[EL] nonpartisan election administration
Richard Winger
richardwinger at yahoo.com
Thu Jun 14 10:25:47 PDT 2012
Mexico has a national electoral commission with representatives of all the political parties, and it seems to work well.
I once heard a group of Mexican election administrators, who were touring the U.S. They said the most amazing thing about U.S. elections is that election administration is not non-partisan in the United States. The concept that election administration should be non-partisan seemed to them so obvious and clear, they were shocked the U.S. didn't follow that.
Richard Winger
415-922-9779
PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
--- On Thu, 6/14/12, JBoppjr at aol.com <JBoppjr at aol.com> wrote:
From: JBoppjr at aol.com <JBoppjr at aol.com>
Subject: Re: [EL] nonpartisan election administration
To: rhasen at law.uci.edu
Cc: law-election at uci.edu
Date: Thursday, June 14, 2012, 10:12 AM
Thank you Rick, I have. All you say at the end is that we can trust
that the person will be "nonpartisan" if he or she can run the gauntlet of being
nominated by the President and confirmed by 2/3rds of the Senate. But there
a plenty of partisans that can run that gauntlet, especially when one party or
the other has substantial power.
Further, what happens if no person enjoys that level of support so that we
have no "election czar" who is confirmed. Do we just cancel the elections
because we have no one to run them? No, they will be run by some
bureaucrat, not vetted the way you suggest, who could be a wild-eyed
partisan. I am afraid that there is no procedural way to accomplish the
substantive result you want.
But I thought you could take it a step further -- from theory to practice
-- by just naming one person who would fit the bill to be your "election
czar." I am afraid I don't know anyone that does and if your suggestion is
a practical one then one must exist and you or someone else could tell us who he
or she is. Failing that, I am afraid that this is just an unrealistic --
and very dangerous -- fantasy. Jim
In a message dated 6/14/2012 12:04:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
rhasen at law.uci.edu writes:
If you
read to the bottom of my piece (and not just the excerpt on the blog) you will
see that I address this point. I also address it in great detail in both
the book, and a 2005 article, Beyond the Margin of Litigation.
It actually
works in most other mature democracies quite well.
On 6/14/2012 8:59 AM, JBoppjr at aol.com wrote:
Isn't this really a fantasy: "Create an independent, nonpartisan
agency to run our federal elections."
If the federal agency would be "independent," who would appoint them
under our system other than the President. Well, the President is a
little partisan. And how therefore would it then be "nonpartisan." And
if all elections in every state were run by one federal agency, this federal
agency would be the biggest prize to control for partisan ends ever
devised.
Why isn't it better to, (1) acknowledge the reality than anyone who
bubbles up in the political system to run elections are likely to be
partisan, (2) therefore, create lots of checks and balances by involving
both parties in election administration so they can watch over each other,
and (3) disperse the control of elections as widely as possible - say at the
county level. As a result, it is true that there will be Republican
control of elections in some counties and Democrat control of election in
others, but this will balance out over the whole country.
If we have one federal agency in charge, I am sure the "reformers" will
want one person in charge of that agency -- no more "tie" votes like at the
FEC. Well this is the biggest partisan prize ever.
Ok, lets test my theory. Name me one, just one living breathing
person, not some theoretical or dead person, who would be so "independent"
and "nonpartisan" and that the President would nominate and the Senate
would confirm who everyone would trust with this awesome power. Just
one.
Jim Bopp
In a message dated 6/14/2012 11:29:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, rhasen at law.uci.edu writes:
“End the Voting Wars: Take our elections out of the
hands of the partisan and the incompetent.”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 8:28
am by Rick Hasen
I have written this piece for Slate, part of its ts
“How to Fix the Constitution” Hive. It begins:
My field is election law, and in this area it’s really easy to come
up with a sexy but risky fix that might improve the U.S. Constitution:
Abolish the Electoral College. Overturn Citizens United and the flood of corporate money in elections. Establish a national initiative allowing
voters to vote directly on legislation instead of going through
Congress, making the United States more like California. I have a
change that will sound less sexy but is more needed than all of them:
Create an independent, nonpartisan agency to run our federal
elections.
The United States is one of the few mature democracies that leaves
the rules for counting elections in local hands, and, in a majority of
states, that means partisan officials are in charge. Think about
it: We have people running our elections whose ultimate allegiance is
not to the integrity of the vote count but to the Republican Party or
the Democratic Party.
So when Florida’s Republican Gov. Rick Scott defends his latest purge of voters as
necessary to keep illegal voters from voting, why should
we believe he is doing this in the best interest of the integrity of
the elections rather than to give Romney and edge over Obama in the
perennial swing state? And when Obama’s Justice Department objects to
the purge, why should we believe it is acting to preserve
voter access to the polls rather than trying to give that edge to Obama?
As I document in my upcoming book, The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next
Election Meltdown, the fights over election rules, especially
over controversial new voter identification rules, have gotten much
worse since Bush v. Gore in 2000….
Posted
in election administration, The Voting Wars, voter registration | Comments Off
“Money and the ‘Appearance of Corruption’”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 8:22
am by Rick Hasen
Paul Sherman WSJ oped: “But there is also a
third possibility: The Supreme Court could double down on Citizens
United and reject, once and for all, the flawed justification
underlying much of America’s failed experiment with campaign-finance
law—the so-called appearance-of-corruption standard.”
This is what I mean when I asked whether liberals were shooting
themselves in the foot by seeking cert. in the Montana case. The
best way to win in the Roberts Court if you are a liberal is to stay out.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“New Arizona election plea (UPDATE)”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 8:19
am by Rick Hasen
SCOTUSBlog: “Arizona state officials asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to allow
election officials there to demand that all voters show proof of
citizenship before they may register to vote The divided
en banc Ninth Circuit Court ruled in April that the citizenship proof
requirement conflicts with a 1993 federal law passed to make it easier for
individuals to sign up to vote. The state took its plea for a delay
of that ruling, for the duration of this year’s election season, to
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who has the option of acting alone or
referring the issue to his eight colleagues. The
application (11A1189) was filed in Arizona v. Gonzalez, et
al. The en banc Ninth Circuit, over three judges’
dissents, had denied a stay last week.”
Posted
in election administration | Comments Off
Pipe Dream Dept.
Posted
on June 14, 2012 8:00
am by Rick Hasen
“After one nuclear winter of an election, rich partisans could agree to
mutual disarmament.”
–E.J. Dionne, Secret Money Fuels the 2012 Elections.
See also Adelson’s Donations Could Be “Limitless”
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Aetna Hides $7 Million in Political Spending”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:58
am by Rick Hasen
CREW has posted this release.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
An Inside Look at the Most Dysfunctional Appellate
Court in the U.S.
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:55
am by Rick Hasen
The latest from Wisconsin.
Posted
in ethics investigations, judicial elections | Comments Off
“The Money Crisis: How Citizens United Undermines
Our Elections and the Supreme Court”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:50
am by Rick Hasen
Russ Feingold has written this piece for the Stanford Law Review
Online.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Alaska Native Group Suing Division of
Elections”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:42
am by Rick Hasen
New section 5 suit in Alaska.
Posted
in Voting Rights Act | Comments Off
“Top Two in California Primaries, June 2012: By the
Numbers: High Rates of Invalid Ballots; Perverse Outcomes; Major Parties
Dominate”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:39
am by Rick Hasen
FairVote has issued this press release.
Posted
in alternative voting systems, political parties, primaries | Comments Off
“Ex-prosecutor George Holding defends John Edwards
case”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:37
am by Rick Hasen
Must-read Gerstein.
Posted
in campaign finance, chicanery, John Edwards | Comments Off
“Ex-lawmaker lobbyists more likely to put leftover
campaign money to political use”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:36
am by Rick Hasen
WaPo reports.
Posted
in campaign finance, legislation and legislatures, lobbying | Comments Off
“No New Trial for John Edwards”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:32
am by Rick Hasen
NYT reports.
Posted
in campaign finance, chicanery, John Edwards | Comments Off
“Beltway Bundlers Have Mitt Romney Sitting
Pretty”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:31
am by Rick Hasen
Roll Call reports.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“The Anti-ALEC alliance: Group at heart of
anti-conservative crusade is shadowy organization funded by leftwing
millionaires and billionaires”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:31
am by Rick Hasen
The right wants disclosure of funding for issue
advocacy. Interesting. (h/t Eric Brown)
Posted
in Uncategorized | Comments Off
“The Missing Right To Vote; What we’d get from
amending the Constitution to guarantee it.”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:29
am by Rick Hasen
Heather Gerken has written this Slate contribution to its “How to Fix the
Constitution” Hive.
Posted
in voting | Comments Off
“Campaign Aid Is Now Surging Into 8 Figures”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:27
am by Rick Hasen
NYT: “Even in a political season marked by
unprecedented levels of political spending, Sheldon Adelson stands alone.”
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Corporate Cash in State Elections Gets U.S. High
Court Scrutiny”
Posted
on June 14, 2012 7:25
am by Rick Hasen
Bloomberg reports.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Fla. Gov. Rick Scott Defends Noncitizen Voter
Purges”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:29
pm by Rick Hasen
NPR reports.
Posted
in election administration, The Voting Wars, voter registration | Comments Off
“Justice Department Is Dropping Case Against
Edwards”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:15
pm by Rick Hasen
Carrie Johnson reports for NPR.
Posted
in campaign finance, chicanery, John Edwards | Comments Off
“Angus King pledges to discourage super PAC money
if his opponents do the same”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:14
pm by Rick Hasen
News from Maine.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“New Wine Into Old Bottles: Adapting Text Messaging
Proposal to 1970’s Era Rules Gains FEC Approval”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:13
pm by Rick Hasen
Larry Norton blogs at Venable’s new Political Law Briefing
blog.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Gingrich: Elections ‘rigged’ for the rich”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:08
pm by Rick Hasen
Newt Gingrich, whose presidential campaign stayed alive as long as it
did only because of his rich Super PAC benefactors, now complains.
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
“Dice Roll Decides Election in Texas Town”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 1:07
pm by Rick Hasen
ABC News reports.
Posted
in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Larry Tribe Calls for Constitutional Amendment to
Overturn Citizens United
Posted
on June 13, 2012 11:49
am by Rick Hasen
Read his proposal here in Slate, part of their
How to Fix the Constitution “Hive” series.
Up in the Hive tomorrow: more election law-related proposals from
Heather Gerken and from me.
Posted
in campaign finance, Supreme Court | Comments Off
“Ex-Gov. White says state voter laws flawed”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 10:21
am by Rick Hasen
Houston Chronicle: “Voter registration
restrictions imposed by the Texas Legislature last session are unnecessary
and make it more difficult to register voters, former Texas Gov. Mark White testified Tuesday in Galveston
federal court.”
See also this report.
Posted
in election administration, NVRA (motor voter), The Voting Wars, voter registration | Comments Off
“New York Deal Near for Simplified Ballots”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 10:19
am by Rick Hasen
NYT’s “City Room” blog reports.
Posted
in election administration | Comments Off
“Appellate Lawyer of the Week: Anthony
Johnstone”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 10:18
am by Rick Hasen
NLJ: “In 2009, Anthony Johnstone and his home
state of Montana played supporting roles in the legal drama surrounding
the Citizens United campaign finance challenge. Today, the law professor
and state officials stand center stage in a fight to save Montana’s law in
the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
I’m looking forward to joining Anthony and a great crowd at the
University of Montana at the end of the September for a conference on
money and politics.
(h/t How Appealing)
Posted
in campaign finance | Comments Off
Quote of the Day
Posted
on June 13, 2012 9:41
am by Rick Hasen
“On both the left and the right, then, originalism is no longer a
theory of judicial restraint, as it was once described by Black or Scalia,
but a means of advancing partisan preferences.”
–Jeffrey Rosen, Constitution Avenue:Liberals discover a theory to
crush conservative jurisprudence.
Posted
in Supreme Court | Comments Off
“Sen. Grassley demands re-vote on 9th Circuit judge
nomination”
Posted
on June 13, 2012 8:04
am by Rick Hasen
The Hill: “Senate Judiciary Committee ranking
member Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) late Tuesday demanded that the Senate
vote again on the confirmation of Andrew Hurwitz to be a U.S. Circuit
Judge for the 9th Circuit, and said he was not aware that Senate Democrats
were planning to ask for a speedy voice vote on the nomination.”
Posted
in Uncategorized | Comments Off --
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
Pre-order The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
www.thevotingwars.com
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--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://law.uci.edu/faculty/page1_r_hasen.html
http://electionlawblog.org
Pre-order The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
www.thevotingwars.com
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