[EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad

[Lillie Coney]

Playing the odds on voter ID-drama--but not going so far as to break the law.
I would wonder if false representation of being an Federal officer or a person
holding high office, which I would think Attorney General Holder would qualify
as serving as one or both is a crime.

Avoiding a federal or state felon charge is a good incentive not to break the
law. That is way it is difficult to find cases--its not worth going to jail, but this type
of activity will get you a write up and it is good enough to make voters think
there is some ramped voter fraud happening.

This is not the only instance of this so far this elections season.  Some have
not been so careful and will face the consequence.  One person in AZ registered
their dog to vote then advertising the fact.

Show me real fraud and then we can have a discussion.  The political antics
of each major election year is pretty old stuff by now.

Lillie Coney
Associate Director
Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) 
Defend Privacy. Support EPIC. 
http://epic.org/epic/support.html
1718 Connecticut Avenue NW Suite 200
Washington, D.C.
http://epic.org/
202-483-1140 x 111




On Apr 9, 2012, at 2:11 PM, JBoppjr at aol.com wrote:

> Actually it was 3 to 3 in the Wisc Supreme Court with Gableman recused.  Jim
>  
> In a message dated 4/9/2012 1:59:54 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, wmaurer at ij.org writes:
> Yes, she did.  The court split 4-1-4 on whether to strike the law down (with Chief Justice Alexander concurring only because the law reached nondefamatory speech).  The Washington court’s reasoning was rejected by Chief Justice Abrahamson and her cohorts in the Gableman case a few years back as well.
> 
>  
> 
> From: Richard Winger [mailto:richardwinger at yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 10:50 AM
> To: EugeneVolokh; law-election at UCI.edu; Bill Maurer
> Subject: Re: [EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad
> 
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> Bill might have added (but he didn't; I guess he wanted everyone to read the decision!)  that the Green Party candidate who brought that lawsuit (after she was charged with saying something factually untrue about her Democratic opponent) won her case in the Washington State Supreme Court.
> 
> Richard Winger
> 415-922-9779
> PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
> 
> --- On Mon, 4/9/12, Bill Maurer <wmaurer at ij.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> From: Bill Maurer <wmaurer at ij.org>
> Subject: Re: [EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad
> To: "Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>, "law-election at UCI.edu" <law-election at UCI.EDU>
> Date: Monday, April 9, 2012, 10:34 AM
> 
> There was a case at the Washington Supreme Court, Rickert v. Public Disclosure Commission, 168 P.3d 826, that addressed whether the state may make it a campaign finance violation for statements that would meet the standards for a cause of action for libel or slander. 
> 
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> Bill
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> From: law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
> Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 9:23 AM
> To: law-election at UCI.edu
> Subject: Re: [EL] damages awarded for defamatory campaign ad
> 
>  
> 
> As I mentioned, I don’t think there’s any First Amendment problem with awarding libel damages for recklessly or knowingly false statements of fact in an election campaign, given New York Times v. Sullivan and later cases.  But I do wonder whether the verdict in this case was supportable.  For instance, the plaintiffs apparently argued that the statements about “Bertrand’s company” must have referred to the small marketing companies that Bertrand owned, while in context it appears that a reasonable viewer would have seen the ad as referring to the company that Bertrand worked for.  Under the independent appellate review standard set forth in Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union, an appellate court might well reverse the judgment, concluding that the particular statements in this case were either true or expressions of opinion.
> 
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> 
> Eugene Volokh
> 
> UCLA School of Law
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> On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 7:27 AM, Kieran Williams <kierandwilliams at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> A jury has awarded a candidate for the Iowa State Senate $231,000 in damages for allegations made by his 2010 opponent in a 30-second attack ad; details are here. Note that the plaintiff who brought the suit did win the race, albeit very narrowly. Does anyone know of similar recent cases, in particular of any that did not get overturned? (I am not involved in this case in any way - I'm just interested in the boundaries of protected campaign speech.)
> 
> Kieran Williams
> Drake University
> Des Moines, IA  50311
> 
> 
> -----Inline Attachment Follows-----
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