[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/10/17

[Rick Hasen]

On Judicial Nominations, Senate Republicans Seem Ready “to Give the Pink Slip to the Blue Slip”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92458>
Posted on May 9, 2017 9:15 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92458> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Carl Hulse <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/09/us/politics/senators-blue-slip-veto-judicial-nominees-democrats-gop.html?ref=politics> in the NYT on what I think is inevitable: Republican Senators ending the ability (via the “blue slip”) of Senators to block home state judicial nominees from consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee.
It is just a matter of time.

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Posted in legislation and legislatures<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>


“In Wisconsin, ID law proved insurmountable for many voters”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92456>
Posted on May 9, 2017 9:05 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92456> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP:<http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/In-Wisconsin-ID-law-proved-insurmountable-for-11132489.php>
When Sean Reynolds<http://www.seattlepi.com/search/?action=search&channel=news&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Sean+Reynolds%22> went to his polling place at a local ice skating rink on Election Day, he showed his valid driver’s license. The problem? It wasn’t issued in Wisconsin.
Reynolds, 30, was taken aback. He had moved to Madison in 2015 to find work after leaving the Navy and receiving his associate’s degree from a university in neighboring Illinois. After successfully registering to vote in Wisconsin using an online website, he thought all he needed to show at the polls was a current photo ID. After all, his Illinois ID was good enough to board a plane, open a checking account and purchase cold medicine.
“Coming home and being denied the right to vote because I didn’t have a specific driver’s license is very frustrating,” said Reynolds, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan providing support for special forces. “I was a little incredulous that they wouldn’t accept another state’s driver’s license. I didn’t understand why it was not a valid form of ID.”
Reynolds said he had been working 50-hour weeks, receiving hourly pay, and could not afford to take time off from his job in security management to visit a local DMV and transfer his license from Illinois….
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Dallas: “Tabulation Delay and New Allegations About Ballot Fraud”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92454>
Posted on May 9, 2017 9:00 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92454> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
NBCDFW:<http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/Tabulation-Delay-and-New-Allegations-About-Ballot-Fraud-421814463.html>
Dallas County Election Supervisor Toni Pippins-Poole said officials also saw a flood of mail-in ballots requested by the same person who signed the return envelope as assisting the person who cast the votes.
“That was a red flag for us, and that’s why we about three or four weeks ago decided to involve the district attorney,” Pippins-Poole said.
Opening the first of the mail-in ballots Monday, members of a signature review board compared signatures on the ballot return envelope to the initial mail-in ballot application to see if they matched.
But the election supervisor confirmed that some members did not take the extra step of comparing those signatures to the voter registration application to see if the mail-in ballot was sent to and completed by the actual registered voter.
“Some did and some did not,” she said. “All of them didn’t understand that that was an option that they should do.”

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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“U.S. Census director resigns amid turmoil over funding of 2020 count”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92452>
Posted on May 9, 2017 8:23 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92452> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/us-census-director-resigns-amid-turmoil-over-funding-of-2020-count/2017/05/09/8f8657c6-34ea-11e7-b412-62beef8121f7_story.html?utm_term=.ce6b97bbc7a1>
The director of the U.S. Census Bureau is resigning, leaving the agency leaderless at a time when it faces a crisis over funding <https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/census-watchers-warn-of-crisis-if-funding-for-2020-count-is-not-increased/2017/04/17/e6cc170a-20d6-11e7-a0a7-8b2a45e3dc84_story.html?utm_term=.da4ccc01e16f> for the 2020 decennial count of the U.S. population and beyond.
John H. Thompson, who has served as director since 2013 and worked for the bureau for 27 years before that, will leave June 30, the Commerce Department announced Tuesday.
The news, which surprised census experts, follows an April congressional budget allocation for the census that critics say is woefully inadequate. And it comes less than a week after a prickly hearing at which Thompson told lawmakers that cost estimates for a new electronic data collection system had ballooned by nearly 50 percent.

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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


Some Words of Caution About New Study Finding Voter ID Cost Clinton WI and the Election<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92447>
Posted on May 9, 2017 2:13 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92447> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Today Ari Berman has an article in The Nation called Wisconsin’s Voter-ID Law Suppressed 200,000 Votes in 2016 (Trump Won by 22,748)<https://www.thenation.com/article/wisconsins-voter-id-law-suppressed-200000-votes-trump-won-by-23000/>.
The story relies on a new study<https://www.scribd.com/document/347821649/Priorities-USA-Voter-Suppression-Memo> from Democrat-aligned Priorities USA finding a great decline in turnout, especially among African-American voters in Wisconsin, purportedly linked to voter id.
The story is getting picked up by Democrats and left leaning smart people across social media, because it confirms what they already think. But there is reason for considerable caution about this study, which is at odds with what other studies of the effect of Wisconsin’s voter id has found. There are questions about the study’s methodology being raised by people who know their stuff:
Eitan Hersh<https://twitter.com/eitanhersh/status/861968851579351044>: “No offense, but this is something that is going to be shared hundreds of times and does not meet acceptable evidence standards.”
Nate Cohn: <https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/861974173152940033> “At this point, the absence of good, file-based research showing a big voter ID effect might be telling.”
Derek Willis: <https://twitter.com/derekwillis/status/861964124879716352> “To expand a bit: yes, turnout in WI was down. I don’t think evidence that voter ID was main cause is there. We looked.”
The biggest effect appears to be in Milwaukee, and this New York Times stor<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/us/many-in-milwaukee-neighborhood-didnt-vote-and-dont-regret-it.html>y from right before the election gives another reason why turnout was down there: Black voters were not motivated to vote for Clinton like they were for Obama. The NYT story is one of the most important things to read about the election.
Yet Keith Ellison, the vice chair of the DNC is passing the 200K figure in the study along as fact.<https://twitter.com/keithellison/status/862002710396231681>Willis<https://twitter.com/derekwillis/status/862003323314065409>: It’s not.
Once this methodology is pulled apart more, this survey will do more harm than good. Some people will say that because a 200K effect is not proven voter id laws are just fine.
As I’ve said many times, this whole analysis asks the wrong question. The right question is why a state like Wisconsin can burden the right to vote with unnecessary restrictions for no good reason, and for the bad reason of hoping it will suppress Democratic turnout (whether it actually does or not.)
UPDATE: To be fair to Ari, his story does note the potential methodological issues with the study: “It’s important to note that this study was conducted by a Democratic Party–affiliated group and has not been peer-reviewed or gone through the typical academic vetting process. While some studies have shown big reductions in turnout<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/02/15/do-voter-identification-laws-suppress-minority-voting-yes-we-did-the-research/?utm_term=.92bb6fe0809a> among minority voters because of voter-ID laws, others have not<https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/3/15/14909764/study-voter-id-racism>. But the Priorities USA study is consistent with a 2014 study by the Government Accountability Office<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/09/gao-voter-id-laws-in-kansas-and-tennessee-dropped-2012-turnout-by-over-100000-votes/?utm_term=.81313781d943>, which found that strict voter-ID laws in Kansas and Tennessee reduced turnout by 2 percent, enough to swing a close election, with the largest drop-off among newly registered voters, young voters, and voters of color.” I’m afraid these caveats are lost on readers who read only a tweet of the headline.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter id<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>


“Voting Rights Groups Sue California for Voter Suppression”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92445>
Posted on May 9, 2017 11:23 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92445> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Press release:<http://www.commoncause.org/press/press-releases/voting-rights-groups-sue-california-dmv-for-voter-suppression-nvra.html>
Voting rights groups filed a federal lawsuit<http://www.commoncause.org/policy-and-litigation/litigation/voting-rights-groups-sue.pdf> today against California’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) for its failure to offer federally mandated voter registration opportunities to millions of Californians.
The lawsuit—filed on behalf of the League of Women Voters of California, ACCE Institute, California Common Cause, and the National Council of La Raza—seeks to force California DMV to comply with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), commonly known as “Motor Voter.” The NVRA requires states to incorporate voter registration into DMV forms. That way, customers can register to vote or update their voter registration when they apply for or renew a driver’s license or state identification card, or submit a change of address. California DMV, however, has been unlawfully requiring the million-plus Californians who renew by mail every year to complete a separate voter registration.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, NVRA (motor voter)<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=33>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Politico Creates Unofficial White House Visitors Log<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92443>
Posted on May 9, 2017 6:54 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92443> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Interesting project.<http://www.politico.com/interactives/databases/trump-white-house-visitor-logs-and-records/index.html>
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Posted in lobbying<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>


“When CEOs Visit the White House, Their Companies Profit”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92441>
Posted on May 9, 2017 6:52 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92441> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Politico:<http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/05/08/why-trump-white-house-visitors-logs-should-public-215116>
Precisely how do private companies benefit from access to federal officials? Surprisingly, beyond anecdotal stories, it has been difficult to know; there had been no irrefutable data on how firms’ access to the White House translates into private gains—until now.
In the first study of its kind, we used the Obama administration’s White House visitor logs from 2009–2015 to identify 2,286 meetings between federal government officials and corporate executives from S&P 1500 firms. We found that money can buy you greater access to the White House, and that for corporations, that access translated into big returns on Wall Street.
Our findings also underlined a simple fact: Without transparency from the Obama administration, we would have never known any of this. And lacking that transparency from the Trump administration, the American people will be left in the dark while many insiders profit from their White House meetings.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


Bauer Thinks Trump Religious Liberty EO May Have Implications for Churches in Politics<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92439>
Posted on May 9, 2017 6:51 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92439> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Read.<http://www.moresoftmoneyhardlaw.com/2017/05/trump-executive-order-irs-politics/>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law and election law<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>



--
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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