News
Democracy's challenges pushed to new depths by a shambolic debate
Now it's a presidential debate that has created the latest low-point for our dysfunctional democracy — and on several fronts.
Tuesday night's chaotic 90 minutes of hectoring, crosstalk, bombast, browbeating, baseless assertions and buck-passing will be remembered, at a minimum, for effectively extinguishing the already sullied concept of civil political discourse.
It will also be known for President Trump finding yet another venerable democratic institution — somber debate of the top issues by the nation's two would-be leaders — that he was eager to attack. And he employed so much off-point heckling and demeaning personal attacks that his exasperated challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, twice labeled Trump a "clown."
And that was all before the sitting American president decided to intensify his unprecedented assault on the integrity of the coming presidential election itself and his unwillingness to promise a peaceful transition, unheard-of rattling of democracy's bedrock before a global audience that included an estimated 29 million American voters.
100,000 New Yorkers receive flawed absentee ballots
Nearly 100,000 New York City voters were mailed general election ballots with incorrect names and return addresses.
The defective absentee ballots were first reported on Monday, and the following day the New York City Board of Elections confirmed the problem affected 99,477 voters in Brooklyn who had requested one. New ballots with correct information will be printed and sent immediately to those voters.
With just 34 days until voting ends Nov. 3, this kind of critical error could sow confusion and distrust in an election already flooded with attacks — mostly prominently from President Trump — on mail voting.
Courts grant more time for absentee ballots in Indiana, Wisconsin
A federal judge extended the deadline Tuesday for mail-in ballots to arrive at the election offices in reliably red Indiana, while an appeals court upheld a similar extension in battleground Wisconsin.
Judge Sarah Evans Barker of Indianapolis ordered a 10-day extension for absentee ballots, meaning as long as they are postmarked by Election Day they will still be tabulated if they arrive as Nov. 13.
That ruling makes Indiana the ninth state where the window for accepting mailed ballots this year has been extended, either by the state voluntarily or as a result of a court order. The longer deadline, which has become one of the more frequent easements for the record surge of mail ballots being used because of the coronavirus pandemic, means results of close contests up and down many ballots may not be reliably clear for many days after Nov. 3.
Debate
Colleges should have already canceled Election Day classes
"Everything should be done to pave the way for a much higher turnout this fall," write Thurgood Marshall Jr. and Steven Okun, former senior officials in the Clinton administration.
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