[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/10/18

[Rick Hasen]

Democratic Party Machine in Chicago Blocks 19-Year-Old Student from Running for Alderman, Potentially Committing Election Fraud<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102727>
Posted on December 9, 2018 7:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102727> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This Chicago Tribune story<https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-chicago-13th-ward-alderman-race-kass-20181206-story.html> shows us how little has changed since Abner Mikva’s “we don’t want nobody nobody sent:

To get on the ballot, Krupa was required to file 473 valid signatures of ward residents with the Chicago Board of Elections. Krupa filed 1,703 signatures.

But before he filed his signatures with the elections board, an amazing thing happened along the Chicago Way.

An organized crew of political workers — or maybe just civic-minded individuals who care about reform — went door to door with official legal papers. They asked residents to sign an affadavit revoking their signature on Krupa’s petition.

Revocations are serious legal documents, signed and notarized. Lying on a legal document is a felony and can lead to a charge of perjury. If you’re convicted of perjury, you may not work for a government agency. And I know that there are many in the 13th Ward on the government payroll.

More than 2,700 revocations were turned over to the elections board to cancel the signatures on Krupa’s petitions. Chicago Board of Elections officials had never seen such a massive pile of revocations.

“The board has received a few revocations here and there in very rare electoral board cases over the years,” said election board spokesman Jim Allen.

But more than 2,700? Impossible, no?

“They’re pretty rare, and no one can remember anything approaching this volume of filings in past cases,” Allen said. “For the board, the next step is to begin the hearings on all of the objections that have been filed against any candidates’ nominating petitions. We can’t speculate, though, on the legitimacy or any other legal questions about any of the objections or the corresponding petitions.”

The number of revocations far exceeds the number of signatures Krupa collected. That means false affidavits were filed with the elections board.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Tonight’s Must Read from Politico Magazine: “Distrustful, Desperate and Forgotten: A Recipe for Election Fraud”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102725>
Posted on December 9, 2018 7:17 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102725> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/12/09/voter-fraud-north-carolina-bladen-county-congress-222855>

“They pick these people who’ve self-destructed their life, then they’re guinea pigs for whatever comes along to make a dollar,” said Sarah Jane Benson, whose family owns a restaurant in Bladenboro. “If it hadn’t been McCrae, it’d been somebody else. They’d have found somebody else to do it.”

Out-of-town commentators have had fun with clips of people standing outside mobile homes<https://www.cbs.com/shows/the-late-show-with-stephen-colbert/video/Btm_fuFFY5MtX5WgRr3PMfM4xsGHb3PB/door-to-door-voter-fraud-in-north-carolina/> in their socks, speaking in heavy Southern accents, but the sad truth is that regardless of how high up the fraud goes, the ground game is a portrait of poverty in America—people who need $100 for reasons that range from Christmas presents to opioid addictions going to the homes of poor and elderly neighbors who trust their ballots in the hands of strangers.

I didn’t come to look for election fraud; that’s more or less an accepted fact now. I came to understand what makes a county like this susceptible.

Some answers are plain. Bladen County is a petri dish of rural America’s problems: It has lost about 5 percent of its population in the past seven years, more than any other county in the region. It’s a farming community where the biggest employer, Smithfield Foods, runs the world’s largest pork processing plant, with 4,400 employees working in a factory that slaughters about 35,000 hogs a day. The company contracts with surrounding farms to raise the animals, and waste and smell are the focus of environmentalists and 26 lawsuits making their way through federal courts. Over the past three autumns, Bladen has been inundated by two of the worst hurricanes in history, Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018, leaving downtowns flooded and farmers without crops. And it’s a place where the rate of unintentional deaths due to drugs is about 29 percent higher than anywhere else in North Carolina.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Facebook Censors at Random; The social network’s rules on political advertising burden nonprofits and are impossible to understand.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102723>
Posted on December 9, 2018 7:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102723> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Daniel Gallant WSJ oped.<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-censors-at-random-1544395970?emailToken=69bd65266b60dbd83adde7fab8027e869c9Pm7dmNg7nFxYriDIlyawOZAjIJWjmZiOmntjmvU8Gm65/PUbum7n46mKynFZ1wi1ZLUJCQgV/lPt2lNdaPQ%3D%3D&reflink=article_email_share>
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Posted in social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


NYT Deep Dive on Work of McCrae Dowless, at Center of #NC09 Bladen Absentee Ballot Scandal<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102721>
Posted on December 9, 2018 11:06 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102721> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Worth a read. <https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/us/politics/north-carolina-election-fraud-dowless.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Prosecutors Effectively Accuse Trump of Defrauding Voters. What Does It Mean?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102719>
Posted on December 9, 2018 11:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102719> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/08/us/politics/trump-mueller-cohen-manafort.html>

In the memo<https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/516-michael-cohen-manhattan/d85a4cc24e25b7ecf4ab/optimized/full.pdf#page=1> in the case of Mr. Cohen<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/07/nyregion/michael-cohen-sentence.html?module=inline>, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York depicted Mr. Trump, identified only as “Individual-1,” as an accomplice in the hush payments. While Mr. Trump was not charged, the reference echoed Watergate, when President Richard M. Nixon was named an unindicted co-conspirator by a grand jury investigating the cover-up of the break-in at the Democratic headquarters.

“While many Americans who desired a particular outcome to the election knocked on doors, toiled at phone banks or found any number of other legal ways to make their voices heard, Cohen sought to influence the election from the shadows,” the prosecutors wrote.

“He did so by orchestrating secret and illegal payments to silence two women who otherwise would have made public their alleged extramarital affairs with Individual-1,” they continued. “In the process, Cohen deceived the voting public by hiding alleged facts that he believed would have had a substantial effect on the election.”

The exposure on campaign finance laws poses a challenge to Mr. Trump’s legal team, which before now has focused mainly on rebutting allegations of collusion and obstruction while trying to call into question Mr. Mueller’s credibility.

“Until now, you had two different charges, allegations, whatever you want to call them,” Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the incoming Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in an interview on Saturday. “One was collusion with the Russians. One was obstruction of justice and all that entails. And now you have a third — that the president was at the center of a massive fraud against the American people.”

The episode recalled a criminal case brought against former Senator John Edwards, Democrat of North Carolina, who while running for president in 2008 sought to cover up an extramarital affair that resulted in pregnancy. He was charged with violating campaign finance laws stemming from money used to hide his pregnant lover, but a trial ended<https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/us/edwards-jury-returns-not-guilty-verdict-on-one-count.html?module=inline> in 2012 with an acquittal on one charge and a mistrial on five others.

Mr. Giuliani pointed to that outcome on Saturday to argue that the president should not be similarly charged.

“The President is not implicated in campaign finance violations because based on Edwards case and others the payments are not campaign contributions,” Mr. Giuliani wrote on Twitter<https://twitter.com/RudyGiuliani/status/1071469692882182144>. “No responsible prosecutor would premise a criminal case on a questionable interpretation of the law.”

But Mr. Cohen has pleaded guilty under that interpretation of the law, and even if Mr. Trump cannot be charged while in office, the House could still investigate or even seek to impeach him. The framers of the Constitution specifically envisioned impeachment as a remedy for removing a president who obtained office through corrupt means, and legal scholars have long concluded that the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” does not necessarily require a statutory crime.

If the campaign finance case as laid out by prosecutors is true, Mr. Nadler said, Mr. Trump would be likely to meet the criteria for an impeachable offense, and he said he would instruct his committee to investigate when he takes over in January.

But he added that did not necessarily mean that the committee should vote to impeach Mr. Trump. “Is it serious enough to justify impeachment?” he asked. “That is another question.”

The strategy of Mr. Trump’s lawyers has been predicated on the assurance by senior Justice Department officials that if Mr. Mueller found evidence that the president broke the law, he would not be indicted while in office. But the hush money investigation is being led by a separate office of prosecutors in New York, and far less time has been spent publicly or privately trying to protect Mr. Trump from that inquiry.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Thought of the Day: Did Trump Commit Just a Paperwork Error in Failing to Report Hush Money Payments to Mistresses before the Election?<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102717>
Posted on December 9, 2018 11:01 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102717> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
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If Trump failing to report hush money payments to mistresses as campaign expenses just before the election were a “paperwork error,” he would have filed a correction with the FEC, not denied it for over a year.
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“There are thousands and thousands of rules, it’s incredibly complicated - campaign finance,” Rand Paul, on NBC, about Trump/Cohen. “We have to decide whether or not penalities are the way we should approach campaign finance,” saying an error in paperwork “ought to be a fine.”<https://twitter.com/mkraju/status/1071783354536771584>

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


“The Daily 202: This week foreshadows the continuing escalation of the voting wars”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102715>
Posted on December 8, 2018 11:50 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102715> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2018/12/07/daily-202-this-week-foreshadows-the-continuing-escalation-of-the-voting-wars/5c09f8c41b326b67caba2b3e/?utm_term=.28a6671446d7>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


9th Circuit Considering Case Arguing Federal Foreign Contribution Ban Cannot Apply to Actions in State or Local Elections<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102713>
Posted on December 8, 2018 11:49 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102713> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Josh Gerstein for Politico:<https://www.politico.com/story/2018/12/08/the-legal-battle-that-could-undermine-law-at-center-of-mueller-probe-1052217>

Singh is appealing a 2016 federal conviction on charges a Mexican real estate developer secretly footed the bill for a quarter million dollars-worth of digital campaign consulting that Singh provided two San Diego mayoral candidates.

The source of the funds for Singh’s campaign work, businessman Jose Azano, has homes in San Diego and Miami and spent much of his time in the U.S., but is not an American citizen or green card holder. He was allegedly hoping to gain influence in a bid to redevelop San Diego’s waterfront.
Singh’s lawyers have leaned on the Tenth Amendment to support their appeal. The clause gives states and the people the powers that the Constitution does not expressly delegate to Congress.

“Congress’s effort to trample on the states’ ability to structure their political processes as they see fit violates the Tenth Amendment,” Singh attorneys Harold Krent and Todd Burns wrote in a recent brief.

Singh’s defense team notes that enforcing a ban on foreigners donating to virtually any U.S. electoral campaign has had some bizarre results. For instance, various localities including Takoma Park, Maryland, San Francisco and Chicago allow non-citizens to vote in local elections of some sort. However, under the broad federal ban, it is illegal for at least some of those foreigners to donate to candidates in those same races.

“If the eligibility of foreign nationals to vote in state and local elections is exclusively a state/local matter, it stands to reason that the eligibility of foreign nationals to make contributions related to such elections is also exclusively a state/local matter,” Singh’s defense wrote.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Judge rejects challenge to winner-take-all election system”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102711>
Posted on December 8, 2018 11:45 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102711> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/judge-rejects-challenge-to-winner-take-all-election-system/>

A federal judge on Friday dismissed a lawsuit challenging the winner-take-all system Massachusetts uses to assign its Electoral College presidential votes, rejecting the argument that it violates the principle of “one person, one vote.”

The case is one of several spearheaded by the onetime lawyer for former Vice President Al Gore that is targeting the winner-take-all system used in 48 states, which critics ultimately hope to get before the U.S. Supreme Court.
They argue the practice of assigning all of a state’s Electoral College votes to the winner of a state’s popular vote disenfranchises those who voted for the losing candidate and puts too much weight in the votes of those who live in a few key battleground states.

But Chief U.S. District Judge Patti Saris said the system is constitutional because it doesn’t treat any set of voters differently from another.
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Posted in electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>


“Republicans Are Using Potential GOP Election Crimes in North Carolina to Push for More Voter Suppression Measures”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102708>
Posted on December 7, 2018 2:18 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102708> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I have written this piece<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/12/north-carolina-election-fraud-voter-id-laws.html> for Slate. It begins:

It is easy for Democrats to feel some glee about revelations<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/05/us/politics/north-carolina-vote-fraud-absentee.html> that a Republican operative may have committed absentee ballot fraud<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-carolina-election-fraud-investigation-centers-on-operative-with-criminal-history-who-worked-for-gop-congressional-candidate/2018/12/03/7b270a90-f6aa-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html?utm_term=.fd90228b9f72> in connection with last month’s election for North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District. Not only does this mean that Democrat Dan McCready<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrat-dan-mccready-withdraws-his-concession-in-north-carolina-congressional-race-roiled-by-accusations-of-fraud/2018/12/06/79b6d4c8-f958-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html?utm_term=.43b89d174a10>may have a chance to beat Republican Mark Harris in a new election that the state election board or the U.S. House of Representatives<https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/democrats-could-refuse-to-seat-north-carolina-republican-hoyer-says/2018/12/04/71fe2b12-f7e3-11e8-863c-9e2f864d47e7_story.html?utm_term=.51996ccd351e> may order, giving Democrats a chance to pick up a 41st Republican seat this election cycle. The idea of a Republican operative being caught up in election shenanigans after North Carolina Republicans and others have been yelling so loudly in the past decade about the false specter of Democratic “voter fraud” deliciously demonstrates the hypocrisy and disingenuousness of Republican rhetoric about election integrity.

But to me, the circumstances surrounding the North Carolina election controversy are profoundly depressing, because they reveal that even incontrovertible facts are not going to get in the way of a narrative used to justify a host of suppressive laws aimed at making it harder for those likely to vote for Democrats to register and to vote, not only in North Carolina, but in Florida, Georgia, Wisconsin, and elsewhere.

The efforts are likely going to continue to accelerate despite what we can learn about election integrity from the North Carolina ballot shenanigans, and it is unclear at best whether courts will continue to step up to block efforts aimed at assuring that Republicans can hold on to as much power as possible even when they lack the support of a majority of voters.


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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<https://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
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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>
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