[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/24/15

Rick Hasen rhasen at law.uci.edu
Thu Sep 24 07:47:27 PDT 2015


    Cumulative Voting in City Elections”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76159>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:43 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76159>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

SCV News: 
<http://scvnews.com/2015/09/23/judge-no-cumulative-voting-in-city-elections/>

    A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge has ruled that cumulative
    voting cannot be used in the 2016 Santa Clarita City Council election.

    Cumulative voting – where people could choose to cast up to 3 votes
    for their favorite City Council member, was agreed upon as part of a
    California Voting Rights Act lawsuit lodged against the city by
    Democratic activists Jim Soliz and Rosemarie Sanchez-Fraser. The
    pair allege that the city’s at-large voting system, in use since the
    city was formed in 1987, is a barrier to Latino participation.

    But on Sept. 14, after receiving a letter from California Secretary
    of State Alex Padilla, Judge Terry A. Green ruled that while it
    might be technically possible to rig the current ballot-tabulation
    machinery to handle cumulative voting, state law “does not define
    any cumulative voting ballot tabulation methods by which testing and
    certification criteria could be developed” by the Secretary of
    State’s office.

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Posted inalternative voting systems 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>,Voting Rights Act 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


    “Does America Really Have a Problem with Ghost Voters?”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76156>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:42 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76156>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

VICE 
<http://www.vice.com/read/does-america-really-have-a-problem-with-ghost-voters-924>:

    Earlier this year, the*Public Interest Legal Foundation
    <http://publicinterestlegal.org/about-us/>*, a nonprofit law firm
    founded to “fight lawlessness in American elections,”*issued a
    report
    <http://national.suntimes.com/national-world-news/7/72/1740480/141-counties-u-s-registered-voters-living-residents>*with
    what, on the surface, looked like alarming statistics: according to
    US census data, in 141 counties, across 21 states, the number of
    people registered to vote far outnumbered residents who were
    eligible to vote—in some cases, very far. In Franklin County,
    Illinois, for example, voter rolls outnumbered eligible voters by 90
    percent. In other words, if you are registered to vote in Franklin
    County, there is a good chance that you are dead, or don’t live
    there anymore.

    There’s no actual law against these imbalances—federal election law
    prevents counties from removing voters from the rolls without
    confirming that they aren’t actually ineligible. But PILF is
    nevertheless threatening to sue the counties if they don’t clean up
    their books. Claiming that their report’s findings are so egregious
    that they constitute a threat to the integrity of the country’s
    elections, PILF argues that the counties are violating a section
    of*1993’s National Voter Registration Act
    <http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/03/24/these-states-have-more-registered-voters-than-eligible-adults-what-one-group-wants-to-do-about-it/>*,
    which requires local officials to make reasonable efforts to remove
    dead or ineligible voters from their rolls.

    All this hue and cry is a little shrill, and it’s unlikely that
    PILF’s legal haranguing will actually come to anything. But the
    problem the group points out is real, and widespread. And while
    these ghost voters may not pose the existential threat that PILF
    suggests, they are signs of a systemically bad bureaucracy that has
    the potential to cripple the democratic process nationwide.

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Posted inNVRA (motor voter) <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>,voter 
registration <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>


    Read Texas’s Brief on Merits in #SCOTUS Evenwel One Person, One Vote
    Case <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76154>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:41 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76154>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here 
<http://ballot-access.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Texas-Evenwel.pdf>, 
viaBallot Access News 
<http://ballot-access.org/2015/09/23/texas-files-brief-with-u-s-supreme-court-in-evenwel-v-abbott-case-on-redistricting-principles/>.

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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>,Supreme Court 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


    Looking Forward to Previewing “Plutocrats United” at October 8 OSU
    Event <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76152>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:34 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76152>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

RSVP here 
<http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/registrations/event/campaign-finance/> for my 
Democracy Studies lecture at Ohio State.

And you can pre-order Plutocrats United with a 28% discountat Amazon. 
<http://www.amazon.com/Plutocrats-United-Campaign-Distortion-Elections/dp/0300212453/ref=la_B0089NJCR2_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1430416698&sr=1-7>

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Posted incampaign finance 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,Plutocrats United 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=104>,Supreme Court 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


    “Did Trump Violate FEC Rules With Lawsuit Threat?”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76150>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:27 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76150>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Daily Beast reports. 
<http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/09/23/did-trump-violate-fec-rules-with-lawsuit-threat.html>

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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


    “The Election Law Primer for Corporations, Sixth Edition”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76147>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:25 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76147>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The new edition 
<http://shop.americanbar.org/eBus/Store/ProductDetails.aspx?CUSTOMER_NUMBER%3B=&sc_sid=&sc_rec=&sc_channel=email&sc_jid=150923AG&sc_cid=5070694-16A&productId=195282687>just 
published of Jan Baran’s book that should be on your bookshelf.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,lobbying 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>


    Federal Court Appoints UCI’s Bernie Grofman to Draw VA Congressional
    Districts <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76145>

Posted onSeptember 24, 2015 7:24 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76145>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

See here. 
<http://www.newsplex.com/home/headlines/Court-Appoints-Special-Expert-for-Redistricting-328908301.html>

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Posted inredistricting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


    “Voter registration at the center of partisan voting war”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76143>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 10:06 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76143>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Zach Roth reports 
<http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/voter-registration-the-center-the-voting-wars>for 
MSNBC.

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Posted inNVRA (motor voter) <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>,The 
Voting Wars <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>,voter registration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>


    “Student Leaders in Elections: A Case Study in Poll Worker
    Recruitment” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76141>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 10:04 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76141>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Chicago Lawyers’ Committee: <http://www.votingrightsillinois.org/sle>

    The/Student Leaders in Elections/report examines the program of the
    same name, run by the Chicago Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights,
    to identify effective strategies and document the program’s impact.
    The Student Leaders in Elections Program recruited over 1,500
    college students to work as poll workers in the City of Chicago in
    three elections in 2014 and 2015, making it one of the largest
    college poll worker programs in the country. The students engaged in
    a valuable civic opportunity and helped to make the election process
    smoother and more accessible for voters.

    DOWNLOAD THE REPORT <http://bit.ly/1ivc75n>

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Posted invoting <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


    “Government Corruption Is and Remains the Fundamental Danger of
    Individual-Candidate Super PACs” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76139>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 10:00 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76139>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Fred Wertheimer writes. 
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fred-wertheimer/government-corruption-is_b_8182830.html>

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


    “Bernie Sanders Would Be The Big Winner In New Public-Funding Model”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76137>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:59 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76137>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Peter Overby reports 
<http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/09/22/442519808/bernie-sanders-would-be-the-big-winner-in-new-public-funding-model>for 
NPR.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


    “Presidential super PACs push campaign limits”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76135>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:58 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76135>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Fredreka Schouten 
<http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/2015/09/22/presidential-super-pacs-push-campaign-boundaries-carly-fiorina-jeb-bush-hillary-clinton/72612984/> for 
USA Today:

    The rules on what amounts to coordination, however, are so narrowly
    defined that super PACs are increasingly acting as shadow campaigns
    — deploying staff to early voting states, financing feel-good
    biographical ads to introduce the candidates to voters and
    responding to attacks from rivals.

    Super PACs cannot supplant a campaign entirely. Two Republican
    contenders, former Texas governor Rick Perry and Wisconsin Gov.
    Scott Walker, each had the support of well-funded outside groups but
    dropped out of the presidential contest recently as they struggled
    to win voter support and secure the donations they needed to fund
    their own staff, travel, rent and other expenses, such as
    ballot-access fees.

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Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


    “GOP-led Montgomery County election board shifts early-voting sites”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76133>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:56 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76133>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo 
<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/republican-led-montgomery-election-board-shifts-early-voting-sites/2015/09/22/dc237cb4-613b-11e5-b38e-06883aacba64_story.html>:

    The Republican majority on the Montgomery County Board of Elections,
    led by an appointee of Gov. Larry Hogan (R), voted Monday to shift
    two heavily used early-voting sites to less populous locations,
    prompting Democratic charges­ of voter suppression.

    The board voted 3 to 2 to move early voting from the Marilyn
    Praisner Community Center in Burtonsville, which serves high-poverty
    East County communities along U.S. 29, to the Longwood Community
    Recreation Center in Brookeville, 13 miles to the northwest.

    The panel also shifted early balloting from the Jane Lawton
    Community Recreation Center in Chevy Chase, about a half-mile from
    the Bethesda Metro station, to the Potomac Community Recreation
    Center, on Falls Road, 10 miles to the northwest.

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Posted inelection administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


    “Promoting good governance and fighting corruption: The example of
    natural resource management” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76131>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:54 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76131>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Brookings 
event<http://www.brookings.edu/events/2015/09/29-good-governance-natural-resource-management>with 
Norm Eisen and others on Sept 29:

    Today’s global marketplace provides fertile ground for commerce, but
    also presents corruption risks which can be dangerous and costly. In
    2014, the World Economic Forum estimated that the cost of corruption
    amounted to more than 5% of global GDP and led to a 10% increase in
    the cost of doing business on average. Around the world,
    corporations, governments and NGO’s are developing partnerships to
    combat corruption and increase business transparency. Looking at the
    specific case of natural resource management and development, what
    are roadblocks to good governance and how can all the sectors of
    society work together to overcome them?

    On September 29, Governance Studies at Brookings will host a forum
    to address these issues and offer recommendations for future
    actions. A panel of experts will discuss best practices and
    highlight the work of transparency and other initiatives that
    jointly engage all parts of society in this arena.

    After the session, panelists will take audience questions.

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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


    “Political operative charged in Miami-Dade elections case”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76129>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:53 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76129>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Miami Herald 
<http://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article36095412.html>:

    A political operative surrendered to face criminal charges Tuesday
    after prosecutors said he manipulated elections for community
    councils in Southwest Miami-Dade.

    David Alberto Carcache, 34, was charged with falsifying records,
    aiding and abetting an elections-code violation and false swearing.

    According to prosecutors, the unregistered lobbyist Carcache
    arranged for three candidates to run for community councils in
    Kendall and West Kendall, even though they did not live in the
    neighborhoods and were not eligible to run.

    He is alleged to have prepared bogus qualifying documents and
    maintained control over the candidates’ email accounts. He also
    submitted fraudulent campaign financial records, prosecutors said.

    Thousands of dollars in campaign expenses were also paid in checks
    or money orders payable to Carcache’s sister and mother, according
    to prosecutors.

    Two candidates, Mauricio Rodriguez-Varela and Daniel Diaz, won their
    elections in August 2014. They resigned because of the
    investigation. A third candidate, Jesus Antonio Salas, withdrew from
    the election before voters went to the polls.

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Posted inchicanery <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


    The Jurisprudence of Yogi Berra <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76127>

Posted onSeptember 23, 2015 9:21 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76127>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

 From before my time at Loyola:

    *LOSING YOGI BERRA*

    Yogi Berra’s way with words reached all the way to the legal
    academy. In 1997, a group of Loyola professors contributed to the
    law review article, “The Jurisprudence of Yogi Berra,” which
    promised to “examine Yogi’s wisdom and demonstrate the parallels
    between judges’ and legislators’ comments and what Yogi said — only
    Yogi said it better.” The authors included ProfessorsJan Costello
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistc-d/costellojan/>,Bryan
    Hull
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylisth-k/hullbryan/>,Laurie
    Levenson
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistl-r/levensonlaurie/>,Samuel
    Pillsbury
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistl-r/pillsburysamuelh/>,Katie
    Pratt
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylistl-r/prattkatie/>,Ted
    Seto
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylists-z/setotheodorep/>,Georgene
    Vairo
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylists-z/vairogeorgenem/>andGary
    Williams
    <http://www.lls.edu/aboutus/facultyadministration/faculty/facultylists-z/williamsgaryc/>.
    The complete law review article is availableonline
    <http://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/facpubs/699/>.

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Posted inUncategorized <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


    The Future of the Party and Campaign Finance — A Response to Bob
    Bauer <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76125>

Posted onSeptember 22, 2015 1:04 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76125>byHeather Gerken 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=6>

(with Joey Fishkin, University of Texas Law School)

Bob Bauer just offered a thoughtful and engagingcommentary 
<http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2015/09/parties-rethinking-reform-part-ii/>onour 
work <http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2617747>and 
anew report 
<https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Stronger_Parties_Stronger_Democracy.pdf>by 
the Brennan Center, both focused on the relationship between the 
political parties and campaign finance. We agree with part of Bob’s post 
and think the rest is plausible—and who knows, he might even be right.

An outsider might find it strange that we’d find a post that is 
nominally a challenge to our work to be so convincing. But the truth is 
that none of us can make dependable predictions in the highly volatile 
world of politics these days. We’re in uncharted territory. For 
instance, these days no one can even confidently identify which 
candidate the once-predictable Republican primary electorate is going to 
choose as a standard bearer—in part because the old rule, which was that 
the winner will be the establishment candidate with all the hard-money 
donors, no longer seems to be the rule. Things are changing more quickly 
than anyone anticipated, and we’re all struggling just to keep up with 
the latest innovations of this campaign season.

The debate between Bob and us centers on a simple question: what happens 
if we fund the formal parties in the same way we fund the shadow parties 
(the SupertPACs and 501(c)(4) and (c)(6) organizations)? Our worry is 
that if the formal parties’ financing is identical to that of the shadow 
parties’, this will gradually transform the formal parties into 
institutions that look more like the shadow parties—hierarchical, almost 
entirely beholden to big donors—thus seriously eroding what remains of a 
reasonably pluralistic party system. Bob’s worry, on the other side, is 
that if we don’t do something to level the playing field between the 
formal parties and shadow parties, the formal parties don’t have much of 
a future in politics.

We think Bob may overstate the differences between our positions, though 
that’s likely due to a failure of exposition on our part. Bob reads us 
as opposing all change in the way we fund parties. But we are pretty 
close to where Bob is on these questions. We aren’t ready to go as far 
as Tom Edsall and lift all restrictions. But, like Bob, we are certainly 
open to a more robust funding structure, especially one targeted—as the 
Brennan Center’s report is—at certain type of party activities. At least 
one of us is ready to support substantial increases in the contribution 
caps, and both of us favor allowing candidates and parties to work more 
closely together in raising and spending money. We’re just not ready to 
reproduce, jot for jot, the funding structure for the parties that we 
now have for the SuperPACs and 501(c) organizations.

It’s possible that both Bob and the two of us are right, and it’s just 
as possible that we all are wrong. And therein lies the dilemma for 
those interested in reform. The two of us are nervous about flipping the 
switch and letting the parties raise unlimited sums. We thus approach 
the problem more cautiously than Bob. He seems ready to flip the switch, 
at least as an experiment. We think it is better to be cautious. To mix 
our metaphors in an egregious fashion, it’s going to be very hard to put 
the genie back in the bottle. Once the parties become accustomed to 
unlimited fundraising, what incentive will they have to regulate 
themselves? And if donors become accustomed to ruling the official party 
organizations the way they rule their own shadow party entities, those 
expectations will become very hard to unwind. Even so, it’s important to 
give Bob’s proposal its due, and that is this: There are costs to not 
acting just as there are costs to acting. There are costs to doing too 
little as well as to doing too much. The formal parties might well 
wither and die if we don’t find some way to get them the funding to 
compete. We’re all muddling through, in other words.

Modesty is an underappreciated virtue in academic writing, andour paper 
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2617747>had modest 
aims. We were under no illusions that everyone would be convinced that 
we were right on the prediction side; we aren’t that certain we are 
right ourselves. What we wanted to do was spark a different conversation 
about the future of the political parties, one that wasn’t confined to 
“strengthening” the parties but that paid attention to the crucial 
institutional differences between the shadow parties and the formal 
parties. We wanted, in short, to spark just the conversation that Bob 
and the Brennan Center and others are now having.

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<https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D76125&title=The%20Future%20of%20the%20Party%20and%20Campaign%20Finance%20%E2%80%94%20%20A%20Response%20to%20Bob%20Bauer&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>,campaigns 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>,election law and constitutional law 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=55>,guest blogging election law 
scholarship <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=64>,political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25> |TaggedCampaign finance 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?tag=campaign-finance-2>,political parties 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?tag=political-parties>


    “Elections Canada warns of U.S.-style ‘voter suppression tricks’”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76123>

Posted onSeptember 22, 2015 10:18 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76123>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

More political acid rain 
<http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/09/21/elections-canada-warns-of-us-style-voter-suppression-tricks.html>spreading 
from the US to Canada:

    Elections Canada has quietly warned staff to be on the lookout for
    increasingly sophisticated tactics aimed at discouraging — or even
    stopping — voters from casting a ballot.

    The advanced voter suppression techniques flourishing in the United
    States are likely to spill into other countries, employees were
    advised in a presentation aimed at raising awareness prior to the
    Oct. 19 federal election.

    The digital revolution has fuelled intensive data analysis south of
    the border that allows political parties to zero in on people who
    support rival candidates and then find ways to prevent them from voting.

    The development prompted Elections Canada to comb through academic
    papers and media reports and talk to experts and lawyers about the
    phenomenon of electoral malpractice.

Share 
<https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D76123&title=%E2%80%9CElections%20Canada%20warns%20of%20U.S.-style%20%E2%80%98voter%20suppression%20tricks%E2%80%99%E2%80%9D&description=>
Posted incomparative election law 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=107>,election administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,The Voting Wars 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


    “Five-fold upsurge: Super PACs, dark money groups spending far more
    than in ’12 cycle at same point in campaign”
    <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76121>

Posted onSeptember 22, 2015 9:52 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76121>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The latest from CRP. 
<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2015/09/five-fold-upsurge-super-pacs-dark-money-groups-spending-far-more-than-in-12-cycle-at-same-point-in-campaign/>

Share 
<https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D76121&title=%E2%80%9CFive-fold%20upsurge%3A%20Super%20PACs%2C%20dark%20money%20groups%20spending%20far%20more%20than%20in%20%E2%80%9912%20cycle%20at%20same%20point%20in%20campaign%E2%80%9D&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


    “CPA Unveils New One-Stop Website, Corporate Political Spending
    Database” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76118>

Posted onSeptember 22, 2015 8:46 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76118>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release 
<http://us7.campaign-archive2.com/?u=40bf5e49b86aa2f0454aafef6&id=3a1b59385e&e=496938447c>:

    As campaign finance takes center stage for the 2016 elections, the
    Center for Political Accountability has launcheda new website
    <http://www.politicalaccountability.net/>to serve as the “go-to”
    place to track corporate political spending.

    The one-stop resource for corporate political spending information
    in the 2016 elections will be available
    at*www.politicalaccountability.net*
    <http://www.politicalaccountability.net/>. It includes information
    available for the first time on company political payments to
    leading U.S. trade associations and company policies on
    contributions to 501(c)(4) “dark money” organizations. It has links
    to publicly reported company political spending (thanks to Open
    Secrets, from The Center for Responsive Politics, and Follow the
    Money, from the National Institute on Money in State Politics).

    *Click here now to check out the brand new site.
    <http://www.politicalaccountability.net/>*

    In early October, findings of the 2015 CPA-Zicklin Index of
    Political Disclosure and Accountability will be added to the
    database. The 2015 Index will cover the entire S&P 500 for the first
    time. The annual Index is the only benchmark of companies for their
    political disclosure and accountability policies and practices.

Share 
<https://www.addtoany.com/share_save#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D76118&title=%E2%80%9CCPA%20Unveils%20New%20One-Stop%20Website%2C%20Corporate%20Political%20Spending%20Database%E2%80%9D&description=>
Posted incampaign finance <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


    “In states with elected high court judges, a harder line on capital
    punishment” <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76116>

Posted onSeptember 22, 2015 8:16 am 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=76116>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dan Levine and Kristina Cooke 
<http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-deathpenalty-judges/>for 
Reuters:

    A review of 2,102 state supreme court rulings on death penalty
    appeals from the 37 states that heard such cases over the past 15
    years found a strong correlation between the results in those cases
    and the way each state chooses its justices. In the 15 states where
    high court judges are directly elected, justices rejected the death
    sentence in 11 percent of appeals, less than half the 26 percent
    reversal rate in the seven states where justices are appointed.

    Justices who are initially appointed but then must appear on the
    ballot in “retention” elections fell in the middle, reversing 15
    percent of death penalty decisions in those 15 states, according to
    opinions retrieved from online legal research service Westlaw, a
    unit of Thomson Reuters.

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Posted injudicial elections <http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>

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

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