Politics

The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that officials can place ballot drop boxes around their communities in this fall’s elections, overturning its own ruling two years ago limiting their use in the presidential swing state.

The court limited the use of drop boxes in July 2022, ruling then that they could be placed only in local election clerks’ offices and no one other than the voter could return a ballot in person.

Conservatives controlled the court at that time, but Janet Protasiewicz’s election victory in April 2023 flipped the court to liberal control. Seeing an opening, Priorities USA, a progressive voter mobilization group, asked the court in February to revisit the decision.

At least 29 other states allow for absentee ballot drop boxes, according to the U.S. Vote Foundation, and expanded use in Wisconsin could have major implications in the presidential race.

Wisconsin again figures to be a crucial swing state after President Biden barely won it in 2020 and Donald Trump narrowly took it in 2016. Democrats believe that making it easier to vote absentee will boost turnout for their side.

The justices announced in March they would review the ban on drop boxes but wouldn’t consider any other parts of the case. The move drew the ire of the court’s conservatives, who accused the liberals of trying to give Democrats an advantage this fall. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in April urged the court to again allow drop boxes.

The court ruled 4-3 on Friday that drop boxes can be utilized in any location.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, one of the court’s four liberal justices, wrote for the majority that placing a ballot in a drop box set up and maintained by a local election clerk is no different than giving the ballot to the clerk, regardless of the box’s location. Local clerks have great discretion in how they administer elections and that extends to using and locating drop boxes, she added.

“Our decision today does not force or require that any municipal clerks use drop boxes,” Bradley wrote. “It merely acknowledges what [state law] has always meant: that clerks may lawfully utilize secure drop boxes in an exercise of their statutorily-conferred discretion.”

All three conservative justices dissented. Justice Rebecca Bradley wrote that the liberals are simply trying to advance their political agenda and criticized them for ignoring the precedent set by the 2022 ruling.

“The majority in this case overrules [the 2022 decision] not because it is legally erroneous, but because the majority finds it politically inconvenient,” Bradley wrote. “The majority’s activism marks another triumph of political power over legal principle in this court.”

The popularity of absentee voting exploded during the pandemic in 2020, with more than 40% of all voters casting mail ballots, a record high. At least 500 drop boxes were set up in more than 430 communities for the election that year, including more than a dozen each in Madison and Milwaukee — the state’s two most heavily Democratic cities.

Trump and Republicans have alleged that drop boxes facilitated cheating, even though they offered no evidence. Democrats, election officials and some Republicans argued the boxes are secure and an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results in 2020.

The Digital Services Tax is now in effect.

Foreign tech giants must now pay a three per cent levy on revenue from Canadian users, retroactive to 2022, after the federal government enacted the measure with an order-in-council on June 28.

Many of those large companies are based in the United States and the American government and business communities on both sides of the border have called for Ottawa to stop the measure.

“It’s a risky idea,” University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist told Global News.

“If we take a look at how (the United States) reacted to similar taxes from other countries in the past,” he continued, “they’ve used tariffs to try to make up for what they perceive to be lost revenue, or to almost punish other countries for moving in that direction.”

The Office of the United States Trade Representative previously said it will do what’s necessary to halt Canada’s tax on large foreign digital services companies, while a group representing giants like Amazon, Apple and Uber, called on President Joe Biden to take formal steps under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Free Trade Agreement.

“With Canada’s DST now law, the time has now come to announce action,” vice-president of the Computer and Communications Industry Association Jonathan McHale said in a news release.

2:05
Freeland defends implementation of digital services tax

Ten similar groups also called on the U.S. government to take action.

“It’s quite reasonable to expect that the U.S. will take measures,” Matthew Holmes with the Canadian Chamber of Commerce said.

He said it is a “sensitive time” now in the U.S., with presidential and congressional elections later this year.

“Right now does not seem to be the time where we would be adding more irritants to the trade relationship,” he told Global News — especially because Canada relies on trade with the United States more than Washington relies on trade with Ottawa.

“We believe in a win-win situation,” Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said, speaking in Milton, Ont., adding Canada moved ahead after many countries failed to reach a multilateral agreement about digital service taxes.

“It’s simply not reasonable, not fair for Canada to indefinitely put our own measures on hold,” she said, referring to other G7 countries like the U.K. and France that have digital services taxes.

Geist said the premise behind a digital services tax is that “it’s long been argued that some of the large multinational companies don’t pay their fair share of taxes,” because they can be structured to direct revenue to other jurisdictions.

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Biden not concerned about Canada’s 3% tax on web giants, Trudeau says

The Liberal government promised the tax as part of their 2019 election platform. The Conservatives and New Democrats had proposed similar levies.

The Liberals had delayed implementing it amid global efforts to build a broader, international tax plan.

“Canada has been at the table, but now they’ve broken rank,” Holmes said, speaking from Ottawa.

“[The federal government] walked away. They’re moving unilaterally like this. And it’s very concerning to us.

Freeland said Canada acted collaboratively with the U.S. and continues to engage with the United States over the issue.

Geist said the new tax could yield billions of dollars for Canada. But because it’s retroactive to Jan. 1, 2022, that means getting the money is “literally a matter of going through billions or perhaps even trillions of transactions” for every ad that’s appeared on Google in Canada to see if the levy applies.

“This is about levelling the playing field,” Geist suggested, “and more about the government seeing a potential cash grab.”

Holmes said he believes tech companies will pass the tax on to consumers in the form of higher digital subscriptions for streaming services.

— with files from Jillian Piper, The Canadian Press’ Kelly Geraldine Malone and Reuters

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

Vice President Kamala Harris’ allies are privately discussing what her candidacy would look like if President Joe Biden dropped out of the race for the White House and how they could help her, following Biden’s disastrous debate performance Thursday, according to people familiar with the matter.

These conversations have been held over phone calls and text messages between some people who raised money for the vice president during her failed 2020 Democratic primary campaign against Biden and other contenders, said the people, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely about private conversations.

Key issues include whether Harris would control the massive Biden-Harris campaign war chest managed by Biden’s team if the president were to drop out of the race.

Harris has emerged as an early favorite to replace the president at the top of the ticket, but this does not guarantee that the Democratic National Convention in Chicago will not feature more contenders and a potentially messy battle for the nomination.

Harris would likely have the keys to most of the money, according to Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, who acknowledged the rules during a recent call with party donors. Biden’s campaign began June with $91 million in cash on hand, according to Federal Election Commission records. The entire political operation, which includes Biden’s joint fundraising committees, entered July with $240 million on hand, according to the campaign.

There’s also discussion among Harris confidants about the need to begin scheduling meetings for the vice president with some of the biggest donors in the Democratic Party if Biden drops out, these people said.

Harris’ allies have been pushing other donors and party officials to reconsider the potential advantages the vice president’s policy portfolio could bring to a Democratic campaign platform: Her focus on reproductive rights, her outreach to Black voters and marginalized communities and her remarks in February in Germany, when she emphasized the strength of U.S. support for Ukraine in its fight against Russian invasion, according to a person familiar with the engagement.

Some of Harris’ past fundraisers are also texting one another an old one-minute video that features the vice president taking on former President Donald Trump’s appointees while she was a U.S. senator, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter. It shows clips of Harris facing off with the likes of former Attorneys General Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions and then Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.

The video also underscores a key message, they say: Harris’ willingness to confront Trump’s allies shows that she has what it takes to go face to face against the former president. “Taking on Trump one on one, Kamala will use her backbone, her values, and her experience as a prosecutor to expose Trump,” a voiceover for the advertisement says.

The video was produced for a political action committee called “People Standing Strong,” which was never fully activated because Harris dropped out in 2019 shortly after it was created. The PAC reportedly reserved nearly $300,000 worth of advertising across the key state of Iowa but the ads were not aired because Harris dropped out before the state’s caucus.

A White House spokeswoman for Harris and Biden campaign representatives did not respond to requests for comment.

Any discussions of what Harris might need to win a convention fight for the nomination was unthinkable for Democrats before Thursday’s debate, when Biden struggled to make the case for his reelection and failed to push back on Trump.

Biden’s poor debate performance greatly changed the mood among donors, with many privately discussing the need for the president to step aside in order to give the party the best chance of beating Trump in November.

The donors sending around the video, for instance, are “all just confused, scared and sad” since the debate, said a longtime strategist close to many of the top fundraisers in California. “They’re desperate to beat Trump.”

Dmitri Mehlhorn, a longtime advisor to Democratic donors including tech investor Reid Hoffman, said in an email Wednesday to allies that was shared with CNBC that although he continues to support Biden, in his view Harris would be a solid alternative to take on and potentially defeat Trump.

“To be clear, Vice President Harris is a badass. A ticket with her at the top, combined with someone who balances her brand weaknesses (examples range from Mark Kelly to Andy Beshear to Roy Cooper to Josh Shapiro and many others), would absolutely be competitive with the criminally insane convicted felon the other side is committed to nominating,” wrote Mehlhorn.  “We would lose Joe’s superpower brand, but we would gain other benefits and would still be competitive.”

Biden’s team has said the president is not dropping out of the race. Meanwhile, Harris, to all appearances, has remained loyal and is scheduled to have lunch with the president at the White House on Wednesday.

Despite his team’s public pledge that he won’t drop out, The New York Times and CNN reported Wednesday that Biden has signaled privately to an ally he may not be able to salvage his candidacy.

White House spokesman Andrew Bates vehemently denied the story in a social media post. CNBC and NBC News have not independently confirmed the conversation.

Harris defended the president’s debate performance to a group of her past donors in San Francisco on Tuesday.

The event was at real estate executive Susan Lowenberg’s home, and the crowd included Harris donors from the time when she was running for San Francisco District Attorney, according to the pool report.

“We gotta fight, and we know how to fight,” Harris said to the crowd. “When we fight, we win.” 

Since the debate, there’s been a growing chorus of party donors, most of whom have spoken in private, and a few lawmakers who have spoken in public who question whether Biden is up to the task of being president for four more years, and if he is not, whether it’s right for him to be the party’s nominee in November.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, on Tuesday became the first Democratic lawmaker in Congress to call on Biden to step down.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., both longtime Biden allies, said in interviews on MSNBC that it’s fair for voters to ask about Biden’s health in the wake of his debate performance.

“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?'” Pelosi said in the interview, noting that the question should be asked of both Biden and Trump.

The polls have had a mixed message for Biden since the debate.

A CNN poll shows that Trump is ahead of Biden by 6 percentage points nationwide, which is identical to the network’s national poll in April.

But 75% of those polled say that someone else other than Biden would have a better chance of beating Trump than Biden would.

Harris’ stock has also started to rise in online betting pools about who will be the Democratic nominee for president.

PredictIt, which allows people to make bets on political events, now puts the vice president in a close second to Biden.

Before the debate, PredictIt put her odds of becoming the party’s nominee this year so far behind Biden that she was trailing the likes of California Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The European elections are a flagship of European democracy. As documented by e.g. the European Digital Media Observatory, disinformation actors from inside and outside the EU seek to undermine the integrity of the electoral process, trust in democratic processes at large and sow division and polarisation in our societies. According to the Eurobarometer, 81% of EU citizens agree that news or information that misrepresents reality or is false is a problem for democracy.

Attempts to mislead citizens

Institutions, authorities, civil society actors and fact-checkers such as the European Digital Media Observatory, the European Fact-Checking Standards Network and EUvsDisinfo have detected and exposed numerous attempts to mislead voters with manipulated information in recent months.

Disinformation actors have pushed false information about how to vote, discouraged citizens from voting, or sought to sow division and polarisation ahead of the vote by hijacking high-profile or controversial topics. Sometimes these attempts to deceive consist of flooding the information space with an abundance of false and misleading information, all with the aim of hijacking the public debate. Often top politicians and leaders are targeted by information manipulation campaigns. Several European policies are often targets of disinformation: support to Ukraine, the European Green Deal, and migration.

Disinformation actors have also employed networks of fake accounts as well as fake or impersonated media outlets to manipulate the information environment. Recent revelations by the European External Action Service (EEAS) and national authorities of EU Member States include the False Facade, Portal Kombat and Doppelgänger operations.

Recently an investigative report called “Operation Overload” by Finnish software company Check First documented how suspicious accounts contacted more than 800 fact-checkers and media in over 75 countries – to overload them with false information, drain their resources and to try and convince them to spread this false information by way of debunking articles.

EU institutions: Increased efforts to protect the EU from information manipulation

While the threats are there, so are the EU’s collective responses. Based on a clear mandate from the political leadership, the EU institutions have been tackling the challenge stemming from foreign information manipulation and interference, including disinformation, for years.

These efforts take place in close collaboration and coordination between the institutions and with the involvement of a wide range of other stakeholders, such as EU Member States, media and fact-checkers and civil society, in order to share insights, exchange experiences and best practices and coordinate responses.

Being at the global forefront of addressing threats related to foreign information manipulation and interference, the EU is working in close cooperation with its like-minded partners outside of the EU via fora such as the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism, among others. To raise resilience to external interference attempts, the EU has developed a dedicated toolbox to counter foreign information manipulation and interference, including a set of tools ranging from situational awareness and resilience building to legislation and diplomatic levers. All these efforts always take place in full respect of European fundamental values, such as freedom of expression and freedom of opinion.

Our comprehensive response to disinformation is centred around the following building blocks:

• developing policies to strengthen our democracies, making it more difficult for disinformation actors to misuse online platforms, and protect journalists and media pluralism;
• raising awareness about disinformation and our preparedness and response;
• building societal resilience against disinformation through media literacy and fact-checking;
• cooperating with other institutions, national authorities or third parties.

The EU institutions have been promoting several activities, including awareness-raising campaigns and media literacy initiatives, to raise societal resilience against disinformation and information manipulation. Examples include:

• the official European elections website with a section on “Free and fair elections”;
• a series of videos by the European Parliament (in 24 official EU languages) informing the public about the techniques used by disinformation actors to deceive people;
• a leaflet by the European Parliament with 10 tips on how to tackle disinformation;
• a toolkit for teachers by the European Commission on how to spot and fight disinformation;
• a joint campaign by the Commission and the European Regulators Group for Audiovisual Media Services with a video running on social media and broadcast around the EU, raising awareness of the risks of disinformation and information manipulation ahead of the European elections;
• A dedicated series of articles and insights on foreign information manipulation and interference on the EEAS’ EUvsDisinfo.

New EU legislation in place

In this mandate, important legislation was adopted by co-legislators, such as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the AI Act and the Act on Transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising. During the past mandate, the European Parliament’s Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation (and its successor) also shone a spotlight on the issue of foreign interference, including disinformation, and recommended that all of society plays its part, also through non-legislative measures, to tackle them.

The DSA requires platforms to assess and mitigate risks related to the protection of electoral processes, such as disinformation, including through AI generated content. The DSA is already fully applicable and is being enforced by the Commission in relation to so called “very large online platforms” (i.e. those reaching at least 45 million users in the EU or 10% of the EU population). In this context, the Commission has already opened proceedings against X and Meta – for both Instagram and Facebook – on potential DSA violations related to election integrity. On the preventive side, in March 2024, the Commission adopted election guidelines, recalling the measures platforms need to adopt to ensure compliance. In April 2024, the Commission also organised a voluntary stress test with these designated platforms, civil society and national authorities. The Commission is in continuous dialogue with platforms to ensure effective implementation and compliance with the DSA.

For more information see background note.

The Labour Party and its leader, new British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, undoubtedly won the U.K. general election, but as he set to work building his new cabinet, there was another politician keen to crow about his party’s election windfall, much smaller though it was. Nigel Farage, the leader of the far-right Reform UK party and long one of Britain’s most divisive politicians, was heckled by a series of protesters as he took the stage to deliver a speech in London on Friday.

He smiled through the interruptions, and even heckled his hecklers back, loudly chanting “boring!” as they were removed from the hall.

Reform UK grabbed only five seats in the British Parliament’s 650-seat House of Commons in Thursday’s national election. But that’s five more than it had before.

Farage argues that the U.K.’s first-past-the-post voting system makes it difficult for smaller parties to match their overall share of the votes with their share of seats won in the Commons, and he vowed on Friday to push for an end to the current system. But the real success for Farage was in the overall vote tally, not the five seats his party won, which included his own first election to the parliament.

To the consternation of the long-ruling Conservative Party, from which it pilfered a huge amount of support, the anti-immigration Reform UK, whose leader and policies had long been relegated to the fringes of British politics, took about 15% of the vote, with just over 4 million ballots in total.

That gave Reform UK the third-highest overall vote count among all the parties that competed for the parliamentary seats, overtaking even the Liberal Democrats, who, despite getting about half a million fewer votes, emerged on Friday with a record 71 seats in the Commons.

Farage, 60, won the seat in his home constituency of Clacton, in southeast England, after seven previous failed attempts. His Reform UK party, founded initially in 2018 as the Brexit Party, advocating for a complete and uncompromising break with the European Union, has always campaigned on cutting immigration to Britain.

The Englishman is often compared to his transatlantic ally former U.S. President Donald Trump, for both his brash political style and his nationalist rhetoric, and he’s appeared at events with the Republican in the U.S. and met with him in Britain, too.

“Congratulations to Nigel Farage on his big WIN of a Parliament Seat Amid Reform UK Election Success. Nigel is a man who truly loves his Country!” Trump wrote on his own social media platform, Truth Social, on Friday. Mr. Trump made no mention of the Labour Party’s landslide election victory, or Starmer becoming the new prime minister.

Farage’s campaign was marred by a number of 11th-hour controversies, mostly involving racist or sexist comments attributed to Reform UK candidates, and on election day he vowed to “professionalize” his party.

“Those few bad apples that have crept in will be long gone and we will never have any of their type back in our organization,” Farage told his supporters, along with the British public and his keenly observing political opponents.

Speaking to CBS News’ Emmet Lyons on Friday morning as the election results were finalized, the Labour Party Mayor of London Sadiq Khan acknowledged the rise of “popular nativist, nationalist movements,” and said Starmer would govern “in the national interest, show humility, be magnanimous and be humble over the course of the next three, four, five years.”

“We’ve got to earn the trust of those that voted Labour, but also try and win the confidence of those that didn’t,” he said.

That will undoubtedly be one of the chief missions of both the Labour and Conservative Parties in the years ahead.

They’ll both be eager to craft political strategies ahead of the next national election that can stop voters following the trend to the far-right seen across Europe in recent years – a trend which, despite their minimal presence in Parliament, was also demonstrated by Reform UK’s share of the votes this week.

Canada’s ethics commissioner will not launch an investigation into allegations that Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault broke conflict of interest rules by being involved in business deals while in cabinet, according to a letter obtained by Global News.

“I no longer have concerns that you may have contravened your obligations under the (Conflict of Interest Act) and will take no further action at this time,” Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein wrote in a letter to Boissonnault on June 25.

In the letter, von Finckenstein wrote that the probe did not turn up evidence to support allegations raised by Global News in June that Boissonnault may have been involved in managing or operating Global Heath Imports (GHI), a medical supply business he co-founded while serving as a cabinet minister.

Global reported on a text conversation that took place on Sept. 8, 2022 between GHI co-founder and COO Stephen Anderson and buyer Malvina Ghaoui, principal of The Ghaoui Group, a California-based company. In the text exchange, Anderson forwarded Ghaoui a message from someone named “Randy” asking for a “partner call” about a business deal between GHI and The Ghaoui Group.

3:12
Ethics committee questions Boissonnault over texts

“I do not have any information before me to support the allegation that you were involved in managing or operating GHI on September 8, 2022,” von Finckenstein wrote in the letter, first reported by CBC News.

The Conflict of Interest Act prohibits public officeholders from managing or operating a business while in office.

While Boissonnault continues to own 50 per cent of GHI, which is allowed as long as they aren’t involved with company operations, Boissonnault said he resigned as director of the company when he was re-elected as Edmonton Centre MP in the fall of September 2021. His shares are held in a numbered company.

“Minister Boissonnault ceased active involvement with GHI during the 2021 campaign, and formally resigned from his role with GHI after being elected in 2021,” wrote Alice Hansen, Boissonnault’s director of communications, in a prior statement.

Boissonnault provided documentation of his resignation as director of GHI to the ethics commissioner.

During a parliamentary ethics committee hearing in June in which Boissonnault and von Finckenstein both testified, von Finckenstein said he would look into whether Boissonnault had communicated with Anderson on Sept. 8, 2022, the day the text exchange occurred.

Boissonnault has repeatedly denied he is the “Randy” mentioned in the text exchange. The Ghaoui Group is now suing Anderson and two other employees of GHI over allegations of fraud.

Anderson and his two employees, Felix Papineau and Shawna Parker, have filed statements of defence denying Ghaoui Group’s allegations.

Boissonnault is not named in the lawsuit and the allegations remain unproven and untested in court.

The commissioner wrote that Boissonnault provided call logs for the date of the text exchange, along with screenshots of messages he exchanged on various platforms showing the identity of the receivers of those messages.

Boissonnault told the ethics commissioner he had no contact with Anderson or anyone else at GHI on the date in question, and has had “no communications whatsoever with The Ghaoui Group,” according to the letter.

“The information provided supports your statement,” the letter states.

In recent weeks, Boissonnault has faced a torrent of questions from Opposition MPs in the House of Commons about whether he was the “Randy” referenced in text messages. The Edmonton Centre MP repeatedly denied that he is the “Randy” mentioned by Anderson in the messages.

4:30
‘Will the other Randy please stand up?’: Conservative MPs question Boissonnault

On June 12, the parliamentary ethics committee unanimously passed a motion to have Anderson and Kirsten Poon, a lobbyist with ties to Boissonnault, to testify before the committee.

Anderson previously told Global News that he was referring to another GHI employee named Randy, but would not provide a surname. He said there was a “Randy” who held the title of head of logistics.

Global News spoke with several of GHI’s former suppliers and owners of businesses adjacent to GHI’s warehouse in Edmonton and was unable to find any evidence of another employee named Randy.

A representative of The Ghaoui Group previously confirmed no one from the company had directly spoken to Boissonnault, however Ghaoui said she had understood Anderson was referring to Boissonnault in the texts because Anderson had told her he was a partner at GHI.

“It was clear that Stephen was referencing his previously mentioned partner, Randy Boissonnault. All of the ‘players’ mentioned to me were portrayed to be important for the purposes of closing my deal,” Ghaoui said in a statement.

Anderson has declined to answer follow-up questions from Global News regarding the identity of the other Randy. He and Poon are expected to appear before the ethics committee the week of July 15, but the date of the hearing has yet to be scheduled.

&copy 2024 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.