[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/16/18

[Rick Hasen]

"Eyeing 2020, Trump Fund-Raisers Return to Familiar Well: Small Donors"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98694>
Posted on April 16, 2018 7:12 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98694> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT reports.<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/15/us/politics/trump-campaign-fec-financial-reports.html>
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


"How Russian Facebook Ads Divided and Targeted U.S. Voters Before the 2016 Election"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98692>
Posted on April 16, 2018 7:10 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98692> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wired:<https://www.wired.com/story/russian-facebook-ads-targeted-us-voters-before-2016-election/>

WHEN YOUNG MIE Kim began studying political ads on Facebook in August of 2016-while Hillary Clinton was still leading the polls- few people had ever heard of the Russian propaganda group, Internet Research Agency<https://www.wired.com/story/mueller-indictment-internet-research-agency/>. Not even Facebook<https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-does-not-know-how-many-followers-russian-trolls-had-on-instagram/> itself understood how the group was manipulating the platform's users to influence the election. For Kim, a professor of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the goal was to document the way the usual dark money groups target divisive election ads online, the kind that would be more strictly regulated if they appeared on TV. She never knew then she was walking into a crime scene.

Over the last year and a half, mounting revelations about Russian trolls' influence campaign on Facebook<https://www.wired.com/story/inside-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-2-years-of-hell/> have dramatically altered the scope and focus of Kim's work. In the course of her six-week study in 2016, Kim collected mounds of evidence about how the IRA and other suspicious groups sought to divide and target the US electorate in the days leading up to the election. Now, Kim is detailing those findings in a peer-reviewed paper<https://journalism.wisc.edu/wp-content/blogs.dir/41/files/2018/04/Kim.FB_.StealthMedia.Final_.PolCom.0411181.pdf> published in the journal Political Communication. The researchers couldn't find any trace, in federal records or online, of half of the 228 groups it tracked that purchased Facebook ads about controversial political issues in that six-week stretch. Of those so-called "suspicious" advertisers, one in six turned out to be associated with the Internet Research Agency, according to the list of accounts Facebook eventually provided to Congress. What's more, it shows these suspicious advertisers predominantly targeted voters in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

"I was shocked," says Kim, now a scholar in residence at the Campaign Legal Center, of the findings. "I sort of expected these dark money groups and other unknown actors would be on digital platforms, but the extent to which these unknown actors were running campaigns was a lot worse than I thought.

CLC: <http://www.campaignlegalcenter.org/news/press-releases/first-empirical-research-facebook-political-ads-demonstrates-need-legislative>

Of the 228 groups that purchased political ads about hot-button political issues in the weeks before the 2016 elections, 122 were identified by Professor Kim and her team as "suspicious" - which means that there was no publicly available information about nearly half of the sponsors of Facebook ads featuring hot-button political issues in the weeks before the 2016 elections. In this research, suspicious groups are unidentifiable, untrackable groups that have no public footprints. Professor Kim and her team identified a group as suspicious if no information about the group was found elsewhere, even after reviewing the Federal Election Commission, IRS-based databases, and other research databases.

A quarter of the ads the research examined mentioned candidates, and would be subject to disclosure requirements if aired on TV, but escaped those transparency measures because they were run online.

This secrecy would not be possible on broadcast. While social media companies have proposed new transparency measures, the Honest Ads Act would solidify disclosure requirements by moving the law into the 21st century. The bipartisan legislation aims to ensure that digital political ads are subject to the same transparency requirements that apply to similar ads run on any other medium. The bill would shine a spotlight on some of the digital advertising practices outlined in the Project DATA study by creating a public footprint.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


"Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98690>
Posted on April 16, 2018 7:06 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98690> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Raymond Fisman writes.<https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/04/16/tax-exempt-lobbying-corporate-philanthropy-as-a-tool-for-political-influence/#more-106016>
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Posted in lobbying<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>, tax law and election law<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>


Without Noted Dissent, Supreme Court Declines to Hear Blaogojevich Appeal<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98688>
Posted on April 16, 2018 7:03 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98688> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here is the order list<https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/041618zor_h315.pdf>. I had thought the case presented a meaty issue,<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98448> but this may have not been the right vehicle to address it.  (He tried to raise<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=77621> a similar issue a few years ago.)
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Posted in bribery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=54>, campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


"Give a lower voting age a try"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98686>
Posted on April 14, 2018 9:40 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98686> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo editorial:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/give-a-lower-voting-age-a-try/2018/04/13/d124b0ea-3e82-11e8-8d53-eba0ed2371cc_story.html?utm_term=.60d0a7ba30e7>

Upending decades of political tradition is clearly provocative, and the council should proceed carefully in deciding whether to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in local and federal elections. A case could be made that 16-year-olds lack the life experience to make informed choices. But we think a more compelling argument can be made in favor of lowering the voting age as a measure that could encourage lifelong civic engagement.

The best predictor of whether someone will vote is whether they voted previously<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/02/28/the-surprising-consequence-of-lowering-the-voting-age/?utm_term=.8a6b35629bb9>, and research suggests that 18 - a time of disruption and transition away from home and into the workforce or college - is not an optimum time to get young people into the habit. High school, said Joshua A. Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky College of Law who has studied this issue<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2903669>, provides a more supportive environment, especially when twinned with improvements in civic education. He said there is no difference between the cognitive brain development of a 16-year-old and an 18-year-old; they are both capable of the reasoned, deliberate decision-making involved in voting.
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Posted in voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


"Rokita Locked Out Of GOP Database For Accessing Donor Info"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98684>
Posted on April 13, 2018 3:52 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98684> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://patch.com/indiana/indianapolis/rokita-locked-out-gop-database-accessing-donor-info-repor>

Senate candidate Todd Rokita likely violated ethics laws as Indiana's secretary of state by repeatedly accessing a Republican donor database from his government office, prompting party officials to lock him out of the system until he angrily complained, three former GOP officials told The Associated Press.

Rokita, currently a congressman, is in a bitter primary fight for the right to challenge Joe Donnelly, who is considered one of the Senate's most vulnerable Democrats. The alleged ethics flap over Rokita's use of the Indiana Republican Party's Salesforce database during work hours occurred in 2009, as he was wrapping up a second term as the state's chief elections official and angling for higher office.

Indiana law prohibits state employees from engaging in political activity while on duty or acting in an official capacity. It also prohibits work on anything outside official duties while on the clock, or ordering others to do so, and from using state resources for political purposes.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


"Judges won't halt N Carolina county's legislative elections"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98682>
Posted on April 13, 2018 3:43 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98682> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://apnews.com/22010729b3284251bc603763c78b1d0a>

North Carolina trial-court judges refused Friday to delay state legislative elections in and around Raleigh next month while litigation challenging several House districts continues.

A three-judge panel declined to halt the May 8 primary for at least four Wake County House races because voting is already happening. The decision also likely preserves the use of those and surrounding Wake districts in the November general election. General Assembly boundaries have been redrawn since last summer by Republican legislators and federal courts, the result of other lawsuits...

In their order, the Superior Court judges gave the plaintiffs hope they would be ultimately be successful, writing they "have demonstrated a reasonable likelihood of success on the merits of their claims."

But their request for a preliminary injunction was denied because if granted it would halt ongoing House races "and more importantly, would interrupt voting by citizens already underway," according to the order by Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway, Joseph Crosswhite and Alma Hinton. Mail-in absentee voting for the primary began last month, and in-person absentee voting starts next week.

.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Wisconsin: "Attorney General Brad Schimel suggests Donald Trump won Wisconsin because of the state's voter ID law"<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98680>
Posted on April 13, 2018 10:22 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=98680> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Journal-Sentinel:<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/13/attorney-general-brad-schimel-suggests-donald-trump-won-wisconsin-because-states-voter-id-law/514628002/>

Attorney General Brad Schimel this week suggested Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 because the state had its voter ID law in place.

His comments drew a rebuke from liberals, who said they saw it as an admission by the Republican attorney general that the voter ID law suppresses Democratic turnout.

Voter ID is expected to play a prominent role in Schimel's re-election bid. He has fought in court to keep the law in place and his opponent, Josh Kaul, is the lead attorney challenging it and a host of other election laws.

"We battled to get voter ID on the ballot for the November '16 election," Schimel told conservative host Vicki McKenna<https://www.iheart.com/podcast/477-WISN-Clips-28429450/episode/facebookschimelvukmirprotests-29180917/?episode_id=29180917> on WISN (1130 AM) on Thursday.

"How many of your listeners really honestly are sure that Senator (Ron) Johnson was going to win re-election or President Trump was going to win Wisconsin if we didn't have voter ID to keep Wisconsin's elections clean and honest and have integrity?"

Kaul represents two liberal groups in the lawsuit, One Wisconsin Institute and Citizen Action of Wisconsin Education Fund. One Wisconsin's Scot Ross called Schimel's comments a "shocking admission."
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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>


--
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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