Amazing: an article about the difficulty and importance of acquiring precinct-level election results. boltsmag.org/election-data-… OpenElections ufelectionlab Redistricting Data Hub MIT Election Lab

Of note: the Arizona Constitution includes the same type of healthcare freedom amendment that abortion-rights advocates in Ohio and Wyoming have used, as I explained last year in Bolts:
boltsmag.org/abortion-acces…

Police oversight in Florida is already weak and the state just gutted it further. “They’re making it seem un-American to question policing, which should be a huge red flag to everybody.' boltsmag.org/florida-weaken…

a reminder :)

Millions of Americans have lost Medicaid access, and states are considering further cuts. A new study shows how the loss of these social services is a matter of public safety. boltsmag.org/medicaid-cover…

megami delivered one of the best sequences of lipsyncs in years, and her predicting mh’iya split was an all time highlight

Lmao the way Trump is up 1 in this poll

Review of two very interesting sounding books, starting with the spot-on observation of 2 distinct borders: “the physical line between countries that migrants risk their lives trying to cross, and the idea that inflames the minds of American citizens.” boltsmag.org/beyond-crimmig…

I really appreciate Greg Dworkin's description of what we're up to at Bolts! (dailykos.com/stories/2024/4…)

'big picture but local' is definitely a clear goal, & it's tough, but I'm very glad it's coming across.

No Supreme Court justice has ever lost a retention race in either Florida or Arizona, I believe! Ingredients are definitely there for the 2024 cycle to at least be a lot more heated than usual.

and you can unsubscribe at any moment! so give it a try :)

The US organizes voting data on a bunch of random local spreadsheets & PDFs, many aren't even online.

This makes answering basic questions about voting rights a herculean task of data compiling, cleaning.

There has to be a better way, writes Dara Gold: boltsmag.org/election-data-…

With no precinct-level election database in New York, voting rights lawyer Perry Grossman spends hours gathering results, often dealing with unresponsive local election offices.

“I shouldn’t have to threaten to sue counties to get this data,” he said.boltsmag.org/election-data-…

People who hate institutional accountability

Having accurate election results data is critical for safeguarding voting rights & fair redistricting, & for generally understanding politics.

Some states have easily accessible centralized databases. But most don’t, & they leave it to underfunded county or municipal governments

Great article on an important subject. Some states provide shockingly little data. Mississippi is the worst in the country as it refuses to post the results in anything but scanned PDFs.

Police and politicians responded to the largest protest movement in US history by:
- increasing police budgets and pay
- increasing police killings of civilians
- gutting institutions giving communities even a little bit of power to stop them

I couldn't agree more with Perry Grossman's comment here especially. The number of times I've had to threaten to sue some Boards of Elections just to get what should be *public data*... it shouldn't be this hard!

Precinct-level election data is critical. It helped us so much in building out our reporting on Jacksonville’s racial gerrymandering.

Read Dara Gold’s story on the struggles in many states to get access to this data.

boltsmag.org/election-data-…