A large majority (80%) of Pennsylvania voters said they’d support solar power, 73% support wind energy, and 84% approve of allocating public funds to expand clean energy alternatives. (FreezeFrames/Adobe Stock)
Danielle Smith – Keystone State News Service

Southwestern Pennsylvania is a major U.S. hotspot for gas extraction through fracking, but new polling reveals overwhelming public support for tighter industry oversight.

More than four in ten Pennsylvanians told pollsters they’d support an outright ban on fracking.

Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, said the poll was conducted to assess voters’ attitudes toward the fracking industry.

Multiple questions were asked about what could be done to minimize or reduce some of the impacts of fracking.

“And what we found was that, across the board, across a variety of different measures,” said O’Leary, “more than 90% of all Pennsylvanians supported increased efforts in those regards.”

O’Leary points to a recent University of Pittsburgh study that found significant health risks associated with living near fracking sites.

The poll shows 86% of Pennsylvanians are broadly concerned about water, and 82% about air pollution.

Nearly eight in ten say they worry about the effects of pollution on their family’s and community’s health. And more than four in ten believe fracking has negative effects on air and water quality.

O’Leary said voters in Pennsylvania are still generally supportive of the natural gas industry.

But he said he believes that’s the result of what he called “a widespread misunderstanding” that fracking is vital to Pennsylvania’s economy.

He contended fracking has led to a net loss of jobs and population in some counties, causing significant economic loss to these regions.

“The other thing that I think a lot of people are not aware of is that in Pennsylvania, in just the last four years, the fracking industry has laid off 40% of its workforce,” said O’Leary. “Four out of every 10 workers in fracking have lost their jobs.”

He said early industry-funded studies predicted fracking would create around 250,000 jobs in Pennsylvania.

But recent data show it’s been fewer than 20,000, or less than one-percent of the state’s total workforce.

An apparent tornado caused by Hurricane Milton, tore the awning off a 7-Eleven convenient store, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2024, in Cape Coral, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)

CORTEZ, Fla. (AP) — Floridians recovering from Hurricane Milton, many of whom were journeying home after fleeing hundreds of miles to escape the storm, spent much of Saturday searching for gas as a fuel shortage gripped the state.

In St. Petersburg, scores of people lined up at a station that had no gas, hoping it would arrive soon. Among them was Daniel Thornton and his 9-year-old daughter Magnolia, who arrived at the station at 7 a.m. and were still waiting four hours later.

“They told me they have gas coming but they don’t know when it’s going to be here,” he said. “I have no choice. I have to sit here all day with her until I get gas.”

Gov. Ron DeSantis told reporters Saturday morning that the state opened three fuel distribution sites and planned to open several more. Residents can get 10 gallons (37.85 liters) each, free of charge, he said.

“Obviously as power gets restored … and the Port of Tampa is open, you’re going to see the fuel flowing. But in the meantime, we want to give people another option,” DeSantis said.

Officials were replenishing area gas stations with the state’s fuel stockpiles and provided generators to stations that remained without power.

Disaster hits twice

Those who reached home were assessing the damage and beginning the arduous cleaning process. Some, like Bill O’Connell, a board member at Bahia Vista Gulf in Venice, had thought they were done after the condo association hired companies to gut, treat and dry the units following Hurricane Helene. Milton undid that work and caused additional damage, O’Connell said.

“It reflooded everything that was already flooded, brought all the sand back on our property that we removed,” O’Connell said. “And also did some catastrophic wind damage, ripped off many roofs and blew out a lot of windows that caused more damage inside the units.”

The two hurricanes left a ruinous mess in the fishing village of Cortez, a community of 4,100 along the northern edge of Sarasota Bay. Residents of its modest, single-story wood and stucco-fronted cottages were working to remove broken furniture and tree limbs, stacking the debris in the street much like they did after Hurricane Helene.

“Everything is shot,” said Mark Praught, a retired street sweeper for Manatee County, who saw 4-foot (1.2-meter) storm surges during Helene. “We’ll replace the electrical and the plumbing and go from there.”

Praught and his wife, Catherine, have lived for 36 years in a low-lying home that now looks like an empty shell. All the furniture had to be discarded, the walls and the brick and tile floors had be scrubbed clean of muck, and drywall had to be ripped out.

Catherine Praught said they felt “pure panic” when Hurricane Milton menaced Cortez so soon after Helene, forcing them to pause their cleanup and evacuate. Fortunately, their home wasn’t damaged by the second storm.

“This is where we live,” Catherine Praught said. “We’re just hopeful we get the insurance company to help us.”

In Bradenton Beach, Jen Hilliard scooped up wet sand mixed with rocks and tree roots and dumped the mixture into a wheelbarrow.

“This was all grass,” Hilliard said of the sandy mess beneath her feet. “They’re going to have to make 500 trips of this.”

Hilliard, who moved to Florida six months ago and lives further inland, said she was happy to pitch in and help clean up her friend’s home a block from the shore in Bradenton Beach

Furniture and household appliances sat outside alongside debris from interior drywall that was removed after Helene sent several feet of storm surge into the house. Inside, walls were gutted up to 4 feet (1.2 meters), exposing the beams underneath.

“You roll with the punches,” she said. “Community is the best part, though. Everybody helping each other.”

Milton killed at least 10 people after it made landfall as a Category 3 storm, tearing across central Florida, flooding barrier islands and spawning deadly tornadoes. Officials say the toll could have been worse if not for the widespread evacuations.

Overall, more than a thousand people had been rescued in the wake of the storm as of Saturday, DeSantis said.

Property damage and economic costs in the billions

On Sunday, President Joe Biden will survey the devastation inflicted on Florida’s Gulf Coast by the hurricane. He said he hopes to connect with DeSantis during the visit.

The trip offers Biden another opportunity to press Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson to call lawmakers back to Washington to approve more funding during their preelection recess. It’s something Johnson says he won’t do.

Biden is making the case that Congress needs to act now to ensure the Small Business Administration and FEMA have the money they need to get through hurricane season, which stretches through November in the Atlantic.

DeSantis welcomed the federal government’s approval of a disaster declaration announced Saturday and said he had gotten strong support from Biden.

“He basically said, you know, you guys are doing a great job. We’re here for you,” he said when asked about his conversations with Biden. “We sent a big request and we got approved for what we wanted.”

Moody’s Analytics on Saturday estimated economic costs from the storm will range from $50 billion to $85 billion, including upwards of $70 billion in property damage and an economic output loss of up to $15 billion.

Safety threats remain, including rising rivers

As the recovery continues, DeSantis has warned people to be cautious, citing ongoing safety threats including downed power lines and standing water. Some 1.3 million Floridians were still without power by Saturday afternoon, according to poweroutage.us.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Paul Close said rivers will “keep rising” for the next four or five days resulting in river flooding, mostly around Tampa Bay and northward. Those areas were hit by the most rain, which comes on top of a wet summer that included several earlier hurricanes.

“You can’t do much but wait,” Close said of the rivers cresting. “At least there is no rain in the forecast, no substantial rain. So we have a break here from all our wet weather.”

___

Farrington reported from St. Petersburg. Associated Press journalists Chris O’Meara in Lithia, Florida; Curt Anderson in Tampa; Terry Spencer outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; and Rebecca Santana in Washington contributed. ___

A previous version of this story misspelled the surname of a couple at a rest stop off Interstate 75 north of Tampa. Their names are Lee and Pamela Essenburm, not Essenbaum.

FILE – Chester County, Pa., election workers process mail-in and absentee ballots at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa., Nov. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum, File)

ATLANTA (AP) — The latest method of voting to fall into the political crosshairs is the way overseas voters — including members of the military stationed abroad — cast their ballots.

The process is governed by federal law and implemented by states. In recent weeks, Republicans have been challenging how states handle these voters, something former President Donald Trump didn’t do in 2020 when he and his allies challenged his loss in court.

But things have changed, with just a month before Election Day and a tight race between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It’s part of a broader legal strategy by Republicans to position themselves for post-election challenges should Trump lose.

Ballots already have been sent to overseas and military voters under a federally mandated deadline. Trump and his Republican allies contend these ballots could be part of an elaborate scheme to steal the election from him, a claim for which there is no evidence. Their challenge comes as the voters who receive the ballots are increasingly from groups that are presumed to be Democratic.

Here’s a look at the issues involved and what’s driving the claims.

Who are these voters?

Congress passed a law in 1986 that was signed by then-President Ronald Reagan requiring states to allow certain groups of citizens to register and vote absentee in federal elections. Known as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA, it applies to military members, their family and U.S. citizens living outside the country.

In 2020, states sent more than 1.2 million ballots to military and overseas voters. Of those, more than 900,000 were returned and nearly 890,000 were counted, according to data collected by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.

Before 2016, military members and eligible family members represented most of these voters, according to the commission. But that has shifted slightly. In 2020, overseas citizens accounted for 57.4% of the registered voters. Overall, 40% of all military and overseas ballots were cast in three states: California, Florida and Washington.

That shift explains why Trump and other Republicans may be turning on the program. While military voters are presumed to vote for the GOP, other overseas voters are widely assumed to lean Democratic. This year, for the first time, the Democratic Party is spending money to try to turn them out.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program, which supports military and overseas voters, estimates that 2.8 million U.S. citizens of voting age were living overseas in 2022.

Election officials who receive their applications “do everything they can to verify that these are eligible voters and not just persons without any kind of identification,” said Election Assistance Commission member Christy A. McCormick.

How do overseas voters register and cast ballots?

Federal law allows qualified military or overseas voters to register to vote and request an absentee ballot at the same time, using what is known as the federal postcard application, which can be submitted electronically in many states. This is aimed at addressing the challenges military and overseas voters can face, such as slow or even unavailable mail delivery. Other accommodations include requiring states to have a system for delivering ballots electronically.

The federal postcard application asks applicants to provide their name, address, birth date, Social Security number and driver’s license. That information is logged and checked based on state procedures, according to Tammy Patrick, a former election official with the National Association of Election Officials.

“It’s not the case that anyone in the world can apply for a ballot. They still have to demonstrate they are an eligible American citizen,” she said.

Each person completing the form must also sign an oath under penalty of perjury that the information is correct, that they are a U.S. citizen, that they are not disqualified from voting and are not requesting a ballot or voting in any other jurisdiction in the U.S.

Unlike other voters, overseas voters can use an address where they have not lived for several years.

All but 13 states allow U.S. citizens born overseas but who have never lived in the U.S. to register and vote using a parent’s last residential address, according to data collected by the Election Assistance Commission.

What are the Republicans’ claims?

In Pennsylvania, a group of Republican members of Congress is asking a federal judge to order county elections officials to verify the identity and eligibility of military and overseas voters. They also want ballots cast by those voters to be kept apart from other ballots for the Nov. 5 election.

The lawsuit claims current practices have created “an illegally structured election process which makes Pennsylvania’s elections vulnerable to ineligible votes by individuals or entities who could purport to be UOCAVA-eligible.”

Out of nearly 27,000 military and overseas ballots cast in Pennsylvania in 2020, 1,363 — or 5% — were rejected. That’s a higher rejection rate than all but one state, according to federal data.

The lawsuits filed by the Republican National Committee argue that Michigan and North Carolina should not be allowing overseas voters who have never lived in their state to vote.

Why are these claims being raised now?

The warnings about overseas ballot fraud join a very long list of Trump allegations of rampant fraud in U.S. elections, even though there has been no evidence of any widespread fraud. Reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump disputed his 2020 loss all affirmed President Joe Biden’s victory, and his own attorney general said there was no evidence of fraud that could have tipped the election.

Trump has claimed without evidence that huge numbers of non-citizens vote, that mail ballots are forged and that voting machines are secretly programmed against him. The goal has been to sow doubt about the reliability of any election he loses, enabling him to try to overturn his defeat.

Politically, Trump has tried to distinguish between military voters, who traditionally vote Republican, and other overseas voters. The Democratic Party in August announced it planned to spend about $300,000 trying to turn out overseas voters on behalf of Harris, its first expenditure on that group.

“They want to dilute the TRUE vote of our beautiful military and their families,” Trump claimed of Democrats in a Sept. 23 post on his social media network.

It’s likely, though, that challenges to these voters would carry consequences for both groups, including the military voters that Republicans routinely count on to pad their totals in close elections.

A spokesperson for the Republican National Committee said the litigation is aimed at preventing unlawful votes from diluting lawful ones.

“The point of the election integrity lawsuits is to fix the holes that we know exist as much as possible before the election,” RNC spokesperson Claire Zunk said.

What do election officials say?

With less than a month before the Nov. 5 election, now is not the time to raise objections to state law that has been in place for 13 years, said Patrick Gannon, a spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections.

“This lawsuit was filed after voting had already begun in North Carolina for the general election,” Gannon said in a statement. “The time to challenge the rules for voter eligibility is well before an election, not after votes have already been cast.”

In Michigan, the relevant state laws and procedures also have been on the books for years, according to state election officials. A state law passed in 1995 says a spouse or dependent of an overseas voter who is a U.S. citizen can register using their parent’s or spouse’s Michigan address.

State election officials said local offices follow standard procedures to check the identity of all those seeking to register to vote in Michigan. That includes military and overseas voters, who are required to renew their status every year. Their ballots also are subject to the same checks as those cast by non-military and overseas voters, including signature verification.

“This is not a legitimate legal concern — just the latest in the RNC’s PR campaign to spread unfounded distrust in the integrity of our elections,” said Angela Benander, spokeswoman for the Michigan secretary of state’s office.

In Pennsylvania, ballots cast by ineligible voters occur at “extremely low” rates and are investigated, said Matt Heckel, spokesman for the state election office. Heckel said anyone who lies on the form faces substantial penalties, including a potential felony conviction, prison sentence and fine.

The Democratic National Committee has filed a motion to dismiss the Pennsylvania case.

“Plaintiffs’ inexcusably belated request for relief in the middle of an election would create chaos for election administration, confuse voters and potentially disenfranchise tens of thousands of eligible Pennsylvanians who wear their nation’s uniform or are otherwise living overseas,” the DNC said in its brief.

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Riccardi reported from Denver. Associated Press writers Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 14, 2024 1:27 P.M.
(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

(Economy Borough, Pa) Dr. Joseph Pasquerilla, superintendent of Economy Elementary School told Beaver County Radio that the US Department of  Education notified them as a recipient of the National Blue Ribbon Award award. A reception honoring the school will be held in the high school’s Media Center on Wednesday, October 16, 2024 at 6:30pm. Mrs. Aphrodite Galitsis is the principal at Economy Elementary School.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 14, 2024 1:24 P.M.

(Aliquippa, Pa) Last Saturday night, Aliquippa Fire Chief Tim Firich reported that the department responded to the 200 block of Station Street. Electric and communications lines were down due to the crash, according to the report. The cause of the crash wasn’t available. Sully’s Towing and the fire department remained on scene for 3 hours, according to the chief.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 14, 2024 1:23 P.M.

(Aliquippa, Pa) Last Thursday night, the Aliquippa Fire Department and Medic Rescue responded for a pickup truck that crashed into the Franklin Avenue Mini Mart in the 400 block of Franklin Avenue. It was determined, according to Fire Chief Tim Firich, the driver suffered a medical emergency and was transported to the hospital. The chief, in his report, said that Sully’s Towing and firefighters removed the vehicle from the building.

Story by Sandy Giordano – Beaver County Radio. Published October 14, 2024 1:20 P.M.

(Aliquippa, Pa) On Sunday morning a report was issued to Aliquippa Police by the Westmoreland County Sheriff’s office Fugitive Task Force for a LPR hit on a Black Dodge charger  in the area of the city. The report stated that the fugitives were on the run due to an incident that occurred involving an officer being assaulted and for fleeing and eluding police.