“I’ve never had a group of humans do this”

THE BIG STORY

Ballots rejected over signature problems could be central to a fight over election results

Millions of Americans are voting by mail for the first time this year. But in the majority of states, whether their votes count will come down to an unpredictable factor: an election worker gets to decide if their signature is valid — a process that one voting rights lawyer recently described as "notoriously unreliable and error-prone."

Voting rights advocates have argued that signature matching is a flawed method of verifying ballots because people's signatures change over time, particularly those of people who are young or have disabilities.

Worry hangs in the air for election experts. The fear is another recount scenario that delays the final results — similar to what happened in Florida in 2000, this time with viral photos of election workers studying the loops and curls of signatures on rejected mail-in ballots.

At least 31 states require some kind of analysis to make sure that voters' signatures on their absentee ballots match those on their registration or other government records.

County Judges Milena Abreu and Victoria Ferrer inspect a mail-in ballot for a valid signature, Oct. 15, 2020. Joe Raedle / Getty Images.

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

More than 40 immigrants have died in ICE custody in the past four years. Here are thousands of records about what happened.

Since January 2017, at least four dozen people have died while being held in detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

We obtained more than 5,000 pages of documents related to these deaths. Collectively, they tell the story of how ICE has in some instances failed to provide adequate care to detainees, some of whom are locked up for months or years before their immigration cases are resolved.

The documents also show how in multiple instances, guards who were supposed to observe detainees placed in solitary confinement falsified records to hide apparent dereliction of duty.

SNAPSHOTS

Minnesota is urging voters to return ballots in person after a new court decision. In an extraordinary decision less than a week before Election Day, a court ordered Minnesota to set aside ballots that arrive after Nov. 3, and warned that the votes could be invalidated once a legal challenge plays out.

Walmart has pulled guns and ammo from its displays over civil unrest and looting concerns. Guns and ammunition will still be available for purchase at the stores, Walmart said, but won't be available on the sales floor.

A woman delivered some incredible burns at a police town hall and now she's gone viral. Keiajah "KJ" Brooks delivered an incendiary speech that was viewed more than 9 million times in 2 days. She told BuzzFeed News the attention and support she has received will allow her to work full time as a community organizer and activist.

Kim Kardashian was given a hologram of her late father as a 40th birthday gift from Kanye West. The hologram gave a two minute speech in which "Robert" expressed how proud he was of Kim and also credited her with marrying "the most, most, most, most genius man in the whole world, Kanye West."

"I'VE NEVER HAD A GROUP OF HUMANS DO THIS"

These teachers are struggling to pull their students out of a QAnon rabbit hole

It's a misconception that conspiracy theories and collective delusions are for boomers on Facebook. We reached out to teachers to find out how false information is bleeding into classrooms, and how popular internet conspiracies end up being repeated by their students.

They told us once students learn these conspiracies and start to buy into them, they bring them to school, tell their classmates about them like they are true fact, use them to belittle other students, and force the teachers to try to make sense of their logic at school.

With the teachers we talked to, two things kept coming up again and again: QAnon and Jeffrey Epstein.

Teachers told Scaachi Koul that explaining actual facts to misguided students can seem nearly impossible. In response, their students simply say that the news media is biased, and that Trump is sending subtle signals to QAnon believers.

BREATHE, PAL

Slow it down a bit this weekend

People who aren't voting explain why. Even with historic turnout projected for this election, some eligible voters are still opting out. Michael Blackmon talked to the folks who plan to sit this one out. One of them put it like this: "This country is literally on the verge of multiple debt crises, and mass evictions. Nov. 3 isn't going to change that for anyone."

Homeless shelter staff are saving New York's school system. School reopening has been a massive struggle for families experiencing homelessness in New York City. But as Ema O'Connor writes, without support from shelter workers, it could have been so much worse.

What the NXIVM "sex cult" documentaries don't say. Two new documentaries look beyond salacious headlines to tell the story of the so-called NXIVM "sex cult." Still, Alessa Dominguez writes, their focus on survivors' personal stories leaves many questions unanswered.

Keep perspective and remember to direct your attention to what matters today,

Elamin

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📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Elamin Abdelmahmoud and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here.

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