Exclusive — RNC Touts Election Integrity Victories as Voters Flock to the Polls

The Republican National Committee (RNC) is touting some of its key election integrity victories as voters rush to the polls, hoping that these key wins will instill confidence in voters who have concerns over the fairness of the election.

The final Economist/YouGov survey ahead of Election Day showed that nearly one quarter of likely voters have low confidence that the election will be conducted fairly. Of those, ten percent said they have no confidence at all, and 13 percent said they only have a “little” confidence. With this reality in mind, the RNC launched an extensive election integrity program earlier this year featuring now over 200,000 poll watchers and lawyers at the ready. And while the election results are underway and there could be more challenges as the days go on, there is already reason for Americans to feel some victory and more security in the election.

Here are some of the major wins ahead of Election Day.

The RNC filed a lawsuit over Mississippi’s post-Election Day ballot receipt deadline. It essentially allowed ballots received after the election to be counted, which is illegal under federal law.
A judge denied requests from leftist groups to extend the voter registration deadline in the swing state of Georgia.

“Baseless attempts by leftist groups to change election rules do nothing but undermine the security of the vote. We are committed to protecting our elections, upholding safeguards, and making it easy to vote and hard to cheat in Georgia and across the country,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement at the time.
The RNC in August sued the “City of Detroit for their failure to hire a sufficient number of Republican election inspectors and allocate those Republicans as required by Michigan law,” as detailed in their press release at the time. They ultimately reached a settlement with the City, which agreed to change their “processes and protocols to correct this imbalance in poll worker assignments, ensuring that November’s election adheres to the legal requirements for balanced party representation, as nearly as possible.”
Montgomery County in Pennsylvania wrongly sent out ballots without conducting Ballot Accuracy Testing. The RNC ultimately filed a lawsuit, and the County confirmed their suspicions that they did not perform the testing.
Along with the Michigan GOP, the RNC filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for “failing to properly enforce absentee ballot verification laws,” per the press release. As a result, Benson “updated her guidance to require proof that signatures have been verified before ballots are counted.”
The Trump campaign last month scored a victory in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, forcing Bucks County to extend its in-person absentee voting following reports that the county was illegally turning away voters.
The RNC, alongside the North Carolina GOP, took on the State Board of Elections for “unlawfully allowing digital student IDs as a valid form of voter identification,” and the Court ultimately ruled in their favor.
The state of Arizona — another battleground — will now be able to enforce its documentary proof of citizenship rule for voters registering to vote with the state form. Whatley celebrated the Supreme Court siding with the RNC and deemed it a “major victory” for election integrity.
Non-citizens can be kept off the voter rolls in Virginia following an order from the U.S. Supreme Court. As Breitbart News reported, “Federal law allows Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) to stop noncitizen voting by removing noncitizens from Virginia voter rolls.”
Republicans had another election integrity victory in battleground Georgia after the state’s Supreme Court determined that ballots received after the Election Day deadline cannot be counted in Cobb County. Whatley said of the victory, “Democrat-run Cobb County wanted to accept 3,000 absentee ballots AFTER the Election Day deadline. We took this case to the Georgia Supreme Court. We just got word that we WON the case. Election Day is Election Day — not the week after. We will keep fighting, keep winning, and keep sharing updates.”

Co-Chair Lara Trump told Breitbart News in an exclusive statement, “When Chairman Whatley and I were elected as Chair and Co-chair we had two goals: get out the vote and protect the ballot.

“We knew that there was no better candidate to get out the vote than Donald Trump, so, we dedicated the bulk of our time and effort at the RNC to restoring Americans’ faith in our elections,” she continued, emphasizing the desire to have all Americans feel confident in their vote.

“Whether you vote Republican, Democrat or Independent, we want you to feel safe casting your ballot in the United States of America. We are incredibly proud of our recent victories for election integrity and we hope that 2024 is the year that we can restore trust in our electoral process,” Trump added.

Originally Posted At www.breitbart.com

zerohedge
Economics , News , Politics , Science
November 22, 2024
2 views

Utility Companies Are Not On Our Side

Authored by Linnea Leuken & H. Sterlin Burnett via RealClearPolitics,

When electric power was a novel idea and just beginning to be adopted in urban centers, the industry had a Wild West feel to it as multiple companies strung wires, opened power plants, and sold electricity on an unregulated market. Competition was fierce, but state and local governments concluded that the inefficiencies and redundancies endangered the public and imposed higher costs.

So states set up service territories with monopolistic or oligopolistic service providers, who were entrusted with providing reliable power and sufficient reserve for peak periods in return for being guaranteed a profit on rates proposed by the utilities but approved or set by newly established state public utility commissions (PUCs). These commissions were charged with ensuring public utilities served the general public universally within their territory, providing reliable service at reasonable rates.

Much has changed since then. Politicians began to supplant engineers to decide, based on self-interested calculations, what types of power should be favored and disfavored, and what types of appliances and modes of transportation Americans could use. As the 21st century dawned, a new consideration entered the picture: Climate change.

Under the banner of combatting global warming, utilities were at first encouraged and then coerced into adopting plans and policies aimed at achieving net zero emissions of carbon dioxide. The aim of providing reliable, affordable power – the rationale for the electric utilities’ monopolies in the first place – was supplanted by a controversial and partisan political goal. Initially, as states began to push renewable energy mandates, utilities fought back, arguing that prematurely closing reliable power plants, primarily coal-fueled, would increase energy costs, compromise grid reliability, and leave them with millions of dollars in stranded assets.

Politicians addressed those concerns with subsidies and tax credits for renewable power. In addition, they passed on the costs of the expanded grid to ratepayers and taxpayers. Effectively, elected officials and the PUCs, with a wink and a nod, indemnified utilities for power supply failures, allowing utilities to claim that aging grid infrastructure and climate change were to blame for failures rather than the increased percentage of intermittent power added to the grid at their direction.

Today, utilities have enthusiastically embraced the push for renewable (but less reliable) resources, primarily wind and solar. PUCs guarantee a high rate of return for all new power source (wind, solar, and battery) installations, which has resulted in the construction of ever more and bigger wind, solar, and battery facilities. The costlier, the more profitable – regardless of their compromised ability to provide reliable power or the cost impact on residential, commercial, and industrial ratepayers.

A new report from The Heartland Institute demonstrates the significant financial incentives from government and financiers for utilities to turn away from affordable energy sources like natural gas and coal, and even nuclear, and instead aggressively pursue wind and solar in particular. All of this is done in the name of pursuing net zero emissions, which every single major utility company in the country boasts about on their corporate reports and websites. Reliability and affordability come secondary to the decarbonization agenda.

Dominion Energy is a good example, as they are one of the most aggressive movers on climate-focused policy. Dominion CEO Robert Blue speaks excitedly about government-forced transitions to a wind- and solar-dominated grid in interviews. During one interview with a renewable energy podcast, he said:

“[S]ometimes the government needs to focus on outcomes. We’re trying to address a climate crisis, and we are going to need to move quickly to do that.” In the same interview, he expressed enthusiasm about federal policy that would achieve a government-directed transition.

And why wouldn’t he? Dominion, like most utilities, is granted government tax credits and guarantees on returns for investing in large, expensive projects like offshore wind, the most expensive source of electric power. The bigger the project, the bigger the profit with guaranteed returns.

Also, onshore wind companies have received special “take limits” from the Fish and Wildlife Service to kill protected bald eagles and golden eagles, while prosecuting oil companies if birds are injured or killed on their sites.

Net zero policies are not the environmental panacea that climate change activists proclaim. Industrial-scale wind and solar use substantially more land than conventional energy resources, disrupting ecosystems and destroying wildlife habitats in the process.

And despite recent technological advances, wind and solar are still not dispatchable resources, meaning they cannot provide consistent power at all times needed. Refuting claims made by environmentalists and utilities that wind and solar are the cheapest sources of electric power, costs have risen steeply as the use of wind and solar has increased. Customers of Duke Energy in Kentucky, for example, are paying 78% higher rates in the wake of coal-fired plant closings.

Politicians and utilities are pushing for even more electrification for appliances and vehicles despite the fact that Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials have repeatedly warned in recent years that adding more demand for electric power while replacing reliable power sources with intermittent renewables is destabilizing the power system.

It appears that the utilities prioritize short-term profits over grid reliability or keeping costs reasonable – and the government officials who are supposed to keep them in check are only encouraging them. It doesn’t need to be this way. The U.S. grid was not always this way. Only in recent years, with the obsessive pursuit of net zero, have rolling black and brownouts become so common.

Today, utility companies are sending lobbyists to conservative policymakers in order to convince them that the utilities have our best interests in mind. Their track record tells another story. Meanwhile, Americans have less reliable electricity at higher costs.

Linnea Lueken (llueken@heartland.org, X: @LinneaLueken) is a research fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 11/22/2024 – 06:30