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The demand for mail-in ballots is surging. Election workers need training. And polling booths might have to be outfitted with protective shields during the COVID-19 pandemic.As officials prepare for the Nov. 3 election, one certainty is clear: It’s coming with a big price tag.“Election officials don’t have nearly the resources to make the preparations and changes they need to make to run an election in a pandemic,” said Wendy Weiser, head of the democracy program at the Brennan Center for Justice. “We are seeing this all over the place.”The pandemic has sent state and local officials scrambling to prepare for an election like few others, an extraordinary endeavor during a presidential contest, as virus cases continue to rise across much of the U.S.COVID-related worries are bringing demands for steps to make sure elections that are just four months away are safe. But long-promised federal aid to help cash-starved states cope is stalled on Capitol Hill.The money would help pay for transforming the age-old voting process into a pandemic-ready system. Central to that is the costs for printing mail-in ballots and postage. There are also costs to ensure in-person voting is safe with personal protective equipment, or PPE, for poll workers, who tend to be older and more at risk of getting sick from the virus, and training for new workers. Pricey machines are needed to quickly count the vote.Complicating matters is President Donald Trump’s aversion to mail-in balloting. With worrisome regularity, he derides the process as rigged, even though there’s no evidence of fraud and his own reelection team is adapting to the new reality of widespread mail-in voting.“As cases of coronavirus in this country rise, it’s vital that all voters be able to cast their ballots from home, to cast their ballots by mail,” said Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.A huge COVID response bill passed by the House in May contains a whopping .6 billion to help states with their elections, but the Senate won’t turn to the measure until late July. Republicans fought a 0 million installment of election aid this March before agreeing to it.But key Senate Republicans seem likely to support more election funding, despite Trump’s opposition, and are even offering to lower a requirement that states put up “matching” funds to qualify for the federal cash.“I’m prepared not only to look at more money for the states to use as they see fit for elections this year, but also to even consider whatever kind of matching requirement we have,” said Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the Senate panel with responsibility for the issue. “We can continue to work toward an election that produces a result that people have confidence in and done in a way that everybody that wants to vote, gets to vote.”The pandemic erupted this spring in the middle of state primaries, forcing many officials to delay their elections by days, weeks and even months. They had to deal with a wave of poll worker cancellations, polling place changes and an explosion of absentee ballots.Voting rights groups are particularly concerned with the consolidations of polling places that contributed to long lines in Milwaukee, Atlanta and Las Vegas. They fear a repeat in November.As negotiations on the next COVID relief bill begin on Capitol Hill, the final figure for elections is sure to end up much less than the .6 billion envisioned by the House. That figure followed the recommendations of the Brennan Center to prepare for an influx of absentee ballots while providing more early voting options and protecting neighborhood polling places.Even before the pandemic, election offices typically work under tight budgets. Iowa Secretary of State Paul D. Pate, who serves as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, said the group has been calling on the federal government to provide a steady source of funds, particularly to help address ongoing costs of protecting the nation’s election systems from cyberthreats.For Georgia’s primary last month, election officials spent .1 million of the roughly .9 million the state has received in federal funds. The money was used to send absentee ballot applications to 6.9 million active registered voters and print absentee ballots for county election offices. Some of it also was used to purchase PPE and secure drop-off boxes for counties.Meanwhile, the state elections division has seen a ,000 reduction for the current budget year as Georgia — like the rest of the nation — deals with a decline in revenues due to the pandemic.The state’s remaining federal funds will be used to help cover the costs of developing an online system for voters to request absentee ballots, a less expensive option than sending ballot applications to every voter, and exploring whether installing plexiglass dividers around voting machines could allow more voters in a polling place at one time.In Colorado, which is already a universal vote-by-mail state, the Denver election office has had to reduce its budget by 7.5%, which amounts to nearly 0,000. Jocelyn Bucaro, Denver’s elections director, said the federal funds sent earlier this year helped with purchasing PPE and other pandemic-related supplies.Iowa similarly spent its federal dollars on mail-in ballots and pandemic supplies, Pate said.Vote-by-mail veterans and vendors of the equipment, software, ballots and envelopes that will be needed in November say the window to buy them is quickly closing.“Right now, what I’m seeing in most places is just this kind of indecision. What are we supposed to be planning? Vote by mail or in-person or combination?” said Jeff Ellington, president of Runbeck Election Services, which prints ballots and the special envelopes used to mail them and also supplies high-volume envelope sorters.“Decisions just need to be made so people can start to put a plan into place,” he said.BlueCrest, a Pitney Bowes spinoff, sells high-volume sorting machines that handle up to 50,000 ballot envelopes per hour. That’s the kind of crunch big counties can expect to face on Nov. 3 in states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where Rick Becerra, a vice president at the company, said he’s been talking to officials. The machines average 5,000 each.“I tell them the time is now,” he said.___Cassidy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writer Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report. 6414

The contention around the 2020 presidential election is having some ripple effects, one of which is an effect on holiday shopping.Experts believe the delayed results are part of the reason there’s been a drop in holiday shopping, which retailers desperately need. So far, this year has been one of the toughest years for retail, especially brick and mortar stores.First, the pandemic forced closures and even as stores reopened, shoppers were initially hesitant to return to in-store shopping. Now, as holiday shopping starts to ramp up, the contentious presidential election has become a significant distraction for shoppers.“Consumers not knowing how to react have hit the pause button on their spending,” said Greg Portell, lead partner in the global consumer practice of Kearney.Portell believes without a clear winner in the presidential election and also acceptance of that victory, the holiday shopping season will not be what retailers needed.“The risk and uncertainty tied to civil unrest and the randomness of it at times, is really going to dampen consumers going into those locations,” said Portell. “That really takes the momentum out of what was a close recovery to what was traditional shopping patterns.”“Between the pandemic, the election,” said Mark Cohen, “it just doesn’t feel like we are going to have a jolly old Christmas.”Cohen, the Director of Retail Studies at the Columbia Business School, explained consumers need tranquility to spend and some excitement to spend the way they normally would for the holidays.“We’ve got a society of highly anxious, insecure, emotional, and battered consumers,” said Cohen, “None of that looks like it fits into any definition of tranquility.”However, some, like John Copeland with Adobe Analytics, caution against full doom and gloom around holiday shopping.“Typically, the day after an election, consumers slow their shopping a little bit,” said Copeland.Adobe Analytics data, gathered through its market-leading Adobe Analytics tool kit, shows in 2016 consumer spending dropped 14% after the election. After the 2018 midterms, it dropped 6%. So far, the day after this election, the drop was around 12%.However, those like Cohen and Portell expect, as the protests and legal battles over the election continue, even fewer people will want to spend money on shopping.If that starts to prove true, Copeland expects retailers will respond with new incentives for shoppers to start shopping at the “normal” holiday pace.“I think what we will see is retailers do more of what we already expect them to do which is pull their discounts and deals sooner into the season,” said Copeland. 2651

The CIA has determined that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman personally ordered the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, despite the Saudi government's denials that the de facto ruler was involved, according to a Washington Post report.Citing people familiar with the matter, the Post reported Friday that the CIA reached its conclusion by examining several sources of intelligence. According to the Post, US officials have high confidence in the CIA's assessment.A spokesman for the CIA declined to comment to the Post. The Saudi government has denied bin Salman's involvement in Khashoggi's death.Fatimah Baeshen, a spokeswoman for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, told the newspaper that the claims in the CIA's "purported assessment are false.""We have and continue to hear various theories without seeing the primary basis for these speculations," she told the Post.Khashoggi, a former Saudi royal insider who became a critic of the country's government, went missing in October after he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain papers for his upcoming marriage. The Saudi government offered changing explanations for Khashoggi's disappearance.Included in the US intelligence analyzed by the CIA was a phone call the prince's brother Khalid bin Salman made to Khashoggi, encouraging the journalist to make the trip to the consulate to get the documents, according to the Post. Sources told the Post that Khalid made the call at his brother's command.Khalid denied the Post's reporting, saying on Twitter that he had never spoken to Khashoggi by phone."I never talked to him by phone and certainly never suggested he go to Turkey for any reason. I ask the US government to release any information regarding this claim," Khalid said.He said the last contact he'd had with Khashoggi was via text in October 2017.Baeshen told the Post that Khalid, who is the Saudi ambassador to the US, and Khashoggi never discussed "anything related to going to Turkey."The CIA also examined an audio recording from inside the Saudi consulate provided by Turkey and a phone call placed from inside the consulate after Khashoggi was killed, according to the Post.Maher Mutreb, an alleged member of the Saudi hit team and a security official for the crown prince, placed the phone call to a top aide for bin Salman informing the aide that the job had been done, people familiar with the call told the newspaper.According to the Post, the CIA also based its conclusion on its evaluation of bin Salman as a leader who is involved in minor matters.The CIA does not know the location of Khashoggi's remains, according to the Post.The Trump administration on Thursday?imposed penalties on 17 individuals over their alleged roles in the killing of Khashoggi. Khashoggi's assassination has created a crisis for the Trump administration and drawn attention to President Donald Trump's business ties to Saudi Arabia and the relationship between bin Salman and Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.Earlier Thursday, the Saudi Public Prosecutor's Office said 11 people had been charged for their involvement in the death of Khashoggi, adding that five are facing capital punishment for being directly involved in "ordering and executing the crime."Khashoggi was killed following "a fight and a quarrel" at the Saudi consulate, the prosecutor's office claimed. Prosecutors said Khashoggi was tied up and injected with an overdose of a sedative that killed him. Then, according to prosecutors, his body was dismembered and removed from the consulate by five people. 3617

The cost of the Justice Department's ongoing investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election is now roughly million, according to a new report filed Friday by the special counsel's office.Friday's accounting provided the latest figures covering only the period for April 2018 through September 2018, with special counsel Robert Mueller listing direct expenditures of nearly .6 million.Another roughly .9 million was reported as costs for the work of other Justice and FBI officials who have assisted the investigation but are not under Mueller's direct control. According to the report, those investigation costs would have been incurred "irrespective of the existence of the (special counsel's office)."The department previously reported .7 million in direct and indirect costs from May through September 2017, and  million from October 2017 through March 2018 -- bringing the total from all three reports over the life of the investigation to just over million. Of that amount, only .3 million is the special counsel's direct expenditures.Since taking control of the Russia probe in May 2017, Mueller has advanced on multiple fronts to investigate any links between the Russian government and the Trump campaign, along with other crimes arising from the investigation.To date, the investigation has yielded charges against 36 people or entities. Seven people have pleaded guilty to various charges, including President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos.Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked Mueller and the probe as a waste of money.Trump took aim at the cost of the investigation last month, offering a grab-bag of different numbers Mueller had allegedly spent, untethered to the facts.On November 27, 2018 he tweeted: "now ,000,000 Witch Hunt continues and they've got nothing but ruined lives."Then 48 hours later, he tweeted criticizing the "witch hunt" for "wasting more than ,000,000." 2182

The Department of Justice on Monday identified New York City, Portland and Seattle as cities that have allowed "violence and destruction of property to persist," as outlined in a presidential memorandum that could restrict access to federal funding.Earlier in September, President Donald Trump issued the Memorandum on Reviewing Funding to State and Local Government Recipients That Are Permitting Anarchy, Violence, and Destruction in American Cities.The measure allows the DOJ to target city governments that the agency believes has not taken steps to mitigate widespread criminal activity.So-called "anarchist jurisdictions" that meet the DOJ's criteria are subject to a 30-day review by the director of the Office of Management and Budget, who will issue guidance on restricting eligibility for federal grants, according to the presidential memorandum."When state and local leaders impede their own law enforcement officers and agencies from doing their jobs, it endangers innocent citizens who deserve to be protected, including those who are trying to peacefully assemble and protest," Attorney General William Barr said Monday in a statement. "We cannot allow federal tax dollars to be wasted when the safety of the citizenry hangs in the balance. It is my hope that the cities identified by the Department of Justice today will reverse course and become serious about performing the basic function of government and start protecting their own citizens."In New York City, the DOJ cited a monthslong spike in gun violence in conjunction with the City Council's approval of a fiscal budget that reallocated billion from the NYPD toward community and youth programming. The funding changes will begin in 2021."The budget resulted in the cancellation of the new police recruiting class, cuts to overtime spending, and the transfer of certain police functions, including school safety, out of the NYPD," the DOJ said in its statement.The Justice Department also cited the refusal of city district attorneys to prosecute certain charges related to Black Lives Matter protests that have been ongoing since the May 25 death of George Floyd while in Minneapolis police custody."Both [New York City] Mayor [Bill] de Blasio and Gov. [Andrew] Cuomo have forcefully rejected federal law enforcement support," the DOJ concluded in its statement.The loss of federal funding would be a crippling blow to cash-strapped New York City, which lost billion in revenue amid the coronavirus pandemic. The city is currently facing a billion budget deficit that could result in as many as 22,000 municipal layoffs and furloughs in October.Requests for comment from the offices of de Blasio and Cuomo were not immediately returned.Seattle and Portland have also seen significant unrest in recent months since the death of George Floyd. In June, protesters in Seattle occupried a small area of the city of several weeks and vandalized an abandoned police precinct. Portland saw more than 100 consecutive days of protests against systemic racism and police brutality, some of which grew violent.For a full list of the Justice Department's criteria for "anarchist jurisdictions," click here.This story was originally published by Lauren Cook on WPIX in New York. 3257

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