As Election Day looms, Republican Party faces crisis conditions

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So everything is on course, and I want you to understand that, Priebus assured RNC members.

The party chairmans pep talk may have helped some Republican officials feel a little better, but the fact remains that everything is clearly not on course.

Priebus call came on the heels of House Speaker Paul Ryans (R-Wis.) latest efforts to distance himself from his partys controversial presidential nominee, which came on the heels of a weekend in which dozens of Republican officials, including several sitting senators and governors, withdrew their support for Trump, called for his removal from the ticket, or both.

By midday yesterday, Trump had turned to Twitter to take a shot at Ryan, while Foxs Sean Hannity, one of Trumps closest allies, was telling his audience that the House Speaker and his allies are done though they dont know it yet.

It was around this time that Trumps Republican backers protested outside RNC headquarters one carried a sign that read, Better to grab a p***y than to be one at a gathering that was reportedly organized by Trumps state director in Virginia, who was later removed from his post.

At Trump campaign headquarters, meanwhile, the candidates chief spokesperson is threatening the party with an alarming warning: Trump voters will reject down-ballot Republicans. That followed the presidential hopefuls campaign manager defending Trumps 2005 remarks on sexual assault by arguing that members of Congress are themselves guilty of sexual assault.CNNs Corey Lewandowski, Trumps former campaign manager, has decided to lash out at Priebus, calling him a weak and failed party leader.

Away from Washington, Rep. Joe Heck (R), the Republican U.S. Senate candidate in a very competitive Nevada race, has pulled his support for Trump, which late yesterday prompted Nevadas RNC committeewoman to renounce Hecks candidacy.

Theres no great mystery here: If Republican officials stick with Trump, they risk being dragged down with him. If they run the other way, the rabid Republican base will turn on them. The result is strife and chaos in a party lacking any semblance of leadership.

The Washington Post reported that Republican politics tumbled toward anarchy yesterday, and quoted a former GOP senator saying, Its every person for himself or herself right now.

Two years ago, Republicans took control of Congress, a majority of state legislatures, and a majority of governors offices. Party leaders believed, by the fall of 2016, theyd be poised for complete national dominance.

Instead, a GOP civil war is slowly unfolding, instigated in part by a ridiculous presidential nominee with no loyalty to his party, putting Republicans gains at risk up and down the ballot.

When Trump secured the partys nomination several months ago, many Republicans assumed the worst that could happen would be his defeat. They badly underestimated the scope of the damage his candidacy could do.

Source: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/election-day-looms-republican-party-faces-crisis-conditions

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Brown: Election day voter registration limits gone, but why wait

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In case you missed it, a federal appeals court last week restored Election Day in-precinct voter registration in Illinois most populous counties, slamming the door on a Republican effort aimed at holding down the Democratic vote in Cook County.

Having sounded the alarm on this issue previously when U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan called a halt to Election Day registration at the polling place, I feel some responsibility to make sure everyone has the final outcome.

The U.S. Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit stayed Der-Yeghiayans ruling last week and announced it would wait until after the election to consider arguments in the underlying case.

Lawyers from the conservative Liberty Justice Center, which filed suit on behalf of Downstate Republican officials challenging the states Election Day registration law, said Monday they will not appeal the briefing schedule set by the court.

The effective result is that voters will be allowed to register to vote and cast their ballots on Nov. 8 in 2,092 precincts in Chicago and 1,599 precincts in suburban Cook, as originally planned.

OPINION

The same requirement also extends to Illinois next 19 most populous counties, including all of the collar counties. Election Day registration, is allowed, but not required, in the states other 82 counties.

The courts decision to proceed with Election Day registration removes a major headache for local election officials here and potential cost to taxpayers that would have resulted from trying to create alternative centrally located registration sites at the last minute.

The Illinois law is one of many measures enacted around the country in recent years to increase voter turnout by removing impediments to voting.

More than 110,000 voters across the state used Election Day registration in the March primary, about half of them here in Cook County. The consensus was that the system worked well.

Having said that, if you know youre not registered to vote, do yourself and everybody else a favor and dont wait until Election Day to take care of that. You dont want to be that guy in line slowing down everybody else.

Tuesday is the deadline for traditional voter registration, oryou can still register online until Oct. 23 if you have a drivers license or state ID card.

But if you do wait until Election Day to register, make sure you bring two pieces of identification, including something that shows your current address. Thats a requirement.

After writing about this previously, I know there is a belief in some corners that those who register on Election Day are either procrastinators or cheaters.

Election officials will tell you that many, if not most, of the people who benefit from Election Day registration believe they are properly registered but for some reason are not.

Maybe they moved and forgot to change their registration or assumed, incorrectly, that it followed them to their new address. Maybe they were incorrectly bumped from the voting rolls.

Either way, they deserve to vote.

As far as cheating, Id never tell you it couldnt happen, but its a very rare form of voter fraud to impersonate a registered voter.

None of those arguments were at stake in the court case, which challenged the Illinois law on the basis that requiring Election Day registration in only the 20 largest counties favored Democratic candidates.

Smaller counties objected to Election Day registration because it would require an added expense in equipment and staffing. Only one of the smaller counties is expected to offer the program voluntarily in November.

To the extent that may create an inequity, the federal court believes thats a problem that can wait until after the election to resolve. Thats one less excuse not to vote.

Source: http://chicago.suntimes.com/politics/brown-election-day-voter-registration-limits-gone-but-why-wait/

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Deepgram"s speech search engine is now free for journalists until Election Day

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During a contentious election filled with accusations of lies and denials, not to mentionoverworked fact-checkers, a company that can help journalists more easily find soundbites in audio recordings,Deepgram, is making its service free to journalists. The audio search technology relies on artificial intelligence, and hasbeen likened to a Google for sound meaning that it can be used a lot like a search engine, but one thats capable of surfacing phrases found in audio files, instead of text on webpages.

Founded by former particle physics researchers,Noah Shutty andScott Stephenson, the idea for the startup originally came about because Shutty wanted a better way to search through its own audio files. This ledhim to develop the neural net-based artificial intelligence engine, which began Deepgram.

The startup this fall announced$1.8 million in funding fromMetamorphic Ventures and Y Combinator.

Searching through recordings is really difficult. In terms of workflow, usually the raw audio is transcribed into text, which is then fed into a search tool. If you transcribe using human transcription, its too time consuming and expensive, explains Stephenson, in a blog post announcing the move to make Deepgram free to journalists, until Election Day.

If you try to do it with automatic speech-to-text then search accuracy is the problem. Deepgram fixed that, he says.

Heres how the technology works. First, the end user uploads an audio file to the service, which can be anything a phone call, podcast, meeting, or a video even a YouTube URL can be used.

Deepgram then processes the speech, which is stored in whats called a deep representation index.Instead of trying to translates sounds into words, Deepgram groups sounds byphonetics. Because of this, you can search for words by the way they sound and, even if theyre misspelled,Deepgram can find them.

The company claims its able to index audio files in less than half the time of a human transcriber, and costs 75 cents per hour of audio versus the 75 cents per minute charged by human transcription services.

Enterprise customers who use the service via API have different rates. Today, the company counts over 1,200 customers ranging from small-time hackers to call centers, police body cam manufacturers, and others.

Once indexed a process that takes only a matter of seconds Deepgram canfind your search termin itsindex, and jump straight to the times the keyword was mentioned in the audio.

While the service isnt 100% accurate, its able to find results 4 out of 5 times thats not as good as human transcription, but better than speech-to-text, which is far more error prone with a 20% accuracy rates, the company notes.

In addition, addsStephenson, Deepgram lets reporters listen for intonation and inflection, which are totally lost during the transcription process.

In terms of making the technology available to the press during the election cycle, Stephenson suggests it would work well for those journalists who want to search across uploads of candidates speeches or TV appearances.

Theres a demo of Deepgram in actionright here on the companys blog post.

In a video of Trumps RNC speech, you can enter in various terms in Deepgrams search box and then be immediately taken to the part of the video where the term was spoken. For example, you can search for words like jobs, taxes, women, security, etc. The top-right of the interface also shows you how many search results were found, and the confidence level.

When the term is mentioned more than once, the recording will indicate this with red markers you can click on to jump to the next section where the term is heard.

As a savvy marketing move (but one thats quite a perk for journalists), Deepgram is now free to accredited press up until Election Day. Reporterscan request access by emailing press@deepgram.com.

Update: Deepgram has made last nights debate video searchable, using its technology. Its available here.

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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&ct2=us&usg=AFQjCNGpMFbQpOvvcd83VXS54OVjWvluoA&clid=c3a7d30bb8a4878e06b80cf16b898331&ei=kuz7V-joM9yB3wGIo4K4AQ&url=https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/10/deepgrams-speech-search-engine-is-now-free-for-journalists-until-election-day/

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