[EL] ELB News and Commentary 1/26/18

Thu Jan 25 20:35:55 PST 2018

“Voting in 2018 and Beyond” Symposium at Hastings January 26<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=96726>
Posted on January 25, 2018 8:27 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=96726> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

[Bumping to the top.]

I’m very much looking forward to participating in this event (click here<https://www.eventbrite.com/e/voting-in-2018-and-beyond-ensuring-access-and-accountability-of-the-ballot-in-america-tickets-40716776976> to RSVP):

[http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Symposium-poster-663x1024.jpg]<http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Symposium-poster.jpg>

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

“Pennsylvania GOP take gerrymandering case to US high court”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97152>
Posted on January 25, 2018 8:18 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97152> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP reports.<http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/pennsylvania-gop-gerrymandering-case-us-high-court-52611284>
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“After ‘chaos’ of 2017 , Virginia General Assembly looks to overhaul election laws”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97150>
Posted on January 25, 2018 8:15 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97150> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Richmond Times-Dispatch:<http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/general-assembly/after-chaos-of-virginia-general-assembly-looks-to-overhaul-election/article_d437e3c6-864b-5ff7-b584-83678ba24cb0.html>

Recounts, ballot problems and a televised tiebreaker made Virginia’s 2017 election cycle a wilder ride than normal, but the General Assembly will take a slow and steady approach to figuring out legislative fixes.

Republican leaders from the House of Delegates and state Senate announced Thursday that they will create a joint subcommittee to study the issues and craft a comprehensive response for the 2019 session.

At a news conference, Senate Majority Leader Tommy Norment, R-James City, said legislators have heard plenty about “the chaos in some areas” of the 2017 elections.

“Rather than doing this in a chaotic way, we have made a decision to undertake it in a deliberate and structured format,” Norment said.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Russians got tens of thousands of Americans to RSVP for their phony political events on Facebook”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97148>
Posted on January 25, 2018 8:12 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97148> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2018/01/25/russians-got-tens-of-thousands-of-americans-to-rsvp-for-their-phony-political-events-on-facebook/?utm_term=.be2ec8c7bd0a>

Russian operatives used Facebook to publicize 129 phony event announcements during the 2016 presidential campaign, drawing the attention of nearly 340,000 users — many of whom said they were planning to attend — according to a company document released by the Senate Intelligence Committee Thursday.

It’s not possible to know how often people gathered in response to the sham announcements, but the numbers highlight how Russian operatives were successful in prompting Americans to express a willingness to act. In some cases, Russians allegedly working in an office building in St. Petersburg motivated at least some people to mobilize behind various causes, a striking accomplishment for a foreign influence campaign.

“Not only did they influence how people viewed Russian policy, they got people to take physical action. That’s unprecedented,” said Clinton Watts, a former FBI agent who studies Russian disinformation for the Foreign Policy Research Institute. “They just did it persistently, and they did it well.”
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Secret donors come back to boost former-Koch group”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97146>
Posted on January 25, 2018 8:09 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97146> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Robert Maguire for Open Secrets<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2018/01/secret-donors-back-to-boost-former-koch-grp/>:

A secretive political group that is little more than a mailbox<https://twitter.com/RobertMaguire_/status/403174261474353152> full of money in a Des Moines UPS Store raised more than $29.4 million in 2016, most of which was funneled into ads aimed at electing Republicans.

Tax documents<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4341534-American-Future-Fund-2016-990.html> obtained by the Center for Responsive Politics show that American Future Fund (AFF), a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, had a banner year in 2016.

The $29.4 million haul marks the group’s highest revenues since it was cut from the constellation of political organizations linked to billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2016/03/exiled-from-koch-orbit-american-future-fund-turns-to-gop-establishment-for-cash/> amidst a campaign money laundering<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2013/10/california-investigation-reveals-so/> scandal in 2012. In 2015, the dark money group raised just a little over $350,000.

Bringing in such a considerable sum is no small feat for an organization that boasts no employees<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4341534-American-Future-Fund-2016-990.html#document/p1/a6> nor any measurable social welfare beyond its robust political spending. But in the world of secretive political groups, it’s not an anomaly.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, tax law and election law<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>

“Alabama bill would end special elections for U.S. Senate”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97144>
Posted on January 25, 2018 1:04 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97144> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Reuters:<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-alabama-election/alabama-bill-would-end-special-elections-for-u-s-senate-idUSKBN1FD3AD>

The Republican-led Alabama House of Representatives has passed a bill to end special elections for the U.S. Senate, just more than a month after such a vote resulted in the state electing its first Democratic senator in a quarter-century.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Pennsylvania Republican Legislators File Longshot Bid with the Supreme Court to Get It To Delay Redistricting Ordered by PA Supreme Court to Cure Partisan Gerrrymandering<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97141>
Posted on January 25, 2018 12:47 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97141> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here’s the filing.<https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/LWV_v_PA_Emergency-Application-for-Stay-SCOTUS.pdf>

Here’s why it is a long shot.<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97047>

First question is whether Justice Alito (responsible for emergency petitions coming from the 3rd Circuit) will order a response.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>, Supreme Court<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Kris Kobach’s Office Leaks Last 4 Social Security Digits of Nearly Every Kansas Lawmaker and Thousands of State Employees, Including Kris Kobach”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97139>
Posted on January 25, 2018 11:20 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97139> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Gizmodo:<https://gizmodo.com/kris-kobach-s-office-leaks-last-4-social-security-digit-1822415622>

This is started to just get sad.

Prior to receiving notice from Gizmodo this morning, Kris Kobach’s office was leaking sensitive information belonging to thousands of state employees, including himself and nearly every member of the Kansas state legislature.

Among a bevy of personal information that, according to a statement on the website, was intended to be public, the Kansas Secretary of State’s website was exposing the last four digits of Social Security numbers (known as SSN4) of thousands of current and former candidates for office, as well as thousands, or potentially tens of thousands, of high-ranking state employees at apparently ever Kansas government agency.

The combination of a person’s name and SSN4 creates what’s commonly called “personally identifiable information,” the unauthorized disclosure of which is unlawful under numerous state and federal laws. Putting these statements of substantial interest online without redacting the SSN4 information is beyond reckless; it’s stupid.,,,

Kobach’s office has spent the past few weeks trying to convince the Kansas legislature that it is, in fact, equipped to handle voluminous amounts of sensitive voter records. The interstate Crosscheck program, which is overseen by Kobach’s office, has lost control over voter data—including partial Social Security numbers—on several occasion over the past six months. Most recently, nearly 1000 Kansans were exposed<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article196024214.html> after data amassed for the Crosscheck program was mistakenly leaked in Florida.

Kobach is a notorious exaggerator and recently claimed that the Crosscheck program is absolutely essential to the safeguarding the integrity of the nation’s voter rolls. “If the Crosscheck program were to go away, then we would be unable to catch virtually all of the double voters,” he told the Wichita Eagle<http://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article196024214.html>, adding: “there are thousands of them across the country.” But truthfully, there are other programs that serve the same purpose, such as the one administered by the Electronic Registration Information Center, which hasn’t suffered any apparent data leaks and is based on a methodology founded by actual data scientists.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, fraudulent fraud squad<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“What First Amendment? Republicans cast themselves as champions of the First Amendment, but they’ve done nothing to stop Donald Trump’s war on free speech.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97137>
Posted on January 25, 2018 9:08 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97137> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I’ve been waiting for someone to write about this, and here’s Eliza Newlin Carney<http://prospect.org/article/what-first-amendment> with a good one:

Indeed, Trump’s assault on free speech is far more direct, aggressive, and broadly destructive than anything yet seen in the United States. He’s threatened legal action<http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/04/politics/trump-bannon-letter-legal-action/index.html> to silence critics; called for news organizations to fire specific journalists<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/01/donald-trump-wants-to-be-dictator-of-the-united-states/>; tweeted videos and images of himself inflicting bloody violence<https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/12/24/trump-retweets-image-that-appears-to-depict-cnns-blood-on-shoe/23316323/> on figures bearing the logo of CNN, a favorite target; and has weaponized mainstream media outlets as “fake news.”…

None of this seems to worry supposed First Amendment champions on the right. With a few exceptions, such as Abrams, Flake, and McCain, conservatives take Trump’s assaults on free speech merrily in stride. As GOP election lawyer Jim Bopp recently assured the Center for Public Integrity<https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/01/19/21480/actions-not-words-tell-trumps-political-money-story>:

Liberals refuse to understand with Trump that you can’t take what he says literally. What is important about Trump is what he’s doing and not what he’s saying, and in practice, everything he’s done is in step with maintaining a First Amendment-friendly approach to campaign finance.

Bopp’s comments shed light on the real reason Republicans don’t really care whether Trump trashes press freedoms. For many on the right, the First Amendment is less important as a tool to protect speech than to protect money, and those who spend it. As ethics attorney Kathleen Clark, who teaches law at Washington University in St. Louis, puts it: “Economic power, and the ability to exploit economic power, is at the center of their vision of the First Amendment.
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Posted in campaign finance<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

Chief Justice Orders Response to North Carolina Racial Gerrymandering Case Stay Request by February 2<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97133>
Posted on January 25, 2018 7:41 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97133> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

So reports Amy Howe<https://twitter.com/AHoweBlogger/status/956551574523965440>.

This seems like a long time to me IF the Court is going to grant the stay. On this one, I’m skeptical<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=97104>SCOTUS grants it.

Then again, maybe the delay is ok because the Court is going to keep the districts the same.
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Posted in Uncategorized<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

--
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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