Tag: Voting

Young Kim Wins and Then Loses California Congressional Election

Well so much for Young Kim being the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress:

Republican candidate Young Kim, who was expected to become the first Korean-American woman elected to Congress, has been defeated by Democratic rival Gil Cisneros in California’s 39th district, a report said Saturday.

The South Korea-born politician took the lead in initial vote counting in the Nov. 6 election. But she lost to Cisneros by 1.6 percentage point as of 8:00 p.m. after mail-in ballots were counted, according to the Associated Press.

They competed to succeed Republican Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, in the district, which includes parts of Los Angeles, Orange and San Bernardino counties and is two-thirds Asian and Latino.

Despite being home to former Republican President Richard Nixon and traditionally Republican, the district was won by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a Democrat, in the 2016 presidential race.  [Yonhap]

It is amazing how long the vote counting has been going on for these races.

Tweet of the Day: Moon Administration Wants High School Students to Vote

Reality Winner Accused of Leaking Top Secret NSA Documents to the Media

When I first read this article I was wondering if it was a Duffel Blog entry, but the person who leaked Top Secret information really is named Reality Winner:

Accused NSA leaker Reality Winner.

The alleged leaker accused of feeding a classified report to an online news site has a colorful history on social media that lays bare her political leanings as an environmentalist who wanted to “resist” President Trump.

Reality Winner, 25, is a contractor with Pluribus International Corporation assigned to a federal facility in Georgia, where she allegedly leaked a classified intelligence report containing “Top Secret Level” information. The report, according to the Department of Justice, contained classified defense information from an intelligence community agency.

While the DOJ did not say which site published the information, the charges were announced just as The Intercept published details of a National Security Agency report on Russian hacking efforts during the 2016 presidential election.

According to the Justice Department, Winner admitted to printing a classified intelligence document despite not having a “need to know,” and with knowledge the report was classified. Winner further admitted removing the report from her office space and mailing it to the news outlet, according to the criminal complaint.  [Fox News]

You can read more at the link, but it appears she was motivated by politics because of her anti-Trump Facebook postings.  What is clear though is that she needs to receive the maximum sentence possible for leaking Top Secret information to the media because this leak is absolutely ridiculous.

What makes this even more pathetic is that this information was already known to the media.  CNN reported back in October 2016 that federal officials told them that Russia may have compromised the personal information of Florida, Illinois, and Arizona voters.  This leaked document is just the source for the information that federal officials already briefed the media.  So Reality Winner has likely thrown her life away for providing information the media already knows and did not change one vote during last year’s election.

ROK Lawmakers Move to Lower Voting Age to 18 Before Presidential Election

It looks like some high school students in South Korea will have the opportunity to vote in the next South Korean presidential election:

The voting age is likely to be lowered to 18 for the 2017 presidential election.

The New Conservative Party for Reform (NCPR), created by lawmakers who left the Saenuri Party, said Wednesday that it will seek to lower the voting age from 19 to 18 and apply it to the next election.

With all three opposition parties supporting an increase in the number of eligible voters, there is a high possibility that the Election Lw could be revised during an extraordinary session of the National Assembly in January.

If revised, those who are 18, currently high school students, will be able to vote in the presidential election, which could take place earlier than scheduled. [Korea Times]