US Supreme Court blocks Republican-drawn Missouri map again

The US Supreme Court has blocked Missouri from using a Republican-drawn congressional map in November’s midterm elections for a third time, according to the Associated Press. The justices granted a request from opponents of the map to suspend lower-court decisions that had required the reconfigured House district boundaries to be used on November 3. The legal dispute is unfolding while absentee voting is already under way in Missouri.

The ruling forms part of a wider conflict over election administration. The White House has defended using taxpayer funds to broadcast a pro-Donald Trump advertisement on Fox News, calling it a public-service announcement. Democrats said the advert could amount to government propaganda aimed at influencing voters.

The advertisement features Trump urging voters to defeat communism and includes a montage praising his second administration. It ends with the words “Paid for by the US government”. The White House said similar public-service announcements had been produced by previous administrations, although Democrats argued the earlier examples did not contain comparable partisan material.

Separate concerns arose after Nevada officials said the Department of Homeland Security had wrongly identified 185 people on the state’s voter rolls as non-citizens. Officials said their records showed all 185 were citizens. The episode followed Trump’s earlier claim that DHS had found hundreds of thousands of non-citizens on voter rolls in four states.

Later correspondence narrowed the Nevada figure to a possible 15,903 records, with more than 14,000 still requiring review. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Suzan DelBene said the Supreme Court’s actions could be used to spread fear and misinformation. The supplied material also reports that Trump may hold a rally in Alabama and that senators from both parties questioned inviting Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 summit.