A record-breaking number of Kentuckians have registered to vote this year, when Lovecraftian demon Mitch McConnell is up for another term in the Senate. A slight majority of those voters are actually registered as Democrats, too. In fact, only 9 percent of those registered voters are ineligible to participate in the state primary elections because they are not affiliated with either party.

Unfortunately, Kentuckians of all stripes will likely face some difficulty voting in the primaries this year, regardless of their political affiliation. As The Independent reports:

In a typical election year, Kentucky has about 3,700 polling sites, according to most reports. When Election Day arrives on 23 June, there will be just 200 polling sites across the state — with some of those sites having to serve upwards of 600,000 residents.

Voting rights expert Ari Berman wrote in a tweet: “There will be one polling place for 616,000 registered voters in Louisville’s Jefferson County, where half state’s black voters live.”

He added: “This is going to be a disaster.”

The State Election Board had previously postponed the primary election by a month because of coronavirus. But it appears they did not use that time to make any better plans for how to deal with the sudden increase in voters amidst a global pandemic.

Unless their plan was to sabotage the entire thing. Which is certainly possible, as Black voter disenfranchisement efforts have increased in recent years.

Mitch McConnell, whose approval rating after 35 years dropped down to an embarrassing 18 percent last fall, has 4 challengers in this primary: Nicholas Alsager, Paul John Frangedakis, Louis Grider, and Naren James. Read the rest

“If we fail the test case here, history will not judge us kindly.”

Leaked internal Facebook posts reveal that Facebook employees are horrified that Mark Zuckerberg and C-suite executives refuse to remove impeached president Donald Trump’s threats of violence. Read the rest

[Update: Shortly after this post, Trump lashed out at Twitter, on Twitter.]

This is huge. Twitter today for the first time labeled a tweet by the President as misleading. Read the rest

Well now, president brain worms is really having quite a morning of it! Read the rest

A criminal hacker group that breached a major entertainment law firm says it will release documents on President Donald Trump if it doesn’t receive $42 million in ransom. Read the rest

On Wednesday, Facebook said it will label posts from popular accounts to reveal their geographic origin, an attempt to limit election-year political misinformation by foreign entities. Read the rest

Despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdown that's surrounding us and suffocating every moment of our lives, the GOP-controlled court system in the state of Wisconsin refused to postpone that state's primary election, or to even respect the sudden influx in mail-in ballots from people who didn't want to get exposed to a virus simply for exercising their right to vote. Read the rest

Coronavirus outbreak fears are not sufficient reason for the governor of Wisconsin to postpone the state's Tuesday primary election, a state supreme court ruled late Monday. Read the rest

Researchers at MIT say the voting app Voatz, which is being used by at least 4 states in the 2020 elections, has major security flaws that could allow an attacker to intercept and alter votes, while making voters think their votes have been cast correctly, or trick the votes server into accepting connections from an attacker. Read the rest

The broken voting app that failed spectacularly in the Iowa Democratic caucus just hints at the fragility of the voting system in the U.S. This Verge video explores the reasons for and implications of an unreliable and exploitable voting system, as well as ways to mitigate the problems. Read the rest

“They identify an issue that they know that the American people feel passionately about on both sides and then they take both sides and spin them up so they pit us against each other. And then they combine that with an effort to weaken our confidence in our elections and our democratic institutions which has been a pernicious and asymmetric way of engaging in affect information warfare.”

— FBI Director Chris Wray, Feb. 5, 2020

On Wednesday, FBI Director Chris Wray said Russia is targeting Americans with an ongoing “information warfare” campaign that is likely to intensify as the nation heads into the 2020 presidential election. Read the rest

If you think the Electoral College should be scrapped because it sometimes results in getting a candidate elected that most of its citizens didn't vote for, then you might not have to wait forever for a Constitutional amendment to abolish it.

In his latest video, CPG Grey outlines a plan to subvert Electoral College using the Electoral College, called the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. The idea is to get States to "agree to cast their Electoral College votes for the candidate who gets the most votes from citizens nationwide."

Here's a map showing which states have already enacted the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact into law. As you might expect, states that usually vote for the Democratic candidate like this bill more than states the vote Republican. Read the rest

Ooh, this is awesome. Activists have made a free font called Gerry that is made from the shapes of gerrymandered congressional districts. They encourage you to use it to write your representative.

It's here. GERRY. A font created by your congressional districts. Log on to https://t.co/WkuVp7oDpu and use the font to tell congress how happy you are that your vote doesn't matter. pic.twitter.com/j9U5W7qmTz

— Gerry (@UglyGerry) July 23, 2019

The Next Web:

The font’s creators, Ben Doessel and James Lee, made it to raise awareness and provide a method for disenfranchised voters to protest partisan gerrymandering. The duo, in a press release provided to the media, stated:

"After seeing how janky our Illinois 4th district had become, we became interested in this issue. We noticed our district’s vague, but shaky U-shape, then after seeing other letters on the map, the idea hit us, let’s create a typeface so our districts can become digital graffiti that voters and politicians can’t ignore."

For those unfamiliar with gerrymandering, it’s the process by which US voting districts use increasingly nonsensical borders to disenfranchise voters and limit who they can vote for by party lines instead of geography.

(The Week)

Thanks, Veek!

screenshot via UglyGerry.com Read the rest

Spread The Vote is a non-profit that works to help educate and empower voters on the voting and political process. Boing Boing invited the group to help everyone understand how primary elections work, and how you can participate in them if you are an eligible U.S. voter. Sign up for their state-specific voter education packages, which are really an amazing educational resource. —Xeni Jardin

UNDERSTANDING PRIMARY ELECTIONS, from SPREAD THE VOTE.

When most voters think of election day, they likely imagine a general election where they vote to determine which candidate on the ballot will win the position of elected office. However, voters may be less familiar with primary elections. This may explain, in part, why voter turnout is so different for general and primary elections. That’s where Spread The Vote comes in. We want every eligible voter to understand and participate in primary elections because they are such an important element of our democracy. Read the rest

The official cyberwarfare division of America's military successfully blocked off Internet access for the Russian government's notorious “troll factory” on the day of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections. Read the rest

For all of you in the U.S., no doubt your feeds are filling up with your friends showing off their "I Voted" stickers (and if they're not, uh, better get some new friends). But are their stickers as cool as the ones from Alaska?

Artist Pat Race of Juneau was hired to design these little "I Voted" beauties for the State of Alaska Division of Elections. Race's pro-voting animals not only appeared on the Land of the Midnight Sun's stickers but also on their Official Election Pamphlets.

At least one Alaskan is trying to collect all eight designs:

I seem to have unintentionally started a collection of @alaskarobotics I Voted stickers and I haven’t even voted yet! Anyone have an Eagle, Raven, Walrus, or Caribou to help me round it out #gottacatchemall #teammoonlightbeaver pic.twitter.com/KvaDSfpXqb

— Ruth Kostik (@RuthKostik) November 5, 2018

Prints of the designs are available directly from the artist. Prices start at $10.

image via Kyle Miller Read the rest

Why does Ivanka Trump need trademarks for nursing homes, sausage casing, and *voting machines* in China? Or do we not want to know. Read the rest