[EL] ELB News and Commentary 7/17/18

[Rick Hasen]

Atlantic Poll Finds that Voters of Color Face Greater Barriers to Voting Than Whites<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100141>
Posted on July 17, 2018 8:06 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100141> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Atlantic:<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/07/poll-prri-voter-suppression/565355/>

A new poll<https://www.prri.org/research/American-democracy-in-crisis-voters-midterms-trump-election-2018/> conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic has uncovered evidence of deep structural barriers to the ballot for black and Latino voters, specifically in the 2016 election. More than that, the survey finds that the deep wounds of Jim Crow endure, leaving America’s democratic promise unfulfilled.
The real extent of voter suppression in the United States is contested. As was the case for poll taxes and literacy tests long ago, restrictive election laws are often, on their face, racially neutral, giving them a sheen of legitimacy. But the new data from PRRI and The Atlantic suggest that the outcomes of these laws are in no way racially neutral. The poll, conducted in June, surveyed Americans about their experiences with voting, their assessments of the country’s political system, and their interfaces with civics. The results, especially when analyzed by race, are troublesome. They indicate that voter suppression is commonplace, and that voting is routinely harder for people of color than for their white counterparts.
The new data support perhaps the worst-case scenario offered by opponents of restrictive voting laws. Nine percent of black respondents and nine percent of Hispanic respondents indicated that, in the last election, they (or someone in their household) were told that they lacked the proper identification to vote. Just three percent of whites said the same. Ten percent of black respondents and 11 percent of Hispanic respondents report that they were incorrectly told that they weren’t listed on voter rolls, as opposed to 5 percent of white respondents. In all, across just about every issue identified as a common barrier to voting, black and Hispanic respondents were twice as likely, or more, to have experienced those barriers as white respondents.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, Voting Rights Act<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


“Candidate arrested for posting ‘revenge porn’ of his wife on campaign website, police say”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100139>
Posted on July 17, 2018 8:03 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100139> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/07/16/st-paul-council-candidate-arrested-for-posting-revenge-porn-of-his-wife-is-having-the-worst-month/?utm_term=.0445e3f3a013>
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“U.S. Treasury Restricts Donor Disclosure Requirement for Some Nonprofit Groups”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100137>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:51 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100137> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ:<https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-treasury-restricts-donor-disclosure-requirement-for-some-nonprofit-groups-1531788345>

The Treasury Department will allow some nonprofit groups to provide less information about donors on their tax forms in a win for conservative organizations engaged in politics.

Until now, nonprofit groups, including charities and trade associations, had to list contributors who give at least $5,000 on what is known as Schedule B. The IRS received the complete version, and the groups publicly released redacted forms without identifying information about donors.

Under the change announced late Monday<https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm426?mod=article_inline>, charities and political groups still must provide the names and addresses of donors, but other nonprofits don’t. Organizations that no longer need to provide the information include social welfare organizations, which can engage in politics and don’t have to disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission. Social welfare groups have been active across the political spectrum, but conservative ones have been particularly involved in politics.

Some of the largest groups affected include an arm of the National Rifle Association, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Americans for Prosperity, a group tied to billionaires Charles and David Koch.

This is a large and terrible development, which I hope to write more about when I get my head above water.
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Posted in tax law and election law<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>


Michigan: “GOP justices weigh fate of redistricting plan”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100135>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:46 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100135> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/07/16/michigan-redistricting-proposal-republican-justices/783153002/>

The Michigan Supreme Court’s Republican majority may decide the fate of a proposal that could dismantle political map-making rules that critics argue the GOP has manipulated to keep and grow power in Lansing and Washington, D.C.

The state’s highest court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a lawsuit seeking to keep the Voters Not Politicians proposal off the November ballot, effectively squashing an attempt to create an independent redistricting commission.
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Posted in redistricting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“Indicted Russian firm says it was backing free political speech, not disrupting 2016 election”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100133>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:45 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100133> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/indicted-russian-firm-says-it-was-backing-free-political-speech-not-disrupting-2016-election/2018/07/16/598eea3c-893c-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html?utm_term=.3370d0c27fa4>

A Russian company accused of bankrolling a massive online operation to disrupt the 2016 presidential election argued Monday that it had broken no federal laws, that it was merely supporting free political speech and that the fraud charge against it should be thrown out.

Concord Management and Consulting was one of 16 Russian individuals or companies indicted by a federal grand jury in February at the behest of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. The company is accused of defrauding the government by failing to register as foreign agents and failing to report its election-related expenditures to the U.S. government.

A large campaign of “information warfare against the United States,” led by the St. Petersburg-based Internet Research Agency, used Facebook, Twitter and othersocial media to build support for then-candidate Donald Trump and attack his opponents, most notably Hillary Clinton, according to the indictment.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Ground Zero in the War on Voting Rights; New Hampshire Republicans passed a bill to suppress the student vote. Democrats have one last chance to defeat it.”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100131>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:43 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100131> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Mark Joseph Stern for Slate<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/07/new-hampshire-hb-1264-voters-have-one-chance-to-stop-the-states-poll-tax-on-college-students.html>.
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Posted in voting<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>


“Mariia Butina, Who Sought ‘Back Channel’ Meeting for Trump and Putin, Is Charged as Russian Agent”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100129>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:40 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100129> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/us/politics/trump-russia-indictment.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fpolitics&action=click&contentCollection=politics&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=sectionfront>

 Russian woman who tried to broker a secret meeting between Donald J. Trump and the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, during the 2016 presidential campaign was charged Monday and accused of working with Americans to carry out a secret Russian effort to influence American politics.

At the behest of a senior Russian government official, the woman, Mariia Butina, made connections through the National Rifle Association, religious organizations and the National Prayer Breakfast to try to steer the Republican Party toward more pro-Russia policies, court records show. Privately comparing herself to a Soviet Cold War propagandist, she worked to infiltrate American organizations and establish “back channel” lines of communication with American politicians.

“These lines could be used by the Russian Federation to penetrate the U.S. national decision-making apparatus to advance the agenda of the Russian Federation,” an F.B.I. agent wrote in court documents.

The charges were filed under seal on Saturday, the day after 12 Russian intelligence officers were indicted<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/13/us/politics/mueller-indictment-russian-intelligence-hacking.html> on a charge of hacking Democratic computers during the 2016 campaign. Ms. Butina, 29, was arrested Sunday and appeared Monday in court. The records were unsealed hours after Mr. Trump stood beside Mr. Putin in Helsinki<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/16/world/europe/trump-putin-election-intelligence.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage> and said that he saw no reason the Russian leader would try to influence the presidential election.
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Posted in campaigns<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Top Voting Machine Vendor Admits It Installed Remote-Access Software on Systems Sold to States”<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100127>
Posted on July 17, 2018 7:37 am<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100127> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Kim Zetter:<https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/mb4ezy/top-voting-machine-vendor-admits-it-installed-remote-access-software-on-systems-sold-to-states>

The nation’s top voting machine maker has admitted in a letter to a federal lawmaker that the company installed remote-access software on election-management systems it sold over a period of six years, raising questions about the security of those systems and the integrity of elections that were conducted with them.

In a letter sent to Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) in April and obtained recently by Motherboard, Election Systems and Software acknowledged that it had “provided pcAnywhere remote connection software … to a small number of customers between 2000 and 2006,” which was installed on the election-management system ES&S sold them.

The statement contradicts what the company told me and fact checkers for a story I wrote for the New York Times<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/magazine/the-myth-of-the-hacker-proof-voting-machine.html> in February. At that time, a spokesperson said ES&S had never installed pcAnywhere on any election system it sold. “None of the employees, … including long-tenured employees, has any knowledge that our voting systems have ever been sold with remote-access software,” the spokesperson said.
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Posted in election administration<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Judicial Crisis Network Sends Misleading Texts in Indiana Supporting Confirmation of Judge Kavanaugh<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100125>
Posted on July 16, 2018 2:42 pm<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=100125> by Rick Hasen<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

IndyStar:<https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2018/07/13/do-texts-pressuring-joe-donnelly-support-brett-kavanaugh-comply-federal-rules/782090002/>

Jeff Gleason of Fort Wayne was surprised when he received a text Tuesday encouraging him to call Sen. Joe Donnelly in support of President Trump’s newly announced Supreme Court nominee.

The text seemed odd because Gleason, who works for the steelworkers union, doesn’t like what he’s heard about Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s record on workers’ issues, so he wasn’t sure why he was getting the prompt.

Gleason was even more confused when he called the phone number that appeared to have sent the text – and heard a recorded message from Donnelly thanking him for calling his Senate office.

“I was shocked,” Gleason said. “I knew Sen. Donnelly hadn’t released a position.”

The text hadn’t, in fact, come from Donnelly’s office, but from the Judicial Crisis Network, one of the conservative groups campaigning for Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
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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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