[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/11/17

Wed Oct 11 06:22:34 PDT 2017

Timing is Everything Dep’t: 5th Circuit Denies Request for Initial En Banc Consideration of Texas Voter ID Case<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95407>
Posted on October 11, 2017 6:19 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95407> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has denied a request<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/veasey-en-banc-no.pdf> by opponents of Texas’s strict voter id law to have the state’s appeal of the ruling holding the law illegal and enacted with racially discriminatory purpose heard initially by the entire Fifth Circuit.
Initial en banc consideration is very rare. Plaintiffs likely sought initial en banc review for three reasons: (1) it will speed things up so the issue has a better chance of being resolved before the 2018 elections, as the case will likely end up before the entire fifth circuit no matter what a 3 judge panel of that court will do; (2) plaintiffs won before the en banc court last time; and  (3) the longer things go, the better the chances that more very conservative nominees get confirmed to the 5th Circuit, potentially changing the outcome of a close vote.
The vote against en banc consideration was 4-10 (and we can see which judges supported review from the order: “In the en banc poll, four judges voted in favor of hearing (Judges Jones, Smith, Dennis, and Elrod), and ten judges voted against (Chief Judge Stewart and Judges Jolly, Clement, Prado, Owen, Southwick, Haynes, Graves, Higginson, and Costa).”
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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 Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

Sen. McConnell Says He’s Killing Blue Slips for Judicial Nominees, with Potential to Shift Federal Appeals Courts to Far Right<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95405>
Posted on October 11, 2017 6:02 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95405> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Weekly Standard:<http://www.weeklystandard.com/mitch-mcconnell-goes-to-the-mattresses-for-trumps-judicial-nominees/article/2010022>
No longer will “blue slips” be allowed to deny a nominee a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing and vote on confirmation. In the past, senators have sometimes barred a nominee from their state by refusing to return their slip to the committee, thus preventing a hearing and confirmation.
“The majority”—that is, Republicans—will treat a blue slip “as simply notification of how you’re going to vote, not as an opportunity to blackball,” McConnell told me. The use of blue slips, he noted, is not a Senate rule and has “been honored in the breach over the years.” Now it won’t be honored at all.
This is a serious escalation in the judicial wars.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>

“Senate Democrats worry Russia could jeopardize reelection bids”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95403>
Posted on October 11, 2017 5:58 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95403> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Politico:<http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/11/senate-democrats-worry-russia-could-jeopardize-reelection-bids-243645>
Democratic senators such as Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jon Tester of Montana — who hail from states President Donald Trump won in 2016 — know they’re already facing stiff reelection challenges.
Now they’re concerned the Trump administration is dragging its feet on thwarting sophisticated Russian cyber operations that could have significant impact on their races — and could even sway which party wins control of the Senate. The red- and purple-state Democratic seats are top targets for Republicans hoping to expand their two-seat majority in the Senate; Democrats likely would have to hold all of them if they are to have any hope of retaking the chamber.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“The real fix for gerrymandering is proportional representation”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95401>
Posted on October 11, 2017 5:56 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95401> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Matt Yglesias<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/11/16453512/gerrymandering-proportional-representation> for Vox.
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Posted in alternative voting systems<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>, redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“Hack-Vulnerable Voting Machines a ‘National Security Threat,’ Experts Warn”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95399>
Posted on October 10, 2017 8:54 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95399> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Celeste Katz:<http://www.newsweek.com/hacking-defcon-voting-machines-technology-software-eac-russia-meddling-681759>
It happened in Las Vegas, but the weaknesses in U.S. voting equipment uncovered during a summer hackathon are too important to stay there, experts say. They’re a matter of national security.
A new report<https://www.defcon.org/images/defcon-25/DEF%20CON%2025%20voting%20village%20report.pdf> breaks down the lessons learned at the DEF CON 25 hacking conference, which amounted to a concentrated attack—orchestrated in the name of public safety—on the programming and machinery used in U.S. elections….
One of the authors of the report, Joseph Hall of the Center for Democracy & Technology<https://cdt.org/about/>, tweeted a warning against overinterpreting the scope of the threat, if not its urgency.
Responding to one published claim that the Russians could remotely take over the entire U.S. election system, Hall, the center’s chief technologist, decried the “breathless hysteria” of the coverage and remarked, “I wrote a lot of the dang thing, and it doesn’t make a claim like that.”
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voting technology<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

From Your Mouth to God’s Ears Dept: Pence-Kobach Fraudulent Fraud Squad May Never Meet Again<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95394>
Posted on October 10, 2017 8:37 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=95394> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
HuffPost:<https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-voter-fraud-commission-matt-dunlap_us_59dd1b6ee4b04fc4e1e93dd0>
A member of President Donald Trump<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/topic/donald-trump>’s voter fraud probe expressed deep frustration Tuesday over the way the commission has been run so far and doubted that the panel would ever meet again.
Even though the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity was formally created five months ago and has conducted two public meetings, Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap (D) told HuffPost that he still has no idea what it’s working on or when it will meet next. He said he plans to raise concerns with Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R), the commission’s vice chair, about how it has operated so far ― if he ever has another chance.
“I think we have to talk about that if we get another opportunity. I don’t know that we’re ever going to meet again, to tell you the truth. We certainly haven’t talked about it,” Dunlap said. “I think it is a possibility. We haven’t heard about any future meetings. We talked about a meeting in November ― that was back in July. We haven’t had anything further about it. … It wouldn’t surprise me if we didn’t meet again.”

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

--
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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