[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/22/17

Wed Jun 21 20:02:29 PDT 2017

“Civil rights advocates: ‘Confidential’ documents undercut Kobach’s voting fraud claim”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93280>
Posted on June 21, 2017 7:51 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93280> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP:<http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2017/jun/21/civil-rights-advocates-confidential-documents-unde/>
Kansas election official is trying to hide materials that undercut his public claim that substantial numbers of noncitizens have registered to vote and that documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements are necessary to stop it, civil rights advocates contend in a court filing.
The American Civil Liberties Union obtained the materials as part of its federal civil lawsuit in Kansas challenging the state’s voter registration law that requires people to submit citizenship documents such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or U.S. passport.
It asked a federal judge in a filing late Tuesday to remove the confidential designation that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach placed on materials he was photographed taking into a November meeting with then President-elect Donald Trump, as well as a separate draft amendment to the National Voter Registration Act.
The ACLU wrote that Kobach has “made statements to the public, the Court, and to high officials including the President, suggesting that noncitizen registration fraud is a serious, widespread problem while simultaneously endeavoring to conceal documents that tell a different story and to avoid answering questions about those documents. Sunlight is the best disinfectant under the circumstances.”
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Vanita Gupta: “It’s Time to Revive the Heart of the Voting Rights Act”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93278>
Posted on June 21, 2017 7:45 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93278> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Vanita Gupta<http://www.theroot.com/it-s-time-to-revive-the-heart-of-the-voting-rights-act-1796298671> in The Root:
Instead of focusing on actual problems, like modern-day voting discrimination, however, the Trump administration is working to further undermine our democracy. One of Jeff Sessions’ first moves as attorney general was to withdraw the Department of Justice’s long-standing position that Texas had engaged in intentional discrimination in enacting its ID law. As the former head of DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, I’m proud of the Justice Department’s work under President Barack Obama to aggressively challenge restrictive voting laws across the country
President Donald Trump’s recently announced election commission, led by Vice President Mike Pence and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, is key to his administration’s anti-civil-rights mission. The naming of Kobach is deeply troubling—as reporter Ari Berman outlined last week in a must-read New York Times Magazine story<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/13/magazine/the-man-behind-trumps-voter-fraud-obsession.html> (or as The Root did in May<http://www.theroot.com/the-troubling-history-of-the-most-racist-politician-in-1795244984>).
Needless to say, Kobach is no friend of efforts to expand the franchise. The commission itself is a farce, plain and simple, and focuses on a problem that doesn’t exist. Voter fraud is infinitesimally rare, as has been demonstrated by study after study. Trump’s absurd claim that millions voted illegally during the 2016 election—an election that he won—is both wrong and bizarre.
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Posted in Department of Justice<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=26>, election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Dark Money Turns Elections Into Trench Warfare”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93276>
Posted on June 21, 2017 4:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93276> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy at Bill Moyers.<http://billmoyers.com/story/dark-money-turns-elections-trench-warfare/>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law and election law<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>

“U.S. Elections Systems Vulnerable, Lawmakers Told In Dueling Hearings”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93274>
Posted on June 21, 2017 2:40 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93274> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NPR:<http://www.npr.org/2017/06/21/533666328/u-s-elections-systems-vulnerable-lawmakers-told-in-dueling-hearings?utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=politics&utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews>
Democrats on the Senate panel, however, are frustrated by DHS Secretary John Kelly’s unwillingness to disclose more detail about the states that were targeted or compromised last year. DHS acknowledges that Russia’s intelligence officers went after elections systems in 21 states, only two of which — Arizona and Illinois — have been officially confirmed.
Jeanette Mafra, acting director of DHS’ national protection and programs directorate, told senators that DHS must “build trust” with the state and local agencies it supports and that releasing names or details about them would ruin that by embarrassing them.
Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., complained that the official work of investigating and explaining Russia’s mischief last year was hamstrung by all the secrecy about what had been compromised.
“I understand the notion of victimization,” he said. “But I do not believe our country is made safer by holding this information back from the American public. I have no interest in trying to embarrass any state, but we’ve seen this too long in cyber … people try to sweep this under the rug and assuming it will all go away.”
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

The Causes of Gerrymandering<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93272>
Posted on June 21, 2017 2:16 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93272> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>
I just posted a new article <https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2990638> on SSRN, The Causes and Consequences of Gerrymandering, that will soon be appearing in a terrific William & Mary Law Review symposium. The piece uses nearly fifty years of data at both the congressional and state house levels to analyze (1) the factors that are responsible for district plans’ partisan skews; and (2) the implications of these skews for legislative representation. I’ll talk about causes in this post and about consequences in another post tomorrow.
To start off, one common hypothesis is that institutional control of the redistricting process is related to plans’ partisan tilts. In other words, we might expect Democrats to design pro-Democratic plans, Republicans to craft pro-Republican maps, and other institutions to be more neutral. In my article, I find very strong support for this hypothesis. Controlling for other variables, unified Democratic government is associated with a significant pro-Democratic shift in the efficiency gap (and partisan bias), and unified Republican government is linked to a significant pro-Republican shift. But when commissions, courts, or divided governments are responsible for redistricting, there is no consistent movement in either party’s direction.
Next, one often hears the argument that greater minority representation benefits Republicans. The logic is that the districts that elect minority-preferred candidates tend to be heavily Democratic. So creating more of these districts inefficiently “packs” Democrats and assists Republicans in the rest of the state. I find little evidence for this claim in my piece. There is no relationship at all between Latino representation and the efficiency gap (or partisan bias). Greater black representation does yield a Republican advantage, but only a very small one: on the order of a percentage point as black seat share rises by a standard deviation. And even this effect evaporates when Democrats are in charge of redistricting (and avoid packing their supporters).
Still another explanation for plans’ partisan skews is political geography. Here the idea is that Democrats are heavily concentrated in cities while Republicans are more evenly dispersed in exurban and rural areas. Maps that reflect these spatial patterns will allegedly tilt in a Republican direction. I also find little support for this hypothesis in my article. The best available proxy for political geography, a state’s level of urbanization, is unrelated to the efficiency gap (or partisan bias) at the congressional level. And while there is a statistically significant link at the state house level, it is substantively small and mitigated by party control of the redistricting process.
Two last points: First, more academics who study redistricting should be doing this kind of work. For years, scholars have been obsessed with measuring partisan gerrymandering. As a result, there hasn’t been enough progress in understanding the drivers and implications of this activity. Second (and relatedly), my results did not change significantly when I substituted partisan bias for the efficiency gap in my models. I suspect they also would not change much if I used the mean-median difference, the difference between the parties’ average margins of victory, or any other gerrymandering metric. This is all the more reason for the academic debate to turn from measurement to other issues.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Texas group that fueled Trump voter fraud claim scales back 2016 election audit”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93269>
Posted on June 21, 2017 1:45 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93269> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Texas Tribune:<https://www.texastribune.org/2017/06/21/texas-group-fueled-trump-voter-fraud-claim-pull-back-2016-election-aud/>
Just days after his victory, Trump caused a stir by claiming — without evidence — that he would have won the popular vote in addition to the Electoral College “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Trump later confirmed<https://www.texastribune.org/2017/01/27/trump-says-texan-source-unsupported-voter-fraud-cl/> the source for his claim had Texas ties: Gregg Phillips, a former Texas Health and Human Services Commission official who now works with True The Vote.
At the time, Phillips said his team had already verified more than 3 million non-citizen votes. When pressed for details, he said the group was still finalizing its audit. In January, Trump tweeted<https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/824968416486387713?lang=en>: “ Look forward to seeing final results.”
In March, Phillips told The Texas Tribune the final results were still forthcoming. But apparently, the audit is no longer taking shape.
“We knew that this was a project that would take millions, but the major funding commitments haven’t materialized,” Engelbrecht said in Tuesday’s video.
Neither Engelbrecht nor Phillips responded to interview requests this week.
A White House spokeswoman did not directly respond to True The Vote’s announcement, but told the Tribune in a statement: “President Trump has expressed concerns regarding possible voter fraud and he wants to ensure that the integrity of all elections, which are the cornerstone of our democracy, is preserved.”
The statement said Trump’s “Election Integrity Commission,” formed in May, would “assess the situation.”
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Russians targeted 21 election systems, U.S. official says”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93267>
Posted on June 21, 2017 1:43 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93267> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Reuters reports.<http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-cyber-congress-idUSKBN19C1Y3?utm_campaign>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

von Spakovsky, Christian Adams to Be Offering Advice, Reports to President’s “Election Integrity” Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93264>
Posted on June 21, 2017 10:37 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93264> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release<https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/public-interest-legal-offers-voter-registration-best-practices-guide-election-officials/>:
The Best Practices<https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/best-practices-achieving-integrity-voter-registration/> report follows President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order on the Establishment of Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity<https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/05/11/presidential-executive-order-establishment-presidential-advisory>. PILF intends to contribute to the body’s future studies by offering these findings and suggestions in the near future.
Donald Palmer is also involved.
UPDATE:
<https://twitter.com/srl>
 Follow<https://twitter.com/srl>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/843962466539208704/JM49BrmS_bigger.jpg]Sam Levine <https://twitter.com/srl>
✔@srl<https://twitter.com/srl>
. at PILFoundation<https://twitter.com/PILFoundation> spox says there's no plan to coordinate with or advise the commission in an official capacity https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/877583800779198465 …<https://t.co/a3QkOQhyGQ>
11:10 AM - 21 Jun 2017<https://twitter.com/srl/status/877589682485305344>

  *   <https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?in_reply_to=877589682485305344>

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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“A new Supreme Court case could rejigger electoral lines for the 2020 election”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93262>
Posted on June 21, 2017 9:10 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93262> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Steve Mazie <http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2017/06/boundary-police> for The Economist.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“5 Questions Ahead Of The Election Hacking Hearings”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93258>
Posted on June 21, 2017 7:35 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93258> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Pam Fessler<http://www.npr.org/2017/06/21/533665517/5-questions-ahead-of-the-election-hacking-hearings> for NPR.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

Bauer: “When Collusion with Russia Becomes a Crime: Part III—’Aiding and Abetting'”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93255>
Posted on June 21, 2017 7:21 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93255> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Bob Bauer<https://www.justsecurity.org/42387/collusion-russia-crime-part-iii-aiding-abetting/> at Just Security.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

FEC Commissioner Weintraub Pushes Again for FEC to Consider Foreign Money Issue<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93253>
Posted on June 21, 2017 7:09 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93253> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Read the memorandum.<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3870729-FEC-Foreign-Money.html>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

--
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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