‘Explosion’ of early voters FBI won’t charge Clinton over latest emails
VOTER TURNOUT: Surge in Black and Hispanic votes spells trouble for Trump
VOTER turnout among African American and Hispanic voters in the United States has surged in early voting, and this swell of minority participation could spell trouble for Donald Trump’s White House hopes.
On Sunday — the last day of early voting before Election Day on Nov 8 — hundreds of people attended Souls to the Polls events, aimed at encouraging churchgoers to vote across the key swing state of Florida.
Some came straight from morning worship, wearing three-piece suits and dresses as they made their way past dozens of campaigners hoisting signs for local candidates and urging support for solar energy and education issues.
At one event in central Miami, people held hands and prayed outside an early voting site. In another event in Miami-Dade County, about 20 African American men rolled in together on motorcycles.
For some, the vote they cast was as much for Democrat Hillary Clinton as it was against her Republican billionaire challenger.
“I would be scared if Trump wins,” said Ines Curbelo, 57, a nurse who
Miami nurse described herself as Afro-Cuban and was handing out Democratic flyers in Cutler Bay, south of here.
As speakers blared gospel and R&B music, a line formed near a smoky barbecue pit and several young boys jousted with inflatable swords on the grassy lawn behind her.
“He will set back politics, race relations and women’s fight for equality in the workplace — everything is going to get set so far back,” Curbelo said.
Hispanics make up a powerful voting bloc in the battleground state of Florida. They are expected to lean toward Clinton, particularly since Trump has described Mexicans as rapists, repeatedly vowed to build a border wall and promised to deport undocumented immigrants.
As of early yesterday, nearly one million of the state’s 6.4 million votes so far were cast by Hispanics, according to University of Florida professor Daniel Smith, who tracks voter turnout.
Among those who showed up in person rather than mailing in a ballot, there was a 100 per cent increase over the close of early voting in 2012.
In another sign of voter enthusiasm, 36 per cent of Hispanics who cast a ballot this year did not vote in the last presidential election.
Nationwide, about 12 per cent of voters are Hispanic, or about 27.3 million people, according to Pew Research Centre projections.
High Hispanic turnout has also been seen in other states like Nevada.
“The Hispanic community is coming out,” teacher Marcela Stewart, 37, said at the Souls to the Polls event.
“I think as far as the black community, we need to work a little harder. Some people are just discouraged and feel they cannot impact the election, so we want to let them know that their voices will be heard and they need to come out.”
Indeed, when early voting in the US started two weeks ago, African American turnout was low.
According to Tornell Jenkins, a 37year-old student, President Barack Obama’s historic victory as the first black president in 2008 “really drove the black vote”.
Early last week, Smith said black turnout was “lackluster” — at about 14 per cent of early voters — compared with 26 per cent in 2012, when Obama was re-elected.
But that changed after Obama MANCHESTER (New Hampshire): The Federal Bureau of Investigation lifted the threat on Sunday that Hillary Clinton could face charges over her emails, leaving White House rival Donald Trump to demand that United States voters punish her at the ballot box.
With just one day of campaigning left, FBI director James Comey unceremoniously closed down his probe into the former secretary of state’s private server.
The decision came as a relief to the Democratic camp and Asian markets opened higher after a tense weekend in which it seemed the Republican might be close to a breakthrough.
But Trump came back fighting, and experts said the renewed Voters to cast their ballots during early voting at a polling place in North Hollywood, California, on Saturday. made a series of appeals for black voters to support Clinton, with Clinton herself appearing at a campaign event with Beyonce and Jay-Z.
As of yesterday, 835,000 African Americans had already voted in Florida. That is higher than in 2012, when 764,000 blacks voted early.
Mixing religion and politics on the last Sunday of early voting can be an important draw for the working class, according to Namita Waghray, an organiser with the American County of Federal, State and County Employees, a 1.6 million-member union that includes bus drivers and garbage collectors.
“In African American communities, this is when people vote,” she said, recalling that about 800 people came out for Souls to the Polls events in 2012. scandal had damaged the 69-yearold former first lady’s chance of becoming America’s first female president. Clinton’s lead dropped from 5.7 to 2.9 percentage points in the week since the scandal returned, according to influential data journalist Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com.
Clinton had booked a star-studded roster of supporters — headlined by President Barack Obama and rock star Bruce Springsteen — for her final events yesterday.
But Trump is also touring key swing states and was determined not to let Clinton off the hook.
“The rank-and-file special agents of the FBI won’t let her get away with her crimes,” Trump told a rally in Michigan, a state won comfortably by Obama in 2012.
“Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it, the FBI knows it, the people know it, and it’s up to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box on Nov 8.”
Opinion polls tightened as Trump began to recover ground he lost after several women accused him of sexual assault, and the race looked headed for a photo finish.
On Sunday, Comey wrote a letter to Congress to say that FBI agents had been working to review the “large volume of emails” found on the laptop belonging to the husband of one of Clinton’s key aides.
“Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Hillary Clinton,” he wrote. AFP
waiting to see Donald Trump in Sterling Heights, Michigan, on Sunday.
holding up a supporter’s hat in Miami.