[EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/17/17

Wed Aug 16 20:52:22 PDT 2017

If Pence-Kobach Voter Fraud Commission is Doing Any Substantive Work, It Would Be News to At Least One Democratic Commissioner<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94327>
Posted on August 16, 2017 2:01 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94327> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
From this Think Progress piece<https://thinkprogress.org/trump-commissions-charlottesville-8e0e0d96bec1/> on whether any commission members might leave the Commission given President Trump’s abhorrent comments calling some of the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville “very fine people,” is this discussion from Democratic commissioner David Dunn:
“I’ve not really given much thought to the commission because we don’t even know what our next move is,” he said. “We haven’t had a lot of communication. And so I really haven’t thought about it much, one way or the other, as far as it pertains to the integrity of the commission.”
When asked if he worries that his position will appear to condone Trump’s support of white supremacists, Dunn said: “I certainly hope not.” He went on to explain why he will keep his position, for now:
They invited me to be on this deal as a Democrat, and I felt like it was an opportunity to have a seat at the table. People were very, very concerned about the initial conversation about this whole commission. I think that even though I disagree with what the administration is saying and I disagreed with a lot of the rhetoric that surrounded the initiation of this commission — not necessarily coming from just the administration but the whole news, everybody saying what it was going to do — that was kind of why I got involved in it. To say, ‘you know what, if we just disassociate ourselves from it,’ — is that not going to just allow exactly what we’re afraid of to happen? Maybe I’m looking at this differently. I did not ever feel like my involvement in this commission anyhow endorsed President Trump or endorsed what the conversation was about voter suppression or making it harder for people to go to the voting polls. I felt like it was my opportunity to make sure that kind of stuff didn’t happen. Now, what kind of an impact I can have on… a very, very sad event — I mean it breaks my heart — I just don’t know if that’s what I’m here for. That’s the way I look at it right now… If something changes, I certainly feel strongly enough about my convictions to do something different.
Dunn added that it would be impossible to say what kind of action or rhetoric by the president would lead him to change his mind. “Pretty big lines have been jumped,” he laughed.
This makes me wonder what Kobach and the White House staff are cooking up behind the scenes.
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D94327&title=If%20Pence-Kobach%20Voter%20Fraud%20Commission%20is%20Doing%20Any%20Substantive%20Work%2C%20It%20Would%20Be%20News%20to%20At%20Least%20One%20Democratic%20Commissioner>
Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Why did the Founders make U.S. elections so complicated and confusing? Get your answers here.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94325>
Posted on August 16, 2017 11:15 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94325> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Monkey Cage video.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/08/16/why-did-the-founders-make-u-s-elections-so-complicated-and-confusing-get-your-answers-here/?utm_term=.c37b9b40df0a>

[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D94325&title=%E2%80%9CWhy%20did%20the%20Founders%20make%20U.S.%20elections%20so%20complicated%20and%20confusing%3F%20Get%20your%20answers%20here.%E2%80%9D>
Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Thinking Like a Lawyer” Podcast on Election Law<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94323>
Posted on August 16, 2017 11:07 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94323> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This was fun!<https://legaltalknetwork.com/podcasts/thinking-like-a-lawyer/2017/08/election-law-takes-center-stage/>
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D94323&title=%E2%80%9CThinking%20Like%20a%20Lawyer%E2%80%9D%20Podcast%20on%20Election%20Law>
Posted in Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

New Voter Suppression Effort Appears to Be on the Way from Trump Campaign Aides<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94321>
Posted on August 16, 2017 9:43 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94321> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/16/us/politics/voter-registration-rural-republican.html>
With President Trump’s poll numbers slipping, a group of the president’s former campaign aides is beginning an effort to encourage new voters in parts of the country that supported him in the election, and to stop what they contend are illegal votes in Democratic areas.
The former aides are starting a group called Look Ahead America to identify “disaffected” rural and working-class Americans who either do not vote or are not on the voter rolls, in order to register and mobilize them ahead of future elections, according to a prospectus being distributed to possible donors.
Look Ahead America also seeks to discourage or invalidate “fraudulent” votes<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/22/us/how-charges-of-voter-fraud-became-a-political-strategy.html> by deploying poll watchers with cameras, and through what it called a forensic voter fraud investigation to identify “votes cast in the names of the deceased, by illegal immigrants or non-citizens,” according to the prospectus, which was shared with The New York Times.
The group is the brainchild of two people who initially helped run the data team for Mr. Trump’s campaign, Matt Braynard and Witold Chrabaszcz….
Mr. Braynard stressed that the effort to clamp down on alleged illegal voting is secondary.
But it could attract criticism from voting rights advocates. They say there’s little evidence of widespread voter fraud<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/23/us/election-fraud-voter-ids.html>, and contend that the real goal of conservative efforts to fight illegal voting — including the Trump administration’s investigation of alleged voter fraud<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/us/trump-election-commission-already-under-fire-holds-first-meeting.html> — is to purge Democratic-leaning African-American and Hispanic voters from the voter rolls.
And this statement is stunning:
Mr. Braynard said the idea is to create “the Acorn of the right” — a reference to the liberal community organizing juggernaut that was largely dissolved after a 2009 scandal sparked by a conservative provocateur’s sting videos<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/us/politics/16acorn.html>.
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D94321&title=New%20Voter%20Suppression%20Effort%20Appears%20to%20Be%20on%20the%20Way%20from%20Trump%20Campaign%20Aides>
Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Networking the Party: First Amendment Rights & the Pursuit of Responsive Party Government”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94319>
Posted on August 16, 2017 9:02 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94319> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Tabatha Abu El-Haj has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3014813> on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Article argues that the Supreme Court’s party jurisprudence is predicated on a set of theoretical assumptions that do not hold true in the real world of contemporary American politics. In this regard, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions denying certiorari in two cases implicating the rights of political parties — one involving a challenge to the federal ban on so-called soft money and the other involving a challenge to state mandated open primaries — provide a much needed opening to explore alternate paths to democratic responsiveness and to identify opportunities for First Amendment doctrine to increase rather than decrease the odds of responsive and responsible party government.
Without claiming that there are easy solutions to our democratic dysfunctions, and drawing on a substantial body of empirical literature, the Article maintains that an alternative path to democratic responsiveness emerges when one focuses on the associational qualities of partisan networks. Viewed as associations, the capacity of political parties to foster a functioning democracy depends less on their capacity to speak and the coherence of their platform and more on the depth and breadth of their political networks. This is because social connections turn out to be more central to political mobilization, organization, and information transmission than many, especially in law, appreciate. As such, strengthening and broadening social ties within partisan networks presents an alternative and, as yet underappreciated, path to responsive and responsible governance. Integrating these insights into existing First Amendment doctrine provides a new scale with which to weigh the burdens on a party’s First Amendment rights and a new ability to allocate First Amendment rights in such a way as to encourage political parties to attend to the concerns of their constituents and to govern in the public interest.
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D94319&title=%E2%80%9CNetworking%20the%20Party%3A%20First%20Amendment%20Rights%20%26%20the%20Pursuit%20of%20Responsive%20Party%20Government%E2%80%9D>
Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, political parties<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=25>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

--
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
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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