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What Will It Take For Blue States To Adopt School Choice?

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Last week, the president of the Chicago Teachers Union revealed she is sending her child to a private school despite previously opposing school choice efforts.

All nine states that have passed universal school choice are Republican leaning, which is to say that their local teacher unions lacked sufficient influence to keep the reform from being enacted. So the question naturally arises, what will it take, beyond the familiar academic arguments, for so-called “purple” and “blue” states to finally adopt something like school choice?

According to the most recent polling from RealClear Opinion Research, school choice enjoys overwhelming public support, with 71 percent of respondents favoring it and only 13 percent opposing it. The findings cut across party lines, with 66 percent of Democrats, 80 percent of Republicans, and 69 percent of independents saying they would like this kind of policy in their own communities.

In search of the answer, One Chance Illinois, the Children’s Scholarship Fund, the California Policy Center, and other school reform groups (including my own) sponsored a series of meetings at the recent State Policy Network annual meeting in Chicago. The idea was to bring together education leaders from around the U.S. to identify those aspects of school choice that might motivate a historically left-leaning state to embrace what, rightly or wrongly, has come to be viewed as a conservative program.

Economic Reasons for School Choice

One possible tipping point, many speakers agreed, is the growing recognition of how school choice can help revive many of America’s

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Republican Poll Watchers Blocked From Duty In Multiple Pennsylvania Counties

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The Republican National Committee (RNC) reported in a statement that four court-appointed Republican poll watchers were either blocked from entering or kicked out of several Philadelphia polling places Tuesday morning.

Republican poll observers were also turned away from York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna counties, RNC Chairman Michael Whatley reported on social media.

PENNSYLVANIA ELECTION INTEGRITY:

Early this morning we learned that Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia, York, Westmoreland, Allegheny, Lehigh, Cambria, Wyoming, and Lackawanna Counties were being turned away.

We deployed our roving attorneys, engaged with local officials,…

— Michael Whatley (@ChairmanWhatley) November 5, 2024

“We deployed our roving attorneys, engaged with local officials, and can now report that all Republican poll watchers have been let into the building,” Whatley said.   

In Philadelphia, RNC attorneys connected with Democrat District Attorney Larry Krasner, and officials were contacted in the other counties, an RNC official said on background.

“There is a history of this happening in Philadelphia, specifically because it’s such a Democrat area,” the RNC official said.

“This is a crime, and should not happen in a fair and secure election,” the RNC said in a statement. “Refusing to allow Republicans in the room threatens the integrity and security of Pennsylvania’s elections.”

As the Federalist reported in 2020, Democrat poll watchers outnumbered Republican poll watchers in Philadelphia. When ballots were counted at the Philadelphia Convention Center, Republican observers were either kept out, or allowed inside but kept too far away from the counting to see what was happening.

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Arizona Officials’ Database Fiasco Is Still Causing Headaches For Voters And Election Workers

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A previously unearthed error within Arizona’s voter registration database that categorized 218,000 registered voters who have not provided proof of citizenship as “full-ballot” voters is still causing major problems for electors and officials leading up to Election Day.

On Saturday, the left-wing Votebeat Arizona reported that Pinal County incorrectly told almost 900 electors whose registration profiles lack documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC) and voted early this cycle that they needed to provide such documentation by 7 p.m. local time on Election Day to have their votes counted. According to the outlet, “The county’s decision to flag these voters’ registrations came to light when some of the voters tried to cast an early ballot for Tuesday’s election, and shortly after were notified [of such requirements] by the county recorder’s office.”

Roughly 2,000 Maricopa County electors who voted during the state’s early voting period were similarly instructed by local election officials to provide such proof ahead of Election Day, according to a Sunday report by Votebeat Arizona.

The issue stems back to early September, when Arizona election officials discovered approximately 98,000 registrants on the voter rolls who lack DPOC. The problem reportedly arose from a complication with how the state’s Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) shares information with Arizona’s voter registration database.

In Arizona, voters registering via state registration form must show DPOC to vote in state and local races. Individuals who are unable to provide such documentation are registered as “federal-only” voters and can only cast ballots in federal races.

While alarming, the

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Watch For Democrats Trying To Tilt North Carolina Blue With Overseas Ballots After Election Day

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On the eve of Election Day, North Carolina’s outstanding absentee vote count stood at nearly 200,000 requested ballots. Given how close races up and down the ballot are expected to be in the state, election integrity advocates there are concerned about last-minute delays that could flip results in the days after the election.

One of the biggest concerns comes from Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) voters, citizens stationed abroad like diplomats or members of the military, whose overall vote total is in the tens of thousands, but trends Democrat. The catch in North Carolina is that state law for UOCAVA voters have little-to-no security measures for this kind of absentee voter.

“The way they’re going to steal it is they’re going to drag in a bunch of UOCAVA voters, whatever Delta they need to make up,” Jay DeLancy, executive director of the Voter Integrity Project of North Carolina, told The Federalist. “With this number of ballots, it looks like they’ve got a built-in bank of ballots they can dump in anytime they want to after they know the results, to customize the turnout.”

As of Nov. 4, there are 197,319 overall absentee ballots in North Carolina that have been requested, but not returned, according to the ticker on the Democrat-run North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE). DeLancy says part of the problem is that there is no way of knowing how many of those outstanding absentee ballots are UOCAVA and how many are in-state North Carolinians.

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