Agrégateur de flux

By CIVICUS
Oct 29 2026 (IPS)

 
CIVICUS discusses voter suppression ahead of the USA’s 2026 midterm elections with Aklima Khondoker, an Atlanta-based civil and voting rights attorney, civil society organisation executive and founder and principal of Atabey Strategies, a consultancy firm that advises civil society organisations on democracy and electoral participation.

Aklima Khondoker

On 14 September, the US Supreme Court maintained a freeze on the postal ballot provisions of Donald Trump’s March 2026 executive order, meaning they won’t apply in the November midterms. This was the latest setback to Trump’s efforts to manipulate the election. Since January 2025, Trump has pardoned around 1,500 people charged over the 2021 Capitol attack and placed 2020 election deniers in election security roles. The administration has ordered voters to show documentary proof of citizenship to register, and the Justice Department has sued 30 states for their voter rolls. Courts have blocked the citizenship requirement and dismissed most of these lawsuits.

How is the Trump administration changing the way elections are run?

President Trump has called for ‘nationalising’ elections, which means centralising election control within the federal government, giving his administration more control over who can vote, who receives a mail ballot and how election officials do their jobs. Trump is using the federal government to upend how elections are run. His March 2026 executive order required federal agencies to compile citizenship lists for states and instructed the Justice Department to prioritise investigations of election officials who issue ballots to people deemed ineligible. The order also directed the Postal Service to develop new mail ballot rules, including a federal enrolment system that could determine whether a voter’s postal ballot is delivered. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has demanded state voter data. The administration says these measures protect election integrity. Yet integrity requires accurate records and fair administration free of political pressure. Using disputed data to question eligible voters and threatening officials with investigation can undermine both and risk wrongful exclusion.

This creates serious constitutional tensions. The Constitution assigns states responsibility for running elections and gives Congress, not the president, the power to change the rules by law. The Supreme Court has allowed parts of the executive order to take effect on procedural grounds, without ruling on their legality. However, it has blocked the new postal ballot rules from applying in the midterms.

Democracy depends on people being able to register, get clear information and cast a ballot that will count. Rights can be hollowed out one procedure at a time, each change defended as technical or necessary, until they survive in name only. Erosion of this kind works like a slow boil, making each new restriction feel ordinary. A safeguard is weakened here, a group pushed to the margins there. The danger is that the rest of us grow accustomed to the heat and call it normal, while power moves further from the public it’s meant to serve.

What does the Supreme Court’s ruling on postal ballot deadlines mean for the midterms?

It means states can keep counting mail ballots that arrive after election day as long as they were posted on time. The case concerned Mississippi, one of several states that allow this, which gives ballots up to five business days to arrive. The Republican National Committee and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi argued that federal law requires ballots to be received by election day. Had the Supreme Court agreed, all these grace periods could have fallen, and the practical effect would have been to discard eligible voters’ ballots because of postal delays beyond their control. That’s voter suppression in practice.

But the ruling leaves states free to set their own rules and doesn’t require any state to offer a grace period, so voters face different deadlines depending on where they live. Someone can post a ballot on time and still be caught out by postal delays or other barriers. And voting by mail matters. The pandemic showed its value by letting people vote without in-person exposure, and many voters with disabilities still depend on it.

To be clear, postal voting is safe. For over two decades, Oregon has mailed ballots to active registered voters, who can return them by mail or drop box. From 2000 to 2019, around 61 million ballots were cast there and there were only 38 criminal convictions for voter fraud. In Georgia, amid the Trump campaign’s fraud claims after the 2020 election, a Republican-led audit of a random sample of 15,118 absentee ballot envelopes found no fraudulent ballots. Years of investigations have not substantiated claims of widespread or outcome-changing mail ballot fraud.

What pressure do election officials face from federal authorities?

They face federal demands, on tight deadlines and under threat of legal action, to withhold the ballots of voters whose citizenship is questioned. In California, the Justice Department gave officials 48 hours to review a list of voters on a password-protected drive, without disclosing how many people were on it. It demanded that ballots not yet sent to these voters be withheld until their citizenship was confirmed and that returned ballots be set aside if officials couldn’t verify it. It threatened emergency legal action if they didn’t comply.

The task involves far more than a database search. Officials must check whether records are accurate, coordinate across state and county offices and protect eligible voters’ ballots, all as the election approaches. California has 23.16 million registered voters. Los Angeles County alone had about 5.89 million in its June primary, in which over 80 per cent of ballots were cast by mail. Days after the vote, the county still had around 355,000 mail ballots to process. That’s the ordinary work. The 48-hour deadline lands on top of it.

Election workers also pay a personal price. After the 2020 election, some were falsely accused of fraud, treated as political enemies and subjected to racist threats.

Which voters are most likely to be shut out?

Those asked to spend the most time, money or effort proving they belong at the ballot box are the most likely to be excluded, including Black voters and those from other communities of colour, Native voters, people with disabilities, naturalised citizens caught in record mismatches and people with felony convictions. Exclusion doesn’t always arrive with a sign saying ‘you can’t vote’. It can come as an inaccessible polling place, an address that doesn’t match the one on an ID, a database error or a confusing deadline.

This kind of exclusion has a long history. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution promised Black men the vote. But after Reconstruction, the period following the Civil War, southern states used discriminatory laws, grandfather clauses, literacy tests, poll taxes, intimidation and violence to push newly enfranchised Black voters out of political life. While today’s barriers are not a replay of the Jim Crow era, that history shows how administrative rules can produce profoundly unequal consequences.

Eligible citizens whose records are incomplete or outdated, including naturalised citizens, risk being wrongly flagged as ineligible. If their citizenship can’t be confirmed quickly, their ballot may be withheld while they face a rushed demand to prove they belong. That can cost them their vote, and it can deter other eligible voters from taking part. The danger is real enough that on 9 October, a federal judge struck down as unlawful a Justice Department policy of cross-checking voter rolls against federal records, citing the risk that outdated federal records could mark eligible citizens as ineligible.

In 2024, an estimated four million Americans were barred from voting because of a felony conviction. Around 40 per cent had served their full sentences but still could not vote. This is ‘civil death’. People who live in a community, raise families and work alongside their neighbours have no say in the decisions that govern their lives.

Accessibility also determines whether voters with disabilities can participate independently and safely. In a national study of the 2020 election, 18 per cent of voters with disabilities who voted in person reported difficulty, compared with five per cent of those who voted by mail.

The representatives voters choose make decisions on the cost of living, education, healthcare and the future of democracy itself. When the people most affected by those decisions face the hardest path to the ballot, their interests become easier to ignore.

How is civil society protecting voting rights ahead of the midterms?

Civil society groups make a constitutional right reachable. They translate changing rules into clear guidance, connect voters with legal help, monitor the process, document problems and challenge unlawful barriers. Most voters will never read a court filing or an election observation report, but they may call a hotline because their name is not on the rolls, ask a volunteer what to do when a ballot is challenged or rely on a trained observer to document what happened at a polling place.

The Election Protection coalition brings together over 300 local, state-level and national organisations, and its trained volunteers help voters by phone or text. Observers witness and document the process so public confidence rests on evidence, not rumour.

Around the world, civil society groups are often among the first to document exclusion and defend civic space when governments restrict it. Contexts differ, but the lesson travels: participation does not protect itself. It takes organised people, acting together, to make sure that voters are heard.

What safeguards are needed to protect votes?

Safeguards begin with adequately funded election offices, clear rules announced well in advance, accessible ways to vote, and fair notice and time to fix registration problems. The right to vote means little if a voter can’t reach the polling place, understand the instructions, correct a registration error or get help without fear. Voter roll maintenance, which federal law requires to be uniform and non-discriminatory, should protect eligible voters from wrongful removal instead of leaving them scrambling to prove they belong.

Vote counting must also be transparent, with documented ballot handling, open audits and clear public explanations of the process. Voters, election workers and those who help people vote must be protected from intimidation and threats. The Voting Rights Act, the landmark law against racial discrimination in voting, must be strengthened and fully enforced. Its protections must cover every stage at which someone can be denied the vote or an equal voice, including registering, casting a ballot and having it counted. They must also guarantee language access and assistance for voters who need them. These safeguards are how we stop a slow erosion of rights from becoming a democratic rupture.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.

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SEE ALSO
Democracy: an enduring aspiration CIVICUS | State of Civil Society Report 2026
US democracy under siege CIVICUS Lens 20.May.2026
USA: ‘The challenges have never been greater, but civil society’s capacity to respond has never been higher’ CIVICUS Lens | Interview with Lauren Prather 05.May.2026

 

 

 

 

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Az észt parlament, a Riigikogu október 28-án elfogadta a stratégiai áruk szállításáról szóló törvény módosítását is, amely megszünteti a gyalogsági aknák Észtország területén történő átszállításának tilalmát.

A változtatásra azért került sor, mert az ország 2025 végén – a biztonsági helyzet romlására hivatkozva – kilépett a gyalogsági aknák használatát tiltó ottawai egyezményből. Észtország mellett Finnország, Lettország, Litvánia és Lengyelország is kilépett a megállapodásból.

A törvénymódosítás megszünteti azokat a jogi akadályokat, amelyek nehezítették a gyalogsági aknák észtországi katonai alkalmazásának előkészítését. Az indoklás szerint az aknák átszállítására például Finnországban lehet szükség, de az Észtországban állomásozó amerikai katonai egységek számára is jelentősége lehet a változtatásnak.

Az észt védelmi minisztérium emellett egy négy évre szóló ifjúságpolitikai programot is elfogadott.

A tervek között szerepel a fiatalok drónkezelési képzése, valamint az ország védelmével kapcsolatos ismeretek hangsúlyosabb megjelenítése az iskolai tananyagban.

A biztonsági intézkedések hátterében az orosz–észt határ menti feszültségek erősödése áll. Szeptemberben Oroszország tíz napra kijárási korlátozásokat vezetett be az Észtországgal határos Kingiszeppi és Szlancevi járásban. Az orosz hatóságok hivatalos indoklása szerint az intézkedések célja az államhatár védelmének megerősítése volt.

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Le président russe Vladimir Poutine a offert, mercredi 28 octobre 2026, une réception au Kremlin, à Moscou, en l'honneur des délégations participant au troisième sommet Russie-Afrique.

La vice-présidente du Bénin, Mariam Chabi Talata et plusieurs chefs de délégation participant au troisième sommet Russie-Afrique ont été reçus, mercredi 28 octobre 2026, par le président russe Vladimir Poutine.

La réception s'est tenue dans la salle des Facettes du Grand Palais du Kremlin. Elle s'inscrit dans le cadre du sommet Russie-Afrique, organisé les 28 et 29 octobre dans la capitale russe.
Le sommet de Moscou constitue la troisième édition de ce format de dialogue, après celles de Sotchi en 2019 et de Saint-Pétersbourg en 2023.

M. M.

UPDATED 29/10/26 to properly reflect Denmark’s opt-out (hat-tip David Phinnemore)

As part of the incipient debate on the UK’s future relations with the EU, Andy Burnham has been out and about this week, trying to balance not pre-judging the outcome of a nominally collective discussion and decision with his own views.

Even though we assume his predisposition to the UK becoming a full member state of the EU once again, it’s also worth noting the likely impact of the burgeoning ‘Made in Europe’ agenda working through Brussels, which will further weaken the viability of the status quo.

Hence the somewhat convoluted formulation of his recent remarks, pushing membership back into some point before he dies and saying:

“I can’t see myself ever recommending anything that would involve joining the euro or Schengen.”

This prompted me to once again search my feelings* about the mechanics of such an outcome, feelings that have been present ever since we kicked off the swell of reports/briefings from various organisations, almost all of whom seem to take the view that not joining the Euro or Schengen might be a bit tricky, but nothing too insurmountable.

True to my nature, I’m not sure it’ll be quite that simple.

I’m going to focus here on the Euro, but it would be much the same for Schengen should the Irish government announce their desire also to participate once the UK becomes a member state. Which would be fun.

So we know that not all EU members use the Euro (and not all Euro users are member states, incidentally). There’s only one state with a treaty-level opt-out, namely Denmark, which negotiated a protocol during the negotiation of the Maastricht treaty in 1992, which gives it the right to decide whether to proceed to the final stage of Euro membership.

But there are also Sweden, Poland and Hungary. When they acceded they formally committed themselves to becoming full Eurozone members, but have all subsequently decided that they do not wish to do that. To this end, they have not made their currencies part of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), which manages and minimises forex fluctuations, and which is an essential criterion for Euro membership.

The Commission, in its periodic Convergence Reports, notes this in somewhat sniffy terms, but it’s understood that there is neither a means nor a will to force these states on their way to ERM and then Euro membership.

And this is where most people seem to have stopped. The UK doesn’t want to use the Euro; not all member states use the Euro; the EU seems to be fine with that; problem solved.

The fundamental difference between these 4 states and the UK is that when the former negotiated and became members they all were clear and sincere in their intention to become full Eurozone members.

As a reminder, part of the EU’s very long run-up to Eastern enlargement was a worry that new states in Central and Eastern Europe wouldn’t be able to cope with the demands of membership. So in 1993 the Union set up what became known as the Copenhagen criteria, which detailed the (rather vague) accession requirements set out in Art.49 TEU.

These criteria became primarily known for the hurdles they established in relation to a functional free-market economy, able to survive being thrown into the single market, and to robust liberal democratic political institutions and practices. These were – and remain – the tools with which the EU moulds applicant states to its preferences and/or allows them to be parked in an indefinite limbo (waves to the Western Balkans).

But there’s a third element to Copenhagen, namely an obligation to adhere to the aims of political, economic and monetary union. This is not simply about a volonté européenne, a demonstration of general and durable sympathy with the nominal aims of the Union, but also a practical following-through on that. This includes join the Euro once the appropriate convergence criteria have been met.

This was not an issue for any of the 4 states we’ve mentioned, all of which were enthusiastic at the point of accession. And while their politics did change afterwards, they were then member states and so out from under the cosh of Copenhagen.

The UK is not in that situation.

As some have noted, Sterling (and the British economy in general) was always a highly problematic potential member of the Eurozone, given its weak synchronisation of its economic cycles, structure of activity and exposure to international markets. Therefore it’s a moot question whether it could even meet the Art.140 TFEU convergence criteria if it wanted to: readers with time on their hands can discover A LOT more about this by looking for works on late 1990s British politics and the Blair-Brown stand-off on the matter.

But inability to meet convergence criteria is a different thing from not wanting to meet those criteria.

More pertinently, the Commission would be obliged to note in its opinion on any accession application from the UK that appears not to be a satisfying of the third Copenhagen criterion, nor an intention to satisfy it (read the opinions on Sweden and Hungary for examples of how this wasn’t an issue for them). Even if a Labour government was to change its tune on this, there would still be obvious questions about whether this was sincere and/or resilient to future changes in government.

If the ERM-loophole doesn’t work, and the UK isn’t going to have a wholesale change of heart, then this really only leaves a Danish-style opt-out.

While not legally difficult to draft, the issue comes back to the politics of the situation.

Marginally, such an opt-out would be both a precedent for other acceding states and a legal recognition that European integration has its limits (even if these are already very clear in practical and political terms).

But more important would be what an opt-out says about the British commitment to membership.

The reason we are discussing any of this is because the UK decided to withdraw, through its 2016 referendum. An obvious concern for the EU is that this might just be the start of another cycle, and if the UK can’t even get over itself to say yes to the Euro, even hypothetically, then is that cycle not going to be quite shallow and short?

Equally obviously, if you’re worried about such things, then getting Sterling into the Euro makes even more sense. Disentangling currencies is an order of magnitude more messy than disentangling EU membership, so it might encourage future Leavers to think again. Shonky politics, I’ll note, to argue that we try to make leaving so painful you never want to go, and pretty poor economics too, but that doesn’t mean someone isn’t thinking it.

In short, Euro membership isn’t really about legalities but politics and what it says about the depth of British sincerity to become members once again. The EU has been very clear that relations have to work for them, not least because they see themselves as the bigger party in those relations: starting from a position of what you want to avoid is a strategy that is likely to run into problems very quickly for any British government.

 

 

* if David Henig’s going to slip in cultural references, then who am I to argue?

The post Obligations and understandings: the UK and the Euro UPDATED appeared first on Ideas on Europe.

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Sylvain Zèvounou, ancien international et ex-joueur des Dragons de l'Ouémé, est décédé ce mercredi 28 octobre 2026, à l'hôpital, après un accident de la circulation survenu à Sèmè.

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Après sa carrière de joueur, le disparu a poursuivi son engagement dans le football en embrassant l'encadrement technique. Il a notamment dirigé les Amazones U17, la sélection nationale féminine béninoise des moins de 17 ans, ainsi que l'équipe de Tambours FC.

En janvier 2025, son nom figurait parmi les techniciens béninois engagés dans la formation pour l'obtention de la licence B de la Confédération africaine de football (CAF). Il n'avait toutefois pas achevé le cursus.

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