[EL] impact of new voting laws

[Rick Hasen]

That is absolutely not what I am saying. I am not calling for censoring 
any legitimate questions and findings. I am calling for nuanced research 
and not overclaiming in the absence of good evidence.


On 11/12/14, 10:54 AM, David Ely wrote:
>
> I think this is a dangerous attitude for someone studying and teaching 
> election law. Of course a researcher should be careful not to over 
> claim, but there is no over claiming here.  What you are suggesting is 
> that researchers censor legitimate questions and findings in order to 
> avoid a particular political response. Political claims in our system 
> generally have very limited relationship to empirical evidence.  
> Researchers should focus on the evidence, unless they are specifically 
> studying the political claims.
>
> *From:*law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu 
> [mailto:law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu] *On Behalf Of 
> *Rick Hasen
> *Sent:* Wednesday, November 12, 2014 8:24 AM
> *To:* Eric Marshall
> *Cc:* law-election at UCI.edu
> *Subject:* Re: [EL] impact of new voting laws
>
> No, that's not what I said.  I said that from the Brennan Center "more 
> caution is in order....I think more can be done to be careful in not 
> overclaiming in this area, especially given the predictability of the 
> political response."
>
> On 11/12/14, 8:17 AM, Eric Marshall wrote:
>
>     I appreciate that response.  So is your concern less with Wendy's
>     post and more how blogs on the left choose to cover it?
>
>     On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 9:59 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu
>     <mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>> wrote:
>
>     I think very highly of the work of the Brennan Center, in terms of
>     its research projects, its public outreach and much, and the
>     quality of its litigation (although I don't always agree with the
>     legal theories the Center advances).  I have filed briefs with the
>     Center and worked on projects with them.
>
>     My trouble has been with the p.r. side on this particular
>     issue---the effect of restrictive voting laws on
>     disenfranchisement and election outcomes. It must be clear by now
>     to the Brennan folks that asking suggestive questions in headlines
>     and releases about the effect of these laws gets overhyped by the
>     left, which suggests more caution is in order. That report from
>     the Dish shows how the work of the Center on this issue is being
>     interpreted: " Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Center for Justice even
>     suggests
>     <http://www.brennancenter.org/blog/how-much-difference-did-new-voting-restrictions-make-yesterdays-close-races> that
>     new restrictions may have suppressed enough votes to turn some
>     close races."
>
>     I think more can be done to be careful in not overclaiming in this
>     area, especially given the predictability of the political response.
>
>     I illustrated this point as I toured for my book The Voting Wars,
>     showing how a 2012 Brennan Center report noting that 5 million
>     voters "may be impacted" by new restrictive voting rules was
>     predictably hyped by the left (over 2 million of those voters, if
>     I recall correctly were voters who could still vote early but had
>     fewer early voting days to do so).  By the time the issue got to
>     rolling stone, the GOP was disenfranching 5 million voters. Here
>     are the slides:
>

-- 
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://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

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