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RandySF's JournalRecount decision looms as board rejects ballots found in Hamtramck's clerk's office
After Wayne County election officials dealt a blow to his mayoral campaign, Hamtramck City Council member Muhith Mahmood is hoping that absentee ballots with missing or mismatched signatures can be remedied and still propel him to victory.
In a 2-2 vote along party lines, Wayne County elections officials deadlocked Friday on whether to count 37 absentee ballots found two days after the Nov. 4 election in the clerk's office, effectively rejecting ballots that could change the outcome of a tight mayoral race in Hamtramck.
The Wayne County Board of Canvassers' decision means that, for now, Adam Alharbi's razor-thin 11-vote victory will stand. The Yemeni-American engineer has battled Mahmood, a Bangladeshi, to lead the multi-ethnic enclave of Detroit, which has been beset by allegations and investigations of election crimes.
Mahmood's attorney Mark Brewer noted that there are still 120 ballots that had to be cured due to missing or mismatched signatures that have not been counted, which could still tilt the final count in Mahmood's favor.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/wayne-county/2025/11/14/board-wont-accept-ballots-found-in-hamtramcks-clerks-office-after-election/87276005007/
Vermont Democratic Party elects new chair
RANDOLPH — Vermont’s state chapter of the Democratic Party has a new leader — and he’s taking the helm at a challenging moment for the party in Vermont and across the country.
Lachlan Francis, a political consultant from Westminster and former chair of the Windham County Democratic committee, was elected state party chair on Saturday at Vermont Democrats’ biennial reorganization meeting. Francis beat out one other candidate for the job — Justin Willeau of Vershire, the former secretary of Orange County’s Democratic committee and owner of a coffee business — by 33 votes to 12.
The two candidates were vying to succeed outgoing party chair Jim Ramsey, who’d held the job on an interim basis since February but opted not to seek it again. Ramsey took on the role with less than a full, two-year term left after former chair David Glidden resigned.
Also on Saturday, the party reelected its current vice chair — Amanda Gustin of Barre City — to another two-year term, as well as a slate of other statewide officers who oversee the party’s electoral strategy and manage its finances.
https://vtdigger.org/2025/11/15/vermont-democratic-party-elects-new-chair-2/
New ballot measure operation targets the Democratic coalition in Salem
It looks like we’re about to enter another cycle of ballot measure warfare in Oregon.
From the mid-1990s through the early 2000s, Oregon voters confronted dozens of initiatives on every general election ballot, most of them devised to advance a limited-government, low-tax and anti-union agenda championed by Republican Bill Sizemore and a handful of big donors.
Now another Sizemore-like effort is being launched by a new crop of big donors, combining tax-cutting targets with proposals to loosen government regulations, promote government accountability and, in a populist twist, ban both union and business contributions to candidates. Their agenda is now on full display in 11 different ballot initiatives filed last week for the November 2026 election.
You can find these initiatives on the Secretary of State’s website, listed as Initiative Petition 57 through 67. All are sponsored by John von Schlegell, managing director of Endeavour Capital, a Portland-based investment firm.
https://oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2025/11/14/new-ballot-measure-operation-targets-the-democratic-coalition-in-salem/
A New Unifying Issue: Just About Everyone Hates Data Centers
t’s not a novel observation to say that supporters of President Donald Trump and supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders find common ground on many issues. They often share a skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people.
In Indiana, this agreement includes a distrust of data centers.
“The MAGA crowd and the Bernie bros have both figured out that they’ve been getting duped,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy nonprofit. “It was data centers that really brought it all together.”
Olson’s organization is running a campaign to persuade Indiana lawmakers to place a moratorium on new data centers and to redesign electricity rates to protect residential consumers from rate increases related to data center development.
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/13112025/inside-clean-energy-just-about-everyone-hates-data-centers/
A New Orleans man who had his murder conviction tossed wins election as city's chief record keeper
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans man who spent three decades in prison before his murder conviction was vacated won election Saturday to serve as the city’s chief criminal court record keeper, despite the state challenging his past.
The city’s newly elected clerk of criminal court, Calvin Duncan, fought for decades to clear his name after being convicted of carrying out a 1981 fatal shooting. Duncan, a Democrat, later uncovered evidence that police officers lied in court, and had his conviction tossed by a judge in 2021.
Duncan won with 68% of the vote, according to unofficial returns from the Louisiana secretary of state’s office.
Duncan is listed in the National Registry of Exonerations.
https://www.kob.com/ap-top-news/a-new-orleans-man-who-had-his-murder-conviction-tossed-wins-election-as-citys-chief-record-keeper/
Trump admin eyes moving convicted election clerk Tina Peters to federal custody
The Trump administration is looking to transfer former election clerk Tina Peters, who was found guilty of tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election, from state prison to federal custody, Colorado state officials and one of her lawyers told The Associated Press on Friday.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons sent a letter to the Colorado Department of Corrections requesting the transfer of Peters, the AP reported.
Peter Ticktin, one of Peters’s defense attorneys, said that while the letter did not explain why she should be transferred, it could be due to health problems she has had in prison and to increase her involvement in the investigations into voting machines used in 2020.
Peters was found guilty by a jury in 2024 on seven counts, including four felonies, for helping to facilitate access to the county’s voting equipment in search of voter fraud that she and her allies were unable to prove following the 2020 election. She was cleared of three lesser charges.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5607518-tina-peters-transfer-federal-custody-trump-administration/
ME-01: Rep. Pingree facing Democratic primary with entrance of South Berwick legislator
The entrance of another Democrat in the race for Maine’s 1st Congressional District has teed up a primary for incumbent U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, who is seeking her 10th term.
State Rep. Tiffany Roberts of South Berwick announced last week her plan to run for Maine’s southern district in the November 2026 election. She is the only Democrat currently challenging Pingree, who is seeking her 10th term in the office. The two will face off in a June 9 primary election to determine who will be on the November ballot.
Roberts’ entrance into the race came ahead of a shake-up in the Republican primary, with Sanford Police Chief Eric Small announcing his decision to conclude his run. Instead, he plans on running for a seat in the Maine House of Representatives because he feels he could be more effective in state office. In his announcement, Small backed Republican Ron Russell in his bid to unseat Pingree.
Russell won the Republican primary for the 2024 election, but ultimately lost to Pingree by 57% to 35%. Federal election records also list Republicans Joshua Duprey and Anthony Piantidosi as candidates.
https://mainemorningstar.com/2025/11/12/rep-pingree-facing-democratic-primary-with-entrance-of-south-berwick-legislator-in-cd1-race/
Orleans sheriff says she missed campaign report deadline because her attorney was incarcerated
Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson successfully argued Friday that she shouldn’t have to pay the full fine for missing a campaign reporting deadline because her attorney was incarcerated at the time.
The Louisiana Board of Ethics voted to reduce Hutson’s fine for filing the annual report for the Orleans Jedi Guardian political action committee three weeks late. She is the chairperson of the group.
Her original fine was $2,800, but the board lowered it to $500. The ethics board staff had recommended that the fine be reduced to no less than $2,000, according to board documents.
The board was apparently swayed by Hutson’s explanation that she didn’t realize the PAC’s attorney, Jimmy Burland, was behind bars and couldn’t file the paperwork on time. The report was due Feb. 18 but wasn’t filed until March 11.
https://lailluminator.com/briefs/orleans-sheriff-says-she-missed-campaign-report-deadline-because-her-attorney-was-incarcerated/
GA-HD121: Emboldened by statewide wins, Democrats see chance to compete in northeast Georgia House district
A Democratic challenger focused on health care and housing and a local Republican business owner have officially qualified to compete in a special election to fill a vacant House seat in northeast Georgia.
Republican Mack “Dutch” Guest IV and Democrat Eric Gisler are on the ballot for the House District 121 special election on Tuesday, Dec. 9. Early voting starts Monday, Nov. 17.
The December special election was called after the abrupt resignation of Republican State Rep. Marcus Wiedower from Watkinsville, who stepped down to focus on his work as vice president of external affairs at the real estate firm Hillpointe. The district, which covers parts of Clarke and Oconee counties, is considered conservative-leaning, with Wiedower winning his last election with 61% of the vote.
Gisler, a tech executive and small business owner who challenged Wiedower in 2024, said he feels he has a chance to flip the seat in the special election after Georgia and national Democrats outperformed in the November elections and flipped two seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission in a landslide, winning statewide constitutional offices in Georgia for the first time since 2006.
https://georgiarecorder.com/2025/11/12/emboldened-by-statewide-wins-democrats-see-opportunity-to-compete-in-east-georgia-house-district/
The ranks of unaffiliated CT voters are growing
The number of registered Democrats is dropping in Connecticut as more voters have chosen to register without a political party.
The Democratic share of Connecticut voters dropped almost 2 percentage points since 2020, the Republican portion increased 0.7 percentage points, and voters unaffiliated with any party increased by 1%.
But Democratic candidates aren’t necessarily losing votes as the party loses registrants — made clear after Democrats flipped control of 28 towns and cities in the Nov. 4 election.
Across the nation, more voters are straying away from political parties. According to Gallup polls, a record 43% of people across the nation self-identified as independent in both 2023 and 2024. Since 2000, the number of self-identifying independents has only reached 43% one other time — in 2014.
https://ctmirror.org/2025/11/14/ct-unaffiliated-voters/
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