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Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs on stage

Luke Combs, politics and healing our nation's divide

J.D. Vance and Matt Gaetz talking to each while walking

Trump’s kakistocracy invites possible catastrophe

Red elephants and blue donkeys

America's two-party system is failing us

Photo from the movie "Conclave"

Certainty is the enemy of unity and tolerance

Woman holding a sign that reads "This is a time to roll up our sleeves."

Dems blame everything but themselves for losing

Claim: The President may sign an executive order limiting freedom of speech. Fact check: Mixed

President Donald Trump
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Soram Cheon, Medill School
By Soram Cheon, Medill SchoolMay 29, 2020
Soram Cheon, Medill School
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The president can issue an executive on anything he wants, but its impact and legality is a question. Trump signed an executive order that could limit social media companies' legal protections after Twitter began fact-checking on his posts.

According to The Washington Post, lawmakers in Congress and a variety of legal experts from across the political spectrum "doubted the legality of Trump's draft proposal and feared its implications for free speech."

Some in the tech industry even began quietly discussing their legal options, including a potential lawsuit challenging Trump's order, the Post reported.

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election observer in Nevada

An election observer watches ballots being counted in North Las Vegas, Nevada, on Thursday.

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Claim: Election observers have not been allowed to do their jobs. Fact check: False

In the early morning hours on Friday, President Trump tweeted, "The OBSERVERS were not allowed, in any way, shape, or form, to do their job and therefore, votes accepted during this period must be determined to be ILLEGAL VOTES." The president did so as the vote margin in Pennsylvania and Georgia continued to close and even put former Vice President Joe Biden ahead in both states.

State rules vary on who is permitted to monitor the polls. However, across the board most states permit partisan monitors as long as they follow guidelines. On Wednesday, the Trump campaign filed lawsuits in Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania to give observers greater access to viewing the ballot counting process. With no evidence of wrongdoing in Michigan and the ballot counting process largely finished, a lower court dismissed the lawsuit there.

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California ballot processing

California's safeguards against voter fraud include signature matching.

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Claim: California sent 440,000 ballots to people who died or moved. Fact check: Mixed

California election officials sent ballots to all active registered voters for the November election. But in a press release distributed Monday, Election Integrity Project California, a self-described nonpartisan watchdog organization, criticized 440,000 "questionable" mailed ballots.

The organization sent a letter to the California secretary of state, writing that 416,633 Californians who were registered to vote on or before Nov. 4, 2008, have not voted or updated their registrations since that date. Because of this, EIPCa wrote, those voters "likely moved or died." Voters in California are marked as "inactive" if they move within the state and do not re-register to vote. However, there is no law in the state that eliminates voters from the active list because they have not voted.

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Lauren Boebert

Colorado congressional candidate Lauren Boebert ties the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact to water issues in a misleading campaign video.

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Fact check: Colorado Democrats are going to 'steal' electoral votes. Fact check: False

On Monday Lauren Boebert, a Republican running for Congress in Colorado's 3rd district, tweeted a campaign video and introduced it by saying, "Stop Democrats from stealing our votes for President and putting Colorado's water at risk." President Trump retweeted it on the same day. She was referring to a bill signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in 2019 that added Colorado to the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, which would give a state's electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote, but only goes into effect if enough states join to guarantee at least 270 electoral votes would be awarded.

The compact is aimed at avoiding the scenario in which the winner of the national popular vote does not also win the Electoral College vote, which most recently happened in 2000 and 2016. However, this legislation won't go into effect this election because only 16 states with a collective 196 electoral votes have signed on. There is also a ballot measure to repeal the law on the November ballot. In the video, Boebert said the law was "giving Colorado's votes to California," insinuating that because of California's size it would hold more influence in the election. However, the Electoral College system already incentivizes campaigns to prioritize certain states, like Florida and Pennsylvania, that have larger populations and swing voters. In the 2020 general election campaign events featuring the candidates have not been held in 37 states, Colorado included.

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Paterson, NJ

The May municipal elections in Paterson, N.J., have been plagued with allegations of election fraud.

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Claim: New Jersey election officials threw out nearly 20 percent of mail-in ballots. Fact check: True

A tweet on June 28 by President Trump cited voter fraud in a New Jersey election in order to bolster his argument against mail-in voting. Trump claimed that nearly 20 percent of ballots in a special election for city council representatives were fraudulent.

The municipal election was held in May in Paterson, N.J., for several city council seats. It was among a handful of elections that Gov. Phil Murphy ordered be completed exclusively by mail-in voting due to the coronavirus pandemic. To make the process easier, Murphy signed an executive order in March for ballots to be sent to all registered voters without the need for an application.

But claims of fraud began appearing in local media as early as election day.

According to a report by NPR, the fraud investigation began after the U.S. Postal Inspection Service informed local law enforcement that hundreds of mail-in ballots were stuffed inside a Paterson mailbox.

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