Latest news with #Millis
Boston Globe
13-05-2025
- General
- Boston Globe
Planning for summer guests when prices are rising
J.B. / Millis There isn't a delicate way, so be upfront about the matter. Acknowledge the awkwardness of the situation and let people know that you can't afford to provide food this year. Figure out in advance what's easiest: Do you want people to contribute a flat rate? Split the bills 50/50 (or proportionally, if there's more or fewer of them than there are of you)? Do their own shopping? But don't just ask for 'help' with the food bills in some vague way, leaving your well-intentioned friends guessing about what they ought to do; good hosts and hostesses always let their guests know exactly what is expected of them. Depending on your friends' knowledge of one another, general level of formality, et cetera, decide if it's best to do a mass e-mail (which shows fairness and gets all the information out to everyone at the same time) or individual phone calls (more personal). We're all going to hell in the same expensive grocery basket this summer, so your friends should be sympathetic and willing to chip in. If some of them aren't, consider the possibility that they are not really friends after all. Advertisement Twice now, friends have announced their impending parenthood with mass e-mails with the ultrasound images attached. In my opinion, these ultrasound images are private and something that I would only want to share with my spouse and our closest friends and family. However, since sending these images out to a large group seems to be more commonplace, I'm wondering if I am being too sensitive. Advertisement L.M. / Boston Ugh, sounds dreadful to me. I don't even think ultrasounds ought to be shared with 'closest friends and family' unless they ask to see them, as otherwise they leave people wondering what to say: 'My, he certainly has your bumpy occipital bone, doesn't he?' But you don't have to look, of course, nor even make reference to the ultrasounds in your return 'congrats' e-mail, so it's hardly something to get worked up about. Would that all indiscretions were so easily ignored. You and I may be behind the curve, however. Doctors and psychologists and ordinary people are simply mad for imaging these days, whether ultrasound or magnetic resonance or what have you. I wonder how far this mania will go? Perhaps college students will start sending along fMRI brain scans to accompany their graduation announcements. 'Look how my neocortex lights up when I'm thinking about Kant!' It's possible to take MRI scans of a couple in the act of intercourse—a team of Dutch researchers won an Ig Nobel Prize in 2000 for doing so, and Mary Roach and her husband repeated the experiment for her 2008 book, Bonk . Let's hope it doesn't become a trend to send these pictures along with wedding invitations. Advertisement Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a writer with a PhD in psychology.
Yahoo
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Legislative rules committee hears testimony on rules for election observers
Voters cast their ballot in a polling place just blocks from the state Capitol in Madison, Wis. | Photo by Henry Redman The Wisconsin Legislature's Joint Committee for the Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) heard testimony Monday on a proposed set of rules to guide the conduct of election observers. Over the last few elections, the observation process of elections has become more popular — and more polarizing — as Republicans have grown increasingly skeptical of the election process since President Donald Trump's baseless allegations of fraud in the 2020 presidential contest. The rule, proposed by the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), provides more detail for what observers are allowed to do and where they are allowed to position themselves at polling places, and lays out the process for how an unruly observer can be removed. The rule's final text was created with input from an advisory committee consisting of representatives of major and minor political parties, election clerks, disability rights groups and right-wing election conspiracy groups. The two most recent WEC chairs, Ann Jacobs, a Democrat, and Don Millis, a Republican, opened the testimony with each saying they have individual quibbles about the rule but the final text is the result of two years of consensus building and that legislators shouldn't reject the rule because it isn't perfect. Millis said that the current statute guiding election observers is vague and this rule is the best chance of clarifying regulations to protect the rights of voters and observers because passing new legislation into law is challenging under the state's divided government, with Republicans in control of the Legislature and a Democratic governor. 'In the end, we can debate about whether the rule provides enough latitude or protection for observers, I agree,' Millis said. 'I don't agree with everything in the rule, but I don't want the perfect to be the enemy of the good. Without this rule, municipal clerks have wide ranging authorities to manage polling places as they see fit. There's no reasonable argument that observers are better off without this rule. Now certainly the Legislature could come up with an improved observer statute through legislation, but of course, that has to be signed into law. And there's the rub.' Earlier this year, Republicans in the Assembly voted against an emergency rule that was broadly identical to the permanent rule being considered on Monday. In the hearing, Rep. Adam Neylon (R-Pewaukee) complained that legislators were not involved earlier in the rulemaking process. 'I feel a little bit like you didn't even try here,' Neylon said. 'You didn't even try to do legislation. You're choosing a rule and then telling us, 'We can't even work with you guys. This is what we got to do.' And I find that a little bit insulting.' Despite the inclusion of election skeptics on the advisory committee process, much of the testimony in the more than three-hour hearing came from election conspiracy theorists who oppose the rule's adoption. One opponent of the bill said there needed to be observers at Wisconsin's central count location for tabulating election results because the internet routers that transmit the results are manufactured by the 'Chinese Communist party.' Wisconsin's election results are tabulated at the local and county levels, not by the state, and while unofficial results get sent over the internet, official results are determined using the physical tapes obtained from the voting machines. Former state Rep. Janel Brandtjen, who was one of the Legislature's most prominent election deniers, complained that when she has tried to observe voting in the past, she's been denied access because limited seats are taken up by people 'playing Candy Crush all day.' Brandtjen also talked about Janet Angus, a Green Bay woman who was charged with disorderly conduct after berating a woman who was attempting to return her husband's absentee ballot during the April 2022 election. Angus, the Wisconsin Examiner reported, was involved in a Republican effort to influence the Green Bay mayoral election through a lawsuit against the city's use of audio recording equipment in its security system. Brandtjen also objected to the rule's provisions that treat members of the news media differently than observers — mostly by allowing them to take videos and photos inside polling places. Brandtjen said she found that 'distasteful.' Jacobs explained that allowing the public to learn about the voting process through the media is important and allowing reporters to do their jobs is necessary. 'We balanced the First Amendment right of the press with the limitations we're putting on observers, and we felt that was a reasonable accommodation,' Jacobs said. Elections commissioner Robert Spindell, a Republican, voted against the rule's passage when the commission considered it and testified against its passage on Monday. Spindell said he was against the rule because it doesn't allow observers to record video or audio at polling places, which he said would allow clerks to remove observers from polling sites without the observers being able to protect themselves. Rep. Lee Snodgrass (D-Appleton) said that as members of the committee were talking about large portions of the public being skeptical of election results, it was 'beyond the pale' that Spindell would be testifying to the committee because of his involvement in the fake electors scheme to overturn the results of the 2020 election. 'Honestly, when members of this committee are talking about people still being concerned about election integrity, and we have somebody testifying who was a part of trying to overturn the 2020, election, I mean, if ever there was an unreliable witness on anything, I feel that that person is sitting in front of us today in this committee,' Snodgrass said. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
10-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Election observer rule gets a polarized reception at Assembly hearing
Don Millis and Ann Jacob, the former and current chairs of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, testify Tuesday, Feb. 4, at an Assembly hearing on a commission rule for election observers. (Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner) For nearly two years the Wisconsin Elections Commission has been developing a rule that would govern election observers. Observers have long turned up to oversee the voting process on Election Day, representing the Democratic and Republican parties. Historically it was an uncontroversial civic exercise. Observers, says Jay Heck, director of Common Cause-Wisconsin, typically focused on whether voting machines worked properly, lines (if they existed at all) were moving smoothly and the voting process was uneventful. But the number of observers and the number of groups sponsoring them have increased over the last several elections — along with growing polarization around voting rights and ongoing legal and legislative battles over conflicting claims of voter fraud and voter suppression. Last week, those conflicts surfaced when lawmakers heard testimony for and against a proposed Wisconsin Elections Commission rule that would codify the rights of election observers as well as set limits on their behavior. Wisconsin's election law — rewritten in 2015 when the Wisconsin Elections Commission was established — requires polling place election chiefs to designate spaces for election observers between 3 and 8 feet from the table where people register to vote and the table where registered voters sign in and receive their voter number. Beyond that, however, the law leaves a lot open-ended, said Don Millis, a Republican member of the commission and its former chair, at an Assembly hearing Tuesday, Feb. 4. Mills, who was appointed to the commission in 2022, recalled that a fellow Republican told him the body should write a rule on election observers because the state elections statute 'is very vague and that some clerks are not treating Republican observers properly.' State elections law requires the commission to write a rule addressing the conduct of observers and their interactions with election officials, Millis said, but the body had not previously carried out that assignment. The rulemaking process started in August 2022. Gov. Tony Evers approved the rule's final draft Oct. 3, 2024. Tuesday's hearing before the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections was the next step in the process of establishing a rule. The proposed rule doesn't change the state law that specifies the area set aside for election observers. But Millis said the rule includes a number of provisions setting forth rights for observers that aren't in the current law. For example, the rule specifies that observers can begin on Election Day either when the polls open at 7 a.m. or when the vote counting tabulation machines are reset to zero, whichever is earlier. It also allows observers to move about in the designated area for observers, ask questions of election officials and to talk quietly among themselves, Millis said. The rule allows observers to see non-confidential information, Millis said. It does not allow them to see voters' photo IDs presented as required under state law, which it defines as confidential. 'Without these rules, we're going to have situations where there are no uniform [requirements], and I think that in certain areas, public observers will feel that they are intimidated and not able to do what the rules [would allow],' Millis testified. 'This is a bipartisan effort,' said Ann Jacobs, the elections commission's current chair, who joined Millis in testifying in favor of the rule. State law divides the commission's six members evenly, with three appointed by Democrats and three by Republicans, and stipulates that the chair's job must shift every two years between representatives of the two parties. Before drafting the rule, Millis said, the commission assembled a committee of interested persons to share their concerns about the current handling of election observers and discuss what they would want a rule to include. Millis said the commission cast 'a wide net' for participants. The committee included election clerks, poll workers, political party representatives and representatives from groups focused on voting and elections, including Common Cause and the League of Women Voters. There also were members from True the Vote and the Wisconsin Election Integrity Network — both of which have amplified allegations of voter fraud in Wisconsin and have recruited election observers as well. As the elections commission and its staff began drafting the rule, 'if there were dissenting voices, we wanted to hear it,' Millis said. The commission voted on each provision, approving them 6-0, Millis said, The final vote, however, on Sept. 11, 2024, was 5-1, with Republican Robert Spindell, voting against approval. Testifying Tuesday in favor of the rule, Eileen Newcomer, voter education manager for the League of Women Voters, said that without it, the elections commission can only offer guidelines to local election administrators. 'There are no requirements that election clerks and observers adhere to the guidance,' Newcomer said. Participants in the league's election observer program who have worked at several polling places have reported that 'there are different rules from one polling place to another.' Newcomer was among the advisory committee's participants. But a string of activists who have promoted voter-fraud allegations — including some who also took part in the advisory committee — testified at the hearing against the rule. Ken Dragotta, who was on the advisory panel representing True the Vote, criticized the rule for not addressing absentee ballots, which he said are 'a privilege' under state law and 'must be carefully regulated to prevent the potential for fraud or abuse.' 'Election laws are already far too complex for the average election official to properly navigate,' Dragotta said. The rule 'does nothing but obstruct the legal rights of citizens to observe the election process and puts them at greater risk in the process, in addition to provide additional authority of election officials to control the movement and action of the observers.' Among the other witnesses criticizing the rule was former State Rep. Janel Brandtjen, a Menomonee Falls Republican who previously advocated overturning Wisconsin's 2020 vote in which Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump's reelection bid. Several investigations and court cases confirmed Biden as the winner in 2020. Brandtjen reiterated Dragotta's assertion that the rule would subject observers to being penalized at the polls by hostile chief election inspectors. She listed previous incidents when, she asserted, observers had been unfairly challenged by election clerks. She also called for the Republican-majority Legislature and Evers, a Democrat, to work out new legislation to address the subject. State Rep. Dave Murphy (R-Greenville) questioned whether the split state government would produce a law 'any better than what this is.' He also observed that previous incidents Brandtjen pointed to happened under the current legal framework. 'I've got a folder full of people here complaining about what has happened in the past,' Murphy said. 'I'm trying to figure out whether the change is better or worse than the status quo.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
