Meet the election deniers on the cusp of controlling U.S. elections
CBC
Let's try imagining what the next U.S. presidential election might look like. It's 2024. It's been a bitter, hard-fought campaign. Votes are being counted.
Now consider a scenario where these are the people in charge of administering elections: the people who set rules, issue guidance to poll workers, or confirm the winner.
In Arizona, imagine it's Mark Finchem. He was in Washington during the Jan. 6 insurrection. A member of the Oath Keepers militia, he introduced a bill this year – 597 days after the last election – to cancel Joe Biden's 2020 win.
In Pennsylvania, it's the candidate appointed by a governor who was also there on Jan. 6, and who led Donald Trump's efforts to invalidate the results in his state.
In Michigan, it's Kristina Karamo who on Jan. 6 insisted it must have been left-wing radicals attacking the Capitol. She has since referred to police officers there that day as crisis actors.
In Nevada, it's Jim Marchant who said his state's elections have been illegitimate for two decades and that the winners have been imposed by a deep-state cabal.
In Minnesota, it's Kim Crockett who has called the last presidential vote rigged and who dragged her feet before saying she would accept this year's midterm results
In Wisconsin, imagine there's a governor who still won't say whether he wants to decertify the 2020 presidential election; his party's candidate for elections chief wants him to sign a bill stripping the state's bipartisan elections body of its powers.
Those are the people running as Republican candidates to become secretary of state, a state's chief elections official.
The coming days will determine whether these candidates win office: it depends on outcomes of the Nov. 8 midterm elections.
If the polls are accurate some of these people, maybe even most, will win, along with more mainstream Republicans as in Ohio and Georgia.
More than 60 per cent of U.S. jurisdictions have an election-denier on the ballot this fall. In pivotal swing states, that could result in election-deniers running elections.
The woman who led Wisconsin's elections commission in 2020 was deluged with threats and abuse and she said she's trying not to be alarmist now.
But it's not easy.
Ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad says he had no plans to leave the country after the fall of Damascus a week ago but the Russian military evacuated him after their base in western Syria came under attack.
The death toll in the French territory of Mayotte from Cyclone Chido is "several hundred" and may run into the thousands, the island's top government official told a local broadcaster on Sunday.
In the days since Luigi Mangione was charged with killing the top executive at one of the largest health insurers in America, an untold number of people online have declared him a modern-day hero.
Syrians seeking to chart their own political course, free from outside interference, following the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad may be thwarted by the geopolitical ambitions of their neighbours, who already have a foothold in the country, experts say.
It's hard to envision anyone celebrating the shooting death of a doctor. Or, for that matter, a hospital administrator, a pharma employee, an average U.S. politician or voter.
Every night for half of her life, Ghena Ali Mostafa has spent the moments before sleep envisioning what she'd do first if she ever had the chance to step back into the Syrian home she fled as a girl. She imagined herself laying down and pressing her lips to the ground, and melting into a hug from the grandmother she left behind. She thought about her father, who disappeared when she was 13.
The suspect in the killing of UnitedHealthcare's CEO struggled with deputies and shouted Tuesday while arriving for a court appearance in Pennsylvania, a day after he was arrested at a McDonald's and charged with murder.
Syria's new interim leader announced on Tuesday he was taking charge of the country as caretaker prime minister with the backing of the former rebels who toppled President Bashar al-Assad three days ago.
The three-starred flag representing Syrian rebel groups was hoisted up a pole atop the Syrian embassy in Moscow on Monday — even as Bashar Al-Assad, Syria's brutal dictator, is believed to be in exile in Russia after President Vladimir Putin granted him and his family asylum.
Among the many moments of celebration across Syria on Sunday, the scene at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus may be remembered as one of the most significant.
