Daily Digest for August 4, 2020 Posted at 6:10 a.m. by Mike Mulcahy |
Good morning and happy Tuesday.
Election Day is going to be different this year. Even for next week's primary. As Denise Anderson prepared the 31 polling places in Rice County for this year’s elections, her supply list was far more extensive than in the past, Brian Bakst reports . Towels, disinfectant and wipes to keep voting stations, doorknobs and other touchpoints clean. Goggles, masks, face shields and gowns to outfit election judges. Plexiglass to serve as a layer of protection between voters and poll workers. Anderson, who is the county’s election director and is also president of the Minnesota Association of County Officers, said the coronavirus pandemic has posed logistical challenges and required close collaboration with public health authorities about how to conduct voting safely. Anderson isn’t alone. Election officials across Minnesota are nervously approaching next week’s primary, which is a trial run for the big November election.
Judge eases absentee rules for November election. As Brian mentioned in his story, a Ramsey County judge issued a ruling Monday that allows voters to submit their mail-in or absentee ballots in the Nov. 3 general election without witness signatures. Election officials also will count ballots that arrive within seven days of the election, as long as they are postmarked by Nov. 3. Torey Van Oot with the Star Tribune reports that the changes are the result of an agreement between DFL Secretary of State Steve Simon and citizen groups that filed a lawsuit against the state, including the Minnesota Alliance for Retired Americans Educational Fund.
The stakes in next week's primary are huge for three incumbent DFL legislators. The three incumbents are running without their party's endorsement, and if they lose the primary, they won't be on the ballot in November, Tim Pugmire reports. Esther Agbaje won the DFL Party backing over four-term incumbent Rep. Raymond Dehn for the House District 59B seat that covers parts of downtown and north Minneapolis. A similar endorsement story unfolded last spring in south Minneapolis where Omar Fateh took the DFL nod over state Sen. Jeff Hayden, a three-term incumbent who previously served two terms in the Minnesota House. And in Duluth local delegates endorsed attorney Jen McEwen over incumbent Sen. Erik Simonson, who has served one term in the Senate after two terms in the House.
Black women want power in exchange for their votes. Black women have long been the heart of the Democratic Party — among the party’s most reliable and loyal voters — but for decades that allegiance didn’t translate to their own political rise. There have been zero Black female governors, just two senators, several dozen congresswomen. And the people representing them instead have not met their needs: Disparities in education and opportunity resulted in Black women making on average 64 cents for every dollar a white man makes. Long-standing health inequities have caused Black people to die disproportionately from COVID-19. And countless cases of police brutality have left many Black women terrified every time their children pulled out of the driveway, fearing that they might not make it home alive. Now Black women are mobilized and demanding an overdue return on their investment, the Associated Press reports. Over the last several years and across America, Black women ran and won elections in historic numbers, from Congress to county school boards.
Bodycam video from George Floyd's killing shows up on tabloid site. Authorities in Hennepin County are investigating how officer body camera video of George Floyd’s final moments was leaked to a British tabloid after the newspaper published the footage on its website Monday, Jon Collins reports. The footage is evidence in the cases of four officers charged in George Floyd’s death on May 25. It’s been made available for scheduled, in-person viewings at the courthouse, but until now, it has not been widely released because of restrictions set by the judge presiding over the case. The Daily Mail said the footage was “leaked,” and it appears it could have been a bootleg recorded by someone who was playing the video from a laptop computer. The surroundings in the Daily Mail’s footage, which include a conference table and brown office chairs with unique patterns, appear similar to where the scheduled viewings took place. A spokesperson for Hennepin County District Court said the courts are working with the Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office to investigate “how the Daily Mail obtained copies of two video exhibits.”
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