[EL] Undermining Faith in Democracy

Sat Oct 15 22:18:50 PDT 2016

Both of our major party presidential candidates would be rejected in an instant by Diogenes. He wouldn't bother getting out his lantern.
Claims of massive voter suppression [see the Patriot Majority ad campaign noted below] undermine faith in democracy just as do claims of massive voter fraud and rigging of elections. All such claims need to be made with extreme care.
When an incompetent federal government lets hackers take the personal information of millions of people from OPM many people wonder whether our systems (governmental or other) can be trusted. Of course that's only one example of many that could be given.
And we all know that faith in democracy requires more than faith in the voting process. 
Mark
Mark S. Scarberry
Professor of Law
Pepperdine University

		_____________________________
From: Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu>
Sent: Saturday, October 15, 2016 8:59 PM
Subject: [EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/16/16
To: Election Law Listserv <law-election at uci.edu>

[snip]

“Group accuses Mike Pence of voter suppression after state police raid registration program in Indiana”

Posted on October 15, 2016 1:01 pm by Rick Hasen

WaPo:

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.

Posted in campaigns, chicanery

[snip]

“Donald Trump Is Setting a Time Bomb; His calls for racial voter intimidation on Election Day could explode in all our faces.”

Posted on October 15, 2016 12:41 pm by Rick Hasen

I had missed this excellent Jamelle Bouie piece from Oct. 6.

Posted in campaigns, chicanery

“Americans are losing faith in democracy — and in each other”

Posted on October 15, 2016 12:37 pm by Rick Hasen

Must-read Nate Persily and Jon Cohen 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.

Posted in campaigns, chicanery

“Let’s Dispense With this Notion That The Election is Rigged, Shall We?”

Posted on October 15, 2016 12:33 pm by Rick Hasen

Worthy tweetstorm from Republican lawyer Chris Ashby.

Posted in campaigns, chicanery

-- 

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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