in December 2016 found just <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/12/01/0-000002-percent-of-all-the-ballots-cast-in-the-2016-election-were-fraudulent/">four cases of voter fraud</a> in that year’s election.</p>
<p id="3XAM4o">Trump’s focus on mail-in voting as somehow full of fraud also doesn’t hold up. In <a href="https://www.vox.com/21401321/oregon-vote-by-mail-2020-presidential-election">Oregon, which has been voting by mail for about two decades</a>, officials referred 54 cases of possible voter fraud to law enforcement in 2016. Of those, 22 people — representing just 0.0001 percent of all ballots cast that year — were found guilty of having voted in two states.</p>
<p id="hSjGaO">Another analysis <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/minuscule-number-of-potentially-fraudulent-ballots-in-states-with-universal-mail-voting-undercuts-trump-claims-about-election-risks/2020/06/08/1e78aa26-a5c5-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html">by the Washington Post and the nonprofit Electronic Registration Information Center</a> found officials in Colorado, Washington state, and Oregon referred 372 possible cases to law enforcement of double voting or voting on behalf of a dead person, out of about 14.6 million mail-in votes in the 2016 and 2018 general elections. That comes out to about 0.0025 percent of all ballots.</p>
<p id="FYjbyz">Trump’s rhetoric undermines faith in the democratic process, but it also obscures the hard work done by election officials, <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2020/11/12/21560919/pennsylvania-election-2020-vote-count-recount">ballot counters</a>, and poll workers across the country in 2020. Beyond the logistical hurdles of Covid-19, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/21/21527784/iran-russia-fbi-ratcliffe-voter-registration-emails">threat of foreign interference</a> loomed over this election. So did fears of <a href="https://www.vox.com/21514657/poll-watchers-trump-army-voters">potential voter intimidation and violence</a> at the polls. But with the exception of a few isolated incidents, <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21549759/election-day-voter-intimidation-didnt-happen">the elections were largely safe and peaceful</a>.</p>
<p id="YkhFRl">The pandemic also raised concerns about poll worker shortages, and that led to a surge of volunteers in some places, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/10/10/921583854/despite-surge-in-volunteers-some-swing-states-still-need-poll-workers">a trend that played out across the country</a>. </p>
<p id="00QVxF">Emily Hou, a 27-year-old who volunteered as a poll worker in San Francisco this year, described a long Election Day that began at 6 am and ended long after the polls closed. It took her and her colleagues about three hours after the polls closed to shut down the polling location, as they had to triple-check the number of ballots they’d received against the number of ballots the machine had counted. </p>
<p id="GqnyMo">Sophia Radis, an 18-year-old college student who signed up to be a poll worker in Madison, Wisconsin, saw firsthand the meticulous process of absentee-ballot counting: teams of two, handling just three to five ballots at a time, with observers present and election officials overseeing their work.</p>
<p id="4Es9Ly">Kristi Critchley, who worked as a poll clerk in Pima County, Arizona, kept a running list of how many people had cast ballots, and then checked that against the number of ballots turned in — not what was written on those ballots, just that the numbers matched up. The numbers are checked, and checked again, and checked again. “I very much got a greater appreciation for how tight the process is, and how hard people are working to try to keep that as accurate and transparent as possible,” Critchley told me.</p>
<p id="30fbmO">But maybe the biggest testament to the election’s success was the incredibly high turnout, with a <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/4/21549010/voter-turnout-record-estimate-election-2020">preliminary estimate of 160 million Americans voting</a>. With votes still to be counted, 2020’s <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/elections/voter-turnout/">turnout is now at more than 64 percent</a> of all eligible voters, the highest percentage<strong> </strong>since 1900. A huge chunk of those voters did so early, either in person or by mail, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21527600/early-vote-explained">another first</a>.</p>
<p id="jJpWG5">Janet Boyd, who’s worked as an election official for nearly three decades in Arlington County, Virginia, told me that law changes before and after Covid-19 could have created challenges for both election officials and voters. But they were prepared and managed everything well, both during the early voting period and on Election Day. </p>
<p id="M6AYrf">“There could be some little mistakes here and there,” Boyd said of the election, “but I can’t imagine that any of them are to such a level that would create a change in the election results.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/2020/11/13/21563825/2020-elections-most-secure-dhs-cisa-krebsJen Kirby2020-11-12T17:20:00-05:002020-11-12T17:20:00-05:00Trump’s refusal to concede threatens America’s national security and the Covid-19 response
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<figcaption>The General Services Administration building in Washington on Monday, November 9, 2020. | Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The General Services Administration hasn’t “ascertained” an election winner. Here’s what that means.</p> <p id="wM4X2g">President-elect Joe Biden <a href="https://buildbackbetter.com/the-transition/agency-review-teams/">has named the members of his agency review team</a>, the people on his transition team who are supposed to go into federal agencies to help prepare the incoming administration to take over, seamlessly, on Inauguration Day.</p>
<p id="woLZBx">There’s just one problem: The Trump administration hasn’t <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/politics/transition-teams-biden/index.html">allowed that process to start</a>.</p>
<p id="BtmtGK">The stalled presidential transition could complicate the transfer of power from one administration to the next, undermining the work of the federal government and national security.</p>
<p id="jKxb9a">The General Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency that helps manage all the other federal agencies, has yet to recognize the transition. The <a href="https://presidentialtransition.org/publications/presidential-transition-act-summary/">1963 Presidential Transition Act</a> gives the GSA the responsibility to “ascertain” the “apparent successful candidates” before it can release funds to the transition team, and, most critically, give those agency review teams a chance to meet with their counterparts in the federal government to prepare for when the new administration takes over.</p>
<p id="l7lUxB">But current GSA Administrator <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-11-09/trump-gets-help-again-from-appointee-holding-up-biden-transition">Emily Murphy</a>, a Trump appointee, has not sent the required letter of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/emily-murphy-trump-biden.html">ascertainment</a>, putting the main components of the transition process on hold.</p>
<p id="w54ISa">There are no real guidelines on what officially triggers the ascertainment, but in the past, a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/gsa-general-services-administration-presidential-transition/">media projection and a concession speech have typically done the trick</a>. Of course, President Donald Trump has complicated that in 2020, refusing to concede the election and claiming that widespread voter fraud means he actually didn’t lose by tens of thousands of votes. The allegations the Trump team have presented so far <a href="https://www.wbtw.com/news/elections/usps-employee-who-claimed-mail-in-ballot-tampering-in-pa-recants-allegations/">haven’t withstood scrutiny</a>, and <a href="https://time.com/5908505/trump-lawsuits-biden-wins/">most of its lawsuits have failed</a> (and quickly). But the president is vowing to fight.</p>
<p id="hT3hq5">So the presidential transition is stuck in a sort of limbo right now. Members of the Biden-Harris transition team, which includes dozens of individuals with deep experience in government, are mobilizing, even if their counterparts in the administration cannot yet. But the delays could still harm the transition and disadvantage the Biden-Harris administration.</p>
<p id="FlTk3c">“It is contrary to the peaceful transition of power, and it will ultimately have an impact — not on just the Biden administration, but it really is problematic from a national security and homeland security perspective,” Chris Lu, who served as deputy secretary of labor during the Obama administration and as the executive director of the Obama-Biden transition in 2008, told me.</p>
<p id="tFnyvW">Trump’s intransigence is <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21558781/trump-tweet-election-rigged-republicans-violence-results-joe-biden-voting">already undermining faith in democratic institutions</a>, but here it could also weaken national security preparedness at a time when the <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/21542115/trump-biden-covid-coronavirus-election-results-transition">coronavirus pandemic spirals to a new level of crisis</a>. How serious these consequences could be will depend on how long this delay persists.</p>
<p id="BEh9E0">“We’re facing extraordinary challenges as a country, from the pandemic to the economic difficulties that are arising from it to racial equity issues — and those are the things we know about,” Max Stier, president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told me. “And we don’t know what we don’t know. There are undoubtedly other challenges on the horizon.” </p>
<p id="fGxaE9">“For our government to operate effectively,” he added, “we need to have a President-elect Biden ready to go on day one.”</p>
<h3 id="lfcygW">The last time this happened was 2000. But this is not 2000.</h3>
<p id="HMIt3c">The last delay in a presidential transition happened after <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21558950/trump-biden-2000-gore-bore-comparison">the 2000 election</a>, when George W. Bush’s victory over Al Gore came down to Florida and there wasn’t a clear winner until the Supreme Court weighed in on December 12 of that year.</p>
<p id="hGdtmV">David J. Barram, who served as GSA administrator from 1996 to 2000, told me he remembers everything happening in quick succession after that decision came down: <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/al-gore-concedes-presidential-election">Al Gore conceded</a> on December 13,<em> </em>and the GSA ascertained Bush as the winner on <a href="https://www.govexec.com/management/2020/11/gsa-faces-tricky-decision-ascertaining-election-winner-formally-kicking-transition/169854/">December 14</a>.</p>
<p id="jshKwc"><a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/11/11/21558950/trump-biden-2000-gore-bush-comparison">Members of the Trump administration</a> and allies of the president have cited the 2000 election as justification for the delayed transition. The GSA has also cited the 2000 election as “prior precedent” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/11/10/933214639/trump-appointee-delays-biden-transition-process-citing-need-for-clear-winner">in a statement to NPR</a>.<strong> </strong>(The GSA did not return Vox’s request for comment.)</p>
<p id="Vt1NqV">But in 2000, 537 votes separated Bush and Gore in Florida, a single state that would determine the outcome of the Electoral College. Biden, by contrast, is up by thousands of votes in a few states that he needs to win, making it extraordinarily unlikely that any recount will change the outcome in the handful of states Trump would need to win.</p>
<p id="8l6nEl">So the delay in 2000 made a little more sense. And even though the GSA delayed ascertainment,<strong> </strong>President Bill Clinton had at least <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/biden-security-transition.html">authorized Bush to see the President’s Daily Brief</a>, a top-level intelligence briefing, so Bush could prepare in case he did win. (Gore, as Clinton’s vice president, already had access.) So far, Trump hasn’t authorized any national security briefings, though at least one Republican senator <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/james-lankford-biden-intelligence-briefings_n_5fad3cfdc5b635e9de9fa1bd?ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016&section=politics&guccounter=1">has said</a> he sees “nothing wrong” with Biden receiving briefings.</p>
<p id="kUBg5Q">It will probably take more pressure from Republicans, who have so far largely defended the president. As one unnamed senior GOP official put it to the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-republicans-election-challenges/2020/11/09/49e2c238-22c4-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html">Washington Post</a> earlier this week, “What is the downside for humoring him for this little bit of time? No one seriously thinks the results will change.” But capriciously delaying a presidential transition may indeed have some downsides.</p>
<h3 id="CnbjDb">The transition delay is most alarming for national security and the Covid-19 response</h3>
<p id="CD7TF2">Even though the GSA hasn’t ascertained the election yet, the law does require the current administration to prepare for a presidential transition no matter what, and some elements of the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/24/trump-presidential-transition-421465">transition have already begun</a>.</p>
<p id="hKMERN">But the GSA ascertainment allows for the transfer of power to begin in earnest: It frees up $6.3 million in funds to the Biden-Harris team, provides additional office space and equipment, and, most critically, allows the Biden-Harris transition to get briefings and meet with their counterparts across the federal government, from the Department of Education to the State Department. </p>
<p id="At9qY4">And without the transition formally beginning, Biden’s incoming national security team is also not being briefed. Biden, too, is not getting intelligence updates or the president’s daily brief, a fact <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/us/politics/biden-security-transition.html">he confirmed this week</a>. It may also delay the security clearance process for incoming officials. Biden transition officials said it could also deny Biden State Department-facilitated calls with foreign leaders, though world leaders have already begun <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/diplomacy/20201110-france-s-macron-congratulates-biden-in-first-phone-call-to-us-president-elect">reaching out to the president-elect</a>. </p>
<p id="DTV43m">“This is pretty damn serious,” Elaine C. Kamarck, senior fellow in the Governance Studies program at Brookings Institution, told me. “If there is a 9/11 brewing in the world right now, Trump’s temper tantrum in not conceding is basically putting the country in great danger.”</p>
<p id="zTMkGr">Biden comes into the office of the presidency with deep executive experience, along with many members of the transition team who might have served not that long ago in the Obama administration. Particularly on the domestic side, the Biden administration is probably more prepared than most. But denying the incoming commander in chief a general understanding of potential threats undermines America’s safety more broadly. </p>
<p id="4mkZAP">“The big danger is not having the president-elect fully read into the nation’s secrets,” Kamarck said.</p>
<p id="MnKGg3">This isn’t completely hypothetical. The <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-911REPORT/pdf/GPO-911REPORT.pdf">9/11 Commission</a> Report found that Bush’s truncated transition period in 2000 “hampered” the administration in placing key personnel in national security positions and obtaining Senate confirmation. </p>
<p id="oked7W">Among the many recommendations in the report was to “minimize as much as possible the disruption of national security policymaking during the change of administrations by accelerating the process for national security appointments,” by taking steps such as beginning to obtain security clearances after the election and briefing the president-elect. </p>
<p id="sXkB6D">And that’s sort of the bare minimum; the closer the cooperation and coordination, the more seamless the handover of the national security apparatus, which is, in its own way, precarious. As Martha Joynt Kumar, director of the nonpartisan <a href="https://whitehousetransitionproject.org/about/">White House Transition Project</a>, wrote in her book <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Before-Oath-George-Managed-Transfer/dp/142141659X"><em>Before the Oath: How George W. Bush and Barack Obama Managed a Transfer of Power</em></a><em>,</em> during the Bush-Obama transition, US officials became aware of a credible terror threat against Obama’s inauguration in 2009. The two sides had to quickly coordinate — Obama’s team still on the outside, Bush’s team on the inside — knowing the roles would be reversed in hours. </p>
<p id="fbWtB1">“That important and effective discussion could not have taken place if both sides had not dedicated a significant amount of staff and resources preparing for President Obama’s entry into office,” Kumar writes.<em> </em>“At the same time, it remained unclear just what would have happened if the assault had occurred during the point of transition.” </p>
<p id="dbVxwO">The United States is also in the grip of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic. Biden will inherit <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/10/7/21504134/trump-covid-19-vaccine-operation-warp-speed-debate">Operation Warp Speed,</a> the Trump administration’s public-private initiative to finance and distribute a vaccine. As Vox’s Dylan Scott has written, Operation Warp Speed is an <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19/2020/10/7/21504134/trump-covid-19-vaccine-operation-warp-speed-debate">“unprecedented mobilization”</a> that involves the US government pouring billions into research and development, and to pre-manufacture vaccines so they can be more rapidly distributed once they’re approved. </p>
<p id="4tyOeK">Operation Warp Speed has been likened to a military operation, and Biden will almost certainly be in charge of overseeing it. Biden <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/09/biden-coronavirus-task-force/">has named a Covid-19 Task Force</a>, but a delay in the ascertainment has prevented Biden’s transition team from meeting with officials in charge of Operation Warp Speed or anyone else in charge of the administration’s Covid-19 response.</p>
<p id="xpQVd8">“We’ve got three crises: We’ve got the pandemic, the economy, and racial justice. All of them have to be dealt with,” Kumar told me. “And in order to do that, they need to be dealt with early. Particularly, the pandemic is his No. 1 priority.”</p>
<p id="r9Ks6l">As un-ideal as this situation is, though, the career federal civil servants who are carrying out the day-to-day functions of the federal government right now will still be in their positions when the administration changes hands. Their knowledge and experience will help maintain continuity of government and provide stability. </p>
<p id="GnB24v">And the Biden-Harris transition is more equipped, prepared, and experienced than most, making them more capable of dealing with this unfortunate, but not all that surprising, outcome.</p>
<p id="qMU3SV">Biden knows his way around the federal government, and though it feels like a lifetime, it’s only been four years since he was last in the executive branch. Many of the members of his transition’s agency review teams have past government experience, including in that actually not-so-long-ago Obama-Biden administration. Biden has already made it clear he’s preparing to take office and moving ahead, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/11/09/biden-coronavirus-task-force/">including on Covid-19</a>, with or without the help of the Trump administration.</p>
<p id="mtT0ib">“Well, look, access to classified information is useful, but I’m not in a position to make any decisions on those issues anyway,” Biden told reporters Tuesday. “There’s one, as I said, one president at a time, and he will be president until January 20. It would be nice to have it, but it’s not critical. So, we’re just going to proceed the way we have. We’re going to do exactly what we’d be doing if he had conceded and said we’ve won, which we have, and so there’s nothing really changing.”</p>
<p id="ZOPLOU">The Biden administration has incredible challenges ahead. America faces a raging pandemic, an economic crisis, a climate crisis, a racial justice crisis, and now, an ever-growing crisis of faith in our democracy. Trump’s transition delays will exacerbate these national emergencies by undermining the incoming president — and, by extension, the American people. </p>
<p id="ywhdKT">How great the damage will be ultimately depends on how long the transition stalls. “Have presidents come in without this transition? Absolutely,” Denise Turner Roth, who served as GSA administrator from 2015 to 2017 and “ascertained” Trump as the winner in 2016, told me. </p>
<p id="mQNpuM">“And were they better off? I think that would be far-fetched. It’s always better off to have a plan. Instead of starting from the beginning and starting from scratch, starting from a point of knowing and being able to hit the ground running. That has a great deal of value.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/2020/11/12/21558523/presidential-transition-biden-trump-general-services-administrationJen Kirby2020-11-12T11:01:06-05:002020-11-12T11:01:06-05:00How the Navajo Nation helped Democrats win Arizona
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<figcaption>Emerson Gorman, a Navajo elder, with his family in the Navajo Nation town of Steamboat in Arizona. There are roughly 67,000 eligible voters in the Navajo Nation. | Mark Ralston/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Indigenous voters are often forgotten about. But they may have been key in turning swing states for Democrats.</p> <p id="gEPPmQ">Indigenous voters have often been overlooked by both political parties and categorized as “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-11-05/it-looks-like-cnn-called-native-americans-something-else-theyre-not-happy">something else</a>” by the media. But that didn’t stop them from turning out for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in swing states, even amid a devastating pandemic, and giving him a winning edge.</p>
<p id="ihBuyP">In Arizona, which has gone <a href="https://www.npr.org/2016/11/08/501063960/arizona-2016-presidential-and-state-election-results">Republican in every presidential election but one</a> in the past 60-odd years, Biden won by a margin of fewer than 12,000 votes, according to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21551153/presidential-election-results-trump-biden">latest data</a>. Indigenous people make up <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2019-11-29/california-arizona-oklahoma-where-most-native-americans-live">nearly 6 percent</a> of the state’s population, with eligible voters in the Navajo Nation reaching roughly 67,000 — and 60 to 90 percent of those Navajo Nation voters went for Biden, according to <a href="https://www.hcn.org/articles/indigenous-affairs-how-indigenous-voters-swung-the-2020-election">precinct-level data</a>, helping push him ahead as the winner. </p>
<p id="JQ2WtO">In Wisconsin, another key battleground state, Indigenous voters also may have aided Biden’s narrow win. Native Americans make up about 1.2 percent of the state’s population, or 70,000 people. While the exact percentage of the Native vote Biden received is still uncertain, some key facts point to <a href="https://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/story/news/2020/11/06/election-2020-native-american-vote-helps-biden-beat-trump-wisconsin/6191107002/">voter turnout in tribal lands</a>. Menominee County, dubbed a bellwether for the state, overlaps with the Menominee Reservation and has an Indigenous population of nearly 90 percent. Biden won the county with 1,303 votes, compared to President Donald Trump’s 278 votes. </p>
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<img alt="drive-thru voter registration" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/VFbEVTAkboKnA02wnvaUJM0AxIc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22027656/d59d7bfd_1970_46ad_8f58_d2ea018d2848_1.29.48_pm.jpg">
<cite>Rural Utah Project</cite>
<figcaption>The Rural Utah Project organized drive-through voter registration events across the Navajo Nation ahead of the 2020 election.</figcaption>
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<p id="Q2ZHj1">And this was despite a pandemic that made voting harder for a population that has been historically disenfranchised. Before the onset of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">Covid-19 pandemic</a>, grassroots organizers in the Navajo Nation — whose territory stretches across New Mexico, Utah, and northern Arizona — were able to attend chapter meetings and perform door-to-door campaigns to encourage people to register to vote. But as the pandemic continued to overwhelm tribal communities, field organizers had to figure out other ways to reach out to Native American voters while limiting physical contact to prevent the spread of the virus. It was a challenge, considering many homes in Indian reservations do not have formal addresses and <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c9db6f94efe6415fa061d1d850e587ad">post offices tend</a> to be miles away. </p>
<p id="mhxpdA">However, the pandemic didn’t stop organizations like the <a href="https://ruralutahproject.org/">Rural Utah Project</a> from doing the work. When the lockdown was lifted in May, field organizers in the Navajo Nation returned to the ground and left flyers with voting information inside resealable plastic bags at people’s doors. The group had also partnered with <a href="https://ruralutahproject.org/2020/10/google-plus-codes-a-navajo-nation-collaboration/">Google to provide plus codes</a> that serve as addresses based on longitudes and latitudes in parts of the Navajo Nation that can be hard to track and created hotlines to direct Indigenous voters to the right place, since voting precincts tend to be confusing. This robust voter outreach by grassroots advocates, many believe, impacted the results of the election in the state. </p>
<p id="MzccG1">“If it hadn’t been for the tribal nations, Biden truly wouldn’t be in office,” said Tara Benally, field director for the Rural Utah Project, a nonprofit organization that advocates and performs outreach to underrepresented voters. “Just seeing the turnout, that’s something Biden should be aware of and needs to truly understand that he has to work with these Indigenous nations — because if Biden doesn’t come through for these Indigenous nations, what does that mean for him? Where does Trump come into play again?”</p>
<h3 id="pLnI9d">The Navajo Nation turned out for Democrats after being ignored by Republican leaders in the pandemic</h3>
<p id="rCMgPd">2020, in particular, has been a challenging year for tribal communities. Indigenous people were hit disproportionately hard by the pandemic, which compounded the underlying health and environmental injustices they already face. By May, the Navajo Nation quickly <a href="https://www.ndoh.navajo-nsn.gov/COVID-19">recorded the highest number</a> of Covid-19 cases per capita in the country, <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/navajo-nation-most-coronavirus-cases-per-capita_n_5eb932dac5b6f4fbe30599d5?gq">exceeding numbers</a> in New York and New Jersey. Yet despite the devastating health emergency, Republican state officials did little to keep the virus from spreading. Not only did the Trump administration slash funding for Indigenous communities, but policies for mask mandates, business lockdowns, and translations for Covid-19 resources were lacking. And when the federal stimulus package rolled out nationwide, finances were slow to arrive in tribal nations. </p>
<p id="JwqwjU">“There’s been a lot of distrust with the government, especially with treaties and funding. Anytime we get a budget, they tend to get cut,” Benally said. “When nations do expect funding from the federal government, it’s very minimal and it doesn’t go very far.”</p>
<p id="vqX4Nz">Native Americans continue to reckon with a longstanding history of neglect and mistreatment. These unjust legacies have impacted their access to health care services, education, water affordability, and other critical resources. So when Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, released a <a href="https://joebiden.com/tribalnations/#">comprehensive plan for tribal nations</a> in October, which highlights strengthening nation-to-nation relationships and addressing health disparities, Indigenous communities caught a slight glimpse of hope.</p>
<p id="NVkABN">Jade Begay, a member of the Diné and Tesuque Pueblo tribes of New Mexico and the creative director of <a href="https://ndncollective.org/">NDN Collective</a>, an organization dedicated to building Indigenous power, says she was encouraged by the first two points in Biden’s plan, which reflect the current crises tribal nations are facing, including growing mistrust in the federal government as well as the pandemic that has strained health care services in Indigenous communities. </p>
<p id="iJ6arr">“But in years to come,” she added, “what would be great to see from elected officials and the Democratic Party, if they want to keep winning Indian Country, is investment to remove voter suppression barriers, to make voting more accessible to our communities, to invest in roads, and all of these things that just make traveling to cast a vote easier.”</p>
<p id="Y1oDZl">As with most marginalized communities across the country, voter suppression and accessibility issues run rampant in tribal nations. For instance, <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c9db6f94efe6415fa061d1d850e587ad">unjust mail services</a> make it difficult for Native Americans on tribal lands to vote. Scottsdale, Arizona, a city of roughly 184 square miles, has <a href="https://www.postofficelocations.net/scottsdale-az/">12 post offices</a> compared to 26 post offices in the entire Navajo Nation, which covers more than 27,000 square miles; the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community has zero. </p>
<p id="f36RUk">In addition to Biden’s victory in Arizona, Begay said Indigenous communities played a pivotal role in helping Mark Kelly flip a Senate seat to Democrat. Kelly spent campaign dollars actively reaching out to the Navajo Nation, running ads in the Diné language to bridge communication barriers. “That kind of outreach is really important and it shows the level of care and thoughtfulness in language gaps,” she said.</p>
<p id="QcJauD">This year’s election also broke records in<strong> </strong>representation:<strong> </strong>Three<strong> </strong>of the 18 Native American<strong> </strong>women who ran for office won congressional seats — Democrats Deb Haaland, a Laguna Pueblo member in New Mexico, and Sharice Davids, a Ho-Chunk Nation member in Kansas, were both reelected to a second term, while Republican Yvette Herrell, member of the Cherokee Nation in New Mexico, beat the Democratic incumbent — the <a href="https://cawp.rutgers.edu/election-analysis/native-american-women-candidates-2020">highest number</a> in a single election cycle. Native American women represent about 1.1 percent of the US population yet have historically been underrepresented in Congress. Both Begay and Benally underscored the significance of this shift, especially in light of the longstanding patriarchal structure in Indigenous communities. </p>
<p id="KzEgmn">“At this time, the representation is really going to elevate women’s voices, as a woman, as a mother, and as a parent,” said Benally. “For many decades, it has just been the male leadership; it’s always been one-sided. In Navajo, men turn to their women on what needs to happen, what happens on a day-to-day basis, because the women took care of the house, the kids, and all the men did was go out to gather and hunt. For so long, that hasn’t happened here with the federal government, and now that it’s happening, Indigenous women will really make change happen for the people.”</p>
<p id="KtiZJl">But even with Indigenous people overwhelmingly throwing their support to a Biden-Harris administration, organizers say the work is not done. From stopping the Keystone XL pipeline to protecting Indigenous women and girls as well as demilitarizing the US-Mexico border that crosses tribal land, Begay said there is still a spate of issues that Native Americans want to see a new administration held accountable for. </p>
<p id="pbe6A4">“With women in office, they know what it means to take care of a family around the clock,” she said. “To have that kind of person in leadership in these offices makes a lot of sense for how we’re dealing with a pandemic, how we deal with climate change, all of these things that influence the livelihoods of our families — how we access food, how we access our basic needs — and so having that kind of leadership in place is going to be really important.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/21559183/navajo-nation-arizona-biden-indigenous-votersRachel Ramirez2020-11-12T09:10:00-05:002020-11-12T09:10:00-05:00Most Latinos voted for Biden — but 2020 revealed fault lines for Democrats
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<figcaption>Supporters of the Biden-Harris and Trump-Pence campaigns demonstrate outside the Miami-Dade County Elections Department in Doral, Florida, on November 3. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>Democrats often haven’t treated Latinos as persuadable voters. </p> <p id="TPdwnY">President Donald Trump’s gains with Latino voters in Florida’s Miami-Dade County and Texas’s Rio Grande Valley have gotten a lot of attention. But in 2020, Latinos proved once again that their political leanings defy a concise definition: In battleground states like Arizona, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Latinos helped deliver victories that made Joe Biden’s ascent to the presidency possible.</p>
<p id="9xHGAZ">It could be months before more robust data on the Latino electorate becomes available. The <a href="https://electioneve2020.com/poll/#/en/demographics/latino">American Election Eve poll from Latino Decisions</a> suggested that a large majority of Latino voters nationwide supported Biden, possibly higher than the about <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/11/29/hillary-clinton-wins-latino-vote-but-falls-below-2012-support-for-obama/">66 percent</a> of Latino voters Hillary Clinton won in 2016. But most polls underestimated Trump’s performance this cycle, so Biden’s actual margin among Latinos may be smaller than Clinton’s. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/11/politics/election-analysis-exit-polls-2016-2020/">Early exit poll data</a> suggests that’s the case, though this kind of data is sometimes <a href="https://www.vox.com/21552679/exit-poll-accuracy">even less reliable</a>.</p>
<p id="YeAq3U">Still, it’s clear most Latinos voted for Biden. Grassroots organizers mobilized in battleground states to help make that happen, despite a lack of investment from the Democratic Party until the final weeks before Election Day.</p>
<p id="Cz3Hq4">The election-eve poll showed that Latino voters responded overwhelmingly to Biden’s messaging on <a href="https://electioneve2020.com/poll/#/en/demographics/latino">the coronavirus, the economy, and health care</a>.<strong> </strong>But the demographic is not monolithic, and their political opinions vary widely by country of origin, religion, gender, generation, how long they have lived in the US, and where they live. Though most have historically voted for Democrats, there has always been a contingent of Latinos who back Republicans.</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/P77tuC77RADFEZsjFB8_8GtBRRc=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22026715/GettyImages_1229520461.jpg">
<cite>Eva Marie Uzcategui Trinkl/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Supporters of President-elect Joe Biden in Miami.</figcaption>
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<p id="YZrgak">Yet it came as a surprise to some Democrats that Trump was able to eat into Biden’s margins among Latinos in certain corners of the country. In Florida’s Miami-Dade County and the south Texas borderlands, both of which are majority-Latino areas once considered Democratic strongholds, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html">Biden underperformed dramatically in 2020 compared with Clinton in 2016</a>.</p>
<p id="xtxeY6">Those losses have attracted outsized scrutiny relative to the successes Latino voters delivered for Biden nationwide, and they alone did not cause Biden to lose Florida and Texas, where Trump largely maintained, and in some places improved, his margins among white voters. Even if Biden had won the border counties in Texas by the same margins as Clinton, for example, it wouldn’t have been enough to <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/06/texas-trump-biden-counties-rural-suburban-city/">make up the gap</a> between him and Trump in the state, which is still red — despite <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/10/27/21509700/texas-democrats-state-house-flip-blue">Democrats’ hopes</a> that 2020 would be the year it would flip.</p>
<p id="MU99al">Still, any erosion in Latino support, which is key to the Democratic coalition, should prompt a reexamining of the party’s outreach strategy, something community organizers have long found lacking.</p>
<p id="FzIUXT">“The Democrats cannot take Latinos for granted,” Domingo Garcia, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), said in a press call. “I think Biden missed a grand opportunity to have been able to carry Florida and Texas if he had just invested in the Latino community more, if he had delivered the correct message.”</p>
<h3 id="ayOm5o">Democrats needed to invest early and consistently, and they didn’t</h3>
<p id="entOQg">Latino voters make up an essential component of the Democratic coalition, but the party hasn’t historically treated them that way. In recent presidential campaigns, Democrats have typically waited until the final weeks before Election Day to conduct outreach in the Latino community, perpetuating the perception that Latinos are an afterthought, said Marisa Franco, executive director of Mijente, a hub for Latino organizing nationwide.</p>
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<p lang="en" dir="ltr">And on this hand-wringing about slight POC increases for GOP in some areas - this is also an area w answers.<br><br>But honestly when it comes to Latinos the party’s just never seriously made an effort. Mexicans, Central Am, Caribbean, Chicanos - Cubans are not the only impt community</p>— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1324702471730696192?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 6, 2020</a>
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<p id="d4nMfu">The Biden campaign was no exception: Though he <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/18/us/politics/joe-biden-ads-trump.html">started running</a> Spanish-language ads in Florida and Arizona in June, it wasn’t until late August that his campaign began to focus in earnest on Latino outreach. It was clear the Biden campaign had “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HUcOajVZTI">work to do</a>” with Latinos, senior adviser Symone Sanders said in an ABC News interview September 13. But by then, the “Latinos for Trump” campaign was already flourishing in Florida, where the president also benefited from a well-oiled Republican political machine.</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XicgkOmvTTku72QDKcdIFBte_vY=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22026773/GettyImages_1229482986.jpg">
<cite>Pedro Portal/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Supporters of President Donald Trump demonstrate in front of La Carreta, a Cuban restaurant in Miami, on November 5.</figcaption>
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<p id="1J6Ci7">Biden won Miami-Dade County, where Latinos account for <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/19/latinos-make-up-record-17-of-florida-registered-voters-in-2020/">58 percent</a> of registered voters, by only about <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-florida.html">7 points</a>, compared to Clinton’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/florida">30-point margin</a> in 2016.</p>
<p id="tDRD8q">Cuban Americans are the largest contingent among those voters and have <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/florida-and-the-cuban-vote-11601238104">historically leaned more Republican</a> than Hispanics from other countries of origin. But even Miami’s Cuban American community isn’t politically homogeneous: They’re divided over policies related to the island nation, including the effectiveness of the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/19/how-will-floridas-cuban-americans-vote-thats-more-complicated-than-many-believe/">longstanding Cuban embargo</a>. US-born Cubans are more evenly split between the two parties than their parents and grandparents who fled Cuba, too.</p>
<p id="6xkFR6">Miami-Dade also has significant Colombian, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan communities, each with their own political idiosyncrasies.</p>
<p id="agbOSJ">Trump’s ability to make inroads in these communities — and Biden’s failure to make up for those losses in other parts of the state — were significant enough to tip Florida in the president’s favor in a tight contest. The outcome wasn’t entirely surprising to Latino organizers, who had been warning about Biden’s weakness in the community for months.</p>
<p id="jchZld">Chuck Rocha, a former senior adviser to Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’s 2020 presidential campaign and co-founder of the Latino-focused Nuestro PAC, said in a post-election press call that outside donors also had a big blind spot when it came to Latinos. In June, Rocha started seeking out infrequent and newly registered Latinos in battleground states with a tested, multilayer ad strategy encompassing TV, radio, mail, and newspapers, treating them as persuadable voters.</p>
<p id="mXNDP3">But Nuestro PAC, along with the two other major PACs focused on Latino outreach, raised only a combined $27 million. By comparison, the Lincoln Project — a super PAC founded by former Republicans who sought to persuade conservatives to vote for Biden, but whose strategy <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/aoc-lincoln-project-scam-territory-millions-raised-republican-voters-2020-11">largely fell flat</a> — raised an unjustifiable $67.4 million.</p>
<p id="AnPfTv">“Nobody else was spending money talking to Latinos in June and July,” Rocha said. “It’s just simply ridiculous that they talk about our community and the way we vote, but they have yet to invest in it. … These folks spent a billion dollars talking to white people because it’s smart politics: If you want to persuade somebody to go vote for somebody, spend a lot of money talking to them. Then why don’t you do that with Latinos?”</p>
<p id="hCvxWZ">Some Democrats argue that Biden’s performance in the Texas borderlands is, in part, a symptom of that neglect. More than half of Latinos in Texas live in major cities, and they overwhelmingly voted for Biden. But that marked a contrast with the predominantly Mexican border counties: Compared to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/elections/2016/results/texas">Clinton in 2016</a>, Biden won by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-texas-president.html">substantially slimmer margins</a> in Cameron, Starr, Hidalgo, Webb, and Maverick counties, despite a significant jump in turnout.</p>
<p id="oE7xdu">In Hidalgo County, the largest county in the Rio Grande Valley where Hispanics make up <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/hidalgocountytexas,WI/PST045219">92 percent</a> of the population, Biden won by 18 points with about 220,000 total votes cast. Clinton won the county by a whopping 40-point margin just four years ago, though only 167,000 people voted that year. Trump also flipped Zapata County, improving his performance there by 38 points over 2016, though that represents a swing of only 1,000 votes.</p>
<p id="a9YGYh">Campaigns have historically targeted consistently Democratic voters, but along the border, turnout isn’t typically high. Those counties, where people earn relatively low incomes and are less educated compared with other parts of the state, have often been neglected by politicians at both the state and national level. </p>
<p id="CK3MqR">Julián Castro, a former San Antonio mayor who ran against Biden in the Democratic primaries, said in a press call that the party’s response to the 2020 election results should be to pour more investment into those communities going forward, not to withdraw. That’s especially important as Democrats eye an opportunity to unseat Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, in 2022.</p>
<p id="QVoff5">“There is a danger for the Democratic Party in places like the [Rio Grande Valley] that support will start to atrophy because the investment is not being made,” Castro said.</p>
<h3 id="bcBTJi">Democrats need to work with Latino organizers</h3>
<p id="1ZJ6jE">Biden stood on the shoulders of grassroots organizers who have been working to activate the Latino community in battleground states for years.</p>
<p id="U0leut">In Arizona, organizers <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/29/latinos-transformed-arizona-do-campaigns-see-them/">mobilized Latinos</a> to vote out Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who targeted Latinos. They were also at the center of the movement against SB 1070, which was passed by the state legislature in 2010 as one of the “most restrictive anti-immigration bills in the country,” as my colleague Li Zhou <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/10/29/21529612/young-latinx-voters-arizona-sb-1070-donald-trump">explained</a>. Though the most controversial parts of the law have since been invalidated by the courts, SB 1070 previously allowed police to stop anyone they believed was an unauthorized immigrant and request their federal registration papers, leading to racial profiling.</p>
<p id="VN1vGL">Those organizers committed to registering voters and encouraging them to turn out consistently over the last several election cycles. The group Voto Latino reported registering more than 61,000 Arizonans this year alone.</p>
<p id="bKRvNU">That paid off for Biden, who beat Trump by about 15,000 votes in the state, <a href="https://www.vox.com/21551153/presidential-election-results-trump-biden">according to Vox’s election partner Decision Desk HQ</a>. But LULAC’s Garcia said community organizers could have widened that margin with more resources.</p>
<p id="esVykL">“That’s why I think the margins are much nearer than they should be,” he said. “If candidates invest, if they empower Latino consultants and Latino community organizations, then you can have massive turnouts that will swing decisively in your favor.”</p>
<p id="jaPpJe">Democrats, on the other hand, only show up in presidential election years, which is “the equivalent of someone competing in the Olympics every four years when they haven’t done a sit-up in three,” Mijente’s Franco said. “I don’t think that the Democratic Party can and should take credit for Arizona.”</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/RB-J0WPBMz0fcv-wQfpIJf8gV3g=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22026949/GettyImages_1229446472.jpg">
<cite>Olivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Voters in Tempe, Arizona, wait in line to cast their ballots on Election Day 2020.</figcaption>
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<p id="4cW7Q4">But going forward, the party could try to foster the community organizing that already exists in Arizona and replicate it elsewhere. That starts with prioritizing issues that matter to the Latino community while they’re in office, consulting activists on those issues, and, when the next election rolls around, seeking their endorsements and integrating Latinos across their campaign’s leadership, Franco said.</p>
<p id="mOCEuG">One of those motivating issues is immigrant rights. Franco thought Biden missed an opportunity to signal to immigrant rights activists that he would prioritize their concerns in the <a href="https://www.vox.com/21317850/joe-biden-bernie-sanders-task-forces-progressive-agenda">immigration task force</a> jointly convened by the teams of Biden and Sanders, who finished second in 2020’s Democratic primary.</p>
<p id="2ljW7B">“People want to see results,” Franco said. “We are going to be very aggressive and demanding that they do more than just the basics of undoing the worst of what Trump did.”</p>
<p id="Qb1q53">Nevada Democrats have already fostered a fruitful relationship with the Culinary Union, the largest union in the state. Representing tens of thousands of Latinos working in the hospitality industry, the union endorsed Biden and ran the largest field program in Nevada this year, knocking on more than 500,000 doors in Las Vegas and Reno when Democrats weren’t doing in-person canvassing due to the <a href="https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-covid19">pandemic</a>.</p>
<p id="dOOkzn">In states like Georgia, however, Latino organizing is still in a nascent stage. The Latino community helped elect <a href="https://www.ajc.com/news/new-sheriffs-to-end-immigration-enforcement-program-in-cobb-gwinnett/ZXNYCGJKWVE27A2FB7HCYPQGNQ/">two new sheriffs</a> who have vowed to stop cooperating with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants. But there’s still room to grow, particularly if Democrats want the state to stay blue.</p>
<h3 id="QcYCTK">Right-wing disinformation is a powerful force</h3>
<p id="pNMf08">Overcoming disinformation is a challenge for Democrats in general, but Franco said some Latinos might be particularly susceptible to it, in part because they are politically marginalized and may face language barriers.</p>
<p id="Cc8sV9">The primary culprits may be Facebook, whose fact-checking operation has <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/11/01/facebook-election-misinformation/">failed to meaningfully curtail</a> the spread of false and misleading information, as well as private threads in WhatsApp, where disinformation spreads more organically through people’s family and friend groups. But <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923">Spanish-language conservative media</a> such as Noticias 24 and PanAm Post also play a role. As a consequence, absurd conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and Democrats came to permeate Latino politics in Florida.</p>
<p id="cb7DeG">Trump and his allies have also wielded disinformation as a weapon, successfully microtargeting Latinos in Florida with the false claim that Biden is a socialist and capitalizing on the fears of Hispanics from failed socialist regimes. The president’s<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/24/three-trump-ads-spanish-many-distortions/">Spanish-language ads</a>, which began airing in Florida as early as June, likened Biden to ruthless Latin American caudillos<em> </em>like Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/1QMbroYVQOuSdbQP6u5BxhhxD3w=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22026959/GettyImages_1229482861.jpg">
<cite>Stephen M. Dowell/Orlando Sentinel/Tribune News Service via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Supporters of President Donald Trump at a “Stop the Cheat!” rally on November 5 in Orlando, Florida.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="rXKgPA">Biden ran as a center-left moderate, and even Sanders’s brand of democratic socialism bears little resemblance to the regimes in Latin America. But Biden never really articulated the distinction in concrete terms for voters, instead shrugging off the characterization. “I’m the guy who ran against a socialist,” he said at an October 5<strong> </strong><a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?476606-1/joe-biden-urges-president-listen-scientists-endorse-national-mask-mandate">campaign event</a> in Miami.</p>
<p id="2pjL4n">“When you do not respond to the label of you being called a socialist and you think that’s not going to affect you, I think that was a big mistake by the Biden campaign,” Garcia said. “I think that hurt in large parts of Florida, as well as parts of Texas, which I believe are there for the winning.”</p>
<p id="jlfv4F">Democrats haven’t yet figured out how to effectively combat disinformation. But Franco said one way might be hiring people from these communities who can act as trusted messengers and help educate voters on how to become responsible media consumers.</p>
<h3 id="vsUUUp">There was record turnout among Latinos — but they still face voter suppression</h3>
<p id="NI9wwp">Latinos showed up in record numbers, with an early estimate of <a href="https://twitter.com/UCLAlatino/status/1323618815708598277">14.8 million</a> by UCLA’s Latino Politics and Policy Initiative. Young Latino voters helped drive that turnout, with roughly <a href="https://targetearly.targetsmart.com/">1.7 million</a> voting early — a nearly three-fold increase over 2016, according to the political data firm TargetSmart. Women, who have suffered disproportionately from <a href="https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/story/latina-women-face-unemployment-challenges-amid-covid-19-73526819">job losses</a> during the pandemic, also turned out in droves, helping Biden to victory in states like Wisconsin.</p>
<p id="46kkUB">That record turnout is in spite of the obstacles in their way before they actually cast a ballot in certain states.</p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang"><aside id="gbwjua"><q>“If candidates invest, if they empower Latino consultants and Latino community organizations, then you can have massive turnouts that will swing decisively in your favor”</q></aside></div>
<p id="d2FvL6">Texas has <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/mar/02/texas-polling-sites-closures-voting">closed</a> about 750 polling sites since 2012, including 542 sites in 50 counties where African American and Latino populations have grown significantly in recent years. That led to <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/3/3/21164014/long-lines-wait-texas-primary-democratic-harris">long wait times</a> at some polling sites in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods during the 2020 Democratic primaries.</p>
<p id="INjVkv">This year alone, Republican lawmakers in the state limited the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/appeals-court-oks-texas-governor-s-order-limit-drop-locations-n1243074">number of ballot drop-off locations</a> to just one per county, <a href="https://t.co/5Cl6i0BnS4?amp=1">banned counties</a> from sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters, and sought to <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/13/texas-republicans-voting-harris-county/">curtail drive-through voting</a>. Nevertheless, Texas saw record-breaking turnout among early voters, with highly motivated Republican and Democratic bases — driven in part by outrage over the attempted voter suppression — who overcame those obstacles. </p>
<p id="2rmTv5">Arkansas has pursued a similarly restrictive measure, now being <a href="https://www.maldef.org/2020/11/civil-rights-group-seeks-to-block-arkansas-voting-restrictions/">challenged in court</a> by Mexican American activists, that places a limit on the number of people that any one person can assist in voting. For Latino voters who may not be familiar with the US electoral process or who have limited English proficiency, it could preclude them from receiving the help they need to participate in US democracy.</p>
<h3 id="O5Yz6Y">For some Latinos, Trump had inherent appeal </h3>
<p id="qr0tcJ">It might seem improbable that Latinos would vote for a man who has demonized immigrants and Mexicans in particular and refused on several occasions to outright denounce white supremacists. On the campaign trail in 2016, trump claimed the US needed to keep out “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2016/oct/20/donald-trump-bad-hombres-us-presidential-debate-las-vegas-video">bad hombres</a>” from Mexico, suggested that Mexicans were<a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2015/06/16/trump_mexico_not_sending_us_their_best_criminals_drug_dealers_and_rapists_are_crossing_border.html"> overwhelmingly criminals</a>, and promised his supporters that he would build a “<a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/01/08/trumps-evolving-reasons-border-wall-1088046">big, beautiful wall</a>” across the entire southern border to keep them out. </p>
<p id="Ypb1cq">But for some people at whom Trump levied those attacks, he nevertheless remained a palatable, even attractive candidate. </p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/DX1rPCM40gm-YViSSPd-AGqmlhM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22026980/GettyImages_1229266463.jpg">
<cite>Paul Ratje/AFP via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>President Trump supporters participate in a car parade in El Paso, Texas, on October 24.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="uhPDCy">In South Texas, for example, Trump’s “law and order” messaging and opposition to defunding the police had some resonance in Latino communities where law enforcement, particularly the Border Patrol, is a major employer, Garcia said. Many residents also work in <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-democrats-lost-so-many-south-texas-latinosthe-economy-11604871650">oil fields</a> and fear Democrats’ calls to transition away from oil and gas and towards clean, renewable energy. And many are Catholic or Evangelical Christians who find Democrats’ pro-abortion rights stance abhorrent. </p>
<p id="4sNDu0">But the biggest factor may be the president’s focus on reopening the economy at a time when many of these communities have been economically devastated by the pandemic, in addition to suffering from high numbers of coronavirus-related deaths. <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/21546139/economic-stimulus-bill-lame-duck">The economy depends on solving this public health crisis</a>, but a perceived choice between one or the other may still resonate with voters.</p>
<p id="10qjGP">“We need to be able to address her concerns in order to win them over,” Garcia said. “And hopefully that’s one of the lessons that will be learned from this election process.”</p>
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https://www.vox.com/21551025/latino-national-vote-biden-trump-2020-florida-texasNicole Narea