Advocates of legalizing recreational marijuana in South Dakota, a mission with a rocky history, submitted thousands of signatures to election officials on Tuesday in the hopes of once again getting the issue on the conservative state’s November ballot.

Supporters of the initiative turned in about 29,000 signatures to Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office. They need 17,508 valid signatures to make the November ballot. Johnson’s office has until Aug. 13 to validate the signatures.

Twenty-four states have legalized recreational marijuana, including as recently as November 2023 in Ohio, but “no state has as interesting or rocky or turbulent a story than South Dakota,” said South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws Campaign Director Matthew Schweich.

Florida voters will decide whether to legalize recreational marijuana this fall. Similar measure efforts are underway in other states, including North Dakota.

In 2020, South Dakota voters approved a medical marijuana initiative and also passed a measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana. But the latter was ultimately struck down when the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld a judge’s ruling that it violated a single-subject rule for constitutional amendments — a challenge begun by Gov. Kristi Noem. Measure backers tried again in 2022, but voters defeated the proposal. In 2021, Noem sought to delay legalization of medical marijuana by a year, a proposal that died in the Republican-led Legislature.

Schweich cites several reasons to support the measure, including that it would allow law enforcement resources to be directed elsewhere, increase access for people who have difficulty getting medical marijuana patient cards, and generate new tax revenue and jobs.

“I think for me, the strongest reason at its core is that if we’re going to allow alcohol to be legal in our society, then it makes absolutely no sense to punish people for using cannabis because alcohol is more harmful to the individual and to society than cannabis,” Schweich said.

Protecting South Dakota Kids, a nonprofit group that opposes legalizing marijuana in the state, fought against the 2022 effort. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment on the 2024 initiative with the organization’s chairman, Jim Kinyon. In a pamphlet issued in opposition to the 2022 measure, he wrote that legalization “would swing the door wide open for higher crime rates, increased suicide rates, traffic fatalities, workplace injuries, and mental health problems.”

The ballot initiative would legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older. The proposal has possession limits of 2 ounces of marijuana in a form other than concentrated cannabis or cannabis products, as well as 16 grams of the former and 1,600 mg of THC contained in the latter. The measure also allows cultivation of plants, with restrictions.

The measure doesn’t include business licensing, taxation or other regulations. Schweich said the single-subject rule at the heart of the 2021 court ruling tied his hands “in terms of writing the type of comprehensive policy I would have liked to write.”

“We’re taking a conservative approach in response to this ruling and not taking any chances,” he said.

Measure backers, if successful, plan to work with the Legislature next year to pass implementation legislation “that will spell out those missing pieces,” he said.

South Dakota outlaws marijuana possession, distribution and possession with intent to distribute, with varying misdemeanor and felony penalties according to factors such as amount and second or subsequent convictions.

The federal government has proposed reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a move Schweich said might help to normalize the issue for certain voters.

Schweich said the unique circumstances of the issue in South Dakota justify the third attempt. He thinks the initiative has a better chance this year, when voters are likely to turn out in bigger numbers to vote for president, and possibly to weigh in on an abortion rights initiative that others hope to get on the ballot.

Despite pleas from Democrats and gut-wrenching testimony from doctors and rape survivors, a GOP-controlled legislative committee rejected a bill Tuesday that would have added cases of rape and incest as exceptions to Louisiana’s abortion ban.

In the reliably red state, which is firmly ensconced in the Bible Belt and where even some Democrats oppose abortions, adding exceptions to Louisiana’s strict law has been an ongoing battle for advocates — with a similar measure failing last year. Currently, of the 14 states with abortion bans at all stages of pregnancy, six have exceptions in cases of rape and five have exceptions for incest.

“I will beg (committee) members to come to common sense,” Democratic state Rep. Alonzo Knox said to fellow lawmakers ahead of the vote, urging them to give approval to the exceptions. “I’m begging now.”

Lawmakers voted against the bill along party lines, with the measure failing 4-7.

A nearly identical bill met the same fate last year, effectively dying in the same committee. In the hopes of advancing the legislation out of committee and to the House floor for full debate, bill sponsor Democratic state Rep. Delisha Boyd added an amendment to the measure so that the exceptions would only apply to those who are younger than 17. However, the change was still not enough to sway opponents.

“We have cases here in Louisiana with children being raped and then subjected to carrying a child to term,” Boyd, a Democrat who has told her own mother’s story in an effort to fight for passage of the bil l. “I hope we take a look at the fact that this is to protect the most vulnerable, our children.”

Boyd said she will continue to try to get the bill onto the floor, possibly asking the House chamber to vote to bypass the committee. However, the technique is rarely successful for Democrats in the Legislature where Republicans hold a supermajority.

While most of those who voted against the bill did not give a reason for their vote, GOP state Rep. Dodie Horton offered her thoughts, saying that while she believes convicted rapists should receive the maximum penalty possible, she can’t in good conscience allow for abortions. She described the fetuses as “innocent children.”

“I think we should punish the perpetrator to the nth degree, I’d love to hang them from the high street if it was in my power to do so. But I cannot condone killing the innocent,” Horton said.

As in multiple other Republican states, Louisiana’s abortion law went into effect in 2022 following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, ending a half-century of the nationwide right to abortion. The only exceptions to the ban are if there is substantial risk of death or impairment to the mother if she continues the pregnancy or in the case of “medically futile” pregnancies — when the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

Democrats have repeatedly fought — and failed — to loosen the law by clarifying vague language, abolishing jail time for doctors who perform illegal abortions and adding exceptions.

“It’s disgusting to me that we have a society where we can’t make exceptions in a situation where a young girl’s innocence has been taken away in the most vile way… and now she’s impregnated and somebody, somewhere, wants to force a nine, 10, 11, 12, 13-year-old child to have a baby for the monster that took away her innocence?” Knox said.

The bill attracted dozens of people to testify, including rape survivors who shared their own stories and doctors who argued that their hands are tied by the current law.

OB-GYN Dr. Neelima Sukhavasi told lawmakers that since the abortion ban has gone into effect, she and other colleagues have delivered babies who are birthed by teenagers who have been raped.

“One of these teenagers delivered a baby while clutching a Teddy Bear — and that’s an image that once you see that, you can’t unsee it,” Sukhavasi said.

In 2021, there were 7,444 reported abortions in Louisiana, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, 27 were obtained by people younger than 15. Nationwide, 1,338 pregnant patients under 15 received abortions, according to the CDC.

A study released by the Journal of the American Medical Association found that between July 2022 and January 2024, there were more than 64,000 pregnancies resulting from rape in states where abortion has been banned in all or most cases.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A woman who fell from the stands to her death during a graduation ceremony at Ohio State University last weekend has been identified as a Georgia resident, authorities announced Tuesday.

The Franklin County Coroner’s Office said Larissa Brady, 53, was pronounced dead at the scene, just outside Ohio Stadium in Columbus on Sunday. The Columbus Dispatch reported the death was being investigated as an apparent suicide, citing coroner documents.

An investigation continues into how Brady fell from the stadium, which the school says is 136 feet (41 meters) tall, to the pavement below. However, Ohio State police do not suspect foul play and believe the fall was not accidental, university spokesperson Ben Johnson said Tuesday.

It happened around midday, near the stadium’s Bell Tower, as the last graduates were filing into the stadium. According to the commencement program, Brady’s daughter was among those graduating.

The commencement continued without mention of what happened, but some students and others at the ceremony were visibly upset after the fall. A spokesman said the university has contacted all graduates and staff who volunteered at graduation to offer counseling services.

___

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988. There is also an online chat at 988lifeline.org

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A panel of federal judges who recently threw out a congressional election map giving Louisiana a second mostly Black district said Tuesday the state Legislature must pass a new map by June 3 or face having the panel impose one on the state.

However, voting rights advocates and Republican Attorney General Liz Murrill said they would take an appeal in defense of the new map to the Supreme Court.

“Today, three federal judges who never spent a day running an election have ignored uncontradicted testimony that we need a map by May 15, and once again turned Louisiana’s Congressional elections upside down,” Murrill said an emailed statement.

The latest order from a panel of two federal district judges and an appellate judge said they would begin work on a remedial plan while giving lawmakers a chance to come up with a plan during the current regular legislative session, which must end by June 3.

“To be clear, the fact that the Court is proceeding with the remedial phase of this case does not foreclose the Louisiana Legislature from exercising its ‘sovereign interest’ by drawing a legally compliant map,” the judges wrote.

Whatever comes out of the court could impact the makeup of the next U.S. Congress. Given voting patterns, a new mostly Black district would give Democrats the chance to capture another House seat. The map that was recently tossed converted District 6, represented by Republican Rep. Garret Graves, into a mostly Black district. Democratic state Sen. Cleo Fields, a former congressman who is Black, had said he would run for the seat.

U.S. District Judges David Joseph and Robert Summerhays, both of whom were nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, said the newest map violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because “race was the predominate factor” driving its creation. Appellate Court Judge Carl Stewart, a nominee of former President Bill Clinton, dissented.

Tuesday’s order is the latest development in a seesaw court battle that has taken place in two federal court districts and an appeals court.

The state currently has five white Republican U.S. House members and one Black member who is a Democrat. All were elected most recently under a map the Legislature drew up in 2022.

US. District Judge Shelly Dick, of Baton Rouge, blocked subsequent use of the 2022 map, saying it likely violated the federal Voting Rights Act by dividing many of the state’s Black residents — about a third of the population — among five districts. A federal appeals court gave lawmakers a deadline earlier this year to act. The Legislature responded with a map creating a new district crossing the state diagonally and linking Black populations from Shreveport in the northwest, Alexandria in the center and Lafayette and Baton Rouge in the south.

The new map could mean the loss of a Republican House seat. But it was backed by Gov. Jeff Landry, Murrill and other Republicans as a way of complying with Dick’s ruling, avoiding a court-drawn map and protecting powerful Republican members of Congress, including House Speaker Mike Johnson and Majority Leader Steve Scalise.

A group of self-identified non-African American voters filed suit against that map, saying it was unconstitutionally drawn up with race as the main factor.

A three-judge panel heard arguments in that case and ruled 2-1 against the map. The same panel issued Tuesday’s ruling.

Whether those judges would approve a map that creates a new mostly Black district is unclear. In their April 30 ruling tossing the new district, they didn’t rule on whether a second minority district could be drawn — but they noted that the state’s Black population is dispersed.

They gave interested parties until May 17 to submit new proposals to the court.

The Louisiana Secretary of State’s Office has said it needs a map in place by May 15 to prepare for the fall elections. The judges noted testimony in past litigation, however, that the office could be prepared if maps were in place by the end of May. The candidate sign-up period is in mid-July.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Seven more Republican-led states sued Tuesday to challenge a new federal regulation that seeks to protect the rights of transgender students in the nation’s schools. Republican plaintiffs call the effort to fold protection for transgender students under the 1972 Title IX law unconstitutional.

The lawsuits filed in federal courts in Missouri and Oklahoma are the latest GOP attempts to halt the new regulation seeking to clarify Title IX, a landmark 1972 sex discrimination law originally passed to address women’s rights and applied to schools and colleges receiving federal money. The rules spell out that Title IX bars discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, too.

Arkansas, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota joined as plaintiffs in the Missouri lawsuit.

The cases come as many Republicans seek to limit the rights of transgender youth, including restricting which bathrooms or pronouns they can use in school. Such prohibitions that could be invalidated by the new federal regulation. The GOP states suing argue that the new federal rules goes beyond the intent of Title IX and that the Biden administration doesn’t have the authority to implement them.

“The interpretation of the Biden administration is completely inconsistent with the statute and the way it’s been interpreted for decades,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said at a news conference with Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.

The federal regulation applies to all schools that receive federal funding. The latest filings bring to at least 21 the number of GOP states challenging the new rules. Officials in several states, including Arkansas, have said they don’t plan to comply with the regulation.

The U.S. Department of Education said it does not comment on pending litigation.

An Arkansas high school athlete, Amelia Ford, also joined the Missouri case, saying she doesn’t believe transgender women should be allowed to compete on women’s sports teams.

The Biden administration’s new rules broadly protect against discrimination based on sex, but they don’t offer guidance around transgender athletes. Most of the states challenging the regulation have laws restricting what teams transgender athletes can play on.

Lawsuits also have been filed in federal courts in Texas, Alabama, Louisiana and Kentucky. The multiple challenges give the states suing a better chance that one of the cases will put the rule on hold nationally.

NEW YORK (AP) — One-time movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was returned to a New York City jail in what his publicist said Tuesday was the result from a published report claiming he was getting VIP treatment during his 10-day stay at a hospital.

The publicist, Juda Engelmeyer, said Weinstein was moved late Monday from Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan to an infirmary at the city’s Rikers Island jail complex.

The move came hours after The City, a nonprofit news outlet, reported that Weinstein was housed in a private room in the hospital’s intensive care unit with a television, phone and a bathroom rather than a separate floor where inmates normally reside.

Engelmeyer disputed the account, saying Weinstein “wasn’t getting preferential or VIP treatment” and wasn’t housed in what could be characterized as a hospital suite. Engelmeyer said he’d been housed on the floor for inmates where everyone has access to a room with phones and a television room.

“He’s been moved back to Rikers largely due to pressure, I believe, due to pressure because of the news about what somebody thought was VIP treatment,” he said.

Weinstein was brought to Bellevue Hospital only hours after he was transferred on April 26 from the Mohawk Correctional Facility, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) northwest of Albany, to Rikers less than a day after the New York Court of Appeals vacated his conviction.

The appeals court ruled that a Manhattan trial judge permitted jurors to see and hear too much evidence not directly related to the charges he faced, and it ordered a new trial, negating his 23-year prison sentence. However, he remained jailed because he was convicted in Los Angeles in 2022 of another rape and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.

While prosecutors have asked for a September retrial on charges that he forcibly performed oral sex on a TV and film production assistant in 2006 and raped an aspiring actor in 2013, it was unclear if key trial witnesses would return for a new trial. Weinstein has disputed the allegations.

Frank Dwyer, a New York City Department of Correction spokesperson, said Weinstein was originally taken to Bellevue for medical care and was returned to the West Facility, a Rikers Island jail in Queens, when the treatment was completed.

The West Facility houses 140 specially air-controlled housing units for inmates with contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, according to a city website, though the jail has reportedly also been used for inmates that need to be isolated from the general jail population for other reasons.

Craig Rothfeld, a jail consultant working with Weinstein attorneys, responded to an email sent to a Weinstein lawyer by saying the decision to return Weinstein to Rikers was made by medical staff “who are more than qualified to make these medical decisions.”

He said there are no more updates to provide regarding Weinstein’s health, and all of his health conditions continue to be closely monitored by city jail and health officials.

“We have every confidence in their decision-making ability regarding Mr. Weinstein’s safety and well-being and are grateful for their continued communication,” Rothfeld said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein had been treated at the hospital for pneumonia, a recurring issue related to his heart troubles, along with his other medical issues, including diabetes.

“He appreciates the care he was getting in Bellevue,” he said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein was “disappointed” at his return to Rikers and was “uncomfortable” there, where the spokesperson described Weinstein’s housing as “more like an infirmary.”

He said Weinstein was regularly speaking by phone with his lawyers when he was at the hospital as other inmates awaiting trial are allowed to do.

“He didn’t get any treatment different from others. He wasn’t talking to his friends and buddies and having a good time,” Engelmeyer said.

Engelmeyer said Weinstein gained some “relief and hope” from the appeals ruling, but he knows he faces a long prison term from the California case and an appeal of that conviction won’t be heard for another year.

“His spirits are up, but he also knows he has a long, long trip ahead of him,” Engelmeyer said. “He knows that he won’t be getting out soon.

DENVER (AP) — A bill to ban the sale and transfer of semi-automatic firearms was nixed in Colorado’s Democratic-controlled Legislature on Tuesday as lawmakers pressed forward with a slew of other gun control bills on the 25th anniversary year of the Columbine High School massacre.

The western state has a deep history with firearms that is pockmarked by some of the most high-profile mass shootings nationwide. Both factors loom large over gun control debates in the Legislature, complicating attempts at such bans that nine other Democratic-controlled states have in place, including California and New York.

The Colorado House passed the ban in a historic first, after roughly the same proposal was swiftly nixed last year. But some Senate Democrats are wary of the efficacy and breadth of the ban, which prohibits the sale, transfer and manufacture of semiautomatic firearms.

Colorado’s blue shift is evident in part by a number of successful gun control measures passed last year, including raising the buying age for a gun from 18 to 21. Some half-dozen proposals are nearing passage this year, including a bill to put a measure on the November 2024 ballot to tax sales of guns and ammunition.

The state’s purple roots have frustrated attempts at a broader ban.

In the face of Senate Democrats’ opposition, one of the bill’s sponsors asked that the legislation be put to rest at a brief and sparsely attended committee hearing Tuesday.

“After thoughtful conversations with my Senate colleagues, I decided that more conversations need to take place outside of the pressure cooker of the Capitol,” sponsor Democratic state Sen. Julie Gonzales said.

Gonzales said she’ll continue discussions with gun violence victims, responsible gun owners and advocates “committed to doing the work necessary to save lives — and an assault weapons ban will do just that.”

On that committee sat Democratic state Sen. Tom Sullivan, who would have been a “no” vote, along with Republican lawmakers who have decried the bill as an encroachment on Second Amendment rights.

Sullivan’s son, Alex, was one of 12 killed in the 2012 Aurora theater shooting at a midnight screening of “The Dark Knight Rises.” The tragedy catapulted Sullivan into activism around gun control and then public office, where he has spearheaded many bills on the issue.

Sullivan said the weapons that the bill seeks to curtail are involved in only a small fraction of gun deaths and injuries. Those firearms include a long list of semi-automatic rifles, along with some pistols and shotguns, with certain characteristics, such as a threaded barrel or detachable stock.

Their prohibition wouldn’t make much of a dent in gun violence, Sullivan argued, and the proposal takes up immense political oxygen in the state capitol — energizing the opposition and detracting from more effective and less controversial gun control measures.

“The narrative is all wrong,” Sullivan said. “That’s what they want you to believe, that it’s assault weapons and schools. It’s not. … It’s suicides and it’s domestic violence.”

The proposal is expected to be revived next year.

Meanwhile, other bills nearing the governor’s desk include a proposal to give Colorado’s Bureau of Investigations more power to investigate gun sales that are already illegal. Another would require more rigorous safety training for someone seeking a concealed carry permit. And one would require firearm dealers to be permitted by the state, not just the federal government, giving regulators greater power to enforce state law.

(Reuters) – The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday it has opened an investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner to see whether some employees committed “misconduct” by claiming certain tests that were not performed had been completed. 

WHAT’S HAPPENING? 

The U.S. FAA has opened another investigation into Boeing, which was already facing probes related to a Jan. 5 panel blowout on a 737 MAX. The FAA wants to know if Boeing completed inspections to confirm adequate bonding and electrical grounding where wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes at its factory in South Carolina.

HOW DID THIS COME ABOUT? 

Boeing informed the FAA that an employee at the South Carolina plant found irregularities in a 787 test – and said in an email from a company vice president that the planemaker “learned that several people had been violating company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed.”

IS THIS THE FIRST TIME AN ISSUE INVOLVING PAPERWORK HAS EMERGED AT BOEING? 

No. Investigators looking at the Jan. 5 737 MAX blowout have not turned up specific documentation related to the production of the aircraft in question as well. In that incident, a door plug was removed to address manufacturing problems, but when the panel was reinstalled, four bolts needed to hold the door in place were missing. Boeing so far has not produced any paperwork that shows whether this step took place or not, and has said it believes required documents detailing the removal of the bolts were never created. Missing or falsifying documentation is seen by experts as an egregious problem in aerospace where regulators require meticulous production records.   

WILL THIS NEWEST INVESTIGATION AFFECT PLANE PRODUCTION OR EXISTING PLANES? 

It is possible. The FAA said on Monday that Boeing is “reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.” Boeing currently produces fewer than five 787 planes per month. The company in April had said it was already dealing with a slower rate of production due to parts shortages.

WILL ANYONE BE HELD RESPONSIBLE? 

Boeing has said it is taking “swift and serious corrective action with multiple employees,” but it is not clear how the planemaker will fully respond to this issue. The company’s safety culture has been under scrutiny by lawmakers and regulators after the Jan. 5 blowout that has damaged the aerospace giant’s reputation. 

In April, Sam Salehpour, a current engineer at the company, said Boeing’s manufacturing practices are inadequately addressing safety concerns.    

Boeing was not immediately available for comment.

(Reporting by Allison Lampert in Montreal and David Shepardson in Washington; Writing by David Gaffen; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

ATLANTA (AP) — Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation Tuesday that makes additional changes to Georgia’s election laws ahead of the 2024 presidential contest in the battleground state, including defining probable causes for removing voters from the rolls when their eligibility is challenged.

Republican activists — fueled by debunked theories of a stolen election — have challenged more than 100,000 voters in the state in recent years. The activists say they are rooting out duplicate records and removing voters who have moved out of state.

The bill Kemp signed into law — SB 189 — lists death, evidence of voting or registering in another jurisdiction, a tax exemption indicating a primary residence elsewhere, or a nonresidential address as probable causes for removing voters from the rolls. Most controversially, it says the National Change of Address list can be considered, though not exclusively.

Supporters have said the probable cause definition would make the challenge process more difficult. Opponents have disputed that, saying the changes would enable more baseless attacks on voters that would overwhelm election administrators and disenfranchise legitimate voters. For example, people sometimes live at a place of business, which would be considered a nonresidential address. Officials with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office say there are more reliable types of information, such as driver’s license data, to confirm a voter’s eligibility.

The Georgia bill also allows challenges to be accepted and voters removed from the rolls up until 45 days before an election. That provision in part has prompted the threat of lawsuits from liberal groups because federal law says states and counties can’t make systematic changes to voting rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

The measure also says homeless people must use the county voter registration office as their address instead of where they live. Opponents have said that could make it harder for homeless citizens to cast ballots because their registered polling place might be far away.

Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group founded by former Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, slammed the signing of SB 189, calling the measure a “voter suppression bill that emboldens right-wing activists in their efforts to kick Black and brown voters off the rolls.”

“By signing SB 189 to become law, Brian Kemp delivered a gift to MAGA election deniers,” the group said in a statement.

Andrea Young, executive director of the ACLU of Georgia, called the bill a “step back for voters’ rights and voting access.”

“We are committed to protecting Georgia voters and will see the governor in court,” she said in a statement.

An email to a spokesman for the governor’s office, Garrison Douglas, was not immediately returned.

The bill also grants access to Georgia’s ballot to any political party that has qualified for the presidential ballot in at least 20 states or territories. The change could bolster independent candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose campaign has spooked Democrats worried it could draw support away from President Joe Biden.

Other changes in the bill include removing Raffensperger from his ex-officio spot on the State Election Board. Kemp and Republican lawmakers had previously removed Raffensperger from his voting position on the board.

Many Republicans who believe debunked theories that former President Donald Trump was cheated out of Georgia’s 16 electoral votes in 2020 view Raffensperger as a particular enemy because the Republican secretary of state has forcefully defended the election results showing Biden won.

Raffensperger and some others had lobbied for Kemp, himself a former secretary of state, to veto the bill.

The bill, additionally, says that beginning July 1, 2026, the state can no longer use a kind of barcode called a QR code to count ballots created on the state ballot marking devices. That is how votes are counted now, but opponents say voters don’t trust QR codes because they can’t read them. Instead, the bill says ballots must be read using the text, or human-readable marks like filled-in bubbles, made by the machines.

The bill also requires counties to report the results of all absentee ballots by an hour after polls close. It also lets counties use paper ballots in elections in which fewer than 5,000 people are registered, though that change will not take effect until 2025.

Kemp on Tuesday vetoed a separate election bill that would ban political contributions by foreign nationals and impose additional registration requirements on agents of foreign principals. The governor noted that such donations are already prohibited by federal law, and he said some of the registration requirements were not intended by the bill’s sponsor.

CHICAGO (AP) — Three men who say they were sexually abused as children while incarcerated at Illinois juvenile detention centers came forward Tuesday as part of a lawsuit that chronicles decades of disturbing allegations of systemic child abuse.

Calvin McDowell, 37, who alleged he was abused by a chaplain at a suburban Chicago youth center as a teenager, said he didn’t want others suffering as he did for decades.

“Instead of being cared for, I felt more alone than ever,” McDowell said at a Chicago news conference. “I held my secret from the people I loved out of fear and embarrassment. I had nights where I wanted to give up on life.”

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to being identified or decide to tell their stories publicly, as McDowell and two other men who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit have.

The complaint filed Monday alleges widespread abuse from 1996 to 2017 at nine youth detention centers, including gang rape, forced oral sex and beatings of children by corrections officers, sergeants, nurses, therapists, a chaplain and others. Many of the 95 plaintiffs, who are mostly identified by their initials in the lawsuit, said they were threatened or rewarded to keep quiet.

The lawsuit follows similar complaints of abuse at youth detention centers in New Jersey, California, Maryland and elsewhere.

Ten of the 95 men and women who brought the Illinois complaint appeared at the news conference.

Jeffery Christian, 36, said he was abused at two different Illinois Youth Centers, including by a counselor who groped him during counseling sessions. His family’s efforts to report the abuse were ignored at the time, he said — a pattern that was familiar to the others.

“I want the world to know what happened to me and the rest of the survivors that are with me,” Christian said. “I want to shine a light on these dark times I went through as a juvenile.”

When Christian shed tears, another survivor patted him on the back in support. There were nods in agreement and applause as the survivors spoke. Several said that meeting others who had the same harrowing experiences has helped them find peace.

The lawsuit contends Illinois failed to supervise, discipline, remove or investigate alleged abusers, enabling abuse to continue. The complaint alleges the abuse happened at youth centers in locations all over the state, including Chicago, St. Charles and Harrisburg. Several detention center locations have since closed.

Filed in the Illinois Court of Claims, the lawsuit names the state of Illinois and its Department of Corrections and Department of Juvenile Justice as defendants. It seeks damages of roughly $2 million per plaintiff, the most allowed under law.

Spokespeople for Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who took office in 2019, and the two corrections agencies have said the alleged incidents took place under former administrations and that any allegations of staff misconduct are “thoroughly investigated.” They did not immediately have further comment Tuesday.

Attorneys who brought the lawsuit said they are skeptical that things have changed.

Attorney Todd Mathews said there are hundreds of other former child detainees in Illinois who allege sexual abuse and that he expects to file more lawsuits. Attorney Jerome Block, who has helped bring lawsuits against juvenile detention facilities elsewhere, said states always maintain they have the right procedures in place to deter abuse and that children are safe.

“It’s hard to believe the state when they say there’s no problem right now, because that’s what they said for all these past decades,” Block said.

Some survivors said they hope they’ll get more answers through legal action, including the names of their alleged abusers.

The lawsuit notes six alleged repeat offenders who are identified by name. But many others are identified only as the alleged victims remembered them, including by physical descriptions or nicknames.

Stephen Lucas, 36, was about 13 years old when he said was repeatedly abused and harassed by a supervisor at a downstate youth facility. He hopes that his coming forward will help others.

“I was afraid to share my hardship with those closest to me because I didn’t want to be looked at differently. But joining the lawsuit has freed a part of me that I locked away for 22 years,” he said. “I’m finally reclaiming what was taken from me all those years ago.”