Monday, October 12, 2020
Friday, October 9, 2020
As early ballots arrived in mailboxes across Pima County this week, registered Democrats are concerned about a suspicious text alerting voters they’re not registered as permanent mail voters—when in fact, they are.
The Pima County Recorder's Office even issued a warning to not open the text’s link to a Vote.org page on their Twitter account Thursday, Oct. 8, suspecting it could be fraudulent.
Registered Democrat Kristi Williams was perplexed by the text she received around 3 p.m. on Thursday saying she was not a permanent mail voter. When she opened her mailbox moments later, there sat the sage green envelope containing her early ballot.
“I was confused at first. I’ve been doing early voting for many years so I was shocked by the text,” Williams said. “I was also worried after seeing the link in the text that someone was trying to fish for information and trying to make it so my vote didn’t count.
Williams forwarded the text to her husband, Pima County Superintendent of Schools Dustin Williams, who warned the Pima County Democratic Party and officials at the County Recorder's Office.
Turns out the text was sent by Oakland-based Resistance Labs, a political text-bank that supports progressive grassroots causes and candidates. The organization was helping facilitate early ballot registration texts for another group, Vote From Home 2020. Resistance Labs CEO Yoni Landau responded via email that his organization sends out tens of millions of texts a day and errors are inevitable.
“Our data is over 90 percent accurate,” Landau wrote. “We reach out beforehand to the Sec. of State staff in good faith before we start texting. We also immediately paused our texting and changed our script as soon as the Pima County staff let us know there was a problem with a link and with the data source.”
Landau estimates no more than 2,000 Pima County Democrats received the text since the company did not receive complaints from their texters, he wrote.
However, the Pima County Recorder's Office received enough complaints to issue Thursday’s Twitter alert, county officials said.
The episode highlights heightened concerns about disinformation regarding early ballots, which growing numbers of Arizona voters have embraced in recent decades. More than three out of four voters cast ballots by mail or by dropping their ballots off at polling stations in 2018 and that number is expected to grow this year with voters avoiding polling places because of the risk of contracting coronavirus.
In an email, Vote.org Director of Programs Sydney Rose wrote, “There are many organizations who use our tools and this is an example of them linking to our resources within their messaging.”
Vote From Home 2020 has a goal of contacting 393,000 Arizona voters during the 2020 election, according to their website.
The Pima County Recorder’s Office recommends contacting them at 520-724-4350 if you receive suspicious texts and phone calls during the election year.
The Colorado River’s largest reservoirs are expected to keep struggling over the next five years due to climate change, according to the federal agency that oversees them.
The Bureau of Reclamation’s new modeling projections, which include this year’s record-breaking heat and dryness in some parts of the southwestern watershed, show an increasing likelihood of an official shortage declaration before 2026.
If dry conditions like the Colorado River Basin has seen since 2000 persist, the agency’s model shows an almost 80% chance of seeing an official shortage declaration by 2025. The chance of seeing the reservoir drop to a critically low level is about 20% in that same time period.
The basin is about to enter its 21st year of sustained dry conditions. The watershed is also rapidly warming, leading to increased evaporation from streams and reservoirs, and depleted groundwater.
The river’s water supply problems are exacerbated by the fact that cities, farmers and industries across the watershed have been overly reliant on the river’s water for decades. The supply and demand imbalance on the river has left its two biggest reservoirs – Lakes Powell and Mead – extremely low. Lake Powell is currently at 48% of its capacity. Lake Mead is at 40%.
Bureau of Reclamation Commissioner Brenda Burman said even with Drought Contingency Plans in place, there’s a significant chance the reservoirs will drop even further by 2026. Those plans, signed in 2019, spell out a series of water cutbacks to users in Nevada, Arizona, California and Mexico.
“There is uncertainty and risk on the horizon. But the policy decisions we’re making have been made to address that risk,” Burman said.
Flows into Lake Powell this summer were about half of what they are in an average year. This year’s dismal runoff has only increased pressure on the Colorado River, Burman said.
“We knew we had risk in the next five and six years, and the drought contingency plans are meant to address that,” Burman said.
More than 62% of the Colorado River watershed is experiencing extreme drought at this time.
This story is part of a project covering water in the western U.S. and the Colorado River basin, produced by KUNC and supported through a Walton Family Foundation grant. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial content.
Tags: colorado river , water , climate change , Image
PHOENIX – Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and running mate Kamala Harris, on their first trip to Arizona, dropped by a union hall Thursday and several small businesses they say need federal relief from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Their bus tour, which began in Flagstaff, included an outdoor stop at Barrio Cafe, a central Phoenix staple known nationally for its Mexican cuisine.
Small business owners, particularly in Phoenix, are “busting their necks,” Biden said – and that didn’t have to happen.
“Too many Arizonans are facing hard times right now,” Biden earlier told supporters at a labor union hall in west Phoenix. “They’re trying their best, but it never feels like it’s enough. You’re not looking out for a handout, you’re just looking for a fair shot.”
Thursday, October 8, 2020
Although in-person concert venues remain silent during the pandemic, downtown Phoenix’s Crescent Ballroom is reverberating with information this election season.
Charlie Levy, who opened the popular music venue in 2011, has created a voter guide available on the venue’s website.
The guide, "Everything You Need to Know About Voting in 2020: An Easy Guide by Crescent Ballroom,” summarizes major statewide propositions, key election dates and the lay of the land when it comes to submitting a ballot this year.
“A lot of people were having questions about voting this year, so we set out to answer all those questions in a pretty easy-to-read format,” Levy said. “At Crescent, we really try to make it about community as much as music, so part of what we try to do to is make it part of the Arizona community.”
Wednesday, October 7, 2020
Early voting for the Nov. 3 general election is underway in Pima County! Some county residents are so eager to cast their ballots that they were in line bright and early today before the County Recorder opened an early voting location at 8 a.m. at 240 N. Stone.Early birds wait before 8 a.m. for Early Voting downtown at 240 N. Stone. Vote in person. #FirstWeekVoters pic.twitter.com/IWcFNnkzMV
— Pima County Recorder (@Pima_Co_Record) October 7, 2020
If you want to cast your early ballot in person, you can find a list of early-voting sites here.
If you'd like to request an early ballot by mail, click here. The last day to request an early ballot by mail is Friday, Oct. 23.
PHOENIX – Republican Sen. Martha McSally and Democratic challenger Mark Kelly, two military veterans battling for a congressional seat in Arizona that is drawing the attention of the nation, debated over the country’s COVID-19 response, jobs and immigration and President Trump’s attacks on Arizona Sen. John McCain.
Kelly and McSally wielded the usual disdain of political opponents, accusing one another of misleading Arizonans while outlining their own familiar campaign stances in a debate that offered few surprises.
McSally called Obamacare “a government takeover of health care,” praised the government response to the coronavirus and businesses suffering financial losses in the pandemic and said corporate interests that Kelly scorns actually bolster his campaign.
WASHINGTON – Arizona nonprofits are working “nonstop” to register voters before opponents can overturn a federal judge’s ruling that extended the state’s voter registration deadline from Monday to Oct. 23.
U.S. District Judge Steven Logan agreed with voter advocacy groups that COVID-19 restrictions imposed by the state earlier this year may have cost “possibly tens of thousands of voter registrations” and that the best way to fix that was by extending the deadline.
Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, who had originally tried to block the suit, said late Monday that she would not appeal Logan’s ruling. But national Republican groups that had joined the case said through a spokeswoman Tuesday that “we respectfully disagree” with the ruling and would be “moving expeditiously to appeal.”
Voting rights groups that won the extension were wasting no time Tuesday registering voters – one day after the original deadline would have passed.
