[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/5/17

Rick Hasen rhasen at law.uci.edu
Tue Sep 5 07:23:02 PDT 2017 

ELB Podcast Episode 18. Eric McGhee and Nick Stephanopoulos: Whitford, the Efficiency Gap, and the Future of Partisan Gerrymandering<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94574>
Posted on September 5, 2017 7:17 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94574> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Is the Supreme Court ready to finally rein in partisan gerrymandering? Can social science give us a manageable standard to decide when there's too much politics in redistricting? Is the "efficiency gap" Justice Kennedy's holy grail?

On Episode 18 of the ELB Podcast, we talk with Eric McGhee<http://www.ppic.org/person/eric-mcghee/> of he Public Policy Institute of California and Nick Stephanopoulos<https://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/stephanopoulos> of the University of Chicago Law School about their work on "the efficiency gap<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2457468>" and the upcoming Supreme Court case, Gil v. Whitford<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/?wpmp_switcher=desktop>.

You can listen to the ELB Podcast Episode 18 on Soundcloud<https://soundcloud.com/rick-hasen/elb-podcast-episode-18-eric-mcghee-and-nick-stephanopoulos> or subscribe at iTunes.<https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/elb-podcast/id1029317166?mt=2>
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


"Truth, Politics and Power: Voter fraud"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94586>
Posted on September 5, 2017 7:15 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94586> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

MPR:<https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/09/05/voter_fraud>

Federal investigations of possible voter fraud are underway. In this episode of Truth, Politics and Power, former NPR host Neal Conan explores the history of voting rights, voter fraud, and the current investigations.

Guests:

Ron Hayduk is an associate professor of Political Science at San Francisco State University, where he is an expert on voting, political participation and immigration. He's the author of "Democracy for All: Restoring Immigrant Voting Rights in the United States."

Linda Chavez is a political commentator, newspaper columnist and author. She held government positions in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, including staff director of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the White House Director of Public Liaison. In the 1970's Chavez worked for the American Federation of Teachers. She's the author of "An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal (or How I Became the Most Hated Hispanic in America.)"

Julia Azari is associate professor of political science at Marquette University., specializing in the presidency and political parties. She is the author of "Delivering the People's Message: The Changing Politics of the Presidential Mandate."

Neal Conan is former host of NPR's "Talk of the Nation."
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Posted in The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


"Cash-strapped states brace for Russian hacking fight"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94584>
Posted on September 5, 2017 7:09 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94584> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<http://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/03/election-hackers-russia-cyberattack-voting-242266>

The U.S. needs hundreds of millions of dollars to protect future elections from hackers - but neither the states nor Congress is rushing to fill the gap.

Instead, a nation still squabbling over the role Russian cyberattacks played in the 2016 presidential campaign is fractured about how to pay for the steps needed to prevent repeats in 2018 and 2020, according to interviews with dozens of state election officials, federal lawmakers, current and former Department of Homeland Security staffers and leading election security experts.
These people agree that digital meddlers threaten the public's confidence in America's democratic process. And nearly everyone believes that the danger calls for collective action - from replacing the voting equipment at tens of thousands of polling places to strengthening state voter databases, training election workers and systematically conducting post-election audits.

But those steps would require major spending, and only a handful of states' legislatures are boosting their election security budgets, according to a POLITICO survey of state election agencies. And leaders in Congress are showing no eagerness to help them out.
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Sam Wang: A Manageable Federalist Approach to Partisan Gerrymandering<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94580>
Posted on September 4, 2017 10:43 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94580> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The following is a guest post from Sam Wang:<http://gerrymander.princeton.edu/>

Next month, the Supreme Court will hear Gill v. Whitford, concerning a partisan gerrymander of the Wisconsin State Assembly. Can the Court set a standard to limit this offense without opening the floodgates for lawsuits? I have analyzed historical data to argue that such a flood is unlikely. On the contrary, a decision favoring Whitford can contribute to an emerging coherent approach to gerrymandering whose key principles are (1) a manageable constitutional test and (2) state-specific preventive measures.

Partisan gerrymandering is at an all-time high. In an amicus brief<http://election.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/16-1161bsacHeatherKGerken-et-al.pdf> in Whitford, Professors Heather Gerken, Jonathan N. Katz, Gary King, Larry Sabato, and I proposed partisan asymmetry to identify extreme gerrymanders, and explained how it can be defined with commonly-used statistical tools. We suggested that partisan asymmetry would result in a pattern of election results that failed multiple tests. By this measure<https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/three-tests-for-practical-evaluation-of-partisan-gerrymandering/>, and consistent with analysis by the Brennan Center for Justice<https://www.brennancenter.org/publication/extreme-maps>, no fewer than seven states in post-2010 redistricting ended up with Congressional delegations showing extreme distortion of the relationship between voters and their representation.

The following graph shows the incidence of such cases, defined using the three tests described in my article<https://www.stanfordlawreview.org/print/article/three-tests-for-practical-evaluation-of-partisan-gerrymandering/> in the Stanford Law Review. This chart counts only situations in which the benefiting party had legislative control over Congressional redistricting.

[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/number-of-extreme-gerrymanders-by-decade-noparty-300x210.png]

Before 2000, extreme partisan gerrymanders occurred only once per decade. For example, in the 1980's the biggest offense occurred in California, when Democratic political boss Phil Burton obtained as many as five seats for his party. But in the two redistricting cycles since 2000, such offenses have proliferated. However, the current cycle is also a time in which partisan gerrymanders were considered to be permissible. With a standard in place to brush back would-be offenders, egregious cases of partisan asymmetry are likely to become less frequent in the future.

In the Wisconsin Assembly post-2010, dozens of seats were made uncompetitive through partisan line-drawing. Such an extreme gerrymander is easily identified using well-established statistical tests for asymmetry, which determine whether a pattern of results is likely to have arisen incidentally, by nonpartisan means. Two such tests, the Student t-test for lopsided wins and the mean-median difference for reliable wins, can be calculated easily in Microsoft Excel or even worked out in the margin of a brief. Another approach is to calculate the number of excess seats won, using computer simulation; a simple version can be calculated automatically at gerrymander.princeton.edu. And the appellees in Whitford have proposed an approach using the efficiency gap, a measure<http://www.scotusblog.com/2017/08/symposium-efficiency-gap-measure-not-test/> of wasted votes devised by Eric McGhee.

Once a state has been found to fail multiple statistical tests, this finding can be combined with information about partisan control over redistricting to define an overall pattern of intents and effects. The process can be easily managed by a court, and the involvement from expert witnesses can be minimal. A partisan-symmetry standard based on lopsided or reliable wins will successfully identify many of the worst offenders. Such a standard is stringent, and does not burden courts, so the Court need not fear that they will invite a flood of new lawsuits post-2020. The landscape is more likely to resemble the current one, in which major suits are pending in North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Maryland - but with the difference that the existence of a clear standard can be applied to those cases, and even act as a deterrent to future offenders.

In addition to using courts to limit extreme offenses, reformers may also attempt to prevent partisan inequities from arising in the first place. No matter what emerges from Whitford, the next front in this battle is likely to be fought through ballot initiatives or referenda, which are allowed in 27 states<http://www.iandrinstitute.org/states.cfm>. One approach that has attracted interest from reformers is the establishment of citizen redistricting commissions. Such commissions remove the fox from the henhouse by transferring the map-drawing process to the hands of the general public. For example, in California, the redistricting commission is composed of three blocs of Democratic, Republican, and independent voters. In order for the final map to be adopted, commissioners from each of the three blocs must approve it. Such an approach leads to a high likelihood that maps will be drawn in a balanced manner. Commissions can take into account many factors, including the construction of competitive districts, the preservation of counties and communities, and of course partisan symmetry. Activists are pursuing such reforms in Ohio<http://www.lwvohio.org/site.cfm/Issues-Advocacy/Government/Redistricting.cfm> and Michigan<http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/08/17/gerrymandering-redistricting-petition/575484001/>.

Overall, conditions are right for a coherent doctrine of partisan gerrymandering to emerge, in which courts use statistical tests to identify the most severe gerrymanders in all states, while state-level procedures can prevent gerrymanders at any level of severity from being committed in the first place. In this way, partisan gerrymandering may eventually be addressed effectively by a federalist approach that combines national and local standards. A crucial step toward this doctrine is to adopt a manageable standard in Whitford.

Sam Wang is a professor of neuroscience and molecular biology and faculty associate in law and public affairs at Princeton University. He is founder of the Princeton Gerrymandering Project, gerrymander.princeton.edu, and the Princeton Election Consortium, election.princeton.edu.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


"Liberty, Equality, Bribery, and Self-Government: Reframing the Campaign Finance Debate"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94578>
Posted on September 4, 2017 10:35 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94578> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Deborah Hellman has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3028102> on SSRN (forthcoming, Democracy by the People: Reforming Campaign Finance in America (Kuhner & Mazo eds., Cambridge UP, 2018). Here is the abstract:

Campaign finance law is often framed as a tension between liberty and equality. On one side is the freedom of speech, which the Supreme Court has interpreted to include the freedom to give and spend money in connection with elections. On the other is democratic equality and the idea that we are each entitled to an equal vote in choosing our representatives. If this is the tension that underlies the current jurisprudence, it would appear that liberty has won out and equality has been vanquished.

But appearances can be deceiving. This facile contrast between liberty and equality overstates both what the relevant cases have held, and it ignores the ways in which different understandings of these values are present in other aspects of our constitutional jurisprudence. A recognition of these other ways of understanding both equality and liberty allows us to see that the existing jurisprudence is both more complex and less definitive than it might, at first, appear.

This chapter argues that the constitutional doctrine relevant to campaign finance reform includes the equality-based doctrines governing political participation and the liberty-based commitment to self-government. When courts consider whether campaign finance laws are constitutional, they should remember that the equality of political participation and the liberty of self-government are also important constitutional values that can be brought to bear, along with the liberty of free speech, when deciding whether campaign finance restrictions can be upheld under current law.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


"Dennis Kucinich finds Cuyahoga County Board of Elections building unlocked, no one in building"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94572>
Posted on September 3, 2017 10:00 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94572> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Not good.<http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2017/09/former_congressman_finds_cuyah.html>
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


"David Daley: Sen. Flake is right about dangers of gerrymandering Congressional districts"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94570>
Posted on September 3, 2017 9:54 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94570> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Arizona Daily Star oped:<http://tucson.com/opinion/local/david-daley-sen-flake-is-right-about-dangers-of-gerrymandering/article_9e8cbbcc-9099-5a9c-be3a-227cc9094bb6.html>

What's gone less noticed, however, is that Flake - and a growing chorus of Republicans - have begun calling for reform of the very mechanism that helped give rise to Trump and ensured the Republican dominance of Congress and 69 of 99 state legislatures nationwide: redistricting.

In his book, Flake argues that redistricting has made Congress more partisan, more polarized and more extreme. Sophisticated map-making software and a cloud's worth of demographic detail, consumer preferences and voting patterns have allowed "partisan warriors to carve the country up into 435 of the most ideologically extreme expressions of the American polity."
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


"Election-law lawsuit by NH Democratic party to become federal case"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94568>
Posted on September 2, 2017 7:26 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94568> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New Hampshire Union Leader:<http://www.unionleader.com/Election-law-lawsuit-by-NH-Democratic-party-to-become-federal-case>

The legal maneuvering sets the stage for a showdown over the controversial election law, SB3, passed by the Republican majority in the state Legislature in the spring, and signed into law by Gov. Chris Sununu.

Opponents say new requirements will unnecessarily complicate the registration and voting process, and disproportionately affect populations that have traditionally leaned toward Democratic candidates, including college students and minorities.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


Kid Rock to Common Cause: "Go F___ Yourselves"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94566>
Posted on September 2, 2017 6:09 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94566> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Billboard:<http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/politics/7949996/kid-rock-senate-common-cause-complaint>

Watchdog group Common Cause has filed a complaint against Kid Rock<http://www.billboard.com/artist/305827/kid-rock/chart>'s future Senate run with the Federal Election Commission and Department of Justice.

In the complaint, the group urges attorney general Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein to investigate whether Kid Rock has violated federal election laws by acting as a Senate candidate - tweeting about it and launching kidrockforsenate.com<https://www.kidrockforsenate.com/> - without registering his candidacy. Common Cause further states he has not complied with contribution restrictions or publicly disclosed contributions to his campaign.....

"I am starting to see reports from the misinformed press and the fake news on how I am in violation of breaking campaign law," Kid Rock wrote on his website<https://kidrock.com/blog/announcement/448826/i-am-starting-to-see-reports>Friday (Sept. 1). "#1 I have still not officially announced my candidacy. #2 See #1 and go fuck yourselves."
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


Flickers of the Future?<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94560>
Posted on September 2, 2017 1:24 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94560> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>

The proposed test for partisan gerrymandering claims in Gill v. Whitford<http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/gill-v-whitford/> includes a discriminatory effect prong. Under the test, a district plan can be struck down only if its discriminatory effect is both large and durable. One argument against such a prong is that states cannot tell in advance-before an election-whether their maps will violate it. The Wisconsin State Legislature<http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/16-1161-cert-amicus-wisconsin-senate.pdf>, for example, complains about "the indeterminacy of the district court's partisan-effects test," adding that "the outcome of [the test] will be uncertain enough that no claim will be too speculative to file."

Recent developments in North Carolina show how wrong this argument is. In fact, it is quite easy to evaluate a plan's discriminatory effect prior to an election. This assessment may preclude litigation by showing that a map is relatively neutral. Or-as in North Carolina-the analysis may support a lawsuit by indicating that a plan will severely and persistently favor one party.

The backdrop here is that North Carolina was required to redraw its state legislative maps after many of their districts were found<http://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/16-1023-M.D.N.C.pdf> to be racial gerrymanders. North Carolina did not use racial data to design its new plans. But it did use electoral data, in the form of "stat<http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/house2017-183/2017%20House%20Redistricting%20Plan/Stat%20Pack%20for%20Proposed%20Plan/NC%20HOUSE%202017_Stat%20Pack_8.21.17.pdf> packs<http://www.ncleg.net/documentsites/committees/senate2017-154/2017%20Senate%20Redistricting%20Plan/NC%20SENATE%202017_Stat%20Pack_8.21.17.pdf>" tallying past election results for each of the new districts.

These stat packs reveal a closely divided electorate, with each party consistently winning close to half of the statewide vote. The stat packs also reveal an enormous Republican advantage in both the House and the Senate. In the House, Republican candidates are favored in 78 out of 120 districts. In the Senate, Republicans have the edge in 33 out of 50 districts. An evenly split electorate is thus expected to yield a two-thirds Republican supermajority in the Legislature.

In<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/Memo%20re%20NC%202017%20Proposed%20House%20and%20Senate%20plans%20v4.pdf> memos<http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/sites/default/files/CLC%20memo%20comparing%20NCGA%20and%20Covington%20Plans%20PDF_0.pdf> published just days after the Legislature unveiled its new plans, the Campaign Legal Center examined the size and durability of their predicted efficiency gaps. The below chart plots the efficiency gaps of the House map and an alternative plan (proposed by the plaintiffs in an ongoing case) over a range of plausible electoral conditions. The House map exhibits a double-digit pro-Republican efficiency gap under most conditions, and never comes close to neutrality. In contrast, the alternative plan never diverges from neutrality by more than a couple percentage points.
[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/pic1-300x210.png]

The next chart repeats this analysis for the Senate map and another alternative plan. Again, the Senate map's efficiency gap is persistently pro-Republican, even if the electoral environment shifts by several points in either party's direction. And again, the alternative plan's efficiency gap is much smaller, never deviating significantly from neutrality.

[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/pic2-300x192.png]

The last chart puts these figures in historical perspective. It plots the efficiency gaps of all state house plans from 1972 onward, denoting North Carolina's new map with a red circle. The new map is plainly an outlier. In fact, its expected efficiency gap places it in roughly the worst 5% of plans in the modern redistricting era.

[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/pic3-300x213.png]

In combination, these studies establish that, under North Carolina's new plans, Republicans would enjoy an advantage that is (1) very large by historical standards; (2) durable even if the electoral environment changed; and (3) unjustified given the existence of more neutral alternatives. The hollowness of the claim that a map's discriminatory effect cannot be determined ex ante is thus exposed. We know now that North Carolina's new plans would severely, persistently, and unjustifiably favor one party-just days after the plans were released, and more than a year before the first election under the plans.

With Whitford still pending, this information did not stop the North Carolina Legislature from passing<https://apnews.com/c385cd4bddf9446aae02818b92e6b930>the maps. The data nevertheless offers a glimpse of what the future might look like if the Supreme Court affirms the lower court's decision. Plans' discriminatory effects would be rigorously assessed as soon as they were made public. These analyses would either insulate the maps from litigation-or, as here, supply powerful evidence in support of a lawsuit.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Today's Must-Read in NYT: "Russian Election Hacking Efforts, Wider Than Previously Known, Draw Little Scrutiny"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94557>
Posted on September 1, 2017 11:51 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94557> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/01/us/politics/russia-election-hacking.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news>

After a presidential campaign scarred by Russian meddling, local, state and federal agencies have conducted little of the type of digital forensic investigation required to assess the impact, if any, on voting in at least 21 states whose election systems were targeted by Russian hackers, according to interviews with nearly two dozen national security and state officials and election technology specialists.

The assaults on the vast back-end election apparatus - voter-registration operations, state and local election databases, e-poll books and other equipment - have received far less attention than other aspects of the Russian interference, such as the hacking of Democratic emails and spreading of false or damaging information about Mrs. Clinton. Yet the hacking of electoral systems was more extensive than previously disclosed, The New York Times found.

Beyond VR Systems, hackers breached at least two other providers of critical election services well ahead of the 2016 voting, said current and former intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because the information is classified. The officials would not disclose the names of the companies.

Intelligence officials<https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf> in January reassured Americans that there was no indication that Russian hackers had altered the vote count on Election Day, the bottom-line outcome. But the assurances stopped there.

Government officials said that they intentionally did not address the security of the back-end election systems, whose disruption could prevent voters from even casting ballots.

That's partly because states control elections; they have fewer resources than the federal government but have long been loath to allow even cursory federal intrusions into the voting process.

That, along with legal constraints on intelligence agencies' involvement in domestic issues, has hobbled any broad examination of Russian efforts to compromise American election systems. Those attempts include combing through voter databases, scanning for vulnerabilities or seeking to alter data, which have been identified in multiple states. Current congressional inquiries and the special counsel's Russia investigation have not focused on the matter.
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Posted in chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


"Vulnerable Communities Lose Critical Documentation in Natural Disasters' Wake"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94555>
Posted on September 1, 2017 11:47 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94555> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Citylab<https://www.citylab.com/equity/2017/09/how-id-laws-disenfranchise-voters-in-the-wake-of-a-hurricane/538512/?utm_source=twb>, with the subhead: "Texas's S.B. 5 voting ID law, struck down last week, could have had serious consequences for minority voters impacted by Tropical Storm Harvey."
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Posted in voter id<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=9>


Federal Judge Denies Motion to Dismiss Lawsuit Alleging that Alabama's All-White Courts Violate the Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94553>
Posted on September 1, 2017 11:43 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94553> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:<https://lawyerscommittee.org/press-release/lawyers-committee-statement-federal-judge-denies-motion-dismiss-lawsuit-alleging-alabamas-white-courts-violate-voting-rights-act-case-proceed/>

Today, a federal district court judge denied the State of Alabama's attempt to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that the method of electing judges to Alabama's appeals courts violates the Voting Rights Act of 1965. All 19 of Alabama's appellate judges are white. In the history of Alabama, only two African Americans have won an election to statewide office. Every other black statewide candidate has been defeated by a white candidate. Alabama's appellate judges have been all-white for 16 years.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


Native American Voting Rights Coalition Holding Midwestern Hearing September 5<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94550>
Posted on September 1, 2017 11:41 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94550> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Important event.<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/NAVRC-ND-Hearing.pdf>
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>



Trump DOJ Argues Texas Should Be Allowed to Enforce Voter ID Law Court Struck Down Pending Appeal, Despite Intentional Discrimination Finding<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94547>
Posted on September 1, 2017 6:57 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94547> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New filing<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/veasey-usa-response.pdf> in the 5th Circuit does not even recognize that the trial court found Texas engaged in intentional racial discrimination in passing its voter id law and substitute, and that this finding allows for a broader remedy under the 5th Circuit's earlier ruling.  From the brief:

Because S.B. 5 adequately addresses the statutory and constitutional violations found in this case, the district court erred in supplanting the State's chosen legislative remedy with a non-photo-identification law that Texas has not enforced in its elections since 2013. See Mississippi State Chapter, Operation PUSH, Inc. v. Mabus, 932 F.2d 400, 406-407 (5th Cir. 1991) (recognizing that courts may not "substitut[e]" even an "objectively superior" judicial remedy for an "otherwise constitutionally and legally valid" remedy "enacted by the appropriate state governmental unit"); Wise v. Lipscomb, 437 U.S. 535, 540 (1978) (similar). Indeed, reverting to a non-photo-identification law conflicts with the State's policy preferences for a photo-identification requirement-a preference that this Court has indicated should be respected, even when some aspect of the underlying law is unenforceable. See Veasey, 830 F.3d at 296 (citing Perry, 565 U.S. at 393-394). Because S.B. 5 is an adequate remedy to cure any violations under Section 2 of the VRA and the Constitution that are related to the State's enforcement of S.B. 14, this Court should respect the State's policy preferences, stay the district court's remedial order, and leave the interim remedy in place. Ultimately, this Court should allow S.B. 5 to go into effect.
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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>


"Manafort Notes From Russian Meet Refer to Political Contributions"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94545>
Posted on August 31, 2017 8:13 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94545> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NBC News:<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/manafort-notes-russian-meet-contain-cryptic-reference-donations-n797816>

Manafort's notes, typed on a smart phone and described by one source briefed on the matter as cryptic, were turned over to the House and Senate intelligence committees and to Special Counsel Robert Mueller. They contained a reference to political contributions and "RNC" in close proximity, the sources said.

NBC News initially reported that the notes contained the word "donation," but a spokesman for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa - the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, whose staff has reviewed the notes - disputed that the word "donation" appears. The two sources who initially provided the information then said that the word was not "donation." One said it was "donor," and another said it was a word that referenced political contributions, but that source declined to be more specific.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Kobach Doubles the Number of Voting Prosecutions for Noncitizen Voting in Kansas-To Two Cases<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94543>
Posted on August 31, 2017 8:04 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94543> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Lawrence-Journal World reports.<http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2017/aug/31/kansas-secretary-state-files-2-new-election-fraud-/>


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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


"Kris Kobach's new job: Columnist for Breitbart"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94541>
Posted on August 31, 2017 7:45 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94541> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

KC Star:<http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article170581152.html>

Each of Kobach's columns has a footnote that mentions his campaign and includes the address for Kobach's campaign website. It also touts Kobach's role as vice chairman of Trump's election commission.

"The link to the campaign site is more than just part of my bio. It reflects who I am," Kobach said when asked about whether he expected this to boost his fundraising.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


"What's 'Proportional Voting,' and Why Is It Making a Comeback?"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94539>
Posted on August 31, 2017 7:37 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94539> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Alan Greenblatt <http://www.governing.com/topics/politics/gov-elections-proportional-voting.html> for Governing.
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Posted in alternative voting systems<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>


As He Did With Texas Congress Case, Justice Alito Stays TX House Redistricting Pending Full SCOTUS Review of Stay<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94537>
Posted on August 31, 2017 5:23 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94537> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Order<https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/083117zr_jhek.pdf> (via Texas Tribune)<https://www.texastribune.org/2017/08/31/us-supreme-court-temporarily-blocks-ruling-against-texas-house-map/>.

As with<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=94468> the congressional stay order, don't read too much into this temporary stay.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, 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
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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