RNC Unveils Despicable Plan to Disenfranchise Voters in Key State

Republicans have found a new way to try to secure a swing state for Donald Trump: voter disenfranchisement.

On Thursday, the Republican National Committee and North Carolina’s Republican Party sued the states Board of Elections, or NCSBE, to limit acceptable forms of voter identification at the polls this November. The lawsuit argues that students at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill should not be allowed to use a digital form of ID in order to vote.

“The law does not allow the NCSBE to expand the circumstances of what is an acceptable student identification card, beyond a tangible, physical item, to something only found on a computer system,” the GOP argued in the lawsuit. They argued, without evidence, that allowing students and university staff to use their “Mobile UNC One Card” at in-person poll sites “could allow hundreds or thousands of ineligible voters” to cast their ballots. Additionally, they added—again without evidence—that the digital identification shouldn’t be accepted because  it “may be difficult for precinct official[s] to be able to see [the] screen.”

Republicans also filed a separate request for a judge to issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction preventing the use of the mobile ID.

While this may seem like a small story, young Americans are using digital wallets at greater rates. As a joke from earlier this year said, an easy way you can spot a millennial is if they’re carrying a physical wallet with them. And changing voter ID laws at the last minute is sure to have repercussions.

In July, Democratic North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper passed a law to allow voters to use mobile driver’s licenses starting in July 2025, which could now also face legal challenges down the line.

In 2020, Donald Trump won North Carolina by just under 75,000 votes. According to recent numbers, there are more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students who attend UNC-Chapel Hill and over 12,000 members of faculty and staff.

In North Carolina, in-person early voting begins October 17.

A neo-Nazi group is taking credit for creating and spreading the racist conspiracy that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

The leader of the group Blood Tribe, Christopher Pohlhaus, celebrated on his Telegram channel on Wednesday, after the presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris the day before where Trump brought up the false rumor.

The neo-Nazi group “pushed Springfield into the public consciousness,” Pohlhaus, known as “Hammer” to his followers, wrote on Telegram, according to NBC News.

“The president is talking about it now,” one of Blood Tribe’s members wrote on Gab, a social network popular with the far right. “This is what real power looks like.”

While the exact origin of the rumor is unclear, it was at least amplified and spread by the neo-Nazi group. In late June, local Facebook groups in Ohio were posting about Haitian children chasing geese and ducks. In the next few weeks, darker rumors spread about the ducks and geese going missing and possibly being eaten by Haitian immigrants.

In August, Blood Tribe picked up on the rumors and started posting about them on Telegram and Gab. Members of the racist organization marched in Springfield in Ohio in early August and spoke at some of the town’s meetings.

From there, the false story was picked up by the right-wing End Wokeness account on X, which last week posted a screenshot from a Facebook post and a picture of a man holding some kind of bird walking down a street. The picture wasn’t from Springfield, though: It was taken in Columbus, Ohio, on July 28, and the photographer has apologized and admitted he doesn’t know the ethnicity of the man.

Still, a post on Reddit made the rumor go viral, with right-wing influencers soon creating A.I.-generated pictures of Trump protecting pets, specifically cats. Politicians from Ted Cruz to vice presidential nominee J.D. Vance picked up on it before Trump mentioned it in Tuesday night’s debate. Now the increased attention is causing problems in the town, leading to threats against town buildings and elementary schools, as well as a condemnation from the mayor. A family’s deceased son has been used as a political tool, much to their outrage. Republican leaders need to face the fact that this false story is not ammunition for their immigration policies but is rooted in racism and needs to stop.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Republican-run North Carolina state Supreme Court have majorly sabotaged the democratic process in the key battleground state. 

The court ruled 4–3 on Monday to remove Kennedy from the ballot in that state, requiring election officials to destroy nearly three million ballots that included Kennedy’s name and to redesign 2,348 ballot styles. 

“To protect this important right, the elections process should ensure that voters are presented with accurate information regarding the candidates running for an elected office,” wrote Republican Justice Trey Allen in his majority opinion. “Where a ballot contains misleading information or inaccurately lists the candidates, it risks interfering with the right to vote according to one’s conscience.”

Not only will this last-minute change delay the distribution of ballots, it will also cut into early voting for North Carolina residents in violation of state and possibly federal laws, according to Slate.  

State law requires early voting to begin on September 6, and federal law requires that absentee ballots be mailed overseas by September 21—a deadline election administrators are now unlikely to meet.

Allen alleged that the state board of elections had purposefully rushed to print ballots featuring Kennedy’s name, noting that they had not halted production the second he announced he was “suspending” his campaign. But in his speech announcing his withdrawal from the presidential race, Kennedy made no mention of dropping out in North Carolina and did not file for removal until five days later. 

Since “suspending” his campaign, Kennedy has sought to take his name off the ballots in states where his presence will hurt Donald Trump’s chances at winning but keep his name on the ballot where it will help him. Even in suspension, Kennedy is insistent on running a spoiler campaign against the Democrats. 

“We acknowledge that expediting the process of printing new ballots will require considerable time and effort by our election officials and significant expense to the State,” Allen wrote in his  opinion. “But that is a price the North Carolina Constitution expects us to incur to protect voters’ fundamental right to vote their conscience and have that vote count.”

The far-right’s pet-eating Haitian migrant conspiracy is having real-world ramifications for the town of Springfield, Ohio.

The epicenter of the conspiracy shut down three of its schools on Friday, reported ABC News. Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated after receiving unspecified information from the Springfield Police Division, while Roosevelt Middle School was closed from the beginning of the school day due to similar threats, reported the Springfield News-Sun.

“The District is in the process of a controlled release to dismiss students to their parents,” the Springfield City School District said in a statement. “Additionally, Roosevelt Middle School was closed prior to the beginning of the school day in relation to the information received from the SPD.”

The educational gridlock comes one day after several other schools and a significant portion of Springfield’s government facilities—including City Hall, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, the Ohio License Bureau, the Springfield Academy of Excellence, and Fulton Elementary School—were shut down due to bomb threats.

Authorities have not directly tied Friday’s evacuations to the conspiracy, which accuses Haitian migrants who have settled in Springfield of stealing and eating their neighbors’ pets. The blatantly racist conspiracy has drawn national attention in recent weeks thanks to Donald Trump and his vice presidential pick, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance, both of whom have repeatedly elevated the evidenceless attack.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said during the presidential debate on Tuesday. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”

Meanwhile, Vance—who, again, represents Ohio—spent considerable time on the conspiracy this week. On Tuesday, the Republican shared that his office had received “many inquiries” from Springfield residents who were complaining about migrants eating their pets.

“It’s possible, of course, that all of these rumors will turn out to be false,” Vance said before continuing on his diatribe against Haitians.

Multiple city officials and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine have stated that the conspiracy is false. But that hasn’t stopped the Republican presidential ticket from endangering an entire town’s worth of people.

Kamala Harris has officially pulled ahead of Donald Trump, according to … Fox News?!

Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer reported Thursday evening that the former president had lost his edge in two key battleground states: Georgia and North Carolina. The conservative news network now considers them to be “toss-up” races, alongside Pennsylvania, Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin.

As a result, Harris had taken the lead in Fox’s Power Ranking predictions with 241 electoral votes to Trump’s 217. Hemmer noted that this was the first time Harris had pushed past Trump in their predictions.

Josh Krashaar, editor in chief of Jewish Insider, joined Hemmer and noted that Harris had considerably more paths to 270 electoral votes than President Joe Biden. “Now, with Georgia and North Carolina looking a whole lot more competitive, there are a lot more possibilities for the Democrats,” Krashaar said. “You could—you could win Georgia and not have to win Pennsylvania. And a lot of the Sun Belt states open up a whole slew of possibilities for the Democratic ticket.”

Last month, the Cook Political Report changed North Carolina’s status from “leaning Republican” status to “toss-up.” Shortly after, Fox News published polling from Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina that found that Harris had significantly tightened the gap across those key states. That polling saw Harris up by two points in Georgia.