[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/20/17

[Rick Hasen]

“It’s not over: The FEC is on the job with messy 2016 reporting by Trump campaign and JFCs”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92644>
Posted on May 19, 2017 9:14 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92644> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Open Secrets:<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2017/05/fec-is-on-the-job-with-messy-2016-reporting-by-trump/>

Take the campaign’s September monthly report, covering Aug. 1-31, 2016. It has gone through four iterations. The first version, filed by the Sept. 20 deadline, was 25,625 pages long. But when it was amended for the first time — eight days after the election, and after an FEC request for more information — it came it at more than twice that length. The original report had failed to correctly identify hundreds of contributions that were routed to the campaign through the two JFCs.

Many of those contributions were illegal — for instance, they were made by LLCs that were ineligible to donate to candidates or parties. The same report was amended twice more, including this week, about nine months after the donations came in.

In fact, a week ago (May 12), the Trump campaign filed more than 189,000 pages of amended FEC reports — five reports in all, covering the months of July and September and including the post-general (Oct. 20-Nov. 28) and year-end (Nov. 29-Dec.31) periods….

Besides the mysterious degree of sloppiness shown by Trump’s operation in its FEC filings, there’s another lesson in the tussle between his organizations and the FEC: Whatever we and others may say about the FEC’s general failure to operate as a campaign finance enforcement agency (and there’s a heap of evidence for that argument), its Reports Analysis Division — which reviews every report that comes in the door and follows up with detailed questions about things that don’t look right — is definitely on the job.


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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>


“The GOP is running its anti-abortion playbook against voting rights — and it’s working”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92642>
Posted on May 19, 2017 9:05 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92642> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ian Millhiser<https://thinkprogress.org/gop-anti-abortion-playbook-voting-rights-aa0ccac3304e> for Think Progress.
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D92642&title=%E2%80%9CThe%20GOP%20is%20running%20its%20anti-abortion%20playbook%20against%20voting%20rights%E2%80%8A%E2%80%94%E2%80%8Aand%20it%E2%80%99s%20working%E2%80%9D>
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>


“Alabama Legislature approves bill that would restore ‘many’ felons’ voting rights”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92640>
Posted on May 19, 2017 4:11 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92640> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Good news<http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/05/alabama_legislature_approves_b.html> from Alabama.
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Posted in felon voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>


“A Test of American Democracy; In attempts to undermine democracy, state lawmakers have set their sights on the courts.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92637>
Posted on May 19, 2017 3:26 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92637> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Alicia Bannon and Nathaniel Sobel at TAP.<http://prospect.org/article/test-american-democracy>


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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, judicial elections<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=19>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Wisconsin State Supreme Court Candidate Tweets Message Against Voter ID<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92635>
Posted on May 19, 2017 11:01 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92635> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Hmmm….<https://twitter.com/patrickdmarley/status/865626558207107073>
[hare]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D92635&title=Wisconsin%20State%20Supreme%20Court%20Candidate%20Tweets%20Message%20Against%20Voter%20ID>
Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Politifact: “No, thousands of dead people are not registered to vote in North Carolina”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92633>
Posted on May 19, 2017 10:57 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92633> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politifact North Carolina:<http://www.politifact.com/north-carolina/statements/2017/may/18/chain-email/no-thousands-dead-people-are-not-registered-vote-n/>

A chain email has begun circulating in North Carolina that claims widespread irregularities in the state’s voter rolls.

The email caught our attention with its subject line, “PROOF !! North Carolina has the world’s oldest voters !”

It says there are thousands of registered voters in North Carolina who are 110 or more years old, including one person who is a whopping 219 years old.

Though tongue-in-cheek, the implication is clear – that many dead people are still actively registered, perhaps allowing others to commit voter fraud by casting ballots in their names….

T

he chain email’s most eye-popping claim is about that 219-year-old voter. It’s also the first mistake the email makes. It refers to that person as a male, but a list of voters included in the email clearly shows he is really a she.

There’s more intrigue: In 2012, when Breitbart wrote about super-old voters in North Carolina, it didn’t mention anyone over 200. We wondered if this woman only recently decided – nearly a century since being eligible to vote – that now was the time to finally register.

So we asked Pat Gannon, the spokesman for the North Carolina State Board of Elections. He said the state database does appear to show 5,391 people over 110 – a few more than the email mentioned, even – but that there are several honest explanations.

For the 219-year-old, he said, it amounts to just plain human error when a clerk was entering the person’s information.

“The ‘219-year-old’ voter was inadvertently given a birth date of 1797 instead of 1979, according to our research,” Gannon wrote in an email. “We’ve also determined that the voters that show up as 118, 120 and 154 years old do so because of data entry errors. Their dates of birth will soon be corrected in our database.”
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


More Details on How Kobach is Assembling Fraudulent Fraud Squad Voting Commission<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92631>
Posted on May 19, 2017 10:45 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92631> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Anniston Star<https://www.annistonstar.com/news/merrill-says-he-will-have-say-in-trump-s-voter/article_bfe9450a-3c5f-11e7-976c-afa4f042ea4e.html>:

Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill says he will have some say in who gets selected to serve on a federal election fraud panel led by Vice President Mike Pence….

Merrill said he knew about the plan to form a panel since last February after the National Association of Secretaries of State sent a team of secretaries of state to meet with Pence.

According to Merrill, the team included three secretaries of state: Connie Hudson of Indiana, Kris Kobach of Kansas and Tom Schedler of Louisiana.

Kobach contacted Merrill in early April, he said, and that’s when he was told he would have influence in selecting people who would serve as members of the 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>


Devastating 2 Minute ACLU Video on Trump/Kobach Claims of Massive Voter Fraud in 2016 Elections<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92628>
Posted on May 19, 2017 9:50 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92628> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Watch.<https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/865603794578530304>
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Talking Voting Rights after Shelby County, Especially NC Cert Denial, in Daily Journal Podcast<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92626>
Posted on May 19, 2017 9:38 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92626> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Listen.<http://www.dailyjournal.com/public/pubmain.cfm?shCenFileName=war&shNewsType=war&selOption=war&NewsId=957512&pubdate=05/19/2017>


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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>
“North Carolina Is Already at Work on Its Next Voter Suppression Law”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92624>
Posted on May 19, 2017 8:52 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92624> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Kirk Ross at The Progressive<http://progressive.org/dispatches/north-carolina-is-already-at-work-on-its-next-voter-suppress/>.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“How Jeff Sessions could determine the state of democracy in Texas”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92622>
Posted on May 19, 2017 8:00 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=92622> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Reveal:<https://www.revealnews.org/article/how-jeff-sessions-could-determine-the-state-of-democracy-in-texas/>

Federal judges have ruled four separate times this year that Republican leaders in Texas rigged election systems to discriminate against minority voters, which potentially could land the entire state under federal oversight.

Under what’s known as preclearance, local and state governments with a history of discrimination cannot change their voting procedures without approval from officials in Washington. However, the man who would be in charge of that oversight, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, has been one of the leading opponents<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeff-sessions-voting-rights-act_us_587520a2e4b099cdb0ffc2c1> of the law Texas officials broke, the Voting Rights Act.

“I don’t think we can expect there’s going to be very aggressive enforcement under Sessions,” said University of California, Irvine law professor Richard Hasen, who runs the influential Election Law Blog<http://electionlawblog.org/>.

If Texas is put into preclearance, the internal workings of the Justice Department will play a crucial role in the health of the state’s democracy.
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Posted in Department of Justice<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=26>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


--
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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