Election

Education is on the Ballot – Over 20,000 School Board Seats up for Election

BallotReady reports that 21,144 school board seats are on the ballot November 5. Local school boards wield a great deal of authority over our nation’s children, so it’s critical that good candidates are elected to these positions. The results affect around 50 million students in government-run schools.

It’s difficult to overstate how important these local elections are, as the results affect around 50 million students in government-run schools.

As we explain in the Focus on the Family resource Equipping Parents for Back to School, parents are ultimately in charge of their children’s education, but when children go to government schools, they give up some of that authority, and the school is empowered – to some degree – to act on parents’ behalf.

And local school boards oversee those schools.

While school boards operate under the authority of federal laws, state regulations and state departments of education, local boards also have a lot of power and authority.

They choose curriculums, establish teacher hiring criteria, set student achievement standards, write bathroom and locker room policies, select books for libraries, choose research databases for students, contract with other districts for school choice transfers, and more.

Parents – as well as grandparents and other concerned citizens – are becoming increasingly aware of serious problems in government schools, such as these:

  • Despite federal, state, and local government funding of $878.2 billion, or $17,700 per pupil, students are not learning basic skills like arithmetic, reading, and writing.They are also failing to learn subjects like history and civics.
  • National math and reading scores show low levels of academic achievement. As Fortune reported, “American students are in trouble. About a third of students in the youngest grades are behind on reading. Only 36% of fourth graders are proficient at grade-level math.”
  • City Journal reports, “The latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results in reading and math, released in June, are appalling.” Known as “The Nation’s Report Card,” results from the NAEP U.S. history and civics test “revealed that just 13 percent of eighth graders met proficiency standards for U.S. history, meaning that they could ‘explain major themes, periods, events, people, ideas and turning points in the country’s history.’” For civics, “About 20 percent of students scored at or above the proficient level,” the Journal stated.
  • As previously reported by the Daily Citizen, each year since 2016, school districts across the country have participated in events like “Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action,” where students are taught to be “queer” and “transgender” affirming. Students and teachers are expected to pursue globalism and diversity and to be committed to “building a Black women affirming space free from sexism, misogyny, and male‐centeredness.”
  • Abigail Shrier reports in The Free Press, “There is a well-coordinated, national effort between teachers, activist organizations, and administrators to indoctrinate American children against Israel.” She explains, “In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country – there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles – met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel.”
  • Parents Defending Education (PDE) reported that more than 1,143 school districts have “Transgender/Gender Nonconforming Policies,” allowing schools to hide a child’s sexual identity confusion from parents and encouraging schools to open bathrooms and locker rooms for students based on their “gender identity,” not on their sex. This includes 20,951 schools and more than 12.2 million students.

Around the nation, parents have become aware of schools sexualizing and confusing K-12 students by teaching about homosexuality and transgenderism – in literature, social studies and sexual education classes. Parents have learned about profanity-laced, violent and sexually explicit books in school libraries, and they’ve seen the erosion of free speech, religious freedom and parental rights.

It’s time to take a stand and protect all children. Vote for school board members who will fight for academic success for all students; safeguard parents’ rights; protect students’ free speech and religious freedom; and defend children from indoctrination and inappropriate instruction.

Related articles and resources:

Christians, the Election is in Your Hands. It’s Time to Vote!

Dad Confronts School Board for Allowing Boys in Girls Restrooms

‘Equipping Parents For Back-To-School’ – Updated Resource Empowers Parents

Is ‘Critical Race Theory’ Being Taught in Public Schools? CRT Deniers Claim it Isn’t

Is it ‘Book Banning’ to Keep Sexually Explicit Books out of Schools?

Join the Nationwide Prayer Call for the 2024 Election

The National Education Association Wants to Indoctrinate Children Across the Country

Students’ Test Scores Tank After School Consults ‘Woke Kindergarten’

Image credit: The Family Foundation Action

Are Elections Secure? 10 Examples of Election Issues Around the Country

A recent poll showed that a majority of Americans are concerned about voter fraud, foreign interference and non-citizens voting in the upcoming election.

According to the NPR/PBS News/Marist poll:

  • 58% of Americans say they are either very concerned or concerned that voter fraud will occur this year.
  • About two in three Americans (66%) say they are either very concerned or concerned that foreign countries will interfere with this year’s elections.
  • While still a majority (52%), fewer Americans are either concerned or very concerned that people who are not U.S. citizens will be able to vote this year.

These are valid concerns, as recent events and current election practices demonstrate. Here are 10 examples of 2024 election security issues from around the country:

  1. “The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office inadvertently posted a spreadsheet to its website with a hidden tab that included voting system passwords … The spreadsheet containing the partial passwords was up on the office’s website for several months before the error was realized,” NBC 9 News reported.

    “The passwords that were in the hidden tab are known as BIOS passwords and are one part of the security process for Colorado’s voting machines,” the news station explained.

  2. Also in Colorado, election officials “are investigating an incident in which at least 12 mail ballots appear to have been intercepted before reaching voters intended to receive them.” Reuters reported, “The intercepted ballots for the Nov. 5 election were filled out and mailed to the county clerk in Mesa County, in the western part of the state.”

  3. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Fox 43 News reported:
    A criminal investigation is underway in the crucial presidential battleground of Pennsylvania after election workers in one county flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. … Some had false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses or other problematic details.

  4. In neighboring York County, Pennsylvania, Fox 43 reported that the Office of Elections reported a similar issue, saying they had “also received a large delivery of thousands of election-related materials, which officials are now taking a closer look at.”

    The batch of registrations came from “Field+Media Corps, which was acting on behalf of the Everybody Votes Campaign.” The Campaign is funded by leftist groups like George Soros’ Open Society Foundation and State Voices, which also receives funds from Open Society and other leftist groups like the Bohemian Foundation and the Tides Foundation.

  5. Voters in Pennsylvania, a key swing state, complained of even more election problems. Townhall reported that voters complained of sites closing early, being turned away from voting, and being “told that ‘computers are down.’” A woman in Quakertown, in Bucks County, posted a video on X showing officials shutting down the line for voting at 1:45 p.m., when the polls were supposed to be open until 5:00 p.m. A lawsuit has been filed alleging voter suppression in the county.

6. The Federalist reports that Ohio, Florida and Texas filed separate lawsuits against the Department of Homeland Security for its refusal to release records necessary to verify the citizenship status of voters in their states.

7. In Virgina, the Department of Elections had removed 6,303 non-citizens from voter rolls in the past two years. The U.S. Department of Justice sued the state for removing non-citizens, and a federal judge ruled against the state. The state appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturned the decision on Wednesday, allowing Virginia to remove these self-identified non-citizens. But the question remains: Why is a government agency working to keep non-citizens on the ballot?

8. Ballot drop boxes have been lit on fire in Vancouver, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. According to NPR, Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey stated, “The majority of the ballots are completely destroyed, and the remaining ballots are severely damaged and very very wet.”

“Last week in Arizona,” the outlet adds, “35-year-old Dieter Klofkorn told Phoenix police that he had set fire to a USPS mailbox on Oct. 24,” damaging mail-in ballots.

9. In New Hampshire, Politico reported that election officials “decided to replace the state’s aging voter registration database before the 2024 election.” Then they learned that WSD Digital, the company they hired, “had offshored part of the work,” meaning “unknown coders outside the U.S. had access to the software.”

So the state “hired a forensic firm to scour the technology.” John Sakellariadis, who reports on cybersecurity for Politico, added:

The probe unearthed some unwelcome surprises: software misconfigured to connect to servers in Russia and the use of open-source code – which is freely available online – overseen by a Russian computer engineer convicted of manslaughter, according to a person familiar with the examination and granted anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about it.

Politico conducted a “six-month-long investigation” of the supply chain that produces crucial election software.” As Sakellariadis reports:

There is little oversight of the supply chain that produces crucial election software, leaving financially strapped state and county offices to do the best they can with scant resources and expertise.

10. On October 23, Nevada County, California, announced:

A printer’s error on vote-by-mail ballots could delay election results from the Nov. 5, 2024, General Election due to readability issues. Luckily, the problem was immediately identified and is being addressed to ensure accuracy.
The Nevada Elections Office had received 13,500 filled-in ballots, out of 77,000 total, before the issue was discovered. In addition, the state’s Supreme Court recently ruled that mail-in ballots must be counted even if they had no postmark or arrived up to three days after the election.

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative, explains the importance of having safeguards in place to ensure election integrity:

Something as critical as election integrity can’t be left to a simple honor system. One of the most important roles of government is to safeguard the electoral process and ensure that every voter’s right to cast a ballot is protected. That not only protects our right to vote; that’s how we protect the future of our very republic.

Related articles and resources:

Abortion Amendments Will Be on the Ballot in These 10 States

Election 2024: Five Issues Voters Care About Most

Election Security Is on the Ballot in November and December

Georgia’s Election Integrity Act – Voter Suppression or Election Integrity?

Join the Nationwide Prayer Call for the 2024 Election

Voter Fraud: The Election Process, What Can Go Wrong, and Previous Contested Elections and Incidents Why (and How) Christians Should Vote

Image from Shutterstock.

Colorado: Vote NO on Amendment 79

This fall, Colorado voters will decide whether to create an unrestricted “right” to abortion in the Colorado state constitution.

Focus on the Family is urging all our friends in Colorado to protect life this November and vote “NO” on Amendment 79.

Amendment 79 would amend the Colorado Constitution to:

“Recognize the right to abortion … and prohibit the state and local governments from denying, impeding, or discriminating against the exercise of that right, allowing abortion to be a covered service under health insurance plans.”

Amendment 79 is radical and extreme. It would:

  • Ban parental notice before a minor gets an abortion.
  • Allow abortions in the seventh, eighth and ninth months of pregnancy on healthy mothers and healthy babies.
  • Ban any reasonable limits on abortion in the future — like safety laws for women.
  • Force taxpayers to pay for abortions.

Focus on the Family strongly opposes this dangerous amendment.

Right to Know Colorado, the campaign to defeat Amendment 79, created this advertisement now targeting voters in Colorado:

If this amendment becomes law, Colorado’s reputation as a late-term abortion destination will continue to grow and Colorado taxpayers will be forced to foot the bill.

The abortion lobby has already raised over $8 million to pass Amendment 79.

To date, the abortion industry has a 100% success record in advancing abortion policy and defeating pro-life policy through ballot measures.

The initiative needs at least 55% of the vote to become law.

Pro-life Coloradans must vote to defeat this extreme measure. This campaign will be decided by the people who show up to vote.

Exit polling in the Ohio abortion amendment campaign of 2023, demonstrated that 24% of white evangelical or born-again Christians supported the extreme abortion amendment. It is imperative that bible-believing, pro-life Christians vote to protect preborn babies and mothers from abortion in Colorado.

Right to Know Colorado says:

“Coloradans have a Right to Know how Amendment 79 hurts themselves and their loved ones. This amendment creates a constitutional ‘right’ to unrestricted abortion and allows for taxpayer-funded abortion by repealing the constitutional ban on public funding.”

This fall, vote “NO” on Amendment 79 to protect preborn babies, parental rights and taxpayers.

You can learn more about the “Right to Know CO” campaign and contribute to the effort to defeat Amendment 79.

Right to Know CO also has accounts on Facebook and Instagram that you can like, follow, and share with your friends.

Colorado’s ballots were mailed October 11. Election Day is November 5.

Please vote to protect preborn life by voting “NO” on Amendment 79. And remember to vote for candidates who support life this November!

Image credit: Right to Know CO‘s YouTube page.