Author: PolitCens

 Some Afghan Americans who live in northern Virginia are determined to vote in the midterm elections, saying that U.S. foreign policy toward Afghanistan and immigration are most important to them. Matiullah Abid Noor and Shahnaz Nafees have the story. Roshan Noorzai contributed to this report.
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In the run-up to Tuesday’s midterms, Republicans and Democrats have filed dozens of lawsuits in battleground states that hold the key to control of the U.S. Congress.

The lawsuits challenge various rules governing the elections, with the bulk focused on the casting and counting of mail-in ballots that have grown in popularity in recent years.

As of Monday, a total of 128 election and voting-related lawsuits have been filed so far in 2022, according to Democracy Docket, a left-leaning voting rights organization that tracks election litigation. Of the total, 71 seek to restrict access to voting, while the rest aim to expand or protect voting, Democracy Docket says.

A September analysis by Democracy Docket showed that Republicans accounted for slightly more than half of the lawsuits filed this year.

Sylvia Albert, Director of Voting and Elections at Common Cause, a nonpartisan watchdog and advocacy organization, said the extraordinary amount of litigation will likely make this midterm the most litigious election in recent memory, after only the 2020 presidential race.

“It is routine for there to be a small amount of lawsuits filed on both sides to get an edge,” Albert said. “What’s different this time around is the sheer amount of lawsuits, and the obvious attempt to disenfranchise voters and undermine people’s faith in elections.”

In 2020, Democracy Docket tracked 68 lawsuits filed before Election Day.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the election law reform initiative at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the Republican lawsuits merely seek compliance with the law.

“My understanding is that the lawsuits that are being filed are simply asking courts to order state officials to comply with state law,” von Spakovsky said.

Democracy Docket says Republicans have filed a record number of election-related lawsuits this year, with the majority seeking to limit mail-in voting.

Voting by mail surged during the 2020 presidential election. But Republican-controlled states have since adopted measures to limit the practice, saying that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud.

Republicans have had some success challenging voting by mail this year.

In Wisconsin, where Republican Senator Ron Johnson faces a tough challenge from the state’s Democratic lieutenant governor, local courts last week sided with Republicans, ruling that county clerks could not accept mail-in ballots with partial addresses of witnesses.

In Pennsylvania, where a Senate seat vacated by a Republican is up for grabs, the state Supreme Court last week approved a Republican request that election officials not count undated or incorrectly dated mail-in ballots.

But in Michigan, a judge Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought by a Republican candidate who asked the court to require all voters in Detroit to get absentee ballots in person or vote in person.

Albert of Common Cause said the current litigation over the counting of absentee ballots will likely extend into the post-election canvass and certification period, delaying the results of some close races.

“Especially in states where absentee ballots could swing the results,” Albert said. “We continue to reiterate that Election Day is not results day, and we may be waiting quite a while for final counts.”

Post-election court battles will likely involve many aspects of the elections. In addition to the counting and processing of mail-in ballots, Democracy Docket says it expects legal challenges to voters’ eligibility, intimidation of voters and election workers, conspiracy theories about electronic voting machines and counties that refuse to certify their election results.
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U.S. voters and election security officials are bracing for potential disruptions, meddling and even violence as millions of Americans head to the polls Tuesday to cast ballots in the country’s midterm elections.

According to a recent Economist/YouGov poll, just over half of Americans (51%) say violence at polling places is somewhat or very likely.

The poll, which surveyed 1,500 adults between October 29 and November 1, found just as many (51%) believe there will be interference by foreign countries.

A separate YouGov poll from July found 32% of those surveyed had little to no confidence in the results of the midterms.

“I would say I have concerns about the system,” an Arizona voter named Fred, who declined to share his last name, told VOA. “Who’s to say that they count all the votes properly?”

Despite such skepticism, the message from U.S. election officials has been consistent.

“Americans should go to the ballot box with confidence,” Jen Easterly, the director of the Cybersecurity and Election Security Agency (CISA), told a cybersecurity forum late last month.

“There’s been an incredible amount of work done across the board to be able to secure our election infrastructure,” she said, sharing a message that has since been echoed by Homeland Security officials and even the White House.

Yet U.S. officials also acknowledge the threats to Tuesday’s elections are serious and are being treated with proper caution.

Violence

The country’s Homeland Security officials began sounding the alarm about potential election-related violence as far back as February, repeating the warning in an updated National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin in June.

“We assess that calls for violence by domestic violent extremists directed at democratic institutions, political candidates, party offices, election events, and election workers will likely increase,” the bulletin said.

More recent intelligence assessments by U.S. officials caution the greatest threat is posed by so-called “lone wolves” – angry or aggrieved individuals who decide to act on their own.

Likely targets range from election-related infrastructure, such as polling places and ballot drop boxes, to election workers, voters and even political candidates and rallies.

Adding to the concern is the growing use of militaristic language and imagery in U.S.-based disinformation campaigns, some of which is being amplified by U.S. adversaries such as Russia.

“The influence attempts … do not directly encourage people to undertake violent actions, but very likely lay the groundwork and allude to some physical action,” Brian Liston, a senior threat intelligence analyst for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, told VOA by email.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has received more than 1,000 reports of threats against election officials since June 2021, leading to at least six arrests, according to senior officials.

Almost 60% of the reported threats came from seven states – Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin. All either ran audits or saw considerable debate about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

Disinformation

Concerns about disinformation campaigns and influence operations have been increasing steadily in the run-up to the midterm elections.

U.S. officials and researchers believe the majority of disinformation is originating domestically, citing a rise in anti-government and anti-authority sentiment within the U.S.

But they warn there has been a concerted effort by multiple U.S. adversaries to seize on lingering doubts about the election system itself.

Russia, China and Iran “will take advantage of sort of election integrity narratives that come up in the U.S. ecosystem,” a senior FBI official said last month while briefing reporters. “We’ve seen that already, specifically from Russia.”

The cybersecurity firm Recorded Future has further warned that Russia and China resurrected dormant social media accounts to amplify doubt and deepen U.S. political divisions ahead of the midterm elections.

In the case of Russia, several of the resurrected accounts targeted audiences on social media platforms like Gab and Gettr that cater to conservative audiences, Recorded Future said.

Recorded Future said China’s influence operations, such as a campaign that began this past September, span platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Douyin, described as a Chinese-language version of TikTok.

“Many of these [posts and comments] appear to criticize both the Republican and Democrat parties and promote extreme views on both sides,” the Recorded Future report said.

China has consistently denied allegations it has used and is using influence operations to meddle in U.S. elections.

But on Monday, a key confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin contradicted previous denials from the Kremlin, confessing to ongoing election meddling.

“We have interfered, we are interfering, and we will continue to interfere,” Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Russian social media. “Carefully, accurately, surgically and in our own way, as we know how to do.”

Additional research has warned of likely disinformation campaigns aimed at discrediting voting system manufacturers. 

CISA, the lead federal agency for election security, has pushed back against disinformation efforts with social media campaigns pointing voters to trusted voices – state and local election officials.

CISA has also updated its rumor control website, set up to debunk election-related disinformation and conspiracy theories.

Cyber threats

Despite concerns that adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran may try to disrupt the election with a combination of cyber hacks and ransomware, U.S. officials have expressed confidence the risks are low.

“There is no information credible or specific about efforts to disrupt or compromise that election infrastructure” CISA Director Jen Easterly said last week.

Other CISA officials have said the agency, along with state and local partners, has continued to build on security measures from the 2020 U.S. elections to better secure election systems, and systems and databases related to elections, such as those that keep track of registered voters.

At the same time, U.S. Cyber Command has been directing its teams to look for potential attacks but has repeatedly said it is not finding new threats.

That aligns with the findings of multiple cybersecurity firms, which have said most of what they have seen, so far, is “pretty basic.”

“There is a continued focus on state election officials. However, it’s kind of a low-tech approach. It’s very much focused on the user itself, phishing and trying to bait them into surrendering their credentials,” Pat Flynn, head of the Advanced Programs Group at Trellix, told VOA.

“I don’t see any indications that any sort of technology is compromised, or we should lose confidence in the election system,” he added.

Still, CISA has warned it is possible hackers may try to go after systems that will make voting more difficult, possibly by trying to take down power stations or by hitting local government websites with ransomware.

But Easterly has cautioned that just because there are problems, it does not mean there is an attack.

“There are going to be errors. There are going to be glitches. It happens in every election,” she said.

“Somebody will forget their key to the polling place. A water pipe will burst … These are normal things. They’re not nefarious.”
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With just days to go before the 2022 midterm elections, and control of both houses of Congress and many important state-level offices on the line, momentum appears to be swinging in favor of the Republican Party.

For several months in the middle of 2022, Democrats had allowed themselves to hope that this year they might escape the usual fate of the president’s party during midterms — an almost inevitable loss of seats in Congress.

A Supreme Court ruling that did away with a constitutional right to abortion, and a series of high-profile hearings illuminating the role former President Trump played in the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol seemed to invigorate Democratic voters, who showed up in record numbers for a number of state-level elections over the summer.

However, with the nation struggling under levels of inflation not seen in a generation and Democratic President Joe Biden’s approval rating well below 50%, late polling shows Republicans making gains across a variety of races.

Fundamentals ‘assert themselves’

While conceding that 2022 had been a “topsy-turvy year,” Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, told VOA the late change “aligns with what usually happens in [the] midterms.”

He said, “Particularly when you’ve got a president with poor numbers, sometimes the fundamentals just assert themselves.”

William A. Galston, a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Governance Studies Program, told VOA that he agrees that Republicans appear to be enjoying a late surge, but said that shouldn’t be seen as a surprise.

“It’s important to understand that there is nothing unusual about this,” he said. “Indeed, it would be unusual if it weren’t happening. What also seems clear is that the themes that Republicans have emphasized increasingly during this campaign have turned out to be the issues that are top of mind for voters.”

Galston added, “By contrast, the Democratic Party’s agenda has appealed more to core Democrats than to anyone else. Core Democrats care a lot about abortion. They care a lot about threats to democracy, as they understand those threats. But the Republican focus on inflation and crime and to a lesser extent immigration, particularly in border states, has proved more effective.”

Limited competition in House races

In the House of Representatives, control goes to the party that holds a majority of the 435 seats. Currently, the Democrats hold 220 seats, only two more than the 218 required for a bare majority.

Because of the already tight margin of control in the House, even a small pickup by Republicans would be enough to give them control of the chamber, a result that most election observers have been confidently predicting for months.

In the elections for the 435 seats that make up the House of Representatives, the vast majority of races are not considered competitive at all. Over the course of many years, through a process known as “gerrymandering,” House districts have been drawn in such a way that most heavily favor members of one party or another.

Bad numbers for Democrats

For example, in its most recent analysis of the races, the Cook Political Report rates a total of 347 House seats as “solid” for one party or the other, with Republicans maintaining an advantage of 188 to 159.

Among the remainder, Cook Political rates 13 as “likely” Democratic wins and 11 as likely Republican wins, while another 16 seats “lean” Democratic and another 13 lean Republican.

Assuming all those races go as expected, that leaves Republicans with 212 seats and Democrats with 188.

This leaves a total of 35 races where the outcome remains in doubt. The GOP would need only win six out of that total to take control, but they are expected to pick up significantly more than that.

Close contest for Senate

The 100 seats in the Senate are currently split evenly between Republicans on one side and Democrats and Independents who caucus with them on the other. The Democrats hold control of the chamber only because Vice President Kamala Harris has the authority to cast tie-breaking votes when the body is deadlocked.

In the Senate, only about one-third of the seats are contested in any given federal election, because Senators serve six-year terms. This year there are 35 seats on the ballot, 14 currently held by Democrats and 21 by Republicans.

The distribution of seats up for election would appear to favor Democrats, who are defending fewer seats, but most analysts believe that the balance of power in the Senate will be decided by just four close races. Three of those involve seats currently held by Democrats, while the fourth is an open seat being vacated by retiring Pennsylvania Republican Pat Toomey.

Key races

In Georgia, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, who took office in 2021 after winning a special election to fill a seat left vacant by an incumbent’s resignation, is running to win a full term. He is being challenged by Herschel Walker, a former football star and political neophyte. Polling in the final week before the election showed a race with a result too close to call.

Sen. Mark Kelly, a first-term Arizona Democrat, is locked in a battle with Republican Blake Masters, a former venture capitalist. Kelly has led in polling throughout the race, but Masters has steadily eroded the incumbent’s advantage. While Kelly appears to remain ahead, the race is still considered extremely close.

In New Mexico, incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto is being challenged by State Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a Republican. Polling in the race has been relatively sparse, making it difficult to assess any late movement among voters, but Laxalt appears to hold a small lead.

Controversy in Pennsylvania

Possibly the most controversial Senate race in the nation is taking place in Pennsylvania, over Toomey’s empty seat. Lieutenant Gov. John Fetterman is contesting with former television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz. In the early stages of the races, the discussion was dominated by the fact that Oz is a relative newcomer to the state, having lived primarily in neighboring New Jersey until shortly before the election.

However, in May, Fetterman suffered a stroke, leaving him with what the campaign describes as an “auditory processing disorder” that makes it difficult for him to quickly respond to spoken questions. The disorder was evident in a late debate between the two candidates, in which Fetterman plainly struggled to answer some questions.

The Oz campaign and its surrogates have raised questions about Fetterman’s ability to perform the duties of a senator, and in the final weeks of the campaign, polls that had consistently shown Fetterman in the lead have tightened considerably, with some showing Oz in the lead.
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Tuesday’s midterm elections in the United States will determine whether Democrats maintain majorities or if Republicans seize power in the House of Representatives and the Senate, both of which are up for grabs. With some Republican candidates already crying foul on so-called election integrity, nonpartisan groups are keeping a close eye on the process. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi has more.
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For most of 2022, senior intelligence analyst Brian Liston noted it was quiet on the fake U.S. social media accounts believed to be from Russia.

That changed in August as the U.S. midterm elections approached.

“We saw these accounts beginning to spin up, talking about election fraud or that the election was going to be fraudulent, with ballot stuffing and things like that, or Democrats are going to try to steal the election,” said Liston, who works for Recorded Future, a cybersecurity firm.

Liston is among a network of researchers, cybersecurity experts, government agencies and others that comb through social media, websites, state media and law enforcement announcements to track coordinated disinformation campaigns stemming from U.S. adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran.

Fake news sites by organizations associated with these governments promote divisive stories about America that are then promoted by fake social media personas pretending to be Americans.

Russian operatives sow division that the U.S. voting system can’t be trusted, Liston said. Chinese operatives highlight the volume of online anxiety about the integrity of the vote as evidence that American democracy is not working.

“As much as they talk about election denial and voter fraud, I remain concerned that maybe these accounts come Election Day would attempt to provoke some sort of violence or harassment of poll workers at polling stations and things like that,” he said. Recorded Future analysts will be monitoring chatter if the online discussions start to shift, he said.

Twitter took down China-based operations on its site that were trying to influence the U.S. midterms, The Washington Post reported. A representative for the Chinese embassy in Washington denied that the country was behind the accounts, the Post reported.

Twitter also took down three networks associated with Iran, the report said.

In Tempe, Arizona, Dylan Murphy was in town for work. A mathematician from Tucson, Murphy said he worries about the real-world consequences of online misinformation.

“My concern is that foreign actors can spread disinformation and conspiracy theories through social media and kind of pit Americans against each other in a way they wouldn’t be, left to their own devices,” he said.

While online disinformation particularly from foreign actors is not new, he said, what is new is people taking action.

“We’re seeing more in-person direct action resulting from these conspiracy theories, such as people showing up to ballot drop boxes here in Arizona, armed,” he said.

A Falstaff, Arizona, man who gave his name as Fred was having lunch with his parents in Tempe last week. He said he mostly worries about the influence of money on elections. But he does wonder about the voting system, he said.

“I would say I have concerns about the system,” he said. “Who’s to say that they count all the votes properly?”

Arizona was a big part of electoral challenges to the presidential election two years ago, with a Republican recount of results in Maricopa County ultimately confirming a Joe Biden win. Many Donald Trump supporters continue to say that election was stolen, among them Arizona Republican candidate for governor, Kari Lake.

Maricopa County elections officials say ballot tabulation machines are not connected to the internet. They livestream voters delivering ballots to drop boxes and ballots being counted.

“In addition to physical security, we also have security over the ballots and over the process,” said Megan Gilbertson, a representative for the Maricopa County Elections Department.

She cited “bipartisan boards, political party observers and checks throughout the process to make sure that each ballot is accounted for, and only valid ballots are counted.”

In Arizona, where early voting is under way, voter Miriam Mitchell put her ballot in a ballot drop box at the Maricopa County Elections office in downtown Phoenix.

“Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, sometimes we don’t win, and we felt that they should have won, but we still follow the democratic process. We hand over the torch like we’re supposed to,” she said. “That’s the only thing that’s great about America is our democratic process. And we need to hold on to that.”
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Democratic strategist and pollster Tom Bonier has never experienced anything like it in his 28 years of analyzing elections.

“We’re seeing women engage politically at a greater rate than I’ve seen before,” he says.

In the month after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, which guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion, the number of women registering to vote in the November midterm elections rose by 35% in 10 states that share voter registration data, according to a New York Times analysis.

Those states include Kansas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina, Idaho, Alabama, New Mexico and Maine.

Bonier says the data shows women are also out-registering men in states like Wisconsin and Michigan, where reproductive rights are at risk.

Voters in Michigan will decide whether to amend the state’s constitution to include protections for access to abortion. In Wisconsin, an 1849 law banning almost all abortions, which took effect after Roe v. Wade was overturned in June, is making its way through the courts.

But will any of these increased registrations turn into actual votes?

“We’re beginning to see that pivot into voter turnout and participating in elections, first, in special elections, in these primary elections. And now we’re beginning to get early data from the general election,” Bonier says. “With mail ballot requests and that sort of thing, we’re seeing this thread continue with women just engaging at a significantly higher rate than they have in previous midterm elections and than men are, for the most part, in this election.”

Historically, the president’s party loses seats in Congress during the midterm elections, and there was early talk of a Republican “red wave.” But as the midterms approach, analysts are debating whether the abortion rights issue will upset political traditions.

“The variables are so ridiculous right now, and the ups and downs and the vicissitudes of the political world right now are so crazy that predicting this stuff just doesn’t work the way it used to,” says Samuel Abrams, a politics professor at Sarah Lawrence College in New York and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “We used to have models that were predictive. We do not have good models that predict this right now. It’s just too messy.”

The first test of reproductive rights after the Supreme Court ruling occurred in Kansas in August. Fifty-nine percent of Kansans voted to keep access to abortion in the solidly Republican state, dispelling the notion that abortion rights only matter to liberal Democratic voters.

“There are pro-choice Republicans. But there are also Republicans who might not personally be pro-choice, but they were against the notion of the government taking away an established right,” Bonier says. “Even if that’s a right they wouldn’t utilize themselves, there’s a level of discomfort with that, and I believe that’s why you’ve seen so many Republicans being motivated on this issue, as well.”

But Kansans voted in a referendum and were not forced to choose between Democrats and Republicans. The test in November will be whether substantial numbers of Republicans feel strongly enough about abortion rights to cross party lines.

“I don’t think it’s going to be as potent. … I think the [Supreme Court] decision is old enough that the intensity has changed,” Abrams says. “So much could still change. We have no idea what’s going to happen with Putin. We have no idea what’s going to happen with North Korea. We have no idea about international monetary stuff. We have no idea about climate stuff.”

Amanda Hunter, who leads the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a nonpartisan group that works to advance women’s representation in American politics, says that even before the Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights, women were already feeling that the political stakes were high.

“Especially since the pandemic exposed cracks in social systems for women. A lot of things that women didn’t think about or took for granted, like child care, like the public school system … were all turned upside down,” Hunter says.

“Women who maybe before thought, ‘I’m not political, I don’t care about politics,’ suddenly realized that politics were showing up at their front door. And so, it seems that in the past two years, women have felt a personal stake in a lot of these decisions. And certainly, the Dobbs decision is very personal for a lot of women, given that it directly impacts women’s reproductive decisions.”

Abrams believes the Supreme Court abortion decision would have galvanized more voters had it happened closer to Election Day.

“One of the things that’s really important to remember, and I say this all the time, is that a week is an eternity in politics and, as such, we have a while to go until November,” he says.
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Editor’s note: Here is a look at immigration-related news around the U.S. this week. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com. 

Analysts Don’t Expect Significant Changes in Immigration Policy After the Midterms  

Despite the record influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and a shortage of workers in the United States, experts believe immigration policy will remain unchanged after the midterm elections. Some experts say that if Republicans take control of Congress, President Joe Biden likely will turn to the administrative process to accomplish any immigration changes. Story by VOA’s immigration reporter Aline Barros. 

US Migrant Busing Highlights Immigration Policies Ahead of Midterms 

Republican governors of Florida and Texas have been trying to highlight the record number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border by sending thousands of people seeking political asylum to Washington, New York and other places run by Democrats. Aron Ranen reports from New York City on the bused-in arrivals and their possible political impact ahead of November’s midterm elections. 

Climate Migration: Alaska Village Resists Despite Threats 

Search online for the little town of Shishmaref, and you’ll see homes perilously close to the ocean and headlines that warn this Native community in western Alaska is on the verge of disappearing. Climate change is partially to blame for the rising seas, flooding, erosion and loss of protective ice and land that are threatening this Inupiat village of about 600 people just a few miles from the Arctic Circle. But the dire situation is only part of the story. Report by the Associated Press.  

Texas: What International Migration Means for Its Politics 

Since 2010, the population of the U.S. state of Texas has grown rapidly, including in the Houston metro area, which has seen an influx of migrants from Latin America and Asia. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has more on what draws people to the state and how the newcomers are shaping Texas politics. 

Migration Around the World  

Australia Repatriates 17 Citizens From Syrian Camps  

Four women and 13 children were repatriated to Australia on Saturday, having languished for years in squalid Syrian detention camps after the downfall of the Islamic State. It was the first in a series of planned missions to bring back about 20 Australian women and 40 children — the wives, sons and daughters of vanquished IS fighters — from the notorious al-Hol and Roj camps. Reported by Agence France-Presse.  

Malaysia Mulls Closing UN Refugee Agency Office, Sparking Refoulement Fears 

Malaysia says it is considering plans to shutter the local office of the United Nations’ refugee agency, amid accusations the government is forcibly returning Burmese asylum-seekers who have fled Myanmar for their lives. Reported by Zsombor Peter.  

Ukrainian Refugees Find Work, Shelter in Bulgarian Film Studio 

After fleeing Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, two women found themselves in an unlikely shelter: Nu Boyana Film Studios in Sofia, Bulgaria. Tatiana Vorozhko has the story. VOA footage by Svitlana Koval. Video editing – Kostiantyn Golubchyk. 

News in Brief  

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced limited implementation of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) under the new final rule. “Since its inception in 2012, DACA has allowed over 800,000 young people to remain with their families in the only country many of them have ever known and continue to contribute to their communities in the United States.”
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Ballot measures

Apart from national, statewide and local races, many states have measures on the ballot, which are issues or questions that voters are asked to decide. Topics of this year’s ballot measures include marijuana, voting-related policies and abortion, the latter of which is appearing on ballots in six states. The increase in abortion-related measures follows this year’s Supreme Court decision overturning a national right to an abortion, which gave states the final power to set most abortion laws.

Call a winner

News outlets often “call” a winner before every ballot is counted and before officials announce final results. This is because it often takes days or weeks before all votes are counted in many districts and, often, partial results are enough to mathematically determine a winner. However, when a race is close, news agencies usually wait to call a winner until final results are given. The Associated Press, which calls races throughout the United States, says it “does not make projections and will only declare a winner when it’s determined there is no scenario that would allow the trailing candidates to close the gap.”

Competitive races

Competitive races are heavily followed because both the Democratic and Republican candidates are seen as having a legitimate chance of winning. Most races are not considered competitive. According to Reuters, 43 House races out of the chamber’s 435 seats up for election – or about 10% — are considered competitive this year.

Democrats

Democrats make up the Democratic Party, one of the two main parties in the United States. Currently, Democrats control the presidency and both houses of Congress. However, the party’s hold on Congress is slim with an eight-seat majority in the House of Representatives and control in the equally divided Senate resulting only because Vice President Kalama Harris can break a tie.

Early voting

Many U.S. states allow citizens to cast ballots in person at a polling station prior to the election. Some states allow anyone to do this (called no-excuse early voting), while other states allow it only for those with a valid reason, such as old age or disability. Forty-six states permit some form of no-excuse early voting, according to the election website Ballopedia.

Election Day

By law, general elections in the United States take place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. This year Election Day is Nov. 8.

Exit polls

Exit polls are surveys of voters usually taken as they leave, or exit, their polling places. They can be used to project the winner in races where the margin between candidates is large. They are also used to collect demographic data about voters and gain insights into voters’ motivations, information which is not captured at the ballot box.

Legislative branch

The legislative branch of the U.S. government refers to the U.S. Congress, which is made up of two chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate. It makes laws that govern the country. The other two branches of the U.S. government are the executive branch — which includes the presidency and most federal agencies and is responsible for carrying out the laws — and the judicial branch, which evaluates laws. A similar three-part structure is found in U.S. state governments.

Midterms

Elections that take place two years after a presidential vote, or halfway through a president’s term, are called “midterms.” They are often seen as a referendum on the sitting president’s policies because they are the first national vote after a presidential election.

Mail-in ballots/Absentee ballots

These are ballots that are usually mailed by voters to election offices in sealed envelopes. Some states allow voters to return their absentee or mail-in ballots in person to voting centers or municipal offices.

Mail-in voting

Every U.S. state allows at least some of its residents to vote by mail, according to the election website Ballopedia. Some states, like California, mail a ballot to every resident in the state, while others, like Texas, allow mail-in voting only for residents with a valid reason, such as old age or disability.

Redistricting

States redraw district lines every 10 years to take into account population changes. The process is meant to ensure that districts accurately represent the current population, but often become marred by politics with both Democrats and Republicans seeking to create districts that will benefit their party. The 2022 midterms will be the first national elections to occur since redistricting took place in 2020. Republicans are positioned to gain three to four House seats in 2022 due to redistricting alone, according to an analysis of data by Five Thirty Eight, a website that focuses on analysis of political opinion polls.

Representatives

Members of the U.S. House of Representatives are called “representatives.” The House is one of two bodies in the U.S. Congress along with the Senate. Because all House members serve two-year terms, the entire House of Representatives — with its 435 seats — is up for election during the midterms. House members represent a portion of their state known as a congressional district, which averages nearly 750,000 people.

Republicans

Republicans make up the Republican Party, also called the GOP, one of the two main parties in the United States. Currently, Republicans are the party out of power, controlling neither the presidency nor a majority in either chamber in Congress. They are looking to win one or both houses of Congress during the midterms. Because of a historical tendency for the president’s party to lose seats in the House during midterms, Republicans are seen as the favorites to win at least one congressional chamber.

Senator

This is the title given to members of the U.S. Senate, one of two bodies in the U.S. Congress along with the House of Representatives. Because senators serve six-year terms, only about a third of the Senate – with its 100 seats — is up for election during the midterms. Each U.S. state has two senators that it sends to Washington.

Swing states

States where the two parties have similar levels of support are known as “swing states” because either party could easily win them. Swing states can shift over time and are also known as battleground states, toss-up states or purple states (the color resulting from a mix of the traditional Democratic color – blue — and the Republican color — red).

Turnout for midterms

Historically, the turnout — the number of people who vote in an election — is lower during midterms than in presidential election years. The average turnout in presidential elections between 1980 and 2018 was 56.7% of registered voters, while the midterm turnout for that same period was 40.5% according to data from the U.S. Election Project.

Voter fraud

Voter fraud has been a national topic of conversation since the 2020 presidential election when then-President Donald Trump alleged without evidence that the vote was tainted by fraud. Leading up to the vote, Trump also argued that mail-in balloting was less secure than in person votes, while Democratic leaders argued voting by mail was just as secure and would make it easier for people to vote. One result of that debate was that over the past two years, Democratic-controlled states, like Vermont, were more likely to increase access to voting by mail, while Republican-controlled states, like Texas, were more likely to restrict it. The integrity of the U.S. election system is likely to again be up for debate during this year’s midterms.
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Democrats exclude people who eat at Cracker Barrel, a chain of restaurants with a Southern country theme. Republicans filter out voters who shop at Whole Foods Market, a supermarket chain with a focus on natural and organic foods.

These are two examples of how political campaigns are using people’s eating, shopping and entertainment preferences in hopes of reaching the online audience that’s most receptive to their political message, according to an Axios analysis of political ad data at Meta, owner of Facebook and Instagram.

Axios says it analyzed more than 93,000 targeting inputs for paid political ads on Facebook and Instagram.

It found that Democrats were more likely to target fans of National Public Radio, a publicly and privately funded nonprofit media organization with a stated goal of creating a more informed public; Spanish-language outlets like Univision; and people with a general interest in journalism. Republicans, by contrast, were less likely to target potential voters based on their media preferences.

The GOP was more likely to zero in on fans of the reality TV show “Duck Dynasty,” about a family that makes products for duck hunters and is known for their long beards and conservative, evangelical Christian views. Republicans also targeted fans of popular country music singers and Southern celebrity chef Paula Deen. Democrats focused more on fans of singer Lady Gaga and music genres like salsa and hip hop.

In addition to Whole Foods, Republicans also nixed people who shop at Trader Joe’s, a grocery chain known for unique and eclectic offerings at reasonable prices, opting instead to target fans of Chick-fil-A, a popular fast-food restaurant whose chief executive officer has made statements opposing same-sex marriage in the past.

“We used to actually be able to get even more narrow and be able to target people by race or by partisanship, and so that has all been taken away, so these interest targets are now just a proxy for what has previously been done,” says Megan Clasen, a digital marketing consultant who worked on both Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns.

“It has more risks when you’re running a persuasion campaign. When you’re making assumptions about how people’s interests impact their political views, you might be leaving people out who could potentially be with you, just because they shop at certain places or watch a certain show.”

Digital marketers had to get more creative with targeting last year, after public outcry prompted Meta to stop allowing advertisers to target their ads using factors such as people’s race, sexual orientation and political or religious views.

“Facebook had tons and tons of data on what people’s preferences and likes were. So, if people liked Republican pages or if they liked Democrat pages, if they liked Republican politicians, if they liked Democrat politicians, if they signed up for pro-life [anti-abortion] groups, or if they signed up for groups associated with pro-choice [pro-abortion rights], or Second Amendment [gun rights], or anti-tax groups,” says Tyler Brown, former director of digital strategy at the Republican National Committee (RNC). “So, Facebook also became a provider of what we would call third party data. And the value for advertisers was that it was extremely robust and thorough.”

Without that valuable Meta data, political operatives zeroed in on consumer preferences to reach certain parts of the electorate. While Republicans targeted people who shop at stores selling outdooring gear, Democrats focused on fans of Nordstrom, a luxury department store chain; Lululemon, a higher-end athleisure brand; and Zara, a retailer of inexpensive trendy clothes.

While the two major political parties often seem to be targeting two different Americas, there were some commonalities. For example, both targeted Walmart shoppers.

Clasen believes in casting a wider net when it comes to digital marketing.

“Oftentimes, when we’re trying to persuade people, we’re sort of talking to people who land in the middle — maybe they don’t really identify as super liberal or super conservative,” she says. “So, I think we have to be careful about using those types of inclusions or exclusions in our targeting when we’re trying to persuade broader groups of voters.”

Republicans were more likely than Democrats to focus on sports fans, including hunters and people who follow NASCAR auto racing. Democrats tended to exclude deer hunters and car racing fans from seeing their digital ads.

“They’re trying to be more targeting than running blanket ads, but there is some risk that they are losing people in the gaps,” Brown says. “NASCAR has a large supporter base. It’s very possible that many Democrats are supporters of NASCAR, but [digital ad consultants] are trying to make bets that, on the whole, they’re targeting more of their supporters. And they’re making the assumption that that is a better targeting method than simply targeting a geographic area.”

Both Brown and Clasen say this type of targeting can sow division on the internet, especially with Facebook’s algorithm already filtering posts so that people are seeing content that they’re most likely to engage with.

“That obviously is already creating a lot of polarization in social media environments,” Clasen says. “So it’s sort of contributing to that continued impact, if people are really only seeing things that they are likely to already agree with versus seeing different opinions that they aren’t used to being exposed to.”

Politicization of commercial brands is also leading to increased polarization in American society, Brown says.

“I think that we are seeing a divide take place, culturally, in terms of, not just the media we consume, but the brands we choose to support,” Brown says. “The reason that the American democracy experiment was so successful for so long, was that while people may have different policy preferences, they operated from the same shared sense of values and worldview … And I think that as those people are separating themselves into different camps, that even those values and worlds and perspectives are coming into question and are being undercut.”
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The House of Representatives committee investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump said Friday it had given the former president until next week to begin producing documents requested under a subpoena. 

The January 6 committee announced on October 21 that it had sent a subpoena to Trump requiring documents to be submitted by November 4 and for him to appear for deposition testimony beginning on or about November 14. 

“We have received correspondence from the former president and his counsel in connection with the Select Committee’s subpoena,” the House Select Committee’s chairperson, Democratic Representative Bennie Thompson, and vice chairperson, Republican Representative Liz Cheney, said in a statement. 

“We have informed the former president’s counsel that he must begin producing records no later than next week and he remains under subpoena for deposition testimony starting on November 14th,” the statement said. 

The committee’s seven Democrats and two Republicans are seeking a wide range of documents from Trump that would detail communications he may have had before January 6 and beyond with lawmakers and members of extremist groups, as well as associates and former aides. 

Additional documents and communications being sought relate to information detailing possible travel of people to the Capitol on January 6 and communications relating to efforts to encourage states to delay certifying election results or certify alternate slates of “electors” who would support naming Trump as the winner. 

Trump has accused the committee of waging unfair political attacks on him while refusing to investigate his charges of widespread election fraud. 

A spokesperson for the former president did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. 

Trump had not been expected to cooperate with the subpoena and could simply try to run out the clock. The committee’s mandate will likely end early next year if Republicans win a majority in the midterm elections on Tuesday. 

Thousands of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, seeking to prevent certification of the election result after Trump delivered a fiery speech featuring false claims that his defeat by Democrat Joe Biden was the result of fraud. 

Five people including a police officer died during or shortly after the riot, more than 140 police officers were injured, the Capitol suffered millions of dollars in damage and then-Vice President Mike Pence, members of Congress and staff were sent running for their lives. 
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U.S. officials charged with helping to secure the upcoming midterm elections fear the most dangerous and most likely threats may be difficult or impossible to detect in advance, and that the risk of violence will only escalate once the polls close.

The assessment, based on intelligence from multiple agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the National Counterterrorism Center, has been shared in recent weeks with state and local law enforcement agencies, lending increased urgency to their efforts to secure the vote.

Parts of the assessment also have been shared publicly, including by the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which serves as the national lead on election security.

“You’ve got these horrible physical security concerns at an unprecedented level,” CISA Director Jen Easterly told a forum in Washington on Tuesday. “Threats of intimidation, of violence, of harassment against election officials, polling places, voters.”

The most plausible threat, according to a U.S. official who asked not to be quoted and spoke to VOA on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the intelligence, is from a so-called lone wolf — an individual who may or may not be associated with an extremist group and decides to act on his or her own.

Such individuals are likely to be driven by a belief that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was fraudulent as well as by other hot-button political issues, the official said.

Likely targets could range from election-related infrastructure, such as polling places and ballot drop boxes, to election workers, voters and even political candidates and events like Election Day rallies and watch parties, the official added, noting a decision on which target to go after could come down to ease of access.

But much of what has election security officials so concerned is that extra motivation for anyone leaning toward violence is easily accessible.

Misinformation campaign targets

This past week, CISA warned that U.S. adversaries are using misinformation and other influence operations to incite violence against election officials.

CISA officials and those with other U.S. agencies declined to share additional specifics. But some researchers have found reason to worry.

“The influence attempts … do not directly encourage people to undertake violent actions, but very likely lay the groundwork and allude to some physical action,” Brian Liston, a senior threat intelligence analyst for the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future, told VOA by email.

Some of it can be tied to Russia’s infamous troll farm, the Internet Research Agency (IRA), which has been reactivating accounts on social media platforms, especially those that cater to far-right audiences, and has set up a new website to promote allegations of voter fraud, he said.

“Headlines provided on the site recently say that ‘Democrats will use everything in their disposal to manipulate votes and counting,’ and … accuse Democrats of burning a mail truck in Georgia containing Republican ballots,” Liston said.

One image found by Recorded Future, posted by an IRA-linked account under the name Nora Berka, further fans the flames, claiming, “Yes, we are at war,” along with an image of former President Donald Trump holding a rifle.

The graphic further states, “Democrats are your sworn enemies.”

Recorded Future warns it is not just the troll farms.

“Russian state media and covert media sources are very likely intending to subtly lay the groundwork for some sort of physical action,” Liston said, pointing to headlines that talk about mobilizing to prevent voter fraud and secret armies.

Liston said Iran state-sponsored outlets, like the Tehran Times and Tasnim News Agency are also pushing violent undertones, noting a recent article [November 1] from the Tehran Times warning, “there are growing fears the country could slip into a civil war.”

Unlike Recorded Future, the Washington-based Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks official state actors and state-backed media, told VOA it has not seen information campaigns “specifically encouraging violence.”

But that does not mean that adversaries, such as Russia, would not welcome election-related violence.

“Their proven strategy is to amplify the most polarizing and extreme content to further divide the electorate,” the ASD’s Rachael Dean Wilson told VOA. “If their strategy incites or contributes to inciting violence, it would serve their ultimate goal of chaos.”

Graphika, a social media analytics firm, said it has seen a renewed effort by Russian actors to target far-right audiences in the U.S. but that the efforts have failed to make much of an impact and that the campaigns have not sought to glorify or encourage violence.

Requests for comment by VOA to the Russian embassy and to the Iranian Mission to the U.N. regarding the allegations by U.S. officials and by researchers were not immediately answered. Both have denied allegations of meddling in U.S. elections in the past.

Still, officials and researchers expect the online narratives, and the threat of violence, to persist and possibly worsen after the polls close.

The U.S. official who spoke to VOA about the intelligence assessments on the condition of anonymity, said prolonged certification processes and potential legal challenges could fuel existing grievances and spur potential attacks.

And while officials from multiple agencies admit the warnings may sound dire, they argue the events of the past several years, such as the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, warrant the high level of concern.

“We’ve seen the domestic terrorism threat grow for the last two years,” FBI Counterterrorism Division Assistant Director Robert Wells told a forum on homeland security late last month. “We’ve also seen the anti-government cases grow, obviously January 6. So, our case numbers have gone up.”

The number of reported threats against election workers also has jumped.

According to the FBI, there have been more than 1,000 reports since June 2021, leading to at least six arrests. And almost 60% of the reported threats came from seven states – Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin – all of which ran audits or saw considerable debate about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election.

And the threatening chatter has not slowed.

“What really concerns us, it is the threats to election workers. It’s calls for a second civil war, which we’re seeing in some of the [social media] platforms,” Washington, D.C., Homeland Security Emergency Management Agency Director Chris Rodriguez said last month, speaking alongside the FBI’s Wells.

“We need to make sure that we have the intelligence and information we need to keep our communities safe as the experience on January 6th really showed us,” he said.
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Asians make up a quarter of the residents in the greater Houston area of the U.S. state of Texas. A few are elected officials or are running for office in the midterm elections. They share with VOA’s Elizabeth Lee their keys to political success and discuss the challenge of reaching Asian voters. Videographer and producer: Elizabeth Lee
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This Election Day, more than 80 million Americans will have the option to vote in a language other than English, thanks to a federal provision that guarantees language assistance in the voting process for certain groups of people.

“The idea was to take groups that were historically excluded from the electoral process, and the mission was to make it more accessible for some of those groups,” says Gabe Osterhout, a research associate at the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State University.

The original Voting Rights Act of 1965 focused primarily on the rights of African Americans in the South. The act was broadened in 1975 to include certain language minorities — Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Latinos and Asian Americans — to make voting more accessible.

“English voting materials or information functions essentially as a literacy test that precludes people who may be fully literate in their native language, or may not be literate in any language, but it functions as a barrier to the ability to participate,” says Jim Tucker, senior special counsel with the Voting Rights Project at the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Every five years, the U.S. Census Bureau determines which minority language groups must be accommodated with information in their primary language. That decision is based on whether more than 5% of eligible voters in an area speak limited English, or if there are more than 10,000 eligible voters in a jurisdiction with limited English proficiency.

Local elections officials are then required to offer voting materials, including ballots, in that second language.

In December 2021, Census listed the 331 jurisdictions that meet that threshold ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. It’s the largest number of jurisdictions ever covered by the federal provision, 68 more than in 2016.

Most of the covered jurisdictions are counties and municipalities, but three are states. California, Florida and Texas must provide Spanish-language voting materials in every statewide election, even though certain localities in those states are not required to provide bilingual ballots for their local contests.

More than 80 million voting-age citizens live in the areas where election officials are required to provide minority language assistance.

While the U.S. Justice Department tells the affected jurisdictions that they meet the guidelines and must provide language assistance, there is no built-in mechanism to enforce the rule.

“If we’re trying to understand its impact on turnout, well, we don’t really know who’s doing what they’re supposed to be doing among the counties that are covered,” Osterhout says. “And then on the flip side, there’s counties that aren’t covered, or cities or townships that aren’t covered, but might choose to offer these materials anyway.”

However, an analysis of registration and voting data from November 1996 and 2000 found evidence that “the language provisions of the Voting Rights Act have significant and positive effects on the voting rates of covered linguistic minorities.”

For example, professors Michael Jones-Correa and Israel Waismel-Manor found that voter turnout among Latinos was 11% higher in counties covered by the Voting Rights Act language requirements than in counties that did not provide materials and assistance in Spanish. They also found that voter registration among Latinos was 15% higher in counties that provided language assistance than those that did not.

“We’ve really seen substantial increases in participation by all the language minority groups that were covered, which there are four groups: American Indians, Alaska Natives, Latino or Spanish-speaking voters and Asian Americans who speak Asian languages since 1975, and a lot of that is directly attributable to the language provision for voting rights,” says Tucker, who is also the author of “The Battle Over Bilingual Ballots.”

He added that the language requirements do not put an increased financial burden on the covered counties.

“In many cases, there’s no additional costs,” he says, “but even where there is, it’s not a true unfunded federal mandate, because the federal government actually has provided funding to either offset, or in some cases, cover in its entirety whatever costs the jurisdiction might incur.”

The Voting Rights Act was initially supposed to expire by 1970, but it has been reauthorized five times with large, bipartisan majorities. It was last reauthorized in 2006 for 25 years.

“This is not a situation where it’s really a power grab by either party, because you just see such a diversity in terms of political views and who the candidates are that are supported, and political parties supported among the limited English proficient voters who get assistance,” Tucker says.

Mary Brennan, a professor of history at Texas State University, agrees that it’s a mistake to assume people who vote in different languages will vote a certain way.

“We make assumptions about how people of different languages are going to vote. We say, ‘Oh, these are immigrants, so they’re going to vote Democratic’. …We can’t assume what those people are going to do. People who voted in Spanish in Florida might be very conservative,” Brennan says. “I think it’s really dangerous to make assumptions about how people are voting just because they’re voting in a different language.”

And even if huge numbers of people don’t end up taking advantage of the opportunity to vote in their primary language, the effort isn’t wasted, in Osterhout’s view.

“Even if they don’t end up pursuing that right and don’t end up voting, there’s still value in recognizing that there’s a moral benefit to making voting more accessible,” he says.
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Laura Brown came more than 1,800 kilometers from Gulfport, Mississippi, to attend the ReAwaken America Tour in Manheim, Pennsylvania. She carried a shofar, a musical instrument used in Jewish religious ceremonies. But this was no Jewish event. She raised the long curved horn to her mouth, took a deep breath, and blew the ancient horn to signal a start to the second day of the Christian, mainly white, mainly Republican rally that is the bedrock of the Christian Nationalism movement in the United States.

About 5,000 people filled seats in a sports complex for two days of politically conservative speakers. Most preached a return of Christianity to the country by electing candidates who embrace Christian policies. Others railed against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, challenged the 2020 presidential election results, or defended the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol while promoting books, videos, podcasts and private health insurance. The main draw is retired Army Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, who was introduced as “America’s General” and treated like a movie star, signing autographs and his book, and introducing prominent speakers.

Flynn was forced to retire from the military in 2014. Three years later, he became national security adviser to President Donald Trump. Then he resigned after 22 days — the shortest term ever for a U.S. national security adviser — and ultimately pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, a crime that was pardoned by Trump.

‘Frightened by their own government’

With 43 sold-out rallies, Flynn told VOA what these crowds crave. “People are frightened by their own government,” he said. “They are looking to see what they can do.”

The speakers offer them one main idea: vote. And vote for godly Republicans. A fiery African American preacher took the stage in a blue suit with a white shirt, red tie and pocket scarf. Pastor Mark Burns, touted as “Donald Trump’s Pastor” brought the crowd to its feet as he said, “Are you ready to go to war for the Lord Jesus Christ? Shout ‘yeeeeeahhhhhhh!’ I’m here to declare war on every race-baited Democrat and every evil scheme that comes from the gates of hell.”

On President Joe Biden, “We got to get rid of him right now,” Burns said. “I’m a proud Christian nationalist. … Are there any other Christian nationalists here?” and he got a thunderous affirmative response.

By the time he was off the stage, he came to VOA’s camera soaked with sweat from his emotional, energetic address. “When people say you shouldn’t be preaching religion from your pulpit, that’s ridiculous,” he told us. “The Revolutionary War was led by pastors.”

Taking an oath to preach politics

A tall, soft-spoken white pastor with a full head of white hair took the stage. The Rev. Bill Cook of America’s Black Robe Regiment called all pastors to the front of the arena to take the “Gideon Pledge.” His wife joined him on stage and held a tall board with six elements. No. 2 was a promise to “preach a minimum of one election sermon prior to every election.” No. 4 was an oath to teach that “voting in every election for the most godly candidates is a sacred duty incumbent upon every person professing faith [in] Jesus Christ.”

Parts of the “Gideon Pledge” appear at odds with the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution dictating a “separation of church and state.” Beyond that, churches are designated nonprofit groups that are exempt from taxes and are prohibited from engaging in political activity under that exemption.

Stephanie Robbins spent 10 years with the Internal Revenue Service, the agency responsible for collecting federal taxes, and is now with Harmon Curran, a nationally recognized law firm specializing in tax exemption and election activity.

Crossing the line on the pulpits

When VOA shared the Gideon Pledge with Robbins, she said it is going to “cross the line at some point” and explained why the law is in place. “It’s speech that the government has chosen not to subsidize,” said Robbins, since nonprofits already receive special benefits within the tax code. “That’s why it’s important that they don’t talk about it from the pulpit.”

Flynn told VOA he doesn’t interpret the First Amendment that way. “It means freedom of religion, not Christianity or Judaism, it’s freedom of conscience, to have freedom to believe what you want to believe,” he said.

Pastors argue they do not promote specific candidates. But by directing their congregations to vote for the Christian candidate, Robbins says, in some cases, that can identify one candidate.

Cook said, “The notion of separation as it is portrayed today” would have been actively fought by the nation’s founders because “the members of Congress understood that the church had really founded America, and the pastors were the founding fathers, and they would have started another revolution.”

When asked about the exclusion of other religions, Flynn said, “there’s all kinds of faiths out here” but he pointed out that Christianity is the “largest faith in the country.”

Surveys put Christians at about 64% of the U.S. population, but a Pew Research study shows that if current declines continue, Christians could fall below 50% in the next 50 years.

Another Pew study shows 45% of those surveyed think America should be a Christian nation.

But 77% do not think churches should endorse political candidates.

Meantime, a FiveThirtyEight survey shows 58% think the government should enforce the separation of church and state.

Christians against Christians

Within the offices of the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty, two women sat at a round table, with headphones on, microphones facing them and laptops open. “Welcome to Respecting Religion,” announced Executive Director Amanda Tyler as she began the weekly podcast with General Counsel Holly Hollman. Tyler called Christian nationalism “a virulent and potentially dangerous ideology … regardless of our religious identity,” and pointed to a Flynn quote of “one nation under God, one religion under God” as proof of him calling for a theocracy of one religion that’s enforced by the government. Tyler translated that to mean to “really belong in America, you have to be Christian, you have to be white, you have to espouse certain political views that can lead to danger for certain people because it creates second class citizens.”

Tyler and Hollman created the group “Christians Against Christian Nationalism” because of what they see as ReAwaken America rhetoric motivating people to political violence. The women have organized counter rallies in ReAwaken America tour cities.

A few days prior, a panel discussion at Georgetown University addressed “How White Christian Nationalism Threatens our Democracy.”

The Rev. Michael Curry, the top bishop in the Episcopal Church, told VOA, “In over 40 years as a pastor, as an ordained [pastor], I have never told folk how to vote because that’s not my job.”

So you aren’t tagged as QAnon

The ReAwaken America tour has also been criticized for being a magnet for extreme right-wing groups. When VOA was emailed tickets to attend the Pennsylvania event as media, the tickets said they were for the “Fresh Roasted Coffee Fest & Expo.” When asked about that, a tour official explained “that’s just so computer watchers don’t think you are QAnon.”

QAnon is a loosely organized right-wing political conspiracy group. A podcast popular with QAnon followers gave away tickets to the ReAwaken America event in Pennsylvania.
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The founding of the United States dictates a separation between church and state. But some politicians and other leaders are promoting the idea of connecting them — giving Americans a country run with morals based on Christianity. VOA’s senior Washington correspondent Carolyn Presutti brings us the contentious debate.
Camera: Saqib Ul Islam and Mary Cieslak Video editor: Mary Cieslak
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Despite the record influx of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border and a shortage of workers in the United States, experts believe immigration policy will remain unchanged after the midterm elections. Some experts say that if Republicans take control of Congress, President Joe Biden likely will turn to the administrative process to accomplish any immigration changes.  

Republicans have a “very clear” position on immigration, Neeraj Kaushal, a social policy professor at Columbia University, told VOA. “They want to restrict immigration,” said Kaushal, who is also an expert and researcher on immigration policy.  

Democrats, on the other hand, are less focused when it comes to immigration policy, she said. 

“They have the support of many liberals who are for immigration, who want to treat immigrants at the border in a humanitarian manner … who want to strengthen the asylum system,” she said, but Democrats are “afraid that Republicans will use any policy that they have to show to the public that they are creating open borders.”  

Biden came into office committed to passing immigration reform. On his first day in office, he unveiled the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, sweeping immigration bill that included an eight-year path to citizenship for the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S., a plan to clear employment-based visa backlogs, and a program to prevent dependents of employment-based visa holders from “aging out” of the system, among other changes. 

But the legislation stalled in Congress and is largely viewed as dead. 

Tevi Troy, a senior fellow of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s presidential leadership initiative, a Washington think tank that promotes bipartisanship solutions in immigration and other areas, said during an event Monday that if the makeup of Congress changes, it is likely Biden will turn to such options as executive orders for any immigration policy changes. 

The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, also known as DACA, is an example of an administrative action. It was created under the Obama administration to temporarily protect from deportation hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children and has benefitted more than 800,000 people. Biden revised it in an effort to help it survive legal challenges. Yet it remains on shaky ground as Republican-led states continue to fight in federal courts to end the program. 

During Monday’s online discussion, Troy explained to the audience that in some ways the Senate is more influential in shaping a president’s agenda than the House, mostly because of its constitutional authority to approve or reject Cabinet appointees.  

Immigration system ‘broken’ 

Theresa Cardinal Brown, a former Homeland Security Department immigration official under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, told VOA the current U.S. immigration system is “broken in every possible way.”  

“And that is because we haven’t really adjusted our immigration policy in so long,” she said.  

Brown, who is also the managing director of the Bipartisan Policy Center, said the system is not fundamentally meeting current needs of the country. No matter who occupies the White House, there is a continuity of neglect when it comes to immigration policy, she said.  

“It doesn’t really matter what part of the immigration system you look at. …  [The United States Citizenship and Immigration Services] has a record backlog of applications. In the previous two years, they didn’t issue all of the green cards they could under the law because they couldn’t get to them. … The State Department is finally crawling out of a hole that it got into during COVID with a backlog of applications for visas overseas, but it’s still in many places really hard to get an appointment,” Brown said.  

The asylum system and immigration courts also are backlogged, and those backlogs are growing.  

According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), immigration courts closed fiscal 2022 with a backlog of 1.9 million cases of asylum and other immigration applications. The wait time for a hearing on an immigrant’s asylum claim is about five years.

As for refugees, the Biden administration in October set an annual refugee cap of 125,000, but immigration advocates have told VOA the program still needs resources and rebuilding to meet that goal. They had hoped the president would increase the ceiling for refugees further to match the higher worldwide demand after falling short of an ambitious target for fiscal 2022. 

The three analysts said that no one is willing to form a framework to write immigration legislation because they do not see an electoral advantage.  

“Immigration is important to fix,” Brown said, “because what we’re seeing right now is what happens when we don’t fix it. It’s chaos everywhere.” 

At the southern border, immigration analysts say, people will continue to arrive despite deterrence policies kept in place from the previous administration, such as Title 42, a health code order implemented at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic that essentially blocks migrants from asking for asylum.  

In fiscal 2022, U.S. immigration officials reported 2.2 million migrant encounters, a number that includes unique and repeated entries.  

Out of those encounters, about 1,054,084 migrants were expelled under Title 42. Others were either arrested, quickly removed from the country through the expedited removal process, or they were allowed to try to establish a legal basis to remain in the U.S. by fighting for asylum approval in immigration courts. 

“Everybody wants to make this a partisan issue. Republicans are bad on immigration. Democrats are good on immigration. … There’s been a lot of all-or-nothing politics. And when you play all-or-nothing politics, you get nothing, and I, for one, would rather see something than nothing, because look at what nothing is getting us,” Brown said.  
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