Voters faced a fresh barrage of misinformation Tuesday, the latest development in a voting period that has been marred by misleading narratives across social media.

Twitter removed a post, shared from a screenshot on Instagram, in which a person falsely claiming to be a poll worker in Erie, Pa., said he had thrown out hundreds of Trump ballots. A far-right influencer falsely claimed on Twitter said that the National Guard had been deployed to Philadelphia and other cities to prevent unrest in the case of a Trump victory.

#Stopthesteal, a hashtag associated with alleged voter fraud and a Democratic theft of the election, was used more than 50,000 times, driven largely by right-leaning influencers including Donald Trump Jr. and Ann Coulter amplifying isolated incidents, according to researchers. One video, in which a pro-Trump poll watcher was mistakenly prevented from entering a Philadelphia polling location, racked up more than 287 million likes, retweets and views across Twitter by the afternoon as evidence of efforts to steal the election, according to researchers.

Late Monday, in a tweet Twitter restricted with a label, President Trump said the Supremes Courts recent decision about Pennsylvania mail-in ballots will induce violence in the streets. He added, Something must be done!

Many of the attempts appeared specifically targeted at voters in swing states, particularly in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. Some, like the presidents, intimated that violence could take place. His statements echoed concerns by elected officials and businesses, which boarded up storefronts before Election Day.

My biggest fear is the potential for physical violence that we didnt have in 2016, said Alex Stamos, head of the Stanford Internet Observatory and a former Facebook chief security officer, said on a media call Tuesday morning from the Election Integrity Partnership, a coalition of misinformation researchers that examined the #Stopthesteal hashtag.

The lead up to the 2020 election has been uniquely influenced by social media, particularly because in-person campaigning has been more limited by the global pandemic. Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Bidens campaigns have spent millions of dollars on social media and other targeted advertising in recent weeks.

But researchers have cautioned that domestic disinformation has also taken on an increased power this election, as groups attempt to spread lies online and even the president uses his Twitter account to share misinformation to his more than 87 million followers.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and Google-owned YouTube, collectively have held more than 100 scenario-planning exercises, launched a spate of new policies including prohibitions on premature declarations of victory and calls to violence, and taken unprecedented enforcement actions, according to the companies.

They have come up with detailed plans on how they will flag whether the election is decided or not, partnering with media outlets to attempt to slow the spread of misinformation. Facebook and Google have banned political and social ads with the close of polls Tuesday, while Twitter has banned them entirely.

They are trying to prevent a repeat of 2016, when in the weeks after the election they discovered that their platforms were abused by Russian operatives who successfully showed disinformation to American voters.

The final day of voting culminates a period in which disinformation has been spread beyond just social media, including in text messages, email and old-fashioned mail.

Across the U.S. voters received an estimated 10 million robocalls in recent days encouraging them to stay safe and stay home, according to researchers.

Throughout Election Day, Twitter labeled some posts as disputed and potentially misleading about an election or other civic process, including several #StopTheSteal posts that suggested fraud was rampant. But many of them remained on the site, unflagged, including a tweet by Trump campaign official Mike Roman that said Democrats were keeping TRUMP WATCHERS OUT to steal the race. The post had gained more than 11,000 retweets by early afternoon.

On Tuesday, officials in Erie County, Pa., disputed the claims in the viral post regarding Trump ballots being tossed. The person making the statements does not work in any way with Erie County, the county said on its Twitter account.

The dissemination of misleading narratives was highly centralized, and, in places, took on the characteristics of a game. A post on 8kun, the anonymous image board at the center of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, advised the use of particular hashtags, from #Watchyourballot to #VoteInPerson to #Trump2020Landslide. The message illustrated the behind-the-scenes coordination that goes into creating the appearance of an online groundswell.

The presidents tweet about violence in Pennsylvania was labeled by Twitter with a notice that voting by mail and voting in person have a long history of trustworthiness, and that voter fraud is extremely rare. It also took actions to restrict the spread of the tweet. But the tweet had already been retweeted more than 55,000 times before the social media company throttled it, according to the Election Integrity Partnership.

Facebook appended a label to the same post on its site about the security of mail balloting. Still, it received internal pushback from Facebooks own employees saying they should do more, according to internal communications viewed by The Washington Post.

The light touch from the worlds largest social network alarmed David Brody, counsel and senior fellow for privacy and technology at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

Its really important for the platforms to raise up the authoritative sources and algorithmically downlink conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated rumors, said Brody, warning about the possibility that the presidents words could lead to real-world violence.

The #stopthesteal hashtag gained momentum Tuesday as users and right-leaning influencers spread the banned poll watcher video and other isolated incidents of improper practices or glitches at polling locations, according to First Draft News, a nonprofit that focuses on tackling misinformation. Pro-Trump users had previously popularized the #stopthesteal hashtag during the 2018 midterm election, as part of similarly baseless allegations of wide-scale voter fraud. There were also some signs the hashtag had been promoted by bots.

Zignal Labs, a media intelligence firm, said the hashtag went from just a few dozen mentions at 8 a.m. Tuesday morning to more than 2,000 every 15 minutes by 8:15.

The video of a Trump poll worker wrongfully being denied entry to a polling place in Philadelphia went viral on Twitter with that hashtag and commentary around efforts to steal the election. A local polling judge incorrectly told him that his certificate only worked at one location in the city, when in fact it worked at any.

Kevin Feeley, a spokesman for the Philadelphia City Commissioner Lisa Deeley, said the locations judge of election made an honest mistake in preventing the watcher from entering the location, and the commissioners office acted quickly in informing him of the correct rules.

The poll watcher did not re-enter that particular location, but Feeley said he did gain admittance to another polling location in Philadelphia.

Narratives pushing unproven allegations of widespread voter fraud have been circulating on social media for months, including from Trump, his adult sons, and affiliated outlets and supporters. Stories have been taken out of context, such as a claim that ballots which were found in a ditch in Wisconsin were put there on purpose to hurt Trump.

A video clip of Biden that was deceptively edited to make it appear as if he was admitting to voter fraud racked up more than 17 million views over the past week, according to the left-leaning human rights group Avaaz.

That has led to additional concerns about potential manipulated videos surfacing Tuesday and in the aftermath of voting, in attempts to cast doubt on results.

The Washington Posts Drew Harwell, Cat Zakrzewski and Tony Romm contributed to this report.

More:

Online lies and misinformation surge on Election Day - Anchorage Daily News

On the lawn of Jeff Whritenours house in Kinnelon, New Jersey, a sign reads, Presidents are temporary, the Grateful Dead is forever. A few feet away, a flag bearing the iconography of the Grateful Dead flies above a Trump 2020 banner. Passersby often pause for a double-take, no doubt questioning what many would perceive as conflicting messages. After all, the Dead were liberal, pot-smoking hippies of the San Francisco counterculture; musicians inspired by the LSD experience of the 1960s and the Beat Generation. These attributes arent what naturally comes to mind when thinking of Donald Trumps supporters but Whritenour doesnt see it that way.

Im not a big fan of the president, but at the end of the day, Trump is about individual freedom and so was the Dead, says the insurance claims consultant. His take, along with that of an unknown number of Trump-supporting Deadheads, is that the Grateful Deads philosophy was about individual liberties and not telling people what to do.

I aint buyin it, declares Dennis McNally, the Grateful Deads longtime publicist and author of A Long Strange Trip: The Inside History of the Grateful Dead. McNally worked for the band from 1984 to 2004 and feels that the essence of the Grateful Deads music and its core members Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann is to be compassionate and tolerant. The capacity for people to compartmentalize their lives is infinite, and anyone who is serious about being a Deadhead and then supports Trump is more or less consciously overlooking the values that he espouses which are bigotry and cruelty.

The Deads lyrics are not a polemic, there is a lot of room for interpretation and disparate perceptions. Further, its difficult to identify a singular theme or collective Grateful Dead political philosophy. Most of their lyrics were written by Robert Hunter, a poet inspired by folk music whose words elicited no mundane meanings but rather formed an authentic journey into an old, ideal, adventurous storybook America. The Dead saw themselves as meta-political, playing concerts at anti-war protests but never supporting any political candidates. In fact, its rare that an original song by the Dead even reference a news event of its time. The Dead have no Ohio in their repertoire.

Courtesy of Jeff Whritenour

That political agnosticism may in fact be what draws Republicans and libertarians to the band. Deroy Murdock, a political commentator and Fox News contributor, saw the Dead over 70 times and uses the song Liberty specifically Hunters lyric to find my own way home as evidence that the Deads values are inherently conservative. Murdock attended Dead shows in the 80s and 90s with other rightist commentators like Ann Coulter and Marc Caputo. The emphasis of individuality, self-expression, and patriotism is appealing to Trump supporters, says Murdock, who prefers to focus on the presidents policy record rather than his public demeanor. Yet, after over four years of nonstop coverage, late-night tweet storms, and questionable leadership, its hard not to focus on Trumps character. Murdock thinks that Garcia, the Deads somewhat reluctant leader, and Hunter would have found Trump amusing. They would have laughed at his antics.

Actually, Hunter is spinning in his grave, says McNally, who worked closely with the late lyricist and Garcia. Steve Silberman, a New York Times best-selling author who co-produced So Many Roads, a boxset of Grateful Dead music, says of Garcia: Could you imagine Jerry supporting a government kidnapping 500 children and losing their parents? I cant.

This isnt to say the band never took a political stance. In the summer of 1989, members of the Dead testified before Congress to raise awareness of deforestation in Malaysia. Garcia lit a cigarette in the non-smoking chamber before Representative Claudine Schneider, a Republican from Rhode Island, stated that her guess would be 90% of Deadheads did not vote. Garcia himself rarely voted, except as Silberman recounts, for Lyndon B. Johnson over Barry Goldwater in 1964. A few years later in 1993, Garcia stood in the oval office wearing sweatpants and sneakers as Vice President Al Gore explained the origins of the Resolute Desk, wearing a three-piece suit. We would have never gone to the White House if a Republican was in office, says McNally.

Garcias small acts of rebellion were indicative of a Grateful Dead philosophy that put great stock in freedom, autonomy, independence and not preaching to the population. Still his reasoning for being invested in the rainforest issue was: I am an earthling on this planet, pointing toward a spirit of caring that is at the core of the Deads philosophy.

Conservative Deadheads have gotten much more stupid and much more programmed, says Silberman, who fears civil war may be imminent with potential polling place violence on election day and Trumps continued spread of Covid-19-related misinformation. He, like countless others quarantined in their homes for months, has found himself returning to the comfort music of his youth, turning to the Deads melodies and sense of community for something more meaningful, as a place to be reborn at every show.

But Silberman also recalls shows in the 70s and 80s where he felt afraid to hold his boyfriends hand in public, worried about being gay-bashed by those in attendance. Homophobia and sexism ran in the Grateful Dead family, he says.

Murdock, who is a Black gay man, insists that the scene was inclusive. He also feels strongly that Trump is not a racist. If he were racist, he would not have ended mass incarceration, states Murdock, falsely, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The issue at the heart of conservative Deadheads point of view is the desire for little to no government interference in their private lives. Offers Whritenour: We shouldnt focus on Trump the man, but instead the right to do what I want with my time, money, and life.

North Carolina newspaper editor Brian Clary, who attended Dead shows in the 80s and 90s, counters that the peace and love vibe does not square with Trump at all. If anything, he believes Trump-supporting Deadheads are misinterpreting the songs and the culture. The I got mine, you got yours philosophy that [Trumps] supporters are all about is the antithesis of the Grateful Dead.

Among the Deads guiding mantras is Garcias oft-sung line, Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world. And while Deadheads may not collectively agree on the greatest Dark Star jam or who was the bands best keyboardist, never mind politics, fans from all walks of life would endorse the fact that American has the right and duty to make their own decision on election day.

Follow this link:

Wave That Flag: Meet the Deadheads Who Stump for Trump - Variety

Americans are counting down the hours to vote in an embittered election race, pitting incumbent Republican Donald Trump against his Democrat challenger Joe Biden.

Tonight, we should start to get some idea of whether President Trump will keep his place in the White House, orif Mr Biden will deny him a second term.

Many news channels will be providing live election coverage tonight heres how you can stream the event online.

The US election takes place on 3 November 2020.

With the time difference, however, the majority of election shows in the UK will start late tonight, and mainly air in the early hours of 4 November.

The BBCs US Election 2020 programme, can be watched online from BBC iPlayer, either through theBBC One live streamorthe BBC News Channel live stream.

You will also be able to watch a live stream on the BBC News website on theUS Election Live Page, where you will find text updates, key tweets and an interactive map with results and polling data too.

The live programme will be fronted by Katty Kay from Washington and Andrew Neil from London, starting at 11.30pm (GMT) on Tuesday 3 November and will also be shown live on TV on BBC One and the BBC News Channel.

Christian Fraser will show every result from a special screen, while Jon Sopel and Clive Myrie will be with the Trump and Biden campaigns with further reporters including Emily Maitlis in key states.

Tina Daheley will present bulletins throughout the night and experts will be on hand to offer analysis.

The coverage will continue into the next morning, with other presenters taking over in the early hours.

To watch a selection of additional programmes, short videos and documentaries about the US election from the BBC, such as What Does The Election Cost? as well as all the debates, you can head to BBC iPlayer.

You can watch ITVs election night special called Trump Vs. Biden: The Results, live through ITV Hub, here.

The ITVs live coverage, which you can also watch on its TV channel, runs from 11pm (GMT) to 6am and will be led by Tom Bradby, who will be presenting the show from Washington.

He will be supported from the studio by Washington correspondent, Robert Moore and US political analyst Dr. Keneshia Grant.

Additionally, Julie Etchingham will report live from the swing state of Florida, while a cast of politicians, campaigners and voters from across the US political spectrum will also offer insight and analysis.

Those set to make an appearance include Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Martin Luther King III.

Sky News can be streamed live online, here and through its YouTube channel here.

Skys election show, calledAmerica Decides, will begin at 10pm (GMT) tonight and will also be available to watch on the Sky News TV channel.

The show will be anchored byDermot Murnaghan, and accompanied by US Correspondent Cordelia Lynch, former aide to Donald Trump, Omarosa Manigault Newman and the former British Ambassador to the US, Sir Kim Darr

Broadcasting from a studio overlooking the White House, the show will present live results, expert analysis, special guests and a bespoke augmented reality studio allowing viewers to visualise the Race to the White House.

There will also be other channels providing live election coverage that can streamed online.

These include CNN which can be watched live, for free, from the UK via its website here. The channel is streaming 24/7 but the official election show kicks off at 9pm GMT (4pm ET).

Most US news channels will be showing election coverage tonight, some of which can be streamed live through YouTube.

These include ABC News which can be watched here, from midnight tonight (GMT).

Others providing coverage that can be streamed on YouTube include CBS News, which starts at 10pm (GMT) and NBC News, which will start early and provide coverage all day today, from 11am (GMT).

While we will know results from many states in the early hours of 4 November, it may be a while longer until we know the who will be the next US President.

Due to thecomplexity of voting during the coronavirus pandemic, states have taken different approaches to processing and counting votes, with some taking longer than others.

There are three basic ways to vote in the US: in person on election day, in person and early, and via a mail-in ballot all of which will be counted separately and on different timescales.

For more information on why it may take longer than usual to find out the results of the vote,see our article here.

The i on TV newsletter is a daily email full of suggestions of what to watch as well as the latest TV news, opinions and interviews. Sign up here to stay up to date with the best new TV.

See the rest here:

US election 2020 live stream: how to watch results online from UK tonight, and what time it starts - iNews

ANew Yorkercartoon shows Donald Trump in an orange jumpsuit. Until last night, his enemies could enjoyably salivate over that prospect. Today, it might look to them as though President Trump is not going to jail, after all. We cannot say yet whether thats because he has won outright, or because he has lost so narrowly he can dispute the result and dictate the terms of his exit. Either way, the Joe Biden blow-out that most of the polls predicted and his supporters nervously expected has not materialized. This is, as a New York Timesheadline said, a nail-biter. It is not yet a repeat of 2016; Biden could well win, but the opinion polls, which set the tone of much of the reporting of this race, and which made much of the political weather, were once again dramatically, embarrassingly wrong.

As I write, Biden has a slight lead in the Electoral College. It looks as if he will win Arizona, which was Trumps in 2016. Immigration seems to have turned the state from red to blue. The next results to watch are those from Georgia and North Carolina if Trump wins both, the race will then be decided by the three Rust Belt states he flipped in 2016: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. If Biden wins Georgia and North Carolina, he would probably need only one of those three states.

At the moment, Trump is ahead in Georgia, but only slightly. One Democratic party operative told me that African American votes from Fulton County outside Atlanta were still being counted and would give the state to Biden. Elsewhere, he said, Bidens vast advantage in mail in ballots would carry the remaining states. Bidens got this. Its true that mail-in ballots favor Biden by a huge margin. Thats part of the reason why Nate Silver a pollster whos been less wrong than others in the past says the final result could be Biden 280, Trump 258.

Or it could be Trump. Almost alone among polling organizations, the Democracy Institute said that Trump would beat Biden.Some early results have matched their predictions. They thought Trump would take Florida with a four-point lead; in the end it was 3.4 percent. Florida could be a special case. President Trump did unexpectedly (and ironically) well among Hispanics there. That was largely because Cuban-American men of a certain age and outlook seem to approve of Trumps macho, unapologetic swagger. We are still waiting to see if all of the Democracy Institutes other state-by-state predictions are borne out and Donald Trump is triumphant.

To understand how we got here, watch or watch again Andrew Neils Spectator TV interview with the director of the Democracy Institute, Patrick Basham.

They discussed the shy Trump voter, people too embarrassed to say publicly that they would cast their ballot for Trump. The percentage of these voters may be only in the low single digits, but that could be more than enough to make the difference in a tight race. The Democracy Institute also took its projections only from people identifying as likely voters instead of from those simply registered to vote the mistake that Basham says other polling organizations made. This is a crucial difference given the devotion of many Trump supporters. Large and enthusiastic crowds came to see Trump in the last days of the campaign. Bidens events could have been held in a campervan, as the conservative commentator Ann Coulter said. If Trump has won, he earned his victory by fighting to the very last rally.

Of course, the votes are still being counted. And in many of the remaining states, the two candidates are separated by a gap of a few tens of thousands of votes, just tenths of a percentage point. There could be a recount in more than one state and then, as widely expected, challenges from both sides in the courts. President Trump has long been telegraphing that this will be his strategy as so often with Trump, he says exactly what he is thinking and we should take him at his word.In the early hours of this morning, he declared that he was ready to go the Supreme Court to right the wrong of what he has repeatedly called (without evidence) a rigged election. Avery sad group of people was trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans. This is fraud on the American public. This is an embarrassment to our country. We were getting ready to win this election. Frankly we did win this election.

Donald Trump must fear losing the protection of the Oval Office. He was Individual 1, identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in the successful prosecution of his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen. Cohen was convicted of paying $130,000 in hush money to the porn actress Stormy Daniels six days before the 2016 election an illegal campaign contribution. Cohen told me recently that this was done at the direction of Trump and hes prepared to give evidence against him. Cohen and many others speculate that Trump will try to pardon himself, or resign the presidency and get Mike Pence to pardon him.

*** Get a digital subscription toThe Spectator. Try a month free, then just $3.99 a month ***

This might not help Trump. A pardon would apply only to federal crimes. Making an illegal campaign contribution is a federal crime but in this case, if Cohen is telling the truth, it may have involved other, state crimes. The payment was allegedly buried in the Trump Organizations accounts as legal expenses and false accounting is a state crime in New York. More than that, Cohen told me he believed that Trump would almost certainly face state charges of tax evasion and of bank fraud. The Trump Organization is being investigated by the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, who has already convened a Grand Jury. Cohen had spoken several times to state prosecutors about Trumps business practices. He told me: His dangers are vast and significant.

Cohen wouldnt say me exactly what evidence he has given to Vance but there are some clues in his book,Disloyal. Trump is accused of keeping two sets of books one for the banks, another for the IRS. Cohen writes that Trump would order him and other executives to inflate the value of buildings and golf courses for the banks to get bigger loans. For instance, Seven Springs mansion in Westchester cost $7 million but was supposedly given a value of $291 million for Deutsche Bank. For the IRS on the other hand the same properties would be deemed essentially worthless, or better yet the subject of giant capital losseshe could then deduct. Trump reportedly took a $21 million tax deduction on Seven Springs. In one scene from Disloyal,Trump gets a tax refund check for $10 million and holding it up, delighted, says: Can you believe how fucking stupid the IRS is?

The President, like any other American, is innocent until proven guilty. He says that Cohen is a proven liar. But what if Trump believes that the office of the presidency is the only thing keeping him out of jail? He would cling to the gold lame drapes in the Oval Office with his last ounce of strength. And there is always a deal to be done. According to Trump, the art of the deal is to behave so unreasonably at the start of a negotiation that an opponent is desperate for an agreement on almost any terms. If Trump makes enough trouble now in the courts or on the streets could he extract a promise that he will remain a free man after he leaves the presidency? That would be Trumps greatest deal ever.

This article was originally published on The Spectators UK website.

Link:

Donald Trump is preparing to strike his greatest deal yet - The Spectator US

Its almost time for the US to decide who will be in charge of the country for the next four years.

The results announcement of the US presidential election is set to be one of the biggest TV events of the year, with current Republican Donald Trump facing off against Democrat Joe Biden.

Heres how to watch the US election results in the UK and what to expect on the night.

The US election takes place on 3 November 2020.

With the time difference, however, the majority of election shows will air in the early hours of 4 November.

While we will know results from many states on the night, it may be a while longer until we know the full set of results.

Due to the complexity of voting during the coronavirus pandemic, states have taken different approaches to processing and counting votes, with some taking longer than others.

There are three basic ways to vote in the US: in person on election day, in person and early, and via a mail-in ballot all of which will be counted differently, and on different timescales.

For more information on why it may take longer than usual to find out the results of the vote, see our article here.

Here are some of the main election programmes offering overnight coverage:

BBC One and the BBC News Channel will be showing a live US Election 2020 programme, fronted by Katty Kay and Andrew Neil from 11.30pm on Tuesday 3 November.

The coverage, which is split into four parts, will continue through the night and into the next morning, with other presenters taking over for part four, starting at 9am on Wednesday 4 November.

Christian Fraser will show every result from a special screen, Jon Sopel and Clive Myrie will be with the Trump and Biden campaigns with further reporters in key states, and Tina Daheley will present bulletins throughout the night.

A panel of expert political strategists will assess how the night was won, how the campaign was lost and the impact the decision will have on the years ahead, according to the BBCs programme description.

ITV will also broadcast a live election programme, called Trump Vs. Biden: The Results on from 11am to 6am.

Tom Bradby, who will be presenting the show from Washington, said: If we have learned one thing with these overnight programmes in recent years, it is to expect the unexpected and this night might very well be the most interesting of all.

He will be supported from the studio by Washington correspondent, Robert Moore and US political analyst Dr. Keneshia Grant.

Additionally, Julie Etchingham will report live from the swing state of Florida, while a cast of politicians, campaigners and voters from across the US political spectrum will also offer insight and analysis. Those set to make an appearance incude Anthony Scaramucci, Ann Coulter and Martin Luther King III.

Presenter Moore said: Over the years, I have seen many presidential battles in my role as Washington correspondent. But this is a unique moment in so many ways: an election amid a pandemic; extraordinary early voting figures; and the spectre that President Trump may not accept the outcome. This will be a thrilling political night a true test of Americas democratic resilience.

Several other news channels will be showing election coverage on the night, including Sky News.

Skys show, called America Decides, will begin at 10pm on 3 November.

Broadcasting from a studio overlooking The White House, the show will present live results, expert analysis, special guests and a bespoke augmented reality studio allowing viewers to visualise the Race to the White House.

The show will be anchored byDermot Murnaghan, and accompanied by US Correspondent Cordelia Lynch, former aide to Donald Trump, Omarosa Manigault Newman and the former British Ambassador to the US Sir Kim Darroch, among others. Ed Conway will add to the coverage from the London studio.

On the evening of the US presidentialelection on 3 November, polls will close at different times across the United States, usually on the hour.

As soon as this happens, a state can be called by the US news networks for either Mr Trump or Mr Biden.

Here is a guide to how USelectionnight might play out, based on the latest available information for when polls are due to close.

All times are GMT.

11pm 3 November: Polls close in two Republican strongholds Kentucky and Indiana.

12am 4 November: Virginia, Vermont, South Carolina could provide results. Polls also close in two of the swing states Florida and Georgia. While neither will be called straight away, Florida should count its votes quickly and as such will give an early idea of how both the candidates are doing.

12.30am: West Virginia could be called, while North Carolina and Ohio will close their polls but probably wont call results straightaway

1am: More than a dozen states are set to close their polls including Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Rhode Island and Washington DC, Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee anf Texas.

Swing states Michigan and Pennsylvania will also close their polls.

1.30am: Polls close in Arkansas.

2am: Polls close in Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, New York. Three swing states of Arizona, Minnesota and Wisconsin will close their votes.

3am: Idaho, Montana, Nevada and Utah will close their polls, as will the last of the swing states Iowa.

4am: California, Oregon and Washington will close.

5am: Polls close in Hawaii.

6am: Alaska is the last state to conclude voting.

Additional reporting by PA.

The i on TV newsletter is a daily email full of suggestions of what to watch as well as the latest TV news, opinions and interviews. Sign up here to stay up to date with the best new TV.

Read the original here:

How to watch US election 2020 in the UK: What time results start tonight, and full TV schedule - iNews

Four years ago, then-candidate Donald Trump forged an unlikely alliance with the Hindu American community. In an Edison banquet hall where posters of Trump showed him superimposed upon lotuses and Bollywood dancers wielded lightsabers for an interpretive dance condemning terrorism, Trump made his now-famous decree:

We love Hindus, Trump said. And if elected, you would have a true friend in the White House.

Trump lights a diya lamp at an RHC rally on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016, at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, in Edison.

For a group typically snubbed by Republicans, Trumps proclamation reverberated.

That was the biggest gift candidate Trump could give to us, to the Hindu community, Shalabh Kumar, founder of the Republican Hindu Coalition which hosted the rally, told NJ Advance Media.

The same month, an ad showing Trump speaking Hindi, parroting Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis re-election slogan and featuring clips from the rally went viral across Indian American media, with a multi-million-dollar fundraising push from the RHC.

You know how some kind of a moment happens and everyones enthusiastic, even though you might not be Republican, but just because the wave of your community joining something Thats how everybody was at that time, Dhiren Parikh, a 2016 Trump voter from Old Bridge, told NJ Advance Media.

He added: This year we dont see any movement.

Hindu-Americans who supported Trump in 2016 reported a reversal in attitude from the Trump campaign, contrary to its surprisingly active push four years prior. Though its no secret Hindu Americans en masse will go for the Biden-Harris ticket in New Jersey and nationwide, an ardent subsection of Hindus that showed up for Trump in 2016 might wane come election day, representing the campaigns failure to capitalize on would-be supporters.

Though polling data cant paint an exact picture of Trumps support among Hindus, which make up about half of all Indian Americans, 72 percent of registered Indian American voters plan to cast their ballots for Biden and 22 percent for Trump, according to the Indian American Attitudes Survey which surveyed nearly 1,000 Indian Americans. In 2016, 32 percent of Indian Americans held a favorable view of Trump in the Post-Election National Asian American Survey which polled more than 4,000 Asian Americans.

Attendees show their support for Trump at an RHC rally on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016, at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, in Edison.

The campaign side this time around in 2020 has gone back to the traditional Republican outreach towards the Indian or Hindu-American community, which was simply a checkbox approach, Kumar said. You talk to a few Indians, you talk to a few Hindus, and check the box, youve done the minority outreach. There really has not been any serious outreach this time around.

The RHC has not held any major events this election cycle and Kumar, a Trump megadonor and one of the Hindu communitys most powerful political power brokers, has taken a back seat in 2020.

Others expressed the same frustration, complaining that the Trump team has made no efforts to reach out this time around, issued no statements, forged no community bonds and has just generally been absent.

President Trump has not made any formal statement or his campaign team about the Indian Americans are they thankful for [Indian Americans'] presence in this country or not?... South Brunswick resident Jyotsna Sharma told NJ Advance Media. "So why do they want to discard this community altogether?

Indian Americans show their support for Trump at an RHC rally on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016, at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, in Edison.

Of course, not everybody agrees. A.D. Amar, president of the Indian-Americans for Trump 2016 PAC and Seton Hall University Professor, feels the Trump campaigns footprint has been felt by Indian Americans and sees the group serving as a decisive bloc in swing states. Still, Amar worries that Kamala Harris, of Indian and Hindu heritage, will invigorate Hindu Americans to vote Democrat.

Democrats typically enjoy the support of Hindus and Indians along with their multicultural coalition of Jews, Muslims, African Americans, Latinx Americans and immigrants.

If you are a Hindu-American, Indian-American, you naturally move towards Democrats because Democrats are considered to be a party of minorities they welcome minorities a lot more than Republicans do, Kumar said. Thats a very natural tilt toward the Democrat party. Thats the connection of the heart, connection of feelings. Not economic policies.

But, analogous to Jewish voters, a reliably blue bloc with a fervent swath of Trump supporters, there are a significant number of Hindus who admire Trump for his friendship with Indias strongman leader Modi, just as Republican Jews like Trumps relationship with Israels Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Coupled with Trumps aggressive posture against Pakistan, his action against terrorism and his business-first economic policies, theres much Hindu Americans, the religious group with the highest socioeconomic levels in the U.S., found attractive in Trumps first term.

Part of the disenchantment, however, this election cycle is Trumps inaction on immigration reform.

Kumar has asked the Trump administration to clear the green card backlog, where more than a million immigrants have gotten petitions approved from employers but are stuck in a backlog, waiting for legal permanent residence. Additionally, hes lobbied for so-called DALCA kids or Deferred Action for Legal Childhood Arrival to enjoy the same legal protections as DACA kids.

RHC seeks a more definitive commitment from the Trump administration towards that, Kumar said. Even though we know President Trump is all for it, but the Trump administration needs to commit to it.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appears with Republican Hindu Coalition Founder Shalabh Kumar at an RHC rally on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2016, at the New Jersey Convention and Exposition Center, in Edison.

Some Hindu Americans are also turned off by Trumps racial rhetoric.

This country is a land of immigrants and this kind of discord doesnt land anywhere. We look for more peace and prosperity and more respect for each otherHe should have set better examples when it comes to white supremacy, Sharma said, who cannot actually vote as she is still waiting for a green card.

For Parikh, the change in campaign strategy and Trumps tone on immigration were enough to swing his vote to Biden.

What we thought at the time candidate Trump can do for America, for me personally, didnt turn out that way, Parikh said.

Regardless, Hindu Americans are not a monolith, and trends in voting are just that: trends. There still exists a significant portion of Hindu voters whose adoration for the president is undiminished, who dont care about identity-based campaigning.

Why does he need to reach out to specifically South Asians, or African Americans or Hispanics? South Brunswick resident Jinesh Patel asked NJ Advance Media. It doesnt make sense, just for an election gimmick. I think he has done a lot in the last four years for South Asians, and African Americans, and Hispanics and America as a whole.

Please subscribe now and support the local journalism YOU rely on and trust.

Josh Axelrod may be reached at JAxelrod@njadvancemedia.com.

See the article here:

Hindus in N.J. who voted for Trump in 2016 say their support is waning - nj.com

The Indian High Commission in Dhaka has taken up the issue of attack on a Hindu neighbourhood in the country where the majority community had accused members of the minority community of blasphemy. Official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs Anurag Srivastava said the issue was being looked into by the Bangladesh government.

Our High Commission is in close contact with the local authorities in Bangladesh. They have taken up this incident. We have been informed that the authorities in Bangladesh are investigating the outbreak of violence. They also remain vigilant to prevent any untoward disturbances, said Mr. Srivastava.

The violence had broken out in Comilla in the eastern part of Bangladesh where mobs had attacked homes belonging to the minority Hindus after rumoured social media comments about the French cartoons of Prophet Mohammed became viral. The attack was filmed and was shared widely on social media platforms that added to the tension.

Bangladesh has since promised to look into the incident. Hefazat E Islam, a hardline Islamic outfit, has been agitating against the French cartoons of the Prophet which has created pressure on the Sheikh Hasina government.

See the original post:

India takes up with Bangladesh attack on Hindus - The Hindu

Voicing concern over reports of attack on minority Hindu community in some parts of Bangladesh, Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday urged the Centre to take up the issue immediately with the neighbouring country.

He referred to recent media reports that temples were attacked and Hindu families in Bangladesh became victims of arson and loot by fundamentalist forces.

At least 15 Hindu temples in Bangladesh have been vandalised over allegations of disrespect shown to Islam on Facebook, triggering panic among the minority community in some areas, a report from Dhaka said on October 31.

Temples at Nasirnagar in Brahmanbarhia district in Bangladesh were vandalised on Sunday and over 100 houses in the area belonging to Hindus were looted, the media report said.

After the violence, which reportedly lasted for hours, two temples in adjacent Madhabpur in Habigunj also came under attack, the report said quoting police and eyewitnesses.

It is reported that Hindu families in Bangladesh have been targeted by fundamentalist forces resulting in the arsoning and other violence as a reprisal of the stand taken by our government. Indian government should take up the issue with Bangladesh government as immediately as possible so as to prevent further escalation, he said in a statement.

Six persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack and paramilitary Border Guards Bangladesh (BGB) deployed at Nasirnagar and Madhabpur Upazila headquarters along with the Rapid Action Battalion, police and Armed Police Battalion, the report said.

Locals said the Nasirnagar incident started with a Facebook post by one person from Harinberh village under Haripur Union Parishad.

Police detained the accused on Friday immediately after the allegation of blasphemy against him. The man has been sent to jail following a court order.

More:

Congress urges Centre to take up with Bangladesh attacks on Hindus - The Hindu

Text Size: A- A+

The recent controversy over Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi leader Thol Thirumavalavans remarks on the demeaning portrayal of women in the Manusmriti has already accomplished two things. First, it has shined a light on the rampant sexism practiced by many of our political leaders, who sanctimoniously claim to support womens equality. Second, the ill-informed response by the Bharatiya Janata Partys Khushbu Sundar has exposed the hypocrisy of her organisation, one of whose leaders only recently declared that the men accused of the heinous rape in Hathras are innocentand that the murdered woman was an awaara.

I found nothing offensive in Thirumavalavans remarks, which were only highlighting the offensive verses from the Manusmriti. However, his call to ban the text brought two anecdotes to my mind.

Some years back, when I had broached the subject of Manusmritiwith a family priest, he had declared with an air of finality, Everything was fine in our society until we stopped following Manu. He had earlier turned down a request from a woman wishing to perform ceremonies for her departed father, saying that he could only officiate if a person could sit bare-chested and with apoonal(sacred thread).

Onanotheroccasion, while visiting the Melukote temple nearMysuru, I had questioned apujariabout the tradition that allows the local Dalit community to take over the sanctum once a year (supposedly instituted by Ramanuja over 800 years ago). He didnt sound too happy: What can I say. These days they come in anytime they please. My father later informed me that after the Dalits designated day of worship, the priests purify the temple before resuming puja.

Also read: Dont listen to VHP and panic. Christianity is a failed project in India

I recount these exchanges to underscore thatManusmritiis still alive and well in the minds of large sections of our society and banning it is not going to banish bigotry from their minds.

What is desperately needed is a movement to reinvent Hinduism with urgent focus on eliminating gender and caste discrimination, perhaps taking cues from early rebelssuch asAkka Mahadevi, Basavanna, Kabir, and many others. Sadly, most Hindu religious leaders today seem unequal to the task. At best, they say that they themselves do not discriminate; at worst, they are too busy locking arms with Hindunationalists in their triumphalism over Indias Muslims and Christians to care about the real state of Hinduism today.

Privileged urban middle-class Hindus, on the other hand, will often declare that an end to the caste system will come soon enough through generational changes. Unfortunately, there is little evidence of such change among the younger generations, even as caste-related and sexual violence are on the rise. Recent news reports of wide-spread caste bias inSilicon Valley challenge the very notion that we can simply sit back and let our future generations bring an end to casteism over time.

On another side of the caste debate, some will ridicule the very notion that Hinduism is capable of reform, suggesting that the only way to annihilate caste is to annihilate Hinduism. Such strident voices coming from historically oppressed communities are understandable, but are completely unrealistic and offer no practical pathways to eliminating the caste system.

Finally, Hindu nationalists have never hadsocialreforms on their agenda. Instead, their priority has always been to portray themselves as the sole defenders of the Hindu faith from its external enemies.

No one could have put it more succinctly than my childhood friend and a senior Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ideologue from Bengaluru who once told me that dealing with the Muslim problem and Christian conversions were his top priorities. We can address our internal family problems later, he had said. Why wash our dirty linen in public?

Hindu nationalists have not changed much since that conversationI had decades ago, except that name-calling, intimidation, and violence have now become a major part of their portfolio.

In the meantime, their obfuscations and conspiracy theories are finding newer audiences, thanks to WhatsApp and coordinated Hindutva messaging like Manusmiti is mostly forged and is the work of enemies of Hinduism; Varnashrama and the caste system are distinctly different; our scriptures do not mention caste, which was imposed by Islamic and British rulers.

Also read: Whose Ram Rajya does Ayodhya temple bring Gandhis or Modis? Ambedkar can answer

In the United States, Hindunationalists have a unique dilemma. They want to avoid any honest discussion of the caste system and theManusmiti, but they also want to be seen as allies in the fight for racial and gender equality. As a result, they spend an inordinate amount of time arguing that caste and race are not at all comparable and that the Manusmitihas nothing to do with Hinduism. And they fully exploit the multi-cultural-friendly school systems to demand that the State protect the sensibilities of their children by not portraying the caste system in a negative light and by not discussing the oppression of women and Dalits.

It must irk them greatly today that the Black Lives Matter movement is eliciting many parallelsbetween the civil rights struggle and the continuing struggle of Dalits for equality.

Honesty and soul-searching have never been part of the Hindutva character. But the late learned Chandrasekarendra Sarasvati, the highly respected Kanchi Sankaracharya, had no qualms about telling it like it is:

According to the sastras, the Hindu community is divided into various castes. A particular duty is assigned to a particular caste. By heredity people come into a casteIt is the duty of other caste people to look after the Brahmins.

1963 interview with Prof. J.W. Elder of Universityof Wisconsin

He also went on to say that India being a secular State, it is the responsibility of religious leaders and institutions to see to the moral and religious uplift of society. Unfortunately, most such leaders, today,are utterly failing in those responsibilities by aligning themselves with an authoritarian and brutal ruling political class. I see no morality or religious upliftment in that.

Also read: Black lives mattered to Phule and Ambedkar. They had seen caste discrimination in India

The fact of the matter is that like other religions of the world, Hinduism, too, has a legacy of the good, the bad, and the really ugly. Hindus must own it all first, before we can have an honest conversation about how to bring about real changes. And that conversation must begin by personally disavowing the ugly at every opportunity we get.

WhenBhimraoAmbedkar burnt the text of theManusmritiin 1927, he was assisted by a Muslim and a Brahmin, who saw his symbolic act for what it was an act of resistance to raise societys consciousness about the fundamental inequities of Hinduism.

We must applaud Thirumavalavan for reminding us 93 years later that those inequities are still continuing. The difference, however, is that the Dalit movements today can count on many more non-Dalit allies by their side as they carry forward their struggle for equality.

By attacking the messenger,theBJP has shown its desperation to look for a wedge issue in an innately secular TamilNadu.

Raju Rajagopal is co-founder of Hindus for Human Rights @Hndus4HR. Views are personal.

Subscribe to our channels on YouTube & Telegram

Why news media is in crisis & How you can fix it

India needs free, fair, non-hyphenated and questioning journalism even more as it faces multiple crises.

But the news media is in a crisis of its own. There have been brutal layoffs and pay-cuts. The best of journalism is shrinking, yielding to crude prime-time spectacle.

ThePrint has the finest young reporters, columnists and editors working for it. Sustaining journalism of this quality needs smart and thinking people like you to pay for it. Whether you live in India or overseas, you can do it here.

Support Our Journalism

Read the original:

We must applaud Thol Thirumavalavans stand on Manusmriti. BJP attacking the messenger - ThePrint

By: Express News Service | Kolkata | Updated: November 3, 2020 11:05:13 pm Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury.

Congress leader in the Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury on Monday urged the Centre to take up with Bangladesh the issue of alleged violence against Hindus in that country. Chowdhury referred to recent media reports that claimed temples were allegedly vandalised and Hindu families in Bangladesh became victims of arson and loot by fundamentalist forces.

The media reports said at least 15 Hindu temples in Bangladesh have been vandalised over allegations of disrespect shown to Islam on social media, triggering panic among the minority community in some areas.

It is reported that Hindu families in Bangladesh have been targeted by fundamentalist forces, resulting in arson and other violence as a reprisal of the stand taken by our government. The Indian government should take up the issue with Bangladesh government as immediately as possible so as to prevent further escalation, Chowdhury said in a statement.

Temples at Nasirnagar in Brahmanbarhia district in Bangladesh were vandalised on Sunday and over 100 houses in the area belonging to Hindus were looted, the media report said. After the violence, which reportedly lasted for hours, two temples in adjacent Madhabpur in Habigunj also came under attack, the report said. Six persons have been arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack and paramilitary Border Guards Bangladesh were deployed at Nasirnagar and Madhabpur Upazila headquarters, it added.

The Indian Express is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel (@indianexpress) and stay updated with the latest headlines

For all the latest Kolkata News, download Indian Express App.

Read more from the original source:

Adhir tells Centre to raise issue of violence against Hindus in Bangladesh - The Indian Express