Politics and views in the United States

A whistleblower says the USPS is restricting mail-in voting despite a court order, Muslim Americans still face threats 25 years after 9-11 and ICE steps up raids at Connecticut schools.

Transcript

Welcome to 2026 Talks, where we're following our democracy in historic times.

Trump has not gotten a blank check to change mail-in voting.

This power remains in the Congress and within the states, and the United States Postal Service also does not have the right to change mail-in voting processes.

Celia Canavan with the League of Women Voters of Massachusetts says President Donald Trump is creating chaos around mail-in voting just two months ahead of the midterm elections.

A whistleblower informed senators that the Postal Service has been secretly carrying out a plan to exert federal control over mail ballots in defiance of a Boston federal court order.

They say a haphazardly built online system for states to upload newly designed ballot envelopes and voter data risks catastrophic failure.

The whistleblower says that might, in fact, be the point.

But the Homeland Security Department and the Social Security Administration are meanwhile building a database of all eligible voters, in theory, to decide who can get an absentee ballot.

Voting experts say the database is unvetted and full of errors, and that the White House lacks the authority for it.

Muslim rights groups in California are expressing relief after a grand jury in North Carolina indicted a 17-year-old girl who live-streamed a shooting at a San Diego mosque that left three people dead.

The victims are credited with stopping two teenage gunmen from reaching more than 100 children attending school nearby.

Tazeen Nizam with the Council on American-Islamic Relations says 25 years after the 9-11 attacks, Muslims deserve a more just society.

We want an investment into combating the hate and bullying that our children face in our schools, the discrimination that our community members face, the reasons that this happened, not just the physical safety and security.

As kids head back to the classroom in Connecticut, ICE is stepping up raids outside schools.

Kate Diaz, president of the Connecticut Education Association, says teachers fear the worst.

Not only were we hearing these families were not going to school, they were afraid to leave their homes.

And when you're afraid to leave your home, that means you don't have access to food.

Republican officials in Texas will vote on a revised plan to cut Election Day polling locations by nearly a third in a key battleground county.

Tarrant County commissioners initially aimed to close at least half of voting sites, including on college campuses in Fort Worth, but faced significant voter pushback.

And Congress has passed a short-term funding resolution to keep the government open through mid-December, averting a possible shutdown just before the midterms.

Some hardline Republicans rejected the CR, citing a provision temporarily preventing the White House from exercising political control over federal grants.

I'm Katherine Carley for Pacifica Network and Public News Service.

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