Newsom signs bill to combat polling station intimidation in California / Public News Service

With six weeks to go until the election, concerns are growing that there may be attempts to intimidate voters at the polls, and politicians at the state and federal levels are taking action.

On Tuesday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed the PEACE Act, making California the first state in the U.S. to explicitly declare that openly carrying a weapon in or near a polling place constitutes illegal harassment.

Sean Morales-Doyle, director of the voting rights program at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice, said the measure was important.

“It represents some really common sense principles. All voters, all poll workers should be able to participate and conduct our democracy without intimidation. And visible guns around our elections are intimidating,” he said.

A recent Brennan Center survey of poll workers found that 40% of them say they have faced threats, verbal abuse or harassment.

On Wednesday, Democratic Senator Alex Padilla of California introduced a bill that would ban the open carry of firearms at polling places across the country, noting the country's long history of election-day intimidation tactics.

“There are individuals who are incited by partisan rhetoric and false narratives of voter fraud who have made it their mission to at least discourage, or sometimes even outright intimidate, people from having their voices heard in the democratic process,” Padilla said.

Both parties plan to deploy poll watchers this year. The Brennan Center has set up a hotline at 866-OUR-VOTE to report any attempts at voter or poll worker intimidation.

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Voters in Illinois have several options to cast their ballots in the upcoming election: by mail, in person, or by early voting.

The Illinois Policy Institute, a political watchdog, reported that the 2022 general election produced the second-highest voter turnout in a midterm election year in 25 years.

Matt Dietrich, spokesman for the Illinois State Board of Elections, wants voters to pay attention to important voter registration deadlines. Unregistered voters still have time to change their status, he said.

“Voter registration will only end when the polls close on election day,” Dietrich stressed. “You can register from now until November 5th and even on November 5th. Online voter registration will remain open until October 20th at 11:59 p.m.”

Voter inquiries can be answered through an online portal on the board's website, elections.il.gov.

Starting Oct. 9, unregistered voters who wish to vote in person can do so at any early voting location. Dietrich added that they must cast their early ballot when registering.

Two forms of verifiable identification are required, one reflecting your identity and the other your chosen residence. If you recently moved to Illinois from another state, an unexpired out-of-state driver's license will be accepted. A government letter sent to your residence, bank statement or pay stub showing your chosen residence will also be sufficient.

Another popular choice among Illinois residents is voting by mail. There was a “slight increase of 10%,” Dietrich reported, even before the pandemic in 2020. He added that 2 million people tried it for the first time and found the process safe, convenient and understandable.

“We and all local election authorities have strongly promoted mail-in voting for security reasons,” Dietrich explained. “In the end, one-third of the total votes in 2020 were cast by mail, about one-third were cast early in person, and one-third were cast in person on election day.”

Dietrich said that in 2022, the number of absentee ballots slightly exceeded the number of voters who cast their ballots in person. He recommends that residents who wish to cast absentee ballots request their ballots well before the Oct. 31 deadline.

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New Mexico volunteers will test the “butterfly effect” this Saturday by taking small actions designed to make huge changes.

Civic and nonprofit groups have enlisted volunteers to help grow food for monarch butterflies and other pollinators in the bosque, a cottonwood forest along the Rio Grande. Organizers said the area's lush grasslands and native milkweeds are the perfect base for expanding pollinator habitat.

Emily Rees, south-west restoration ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecology, said teams would plant over a thousand native perennial plants from wild-collected seeds.

“The overall project includes 16 sites along a 200-mile stretch of the Rio Grande from north of Taos down to Socorro,” Rees explained. “We're planting seven of them this year and the other nine next year.”

Rees noted that New Mexico's 300-mile-long bosque, which means “forest” or “woodland” in Spanish, provides an oasis of valuable resources for animals and plants living in an otherwise arid Southwestern habitat. In preparation for the event, the city of Albuquerque has been selectively removing invasive, non-native tree species in the planting area.

Due to habitat loss, monarch butterfly populations are declining in the United States and worldwide.

Rees believes there is still much to learn about the role of the Rio Grande in their migration to New Mexico.

“It's very charismatic,” Rees noted. “People really recognize monarch butterflies, but by restoring habitat for monarch butterflies, we can improve that habitat for other pollinators as well.”

Monarch butterflies are not currently on the endangered species list, but one estimate shows their numbers are down 30% in 2024 from last year. The Xerces Society said the overwintering population of western monarch butterflies is about 5% of its size in the 1980s.

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A New Mexico nonprofit news organization wants to inform voters about what Project 2025 entails and how it could potentially change their lives.

The New Mexico Political Report has looked at the document, which some see as a blueprint for the next Republican president, and has published targeted articles on the document's proposals.

Matthew Reichbach, editor of the New Mexico Political Report, will lead a public discussion this Thursday in Santa Fe with the reporters who wrote the stories.

“We already have reporters who are experts on reproductive rights, the environment and elections. Those are the things we're going to focus on,” Reichbach explained. “But you could devote an entire month to this kind of stuff and not even scratch the surface. That's crazy.”

Project 2025, a product of the far-right Heritage Foundation, proposes mass deportations, repealing or rolling back protections for clean air, clean drinking water, and protected public spaces, and dissolving the U.S. Department of Education.

New Mexico is one of the poorest states in the country. Nearly 60 percent of residents are covered by Medicaid. They would be at risk of losing their coverage due to the proposed “limits or lifetime caps.”

Reichbach argued that Project 2025 is a radical document in many ways, but especially when it comes to reproductive rights and abortion.

“It would be a fundamental change in the way things have been done in modern American history, essentially because it would eliminate medication abortion,” Reichbach stressed. “Today, that's how most abortions happen, and that would eliminate that.”

Although former President Donald Trump denies involvement in the document, contributors include members of his former administration. Reichbach said it shouldn't matter to voters whether Trump was involved or not.

“It's not just about Trump, because this is a roadmap for conservatives in general,” Reichbach stressed. “This is what these people want to do, no matter who is president. Maybe not in 2025, but what about 2029?”

Support for this reporting was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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