[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/6/17

[Rick Hasen]

“Voting access is under attack as the countdown to Election Day 2018 begins”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95829>
Posted on November 5, 2017 9:01 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95829> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
McClatchy<http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article182528881.html>:
Not since the death of poll taxes and literacy tests in the 1960s has access to the ballot box been so under siege. And as the march toward Election Day 2018 begins, the forces that helped abolish those voting obstacles appear to be moving in the opposite direction.
Fueled by conservative Supreme Court rulings, GOP politics and President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud, attacks on ballot access now threaten to make voting more of a privilege in the United States than a constitutional right, say voting rights advocates.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Russia tried to corrupt the 2016 election. Could it do the same Tuesday?”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95827>
Posted on November 5, 2017 8:56 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95827> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/11/05/russia-tried-to-corrupt-the-2016-election-could-it-do-the-same-tuesday/?utm_term=.57a0a470fd75>
There’s no evidence that Russians were able to change any votes after they were cast, but at the very least, they succeeded in raising questions about the U.S. voting process — questions that James Norton, a homeland security expert and former official in the George W. Bush administration, said aren’t unfounded.
The Fix talked to Norton ahead of Tuesday’s elections. Our conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“At least nine people in Trump’s orbit had contact with Russians during campaign and transition”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95825>
Posted on November 5, 2017 8:48 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95825> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-least-nine-people-in-trumps-orbit-had-contact-with-russians-during-campaign-and-transition/2017/11/05/07c9993c-bf4c-11e7-959c-fe2b598d8c00_story.html?utm_term=.2452910dfe47>
While Trump has sought to dismiss these Russia ties as insignificant, or characterized the people involved in them as peripheral figures, it has now become clear that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III views at least some of them as important pieces of his sprawling investigation of Russian meddling in last year’s presidential campaign.
Documents released last week as part of Papadopoulos’s guilty plea show that Mueller’s team is deeply interested in the Trump campaign’s operations, including possible links to Moscow, at even the lowest levels. And Mueller’s interest in Russian contacts may extend to Trump’s business, as well, with the special counsel’s office recently asking for records related to a failed 2015 proposal for a Moscow Trump Tower, according to a person familiar with the request.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“Trump’s voter fraud commission appears to have gone dark”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95823>
Posted on November 5, 2017 8:31 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95823> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
USA Today reports.<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/11/03/trump-voter-fraud-election-commission-appears-have-gone-dark/827628001/>

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


“Russia funded Facebook and Twitter investments through Kushner associate”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95821>
Posted on November 5, 2017 8:27 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95821> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The Guardian:<https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/05/russia-funded-facebook-twitter-investments-kushner-associate>
Two Russian state institutions with close ties to Vladimir Putin funded substantial investments in Twitter and Facebook through a business associate of Jared Kushner<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/jared-kushner>, leaked documents reveal.
The investments were made through a Russian technology magnate, Yuri Milner, who also holds a stake in a company co-owned by Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior White House adviser.
The discovery is likely to stir concerns over Russian influence in US politics<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/us-politics> and the role played by social media in last year’s presidential election. It may also raise new questions for the social media companies and for Kushner.
Update: More<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/05/world/yuri-milner-facebook-twitter-russia.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news> from the NYT.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“U.S. Supreme Court Refuses to Delay Trial in Pennsylvania Gerrymandering Case”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95819>
Posted on November 5, 2017 7:53 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95819> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
BAN reports.<http://ballot-access.org/2017/11/05/u-s-supreme-court-refuses-to-delay-trial-in-pennsylvania-gerrymandering-case/>

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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“The Right to Vote Is Never Safe”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95817>
Posted on November 4, 2017 6:41 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95817> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Jon Grinspan<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/04/opinion/sunday/voting-rights-never-safe.html> NYT oped:
One hundred and fifty years ago this month, ex-slaves lined up across the South, clutching their ballots, joining the first elections in which large numbers of black Southerners participated.
One year ago, on Nov. 8, Americans voted in another historic election. Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but won the Electoral College. On the strength of this mandate, he began an inquiry into alleged voter fraud, raising the very real specter of voter suppression.
These two anniversaries are part of the same story of voting rights. It cannot be told as a succession of amendments and laws protecting ever greater freedoms. But neither is it simply a tale of dreams deferred and disenfranchisement. Rather, the vote has expanded and contracted, through law and custom.
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Posted in voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


“Barring People’s Veto, Ranked-Choice Voting Implementation Delayed Until 2021”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95815>
Posted on November 4, 2017 6:34 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95815> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Maine Public Radio reports<http://mainepublic.org/post/barring-people-s-veto-ranked-choice-voting-implementation-delayed-until-2021#stream/0>.
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Posted in alternative voting systems<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>


New Yorker Radio Hour Interviews John Fund, Lori Minnite on Voter Fraud Myth<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95813>
Posted on November 4, 2017 6:31 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95813> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
David Remnick<http://www.wnyc.org/story/voter-fraud-threat-democracy-or-myth/> does a devastating interview with John Fund.
Description:
Donald Trump memorably claimed, without a shred of evidence, that millions of votes cast by undocumented immigrants had given Hillary Clinton the popular vote in the 2016 election. More circumspect conservatives argue that voter fraud is a real problem requiring more stringent checks on voting; their opponents see this position as a pretext for voter suppression of groups that favor Democratic candidates.  Here, three views on voter fraud: a Kansas lawyer who defended a woman charged with fraud; the columnist John Fund, who argues that voter fraud may exist widely, whether we see it or not; and Lorraine Minnite, a political-science professor who researched the topic exhaustively, and who tells the staff writer Jelani Cobb<https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jelani-cobb> that purposeful fraud in the electoral system essentially does not exist.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Washington State Court Rejects First Amendment Challenge to Seattle Campaign Finance Voucher Program<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95811>
Posted on November 3, 2017 12:43 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95811> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
A good, and expected<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=93421>, result.<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/document/elster-v-city-seattle-superior-court-state-washington-king-county-opinion>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Report: Many 2016 voting sites lacked full disability access”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95809>
Posted on November 3, 2017 10:36 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95809> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
AP:<http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/report-2016-voting-sites-lacked-full-disability-access-50885418?utm_content=buffer5c28a&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer>
Fewer than one in five polling places were fully accessible to voters with disabilities during the 2016 general election, a government report shows — a finding that has prompted federal officials to recommend the Justice Department<http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/us/justice-department.htm> adopt stricter compliance rules.
The report released Thursday by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office comes less than a week before mayoral elections in Atlanta and New York, elections for governor in New Jersey<http://abcnews.go.com/topics/news/new-jersey.htm> and Virginia and a special U.S. House election in Utah, and gives a window of only a year to address problems before the 2018 congressional elections.
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Posted in voters with disabilities<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=71>


--
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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