Antrenorul principal de fotbal al lui Rutgers, Greg Schiano, a cerut un timeout sâmbătă, cu câteva secunde înaintea unei încercări de 58 de metri de la poarta de teren a lui Ethan Moczulski din Illinois. Rutgers a condus cu 31-30 și este un scor care s-ar fi păstrat după ce lovitura lui Moczulski a navigat la stânga – dacă nu ar fi fost timeout-ul lui Schiano.
Timeout a anulat jocul, iar antrenorul principal din Illinois, Bret Bielema, a putut vedea cum vântul a afectat lovitura de pe margine. Bielema și-a pus ofensiva înapoi pe teren în loc să încerce din nou lovitura, iar echipa sa a marcat touchdown-ul câștigător la o captura de 40 de metri a lui Pat Bryant. Illinois a câștigat cu 38-31.
Schiano a trebuit să răspundă pentru timeout după ce a fost acuzat de fani pentru una dintre cele mai șocante și mai evitabile pierderi din sezonul de fotbal universitar.
„Retrospectiv, mi-aș fi dorit să nu fi făcut”, le-a spus Schiano reporterilor cu privire la decizia de a stabili timeout.
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Antrenorul principal al Rutgers Scarlet Knights, Greg Schiano, reacționează în prima repriză împotriva lui Illinois Fighting Illini pe stadionul SHI.(Vincent Carchietta)
Cu toate acestea, Schiano a oferit o apărare a deciziei.
„Dar știi, nu am de gând să stau aici și să spun că mi-aș dori să nu fi făcut pentru că nu a funcționat. Dacă ar funcționa, aș sta aici și aș spune: „Da, mă bucur că am făcut-o. .' Am mai spus că a fost o chemare bună pentru că m-am ridicat aici și am spus că nu a funcționat așa le faci tu”, a spus Schiano.
NU. 1 RECRUT DE FOTBAL LA COLEGIE ÎNFLĂȘTE ANGAJAMENTUL DE LA LSU LA MICHIGAN ÎN MUȘCARE ȘOCANTĂ
La acea vreme, Rutgers se pregătea pentru o potențială lovitură de la un jucător al cărui gol de teren de-a lungul carierei era de 59 de metri, o yard mai lung decât ar fi avut nevoie pentru a-l învinge pe Rutgers cu piciorul.
Cu toate acestea, vânturile erau atât de puternice încât steagurile din apropiere au suflat cu ferocitate, iar lovitura ar fi fost în vânt.
Antrenorul în vârstă de 58 de ani a explicat, de asemenea, cum și de ce echipa a luat decizia de a solicita un timeout înainte de lovitura.
“Oricum aveam să facem un timeout. Poate că ar fi trebuit să o fac înainte ca el să lovească mingea”, a spus Schiano. „Deci, nu ar fi spus: „Oh, la naiba, vântul ăsta e puternic. Nu putem da acea lovitură”. Dar trebuia să ne asigurăm că știm ce facem. Am spus: „Hei, avem un timeout”, nu mai există timpi media pentru a apela un timeout.”
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Cu ofensiva din Illinois pe teren pentru următoarea piesă, apărarea lui Schiano a lovit, lăsând mai puțini jucători în acoperire pentru o potențială pasă pe teren. Pasa către Bryant a fost pe o rută de trecere și nu a fost în zona finală, dar a depășit fundașii Rutgers pentru scor.
Schiano a reiterat intenția sa a fost de a câștiga jocul.
Antrenorul principal al Rutgers Scarlet Knights, Greg Schiano, în timpul primei reprize împotriva lui Illinois Fighting Illini la SHI Stadium.( Vincent Carchietta)
„Fă-o și câștigi jocul, este o chemare corectă”, a spus Schiano.
“Nu mă apăr și nici nu mă bat pe spate când sunt decizii bune. Asta e treaba ta este să iei decizii. Ești un decident. Simt, așa cum am spus, cel mai mare lucru este Mă doare pentru acești băieți. A fost ultimul lor meci pe stadion și nu au putut să plece cu un W. Au realizat multe, dar mi-am dorit asta pentru ei, dar nu obținem întotdeauna ceea ce ne dorim în viață”.
Rutgers a căzut la 6-5 și a câștigat deja o apariție la jocul de bowl. Illinois s-a îmbunătățit la 8-3, păstrându-și locul în clasamentul național.
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Jackson Thompson este un scriitor sportiv pentru Fox News Digital. El a lucrat anterior pentru ESPN și Business Insider. Jackson a acoperit Super Bowl și finala NBA și a intervievat figuri emblematice Usain Bolt, Rob Gronkowski, Jerry Rice, Troy Aikman, Mike Trout, David Ortiz și Roger Clemens.
Last week, while appearing on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast, the president-elect’s son asked incoming “border czar” Tom Homan what border and immigration-related action the public can expect to see on Day 1 of the new Trump administration.
“Shock and awe,” Homan responded. “Shock and awe,” he repeated with a smile.
Homan, who served as the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement during the first Trump administration, has suggested he’s been waiting more than two years for this moment.
MORE: Trump says former ICE Director Tom Homan will be ‘border czar’
At a public event last year, he recounted how, over dinner in Las Vegas in the middle of 2022 — several months before former President Donald Trump announced his reelection bid — Trump confided in Homan that he was going to run for the White House again and asked if he could count on Homan to return with him.
As Homan recalled, he told Trump, “I’ll tell you what, sir, I’m so pissed off I’ll come back for free.”
In the two years since then, Homan has used media appearances, public forums and even a nonprofit charity he launched to make his case for a return to Trump’s aggressive approach to border security and immigration enforcement, often wielding personal stories, government statistics and merciless rhetoric to warn that violent criminals, potential terrorists and other major threats are streaming across the border.
According to Homan, current immigration policies are “national suicide,” President Joe Biden is “treasonous,” and “something is coming.” Homan’s critics have called his views “cruel” and “cold.”
PHOTO: Migrants run to hide from the Border Patrol and the Texas National Guard after crossing into the United States from Mexico, in El Paso, Texas, May 8, 2023. (Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters, FILE)
As Homan sees it, he’s simply passionate about border security because of everything he’s experienced in his nearly four decades as a Border Patrol agent and top-level ICE official.
“I’m excited. We’re already working on these plans,” he said on Trump Jr.’s podcast last week.
But what has Homan said the new Trump administration’s border efforts and immigration policy will actually entail?
Here’s a comprehensive look at what Homan’s public statements have indicated about his possible plans, and why — despite his detractors — he insists it’s the right approach.
‘The biggest deportation’
Though numbers started to slow this past year, under the Biden administration, key border-related numbers surged to record levels, with nearly 9 million migrant encounters along the southwest border since Biden took office, more than 2 million more border-crossers reportedly detected but never captured, and more than 300 migrants stopped at the border with names matching known or suspected terrorists on a government watchlist.
While Homan has promised to execute “the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen,” he has also acknowledged the breadth of that operation largely depends on how much money Congress provides for it.
With Republicans about to control both the House and Senate, the new Trump administration could have significant flexibility to conduct its operation. But “it all depends on the resources we’re given,” especially because a bigger operation needs more officers and more detention beds for those being deported, Homan has said.
“Congress is going to have to give a massive amount of detention beds,” he said.
ICE’s current funding allows for less than 50,000 beds — and though ICE has long relied on privately-run detention facilities to help house migrants, that multimillion-dollar business could grow under Trump’s expected enforcement expansion.
Homan has said ICE may have to detain some migrants for as long as several weeks.
“What people don’t understand is we can’t just put [them on] a plane,” he said. “There’s a process we have to go through. You have to contact the country, they have to agree to accept them, then they got to send you travel documents. And that takes several days to several weeks. So we need detention assets.”
MORE: How Democrats are planning to fight Trump’s mass deportation plan
To boost ICE’s ranks, Homan has suggested the administration could move officers from other agencies to assist. And in recent days, Trump has indicated he will seek help from the U.S. military by declaring a national emergency, though Trump did not offer any details. In the past, members of the National Guard have been deployed to the border to help with surveillance or administrative tasks — not to make arrests.
“The bottom line is: Can Tom Homan remove 10 million people in a year? No. I’m not going to lie to you,” Homan said on a podcast last year. “But we’re going to be out there looking for them [and] when we find them, remove them.”
Homan has promised a “targeted” approach, at first prioritizing known or suspected national security threats, migrants with criminal histories who are already detained by local law enforcement, and “fugitives” who were already ordered removed by a federal judge.
Appearing on Fox News on Monday, Homan said he’s traveling to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate later this week “to put the final touches on the plan.”
Homan has previously vowed whatever they ultimately do will be “humane.”
“We can do this right … because we can’t lose the faith of the American people,” he said.
Homan has also said that the Trump administration must finish building the wall along the southwest border and must pressure so-called “sanctuary cities” to help flag criminal migrants in their custody.
Child separation ‘needs to be considered’
Homan has strongly disputed claims that he created the highly controversial policy that separated thousands of children from their parents during the first Trump administration, when he was acting ICE director.
However, he has publicly expressed support for it, telling CBS News in the run-up to the election that child separation “needs to be considered, absolutely.”
In April 2018, when the first Trump administration was still developing its “zero tolerance” approach to illegal immigration, Homan and two counterparts in other agencies signed a memo recommending that, among other potential measures, the Trump administration should seriously consider prosecuting “all amenable adults” crossing the border illegally, including parents crossing with their families.
“[It] would likely have the most effective impact,” the memo said.
The next month, when then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions held a press conference in San Diego to publicly declare that parents who unlawfully brought their children across the border would be prosecuted and separated from their children, Homan told reporters that his department “stands shoulder to shoulder” with Sessions.
However, at the same press conference, Homan disputed that the Trump administration had “created new policy.”
“This has always been the policy,” he said. “Every law enforcement agency in this country separates parents from their children when they’re arrested for a crime. … That child can’t go into a U.S. [jail].”
PHOTO: Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting director Thomas Homan poses for a portrait in East Point, Ga., April 26, 2018. (John Bazemore/AP, FILE)
“The policy remains the same, there’s just going to be more of what we’ve been doing,” he said.
A subsequent report from the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that Sessions “was a driving force in the DHS decision to begin referring family unit adults for prosecution,” and that what he pushed created a change in “DHS practice” dating back to at least 1992.
Over just two months in 2018, more than 3,000 children were separated from their families, “and issues regarding reuniting children with a parent remain,” said the report, issued in January 2021, nearly three years after the “zero tolerance” policy was implemented.
The policy sparked an international uproar, with some of its most ardent critics saying it amounted to “torture carried out in the name of the American people.” Media reports captured the trauma suffered by children who were taken from their parents. Under such pressure, then-President Trump ultimately reversed the policy.
In his 2020 memoir, Homan wrote that despite “the screaming” over the Trump administration’s approach, “during the few weeks the zero-tolerance policy was actually enforced, illegal crossings at the Rio Grande Valley went down over 20 percent.”
“How many women were saved from exploitation? How many kids were not abused or killed by coyotes? How many bad guys did we prevent from entering our communities? We’ll never know the exact number, but we made a difference,” Homan wrote.
Pressed by CBS News last month about whether family separations will happen under Trump’s next administration, Homan said one way to avoid them is to deport children and their parents — “Families can be deported together,” he said.
End ‘catch and release’
By the time Trump took office in 2017, the government’s limited capacity to detain migrants made it common practice for U.S. authorities to release nonviolent border-crossers claiming asylum into the United States while they waited for their cases to be heard by a judge — a practice that has become known as “catch and release.”
But a backlog of cases, driven by a shortage of immigration court judges, has meant that after being released, asylum cases can take years to resolve, with no guarantee that migrants will actually show up in court or leave voluntarily if they lose their cases.
While the first Trump administration took steps to limit “catch and release,” the practice has expanded under the Biden administration as it’s faced an unprecedented influx of migrants.
“End catch and release, that needs to happen Day One,” Homan said last week of Trump’s second term. “Because if you end ‘catch and release,’ they’ll stop coming.”
MORE: Trump confirms plan to declare national emergency, use military for mass deportations
To illustrate how migrants are exploiting the practice, Homan has often pointed to government data showing that, as he puts it, “nearly nine out of ten never get relief from the U.S. courts because they don’t qualify” for asylum. He has said those nine out of 10 asylum-seekers are “committing fraud.”
But the statistics are complicated: Instead of showing that nine out of 10 asylum claims in court are denied, they show that a significant portion of asylum claims are never formally filed with an application, are abandoned, or are derailed in court for other unclear reasons. Under the Biden administration, more asylum claims have actually been granted in court than explicitly denied.
Nevertheless, Homan has long said that anyone with a legitimate claim of asylum shouldn’t try to enter the country through a desert or across a river — they should go to an official port of entry.
“If you have a clear claim to asylum, go to the port of entry where you’re safe,” he said at the May 2018 press conference in San Diego. “This isn’t just about law enforcement, this is about saving lives.”
According to Homan, part of ending “catch and release” is reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” program launched under the first Trump administration, which blocked asylum seekers on the southwest border from entering the United States while their asylum cases were pending.
On Trump Jr.’s podcast last week, Homan said he believes that pushed migrants to stop coming, “and so the ‘Remain in Mexico’ program has to be put back in place.”
End birthright citizenship and ‘chain migration’
In a campaign video last year, Trump said that “on Day 1 of my new term in office,” he will end the court-backed tradition of birthright citizenship, which for centuries has automatically bestowed U.S. citizenship to anyone born inside the United States, regardless of their parents’ status.
Trump suggested the practice stems from “a historical myth and a willful misinterpretation” of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states that, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States.”
“As part of my plan to secure the border,” Trump said in the campaign video, “I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship.”
“My policy will choke off a major incentive for continued illegal immigration,” he added.
MORE: Trump wants a mass deportation program. How much could it cost?
Homan has echoed that sentiment, saying on a podcast last year, “One thing that we’re going to have this president do … [is] end birthright citizenship.”
Both Homan and Trump have said ending birthright citizenship will also put an end to so-called “birth tourism,” when pregnant women from overseas travel to the United States so they can give birth on U.S. soil and ensure their new child is granted U.S. citizenship.
In his campaign video, Trump said his Day 1 executive order will end that “unfair practice” and, according to him, its abuse by parents who then “jump the line and get green cards for themselves and their family members” — part of a practice known as “chain migration.”
In his 2020 book, entitled “Defend the Border and Save Lives,” Homan said “chain migration” leads to an “uncontrollable increase in legal immigration.” But he supported “chain migration” for spouses and children, writing, “The family household is the building block of our society, and we must support policies that keep this unit intact.”
In last year’s campaign video, Trump said his executive order will stipulate that at least one parent of a U.S. citizen child will have to be a citizen or legal permanent resident themselves in order for the rest of the family to qualify for immigration benefits.
‘Worksite operations have to happen’
Part of Homan’s approach is to discourage employers from hiring undocumented immigrants in the first place.
During a recent appearance on Fox News, he said “worksite operations have to happen,” particularly because — according to him — so many undocumented immigrants found at targeted worksites were either sex-trafficked or forced into labor.
But he has also said that employers should be legally required to use E-Verify, an online U.S. government system that enables employers to confirm the employment eligibility of their employees.
All federal contractors and vendors are required to use it, and several states require every employer within the state to use it — but across the country E-Verify is still a largely voluntary program.
MORE: In Trump’s mass deportation plan, the private prison industry sees a lucrative opportunity
As Homan describes it, broader usage of the system would help diminish a significant driver of illegal migration by making it harder for undocumented immigrants to find work. “We got to establish E-Verify so they can’t get a job as easy,” he said on a podcast last year.
Homan has recognized that critical parts of the U.S. economy like farming, construction and meatpacking often rely on undocumented workers — “but that’s a stupid reason not to enforce our laws,” he wrote in his 2020 book.
Nevertheless, Homan has said that the U.S. government — while still enforcing immigration laws — should also expand current programs or establish new ones that would allow more immigrants to work inside the country temporarily
“If there are jobs up here that we need these people for, then create a program, and bring them in legally,” he told WWNY-TV in Watertown, New York, last week. “That way they’re not paying the criminal cartels, they’re not swimming across the river. … I much prefer that than people entering illegally, because it’s a dangerous thing to do.”
Border security ‘with the stroke of a pen’
As Homan makes plans to get to work on Day 1 of a new Trump administration, several sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News that executive orders will be a substantial part of the approach.
“If you want to secure the border, do it with the stroke of a pen, just like President Trump did,” Homan said on a podcast earlier this year, referring to executive actions taken in Trump’s first term.
At least some of the measures Homan has advocated could be advanced through executive orders.
MORE: Tracking Trump’s picks to serve in his Cabinet, administration
On a podcast in February, Homan said he’s also “going to push” for either an executive order or new legislation that “clearly” bans someone who disobeys a judge’s deportation order from ever receiving any form of future legal immigration status.
“If after due process you’ve been ordered removed by a federal judge, and you don’t leave, you will never qualify for another immigration benefit the rest of your life,” Homan said — adding that the proposal could even ban them from getting a tourist visa.
“If that was actually in effect, a lot of people would leave on their own because many of them have U.S. citizen children,” and they don’t want to rule out being able to return to the United States someday, the former ICE official said.
“Big things are coming in the weeks ahead,” Homan wrote on X this past week.
‘Shock and awe’: What Trump ‘border czar’ Tom Homan has said he plans to do starting on Day 1 originally appeared on abcnews.go.com
ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.
Reporters at ProPublica live and work in 26 states across the country, from California to Minnesota, Texas to New York. Many have covered key election issues and how they are resonating at national, state and local levels. On Election Day, our reporters will be on the ground in many of these locations, on the lookout for what’s going right and what isn’t. The topics we’re watching include how extremist groups react to the election, the actions of newly recruited poll workers who were mobilized on the basis of their distrust of election administration, and how well embattled election boards and commissions handle potential challenges to voting processes.
Some are paying attention to the defining cultural debates of today. In Missouri, a reliably red state, we’ll be watching whether a voter-initiated constitutional amendment aimed at restoring abortion rights passes. We’re also looking at whether voters in states opt to expand school voucher programs or elect legislators who will do so.
You can reach our whole team at propublica.org/tips if you have a tip for us to investigate. You can also text or call 917-512-0201, or send us a message at that number on Signal, a secure messaging app. Below you’ll find a list of some of our reporters, what they’re covering and individual contact information.
Voting Issues
Andy Kroll, reporter, will be watching for disruptions and disputes at the polls and among political organizations.
I have extensive experience covering dark money in politics, legal battles over voting and election-related disinformation. On Election Day, I’ll be watching swing states for any disruptions or attempts to suppress the vote. I’ll also be monitoring last-minute lawsuits related to the election and viral rumors or misleading information about voting and the integrity of the elections. If you believe you witnessed possible voter suppression, attempts to knowingly mislead voters or other efforts to subvert the election, please get in touch.
Email: [email protected]; call or text: 202-215-6203
The Role of Extremist Groups
Joshua Kaplan, A.C. Thompson and James Bandler, reporters, will be looking at how extremist groups are reacting to election results.
We are reporting on extremism tied to the election. For years, we’ve covered violence and intimidation in American politics — we’ve explored how social media companies helped extremists organize, dug into botched responses by law enforcement, and exposed the people and groups committing harm. Do you know a voter or election official who has been threatened? Do you have information about efforts to incite violence? Are you seeing this kind of conduct on specific social media or messaging platforms? Please contact us.
Jeremy Schwartz, reporter for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, will be monitoring state races to see if school voucher supporters are elected.
Following primary runoff elections in May, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared he finally would have enough votes in the Legislature to pass his top priority: a private-school voucher system. But Democrats in the state are holding out hope they can flip a handful of Republican-held seats on Tuesday and keep Abbott from his goal. I have been covering the voucher debate in Texas for the past two years, reporting on the decadeslong effort to build political support behind the scenes and efforts by pro-voucher billionaires to influence school board races and bond elections. On Election Day, I’ll be looking at how issues of vouchers and public education play out up and down the ballot in Texas, from school board races to key Texas legislative battles.
What We’re Watching
During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely.
Robert Faturechi
I am continuing to report on Trump’s business interests, including Trump Media. I’m also reporting on the Trump administration’s trade policies, including tariffs.
Contact me if you work for Trump Media, the Commerce Department or the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, or if you know anything about lobbying efforts to win tariff exemptions.
Melissa Sanchez
I report on immigration and labor in the Midwest.
I’d like to talk to people who have information about Trump’s deportation plans — who might be harmed, who might benefit, and what industries and parts of the country might be left untouched.
Mark Olalde
I’m watching how Trump delivers on his promise to dismantle environmental laws, rules and regulations, with an eye toward at the Department of the Interior and its agencies.
My focus is natural resources, climate change and public health, especially in the West.
Eli Hager
I cover poverty issues, including housing, labor protections, child welfare and safety net programs.
I plan to watch how the incoming administration handles federal poverty policy, as well as state and local social services agencies and private companies that profit off of the poor.
We’re trying something new. Was it helpful?
Email: [email protected]; call or text: 708-967-5730
Texas Voter Roll Removals
Vianna Davilaand Lexi Churchill, reporters for ProPublica and The Texas Tribune, will be watching to see whether people who were removed from the voter rolls because they were incorrectly flagged as noncitizens show up to vote.
In late August, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced that 1.1 million voters across the state were removed from the rolls since 2021, including 6,500 potential noncitizens. Our reporting has found that the claims of noncitizens on the voter rolls are likely inflated and, in some cases, wrong. So far, we have found at least 10 U.S. citizens in three Texas counties who were likely included in that total, and our research shows there are almost certainly others. The voters we have pinned down come from a range of political and racial backgrounds, including a lifelong Republican and Donald Trump supporter who never thought her citizenship or right to vote would be in question. We want to hear from voters who discover their registration has been canceled and face hurdles to vote at the polls, as well as county officials who witness these issues. Even if your registration has been canceled, voting rights experts say you should almost always be able to cast a ballot, even if it’s a provisional one. Check out our guide on the steps U.S. citizens can take to vote if you’ve been removed after your citizenship was questioned.
Email: [email protected], [email protected]; text or Signal: 512-596-0148, 816-898-5462
Georgia’s New Election Rules
Doug Bock Clark, reporter, will be looking at how new election rules approved in Georgia affect voting and tabulating results.
For months, national right-wing groups have been working behind the scenes to change Georgia’s election rules to benefit Trump. And although courts have blocked those rule changes for the moment, those groups are still active. They have been recruiting and training poll watchers and preparing to push for a Trump victory. On Election Day, I’ll be on the ground in Atlanta, Georgia, to monitor some of the most electorally important counties in the swing state and the nation. I’m interested in hearing from readers who encounter unusual poll watcher activity. I have also reported extensively on challenges to voter registrations, and I’m looking to hear from anyone who finds themselves dealing with such a challenge. Fulton County, Georgia, was the epicenter of numerous conspiracy theories about election malfeasance in 2020, and I’ll be closely examining any such claims this time. And as ProPublica’s democracy reporter for the South, I’ll also be keeping an eye on other states, such as North Carolina.
Email: [email protected]; text or Signal: 678-243-0784
The Outcome in Minnesota
Jessica Lussenhop, reporter, will be monitoring results from Minnesota, Tim Walz’s home state.
I’m a native Minnesotan who has been reporting on how Tim Walz, our governor and the Democratic vice presidential candidate, has handled crucial matters in the state, including health care and police reform. If Kamala Harris wins the election and takes Walz to the White House with her, that will cause a huge political shake-up here, so I’ll be paying close attention to that. In the near term, though, I’ll have my attention focused on Michigan and any fallout in such an important swing state during and following the election.
Email: [email protected]; Signal: 612-460-1202
Poll Workers
Phoebe Petrovic, a Local Reporting Network partner at Wisconsin Watch, will be watching the conduct of poll workers recruited by Christian nationalist groups.
I’ve been reporting about Christian nationalist efforts to recruit poll workers and undermine certification ahead of the election. And on Election Day I’ll be looking to see if those efforts will be successful. Specifically, I’ll be watching for misinformation or misconduct from both poll workers and poll watchers, especially in Wisconsin. I’ll also be looking for activity from extremist groups and conspiracy theorists online and on the ground, as well as their influence on the certification of results and lawsuits in the days after. Together, all these reflect attempts to erode the public’s trust in elections. I’m eager to hear from voters who got turned away due to misinformation from poll workers, elections officials facing threats or anyone with knowledge of attempts to block certification.
Email: [email protected]; call, text or Signal: 608-571-3748
Missouri’s Abortion Rights Amendment
Jeremy Kohler, reporter, will be reporting on the fate of a constitutional amendment in Missouri to restore abortion rights.
Although Missouri is a reliably red state where the outcome of the presidential election isn’t in doubt, it is at the center of a pivotal election issue: a voter-initiated constitutional amendment aimed at restoring abortion rights. This initiative follows years of the state legislature tightening abortion restrictions, culminating in the trigger ban that nearly eliminated access to the procedure upon the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Missouri is among 10 states with an amendment to restore access to abortion on the ballot. In my earlier reporting, I showed how anti-abortion activists have employed disinformation tactics, attempting to sway public opinion against abortion rights by linking the amendment to unrelated issues like gender-affirming care for transgender people. While polling showed the amendment leading by a wide margin, I’ll be watching to see whether late campaign efforts sway public opinion and how abortion foes try to regroup to repeal the amendment if it passes. And I’ll be watching developments in other states where abortion is on the ballot.
Email: [email protected]; call, text or Signal: 314-486-7204
Nevada’s New Voter System
Anjeanette Damon, reporter, will be watching how Nevada’s new centralized voter registration system holds up.
Eight weeks before the general election, 16 of Nevada’s 17 counties switched to a new centralized voter registration system that promises to vastly improve election security and efficiency in the state. But the rollout, which consisted of transferring massive voter datasets from antiquated county systems, was difficult for understaffed and overtaxed county clerk offices. As with any system upgrade, problems with the data were discovered that had to be corrected before early voting began on Oct. 16. (In Nevada, nearly 90% of people vote before Election Day.) I am based in Washoe County, Nevada’s key swing county, which is home to Reno. Washoe County’s clerk, who is on administrative leave from her job, said she didn’t think her office would have time to fix all of the problems. County and state officials said all identified issues were corrected. Please reach out to me if you encounter difficulty checking in at the polls, if you received an incorrect ballot or if you were mistakenly marked inactive. I’ll also be watching the ballot cure process, in which clerks take additional steps to verify ballot signatures that had issues on initial review.
Email: [email protected]; call, text or Signal: 775-303-8857
Wisconsin Elections Commission
Megan O’Matz, reporter, will be watching out for how the embattled Wisconsin Elections Commission handles voting and the results.
Wisconsin has a highly decentralized system of administering elections. More than 1,800 clerks in cities, towns and villages oversee the balloting. After Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020, voters and officials upset with the outcome focused their ire on the state agency that issues guidance to the clerks and considers complaints. I reported on the effort — ultimately unsuccessful — to oust the Wisconsin Elections Commission’s neutral administrator, as well as the bullying of a Republican member who rejected the stolen election myth. On Election Day I’ll be watching the mechanics of voting and pressures on election officials. Are controversial drop boxes inflaming tensions? Are there threats, signs of voter intimidation or suppression? What events could become fodder for lawsuits? How is law enforcement responding? I’m eager to hear from voters, public officials, poll workers or observers.
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