America Election

The California Secretary of State, Alex Padilla has announced that his office his investigating the recent unofficial ballot boxes that have bee put in different counties in the state by GOP members of the state. In an official released statement, Padilla said "Operating unofficial ballot drop boxes – especially those misrepresented as official drop boxes – is not just misleading to voters, it’s a violation of state law".

The new unofficial ballot boxes have been slightly designed to look like the state ballot boxes and were first reported seen on Saturday at the Freedom’s Way Baptist Church in Castaic. The church then posted a message on its social media that the box was placed there and also approved by the GOP, and the church has no access key to the boxes, and it is only the GOP officials come around to pick the ballot.

The Fresno country has now released official ballot drop boxes location in the county, and has warned that it's not affiliated with the unofficial ballot boxes and that the use of unauthorized ballot boxes is prohibited by state law.

The GOP has now gone on defense about the ballot boxes in the county, stating that a 2016 law that allows California voters to designate a person to collect and return their ballot for them makes provision for the ballot boxes, and it is called "Ballot harvesting"

The county has now warned voters not to use the box but instead to use the Orange County official drop box sites are at ocvote.com or use the Secretary of State or your local registrar’s websites. 

The issue has also been reported to the FBI and the State Attorney General.

Florida is looking to return voting rights to ex-felons who had served the time for their crime, and back to the community. This means that 1.7 million Floridians might be getting the good news of voting for their preferred candidate after serving time, and back to their communities.

Florida is one of the state that was won by Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential elections. He won the state by 120,000 votes, and it was one of his biggest wins in the election. In one case of voter suppression in the US, the law in Florida banned ex-convict from voting in the state for life.

Two grassroots activist groups,  Floridians for a Fair Democracy and Florida Rights Restoration Coalition are now asking the law to be removed from the state. The group has now started a petition to be able to  create a ballot initiative in November 2018 that will help restore voting rights for the ex-felon.

According to Jen Tolentino of Rock the Vote, who has been one of the supporters of the new initiative, Jen said;

These individuals have all done their time, they’ve paid their debt, and it’s the right thing to do. Once somebody has served their time, they should have the ability to actually be reintroduced to our community and participate in a meaningful way.

Also, Desmond Meade, who is leading the statewide campaign to re-enfranchise ex-felons said;

If you have a car note or a mortgage payment, once you pay that last payment, you don’t expect to keep getting a bill in the mail. These folks paid their debt years and years ago, yet they’re still being made to pay on the debt that they’ve already paid in full

In the last election cycle, Desmond Meade wife ran for office, but he could not vote for her, because in 2004, Meade was released from prison. After his release, he faces homelessness, suicidal impulses, drug addiction, but at a point, he decided to go back to school, and from there, he studied law, in the hope of helping the public.

He has since tried to fight the system, and ask for clemency by appealing to the governor, but he was denied. Even though he had done his time, and back to the community, the community does not look like it is welcoming Meade.

According to historians, the felon disenfranchisement laws were drafted to suppress black voters who had just won the right to vote in political elections.The original law of the disenfranchisement laws was supposed to cover some felonies that are likely to be committed by blacks, while it excludes felonies that are likely to be committed by whites.

Though the states have argued that the law was only in place to let people not commit crime, since they might think of losing their voting rights, but experts have claimed that this has not helped in reducing crime.

At the progress of this initiative, activists are positives not only about getting the initiative on the ballot, but winning the right to vote in November.

President-elect, Donald Trump has picked former labour secretary and wife of Senate Majority Leader, Mitch McConnell, Elaine Chao, as transportation secretary. The new pick official announcement is expected to be announced later in the afternoon.

Elaine Chao served as the deputy secretary of transportation under President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to 1991.

Under the new administration, Chao is expected to help Trump get the infrastructure spending bill passed through Congress and start government-backed works projects, a role which might be complicated because of her relationship with the senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, who will also be a critical player in the infrastructure bill negotiations.

Donald Trump once again is shooting himself in the leg with his recent twitter tirade. The President-elect who won the electoral college vote, but lost the popular vote claimed on Twitter he would have won the popular vote if illegal votes were not counted.

While there is no evidence of illegal votes or voters,but Trump went on Twitter tirade, writing;

In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegallyIn addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegallyIn addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegallyIn addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.

The tallies of the vote show Hillary Clinton won the popular votes with more than 2million votes, but Trump won the electoral college votes, making him the President-elect. Trump wrote;

It would have been much easier for me to win the so-called popular vote than the Electoral College in that I would only campaign in 3 or 4 states instead of the 15 states that I visited.

I would have won even more easily and convincingly (but smaller states are forgotten).

Trump went into a Twitter tantrum after the Green party candidate, Jill Stein file for a recount in the Wisconsin vote, and also said she would filed for recounts in Michigan and Pennsylvania as well after people pointed to anomalies in the voting data in the swing states.

There is trouble in paradise for the Clintons, days after Hillary Clinton lost the election to Business mogul, Donald Trump. According to Bill Clinton’s closest advisers who was with him in Bill's Little Rock penthouse, there was a shouting match between who was to blame for Hillary losing the election to Trump.

The story was revealed by bestselling author Ed Klein, who wrote the recent tension for MailOnline.

According to the adviser, Hillary had blamed the election misfortune on FBI director, James Comey,after the director opened up on her private use of the Email server, something he claimed the agency found on Huma Abedin ex-husband, Anthony Weiner.

Bill Clinton rejected the claims and instead said Hillary campaign had turn deaf ears to the impact the weak economy is having on the working class voters. 

According to Klein;

Bill always campaigned as a guy who felt your pain, but Hillary came across as someone who was pissed off at her enemy [Trump], not someone who was reaching out and trying to make life better for the white working class.

As shouting match between the couple goes on, it was reported Bill Clinton was red and getting redder is aides are thinking he might have a heart attack. He was so angry he threw his phone off the roof of his penthouse.

Bill Clinton felt he was ignored by Hillary Clinton top advisers when he advised that they use the economy as a centrepiece for her campaign. He urged them to connect with people that have lost their jobs because of globalization and revolutions in technology.

According to the source;

Bill also said that many African Americans were deeply disappointed with the results of eight years of Obama.

Despite more and more government assistance, black weren't economically any better off, and black-on-black crime was destroying their communities. He said Hillary should have gone into the South Side of Chicago and condemned the out-of-control violence.

Watch Hillary Clinton Concession speech.