[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/30/17

Thu Jun 29 19:44:43 PDT 2017

President Trump Appoints Country’s Worst Vote Suppressor to His “Election Integrity” Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93444>
Posted on June 29, 2017 7:23 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93444> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
I thought it could not get worse with the Pence-Kobach faux election integrity commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93440> with the appointment of Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State of Kansas who has trumped up claims of voter fraud to advance his career and to make it harder for people to register and vote, and former Ohio SOS Ken Blackwell, who once rejected voter registration forms based upon the weight of the sheet of paper.
But I was wrong.
The President has now named Hans von Spakovsky to the Commission. <https://twitter.com/chrisgeidner/status/880602595852791813> I talk about him in this old Slate piece<http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2007/05/the_fraudulent_fraud_squad.html> on the Fraudulent Fraud Squad, the name I give to people who falsify and exaggerate claims of voter fraud to pass laws to make it harder for people (likely to vote for Democrats) to register and to vote. I also discuss his antics in Chapter 2 of my 2012 book, The Voting Wars. <https://www.amazon.com/Voting-Wars-Florida-Election-Meltdown/dp/0300198248> von Spakovsky is not a credible person on issues of election reform.
But to get a sense of the breadth of what he’s done, you must read Jane Mayer’s The Voter Fraud Myth<http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/29/the-voter-fraud-myth>, and particularly this story there:
[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2017-06-29-at-7.19.45-PM.png]<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Screen-Shot-2017-06-29-at-7.19.45-PM.png>
This appointment is a big middle finger from the President to those who are serious about fixing problems with our elections.
The idea that some (virtually unknown<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93341>) Democrats choose to serve on this Commission is beyond me.<http://www.pressherald.com/2017/05/24/commentary-dunlap-badly-mistaken-in-agreeing-to-serve-on-trump-voter-fraud-panel/>
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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>

CA Secretary of State Won’t Supply Voter Data Requested by Pence-Kobach Faux Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93442>
Posted on June 29, 2017 2:18 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93442> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Release.<https://twitter.com/CASOSvote/status/880528507348033537>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Three Dangers of the Pence-Kobach Faux Commission Call for State Voter Roll Information<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93440>
Posted on June 29, 2017 1:27 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93440> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
This morning I blogged <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93434> about the Pence-Kobach commission’s call for voter data, and how that raised privacy and other concerns. We we now have seen the letter<http://media.kansascity.com/livegraphics/2017/pdf/PEICletter.pdf> (via Bryan Lowry<http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article158871959.html>), and it raises three immediateconcerns. The letter calls on each state’s election official to provide information on lots of things (including prosecutions for election crimes), and also asks for: “publicly-available voter roll data for Connecticut, including, if publicly available under the laws of your state, the full first and last names of all registrants, middle names or initials if available, addresses, dates of birth, political party (if recorded in your state), last four digits of social security number if available, voter history (elections voted in) from 2006 onward, active/inactive status, cancelled status, information regarding any felony convictions, information regarding voter registration in another state, information regarding military status, and overseas citizen information.”
The three primary concerns:

  1.  Privacy. These information are available in various states to certain groups of people, but it is not like anyone can walk in and buy it. Having all of this information raises serious privacy concerns. Will the information be kept securely, or is it at risk of being hacked for identity theft purposes? Will it be used by the Trump campaign and other political officials for political purposes? How secure will this be?
  2.  Pretext for voter suppression efforts. It’s pretty clear attempted voter suppression is likely to go on here, as former DOJ official Vanita Gupta noted<https://twitter.com/vanitaguptacr/status/880479649817649152>. It is quite easy to imagine someone in the Executive Office of the President—who is apparently doing the data analysis, rather than relying upon folks who have experience working with voter rolls and who are not working for a declared candidate for presidential reelection—messing with this data and showing what we already know: there’s a lot of bloat on the rolls, dead voters not removed etc—and then using this as a pretext to make it harder to register and vote. Seems like this whole exercises of the sham voter fraud commission is designed to provide a pretext for Congress to amend the National Voter Registration Act to make it harder to register to vote (including by allowing states to require documentary proof of citizenship<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93347> when registering in federal elections). No one should trust the likely shoddy data analysis of this commission headed by people with a track record for not being accurate about the prevalence of voter fraud, working for a President who has made wildly unsupported allegations of voter fraud.
  3.  Federalism? What Federalism? If a commission headed by the most left-wing secretary of state in the U.S. and directed by President Obama had requested this voter information from every state, it is easy to see what the reaction would be. FOX News and the right wing media machine would claim this is about a “federal takeover” of elections, about usurping the traditional state role in policing election rolls, and about how this information will be misused to target political opponents. Indeed, SOS Kobach is one of the people who has led the charge AGAINST the federal government’s intrusion in state practices. But lets see what we hear from SOSs like Brian Kemp of Georgia, who railed against Obama/DHS attempts to try to insure that election machinery was not hacked by Russia as an intrusion on Georgia’s right to run its elections as it sees fit.
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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>

“Post-Watergate ethics panel needs urgent makeover”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93438>
Posted on June 29, 2017 9:09 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93438> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Meredith McGehee oped.<http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/the-administration/339818-post-watergate-ethics-panel-needs-urgent-makeover>
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Posted in conflict of interest laws<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=20>, ethics investigations<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=42>

“Newly Released 2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey Provides Snapshot of Nation’s Voter Turnout Registration Trends Voting Systems”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93436>
Posted on June 29, 2017 9:06 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93436> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
EAC Release:<https://www.eac.gov/news/2017/06/29/newly-released-2016-election-administration-and-voting-survey-provides-snapshot-of-nations-voter-turnout-registration-trends-voting-systems-election-administration-and-voting-survey-eavs-data-media/>
The U.S. Election Assistance Commission today released the 2016 Election Administration and Voting Survey (EAVS)<https://www.eac.gov/assets/1/6/2016_EAVS_Comprehensive_Report.pdf>, the most comprehensive nationwide data about election administration in the United States. The survey is a deep dive into a wealth of election and voting data and includes findings such as an increase in registered voters since 2012, a growing number of Americans voting before Election Day and a larger number of jurisdictions using technologies such as e-poll books.
“In the face of unique challenges last year, election officials across the country administered fair and accurate elections,” said EAC Chairman Matthew V. Masterson. “Today’s report gives us a detailed look inside that process and provides data we can use to improve future elections and voter experience. The EAC looks forward to turning the 2016 EAVS responses into resources for state and local election officials and the American voters they serve.”
The 2016 EAVS included responses from all 50 states, the District of Columbia and four U.S. territories.  Data is collected at the state and local level by county or county equivalent. The EAVS was administered by Fors Marsh Group and in partnership with the Pentagon’s Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP).
Sean Greene, EAC Director of Research, leads the EAVS. He notes, “One of the most important results of the survey, which began a dozen years ago, is it allows us to see the impact of policy changes over time. For example when the EAVS was first administered, only one state allowed online voter registration (OVR). Now nearly three dozen states offer OVR and it was the second most common source of voter registration applications in the 2016 election cycle. The EAVS allows all stakeholders in the elections process access important data like this.”…
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

--
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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