[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/16/16

Sat Oct 15 20:59:47 PDT 2016

“Judge Rebukes Florida’s Top Election Official in Ballot Case”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87546>
Posted on October 15, 2016 8:55 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87546> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP:<http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/judge-rebukes-floridas-top-election-official-ballot-case-42829501>
A federal judge on Saturday issued a scathing rebuke to Florida’s top election official in an order cancelling a hearing on a lawsuit over vote-by-mail ballots.
U.S. District Judge Mark Walker accused Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner of delaying a hearing on the lawsuit “so that he could use every second available to run out the clock” so there wouldn’t be enough time to address problems raised in the lawsuit. The judge also said Detzner’s actions amounted to an “undeclared war’ on the right to vote in Florida, the largest swing state in the presidential election<http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/elections/presidential-election.htm>.
The judge in Tallahassee, Florida said he will make a decision on the lawsuit without a hearing that had been set for Monday….
After the lawsuit was filed earlier this month, the judge held a scheduling hearing. The Secretary of State’s Office requested a week to respond to the lawsuit and later the notified the judge that no witnesses or evidence would be presented at Monday’s hearing.
“If one were skeptical, it would appear that the Florida Secretary of State requested as much time as he felt he could possibly justify so that he could use every second available to run out the clock,” the judge wrote. “And by wasting a week on his scintillating response, he quite nearly succeeded.”
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Hillary Clinton Builds $150 Million War Chest, Doubling Donald Trump”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87544>
Posted on October 15, 2016 8:52 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87544> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT:<http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/16/us/politics/trump-clinton-money.html?ref=politics>
After raising $100 million in partnership with Republican Party organizations in September, Mr. Trump and committees linked to his campaign began October with $75 million in cash on hand. Mrs. Clinton raised $154 million in September and began October with roughly $150 million in the bank, her campaign said, twice as much as Mr. Trump.
That gives Mrs. Clinton a huge war chest for last-minute advertising and organizing at a time when she has regained her lead in public opinion polls and Mr. Trump has become mired in accusations that he groped women.
Even so, the monthly figure was a record for Mr. Trump and provided evidence of his powerful appeal among grass-roots donors: The campaign now estimates that 2.6 million people have given to his campaign. But it was only a small improvement over his fund-raising in July and August, suggesting he might have peaked.
Moreover, Mr. Trump has so far not followed through on promises to spend $100 million of his own fortune on the campaign. In September, he contributed $2 million, his usual amount since he became the Republican nominee, leaving him roughly $44 million short of his goal.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

How the Russians Hacked the DNC<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87541>
Posted on October 15, 2016 6:46 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87541> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This Sheera Frenkel BuzzFeed stor<https://www.buzzfeed.com/sheerafrenkel/meet-fancy-bear-the-russian-group-hacking-the-us-election?utm_term=.jrL80w9ZE9#.acGgDBLO2L>y is something else:
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and another 20 people from the Democratic National Convention (DNC), according to research<https://www.secureworks.com/research/threat-group-4127-targets-hillary-clinton-presidential-campaign> published by the cybersecurity firm SecureWorks. They found the emails by tracing the malicious URLs set up by Fancy Bear using Bitly, the same service used to target Bellingcat. Fancy Bear had set the URL they sent out to read accounts-google.com, rather than the official Google URL, accounts.google.com. Dozens of people were fooled.
“We were monitoring bit.ly and saw the accounts being created in real time,” said Phil Burdette, a senior security researcher at SecureWorks, explaining how they stumbled upon the URLs set up by Fancy Bear. Bitly also keeps data on when a link is clicked, which allowed Burdette to determine that of the 108 email addresses targeted at the Clinton campaign, 20 people clicked on the links (at least four people clicked the link more than once). At the DNC, 16 email addresses were targeted, and 4 people clicked on them.
“They did a great job with capturing the look and feel of Google,” said Burdette, who added that unless a person was paying clear attention to the URL or noticed that the site was not HTTPS secure, they would likely not notice the difference.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

NC: “Judge orders more time for voter registration because of hurricane”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87538>
Posted on October 15, 2016 1:05 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87538> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WRAL:<http://www.wral.com/judge-orders-more-time-for-voter-registration-because-of-hurricane/16117206/>
A Superior Court judge Friday gave voters in 36 counties hardest hit by Hurricane Matthew more time to register to vote for the upcoming election.
The North Carolina Democratic Party sued state elections officials<http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/document/16117207/> Friday afternoon,hours ahead of when voter registration<http://www.wral.com/news/state/nccapitol/document/16117210/> would have closed at 5 p.m. across the state. Voters in those counties will now have until 5 p.m. next Wednesday, Oct. 19, to register.
Judge Donald Stephens ruled just before the hour that Elections Director Kim Strach had “failed to correctly exercise her discretion” to extend that registration period in counties where flood waters swamped roads and made reaching local elections offices difficult, if not impossible.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Group accuses Mike Pence of voter suppression after state police raid registration program in Indiana”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87536>
Posted on October 15, 2016 1:01 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87536> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/10/15/group-accuses-mike-pence-of-voter-suppression-after-state-police-raid-registration-program-in-indiana/>
A progressive advocacy group is launching an advertising campaign accusing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who also is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, of allowing voter suppression after state police raided the offices of a voter registration program aimed at signing up African Americans.
Patriot Majority USA will place the ads on black-oriented radio stations and in print and online with black newspapers throughout the state starting Saturday, said the group’s director, Craig Varoga. Patriot Majority is affiliated with the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that supports Democratic candidates.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Paul Ryan ‘Fully Confident’ Election Will Be Carried Out Fairly, Spokesperson Says”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87533>
Posted on October 15, 2016 12:50 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87533> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This is big<https://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/paul-ryan-fully-confident-election-will-be-carried-out-fairl?utm_term=.oiANAXgQdg#.xf5oKN2982>, and it is important.  I hope Senator McConnell follows suit.<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87520>
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Donald Trump Is Setting a Time Bomb; His calls for racial voter intimidation on Election Day could explode in all our faces.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87530>
Posted on October 15, 2016 12:41 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87530> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
I had missed this excellent Jamelle Bouie<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/donald_trump_is_setting_a_time_bomb_for_racial_violence_on_election_day.html> piece from Oct. 6.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Americans are losing faith in democracy — and in each other”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87528>
Posted on October 15, 2016 12:37 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87528> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Must-read Nate Persily and Jon Cohen<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/americans-are-losing-faith-in-democracy--and-in-each-other/2016/10/14/b35234ea-90c6-11e6-9c52-0b10449e33c4_story.html?utm_term=.d13a1a0a5e59> in WaPo:
If there had been any doubt, it has now become clear that this election campaign is about more than the selection of a president: The values that support American democracy are deteriorating. Large numbers of Americans across party lines have lost faith in their democracy, and many will not accept the legitimacy of this election.
Those were the stark findings from a survey we performed from Oct. 6 through Oct. 8 of more than 3,000 registered voters, fully 40 percent of whom say: “I have lost faith in American democracy.” Six percent indicate they’ve never had faith in the system. Overall, barely more than half — just 52 percent — say, “I have faith in American democracy.” (Most respondents completed the survey before the Oct. 7 release of the video in which Donald Trump bragged about groping women, but the responses of those surveyed afterward were indistinguishable from those who answered the day before.)
This cynicism is widely shared across the electorate, but significant partisan differences emerge on this question, as on so many others. More than 6 in 10 voters backing Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton express faith in U.S. democracy, compared with just over 4 in 10 of those backing her Republican rival. Most of Trump’s supporters say they’ve lost confidence in the basic mechanism of governance in the United States.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Let’s Dispense With this Notion That The Election is Rigged, Shall We?”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87526>
Posted on October 15, 2016 12:33 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=87526> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Worthy tweetstorm<https://twitter.com/ashbylaw/status/787352959633981440> from Republican lawyer Chris Ashby.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

--
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<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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