[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/22/12
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Mon Oct 22 07:56:32 PDT 2012
Quote of the Day, von Spakovsky Edition
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42170>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:52 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42170>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
"What am I---his research assistant?"
---Hans von Spakovksy <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42150>, explaining
why he stonewalled me and would not provide data to back up his
controversial claim about cases involving "extensive...impersonation
fraud" at the polls. (When I independently obtained the data it
contradicted his claims.)
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>,
The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> | Comments Off
"The Biggest Increase in Independent Spending Was among
Party-Related Groups; Direct Citizens United Impact Not
Demonstrated" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42167>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:40 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42167>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Campaign Finance Institute
<http://www.cfinst.org/Press/PReleases/12-10-22/Working_Paper_on_Independent_Spending_in_the_States_2006-2010.aspx>:
The Campaign Finance Institute (CFI) today released a draft working
paper called "The Impact of Citizens United in the States:
Independent Spending in State Elections, 2006-2010."
<http://www.cfinst.org/pdf/state/State-Indep-Spdg_2006-10_Working-Paper-as-Released-22October2012.pdf>
The paper found a substantial increase in independent spending whose
timing straddles /Citizens United/ but questions whether that
decision /explains/ the increase. After dividing the states into two
groups, it found no difference between states that had regulated
business or labor independent spending before the Court's decision
and those that had not. It also found no systematic increase in
independent spending across states by corporations, labor unions,
umbrella business organizations or ideological groups.
I look forward to reading what is sure to be an important paper from CFI.
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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10> |
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"Did the Dark Money Group that Spurred a Landmark Ruling Mislead the
IRS?" <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42164>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:36 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42164>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
ProPublica
<http://www.propublica.org/article/did-the-dark-money-group-that-spurred-a-landmark-ruling-mislead-the-irs?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed>:
"A western nonprofit that played a key role in freeing corporate
spending on elections nationwide appears to have misled the IRS when it
applied for the tax-exempt status that shields its donors from being
publicly disclosed. Documents obtained by ProPublica and Frontline show
that Western Tradition Partnership, now known as American Tradition
Partnership, said it would not attempt to sway elections when it asked
the IRS to recognize it as a tax-exempt social welfare organization in
late 2008."
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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22> | Comments Off
"Groups Push to Highlight Campaign Finance Reform"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42161>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:31 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42161>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/nyregion/groups-push-to-highlight-campaign-finance-reform-in-new-york.html?ref=nyregion&_r=1&>:
"With two weeks remaining before Election Day, advocates for creating a
system of public financing for state elections
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/12/nyregion/coalition-urges-public-financing-in-new-york-state-elections.html>
are preparing to funnel at least $600,000 into two State Senate races in
an effort to make money in politics a more prominent campaign issue."
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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,
campaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59> | Comments Off
"An education about the Electoral College"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42158>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:27 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42158>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Mo Rocca piece
<http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50133559n&tag=showDoorFlexGridLeft;flexGridModule>
for CBS News.
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Posted in electoral college <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44> |
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"Obscure nonprofit threatens campaign finance limits beyond Montana"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42154>
Posted on October 22, 2012 7:23 am <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42154>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Center for Public Integrity:
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/22/11577/obscure-nonprofit-threatens-campaign-finance-limits-beyond-montana>
"Voters haven't had a clue who is behind American Tradition Partnership
--- the Colorado-based group pushing to rewrite Montana's campaign
finance laws --- and that's just the way the secretive nonprofit wants
it. A 2010 fundraising pitch
<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/472774-wtp-executivebriefing-2010-selection.html>to
its donors promised that 'no politician, no bureaucrat, and no radical
environmentalist will ever know you helped,' and 'the only thing we plan
on reporting is our success to contributors like you.'"
More here
<http://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/10/22/11585/furniture-king-celebrity-colorado>
about one of ATP's big donors.
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Posted in campaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law
and election law <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22> | Comments Off
Must-Read Jane Mayer Profile of Hans von Spakovsky
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42150>
Posted on October 21, 2012 9:28 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42150>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Jane Mayer has written The Voter-Fraud Myth: The Man Who Has Stoked
Fears About Imposters at the Polls
<http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/10/29/121029fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all>
for /The New Yorker/. This piece covers similar terrain to The
"Fraudulent Fraud Squad" chapter of /The Voting Wars
<http://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300182031/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1329286945&sr=1-2-catcorr>/,
<http://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300182031/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1329286945&sr=1-2-catcorr>but
it is updated and written in Jane Mayer's straightforward, powerful
style. Most importantly, von Spakovsky granted Mayer an interview and
allowed for follow-ups, and so here was von Spakovsky's chance to really
make his case for voter impersonation fraud (the principal kind of fraud
that a voter id law would prevent). Time and again von Spakovsky made
his claims, but they collapsed like a house of cards.
A few highlights:
*On the 1984 grand jury report:* As I described in /The Voting/
Wars,//von Spakovsky wrote in a FOX News oped (following up on a
Heritage Foundation report) that: "In 1984, a district attorney in
Brooklyn, N.Y. (a Democrat), released the findings of a grand jury that
reported /extensive/ registration and/impersonation fraud/ between 1968
and 1982." Von Spakovsky stonewalled on providing the report to me, the
Heritage Foundation never responded to my letter indicating that good
scholarly practice requires sharing one's data so results can be
confirmed, and when I finally got a copy of the report (with no help
from von Spakovsky) it did not show any extensive impersonation
fraud---the fraud here involved election officials and party officials,
not a conspiracy of voters to impersonate voters.
In the /New Yorker /piece, von Spakovsky's explanation:
Richard Hasen asked to see the grand-jury report, but von Spakovsky
did not respond. ("What am I---his research assistant?" he asked
me.) Hasen has another explanation for von Spakovsky's refusal to
produce the document: "He must have known it was weak." Hasen
eventually hunted down his own copy. On his blog, he observed, "Most
of this fraud took place forty years ago," adding, "When election
officials collude with those committing fraud, a voter-I.D.
requirement would not help in the slightest." Asked about this, von
Spakovsky said, "That's not what the grand jury said. They
recommended voter I.D.s." The report recommends nine specific
procedural changes to help prevent corrupt behavior by election
officials, but says of voter identification only that it should be
studied as one of several "possible remedies."
Note the shift from extensive impersonation fraud (his original claim)
to a (questionable) claim that they recommended ids.
*Criminals voting for dead voters in Georgia: *
[In support of the claim that impersonation fraud is a problem, von
Sapkovsky] cited a 2000 investigation, by the Atlanta
/Journal-Constitution/, of voting records in Georgia over the
previous two decades; the paper reported that it had turned up
fifty-four hundred instances of dead people being recorded as having
voted. "That seems pretty substantial to me," he said.
He did not mention that the article's findings were later revised.
The /Journal-Constitution/ ran a follow-up article after the Georgia
Secretary of State's office indicated that the vast majority of the
cases appeared to reflect clerical errors. Upon closer inspection,
the paper admitted, its only specific example of a deceased voter
casting a ballot didn't hold up. The ballot of a living voter had
been attributed to a dead man whose name was nearly identical.
Once again, a claim of "substantial" fraud completely unsupported by the
evidence.
*Illegal Somali voting. *Regular ELB readers know of von Spakovsky's
false statements <http://electionlawblog.org/?s=somali> about a case in
Missouri in which he claimed there was substantial fraud. From /The New
Yorker^:/
Von Spakovsky has also presented a more recent case as a scandal.
Last year, in an op-ed piece that was nationally syndicated, he
wrote, "A 2010 election in Missouri that ended in a one-vote margin
of victory included 50 votes cast illegally by citizens of Somalia."
He told me that these voters "could only speak Somali, even though
to become a U.S. citizen you must learn English." Once again, when
the case was examined by a judge, no fraud was found. Although the
judge's ruling had been issued before the column appeared, von
Spakovsky didn't mention it. He told me that the omission was
justified, because the judge hadn't investigated "the citizenship
issue." Yet the voters' citizenship was never in doubt. Translation
assistance is available at the polls---citizens sometimes have shaky
English---and the court had found merely that election officials had
not made the voters take an oath before receiving help, as state law
required. The judge determined that such a mistake "should not
result in the disenfranchisement of the voters."
I could go on with more details, but better for you to read the whole thing.
And if you want to know more about John Fund, Thor Hearne, and the rest
of the Fraudulent Fraud Squad, check out The Voting Wars.
<http://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300182031/ref=sr_1_cc_2?s=aps&ie=UTF8&qid=1329286945&sr=1-2-catcorr>
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Posted in chicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent
fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> | Comments Off
"Campaign Boils Down to Door-to-Door Voter Drives"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42147>
Posted on October 21, 2012 9:01 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42147>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT reports.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/22/us/politics/campaign-boils-down-to-door-to-door-efforts.html?ref=politics>
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Posted in campaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59> | Comments Off
"For President, a Complex Calculus of Race and Politics"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42144>
Posted on October 21, 2012 9:00 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42144>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Important J
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/us/politics/for-president-obama-a-complex-calculus-of-race-and-politics.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&ref=politics>odi
Kantor NYT piece.
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Posted in campaigns <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59> | Comments Off
Joe Mathews and the Benefits of Landslides
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42141>
Posted on October 21, 2012 8:53 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42141>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Here
<http://www.nbcbayarea.com/blogs/prop-zero/McGovern-George-Landslide-Richard-Nixon-Dead-Close-Elections-175149421.html>,
at NBC Bay Area.
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Posted in The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> |
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"The Texan behind the charge for voter ID laws"
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42137>
Posted on October 21, 2012 8:51 pm <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=42137>
by Rick Hasen <http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The /Houston Chronicle/profiles
<http://www.chron.com/news/politics/article/The-Texan-behind-the-charge-for-voter-ID-laws-3967883.php>
True the Vote's Catherine Engelbrecht.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>,
The Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60> | 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
Now available: The Voting Wars: http://amzn.to/y22ZTv
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