[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/12/18

[Rick Hasen]

“What’s Happening in Florida Is a Nightmare. 2020 Could Be So Much Worse.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102172>
Posted on November 12, 2018 12:43 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102172> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I have written this piece<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/florida-election-chaos-2020-trump-nightmare-scenario.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_ru> for Slate. It begins:

With Florida set this week to undertake a massive and massively politicized recount in the critical races for governor and senator, the way that election fight has played out so far has been an absolute nightmare. Perhaps most terrifyingly of all, the 2018 Florida elections have demonstrated the real possibility<https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1061985638675832837> that President Donald Trump might attempt to ignore an unfavorable 2020 election outcome if the result is a slim loss by the president, a possibility that should give us all chills.

There’s no mincing words: We are entering into a dangerous new phase in the voting wars. Last week, various election calamities were fueled by incendiary and unsupported claims<http://www.nbc-2.com/story/39465727/florida-judge-says-no-evidence-of-voter-fraud-in-broward-county> by Trump and others of fraud, by pockets of incompetence of election administration, by partisanship in election administration, and by continued fundamental defects in how our elections are conducted.

The new voting wars threaten to undermine the very foundation of American democracy: that election officials can fairly and accurately count ballots and that they can declare a winner whom the losers will accept as legitimate. Recent developments portend a very rocky 2020 election. If Trump is ahead in his re-election bid on the night of the election, only to lose that lead as more ballots in larger—mostly Democratic—counties are counted through a normal process in the days and weeks after Election Day, it seems reasonable to be concerned that he will contest such a legitimate vote. We don’t know if he would even vacate his office in such a scenario, triggering the possibility of a real constitutional crisis.

The current controversies in Florida laid bare<https://www.politico.com/states/florida/story/2018/11/10/florida-officially-begins-machine-recount-in-three-statewide-races-8907663> the continued basic problems in election administration that first became evident during the disputed 2000 presidential election, leading to a recount in Florida, which twice ended up before the U.S. Supreme Court. The same pathologies I wrote about in my 2012 book, The Voting Wars<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300198248/?tag=slatmaga-20>, have been laid bare once again: highly decentralized election administration, with some election administrators, especially in big Democratic cities, underfunded and occasionally lacking in basic competence; partisanship in the administration of elections; poor ballot design and aging voting machinery; and poorly written electoral laws that allow for lawsuits aimed at changing the results in razor-thin elections.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Florida counties race to recount votes by Thursday deadline”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102170>
Posted on November 12, 2018 12:41 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102170> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Miami Herald:<https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article221501220.html>

Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner was aware of recount issues that surfaced in Broward County on Sunday, but said through a spokeswoman that the issues were resolved.

The county had an issue during the logic and accuracy testing, spokeswoman Sarah Revell, but the recount is now underway. Logic and accuracy testing is required so that any potential issues can be corrected before a recount begins.

On Saturday, the razor-thin margins in the races of U.S. Senate, agriculture commissioner and the governor’s race caused Detzner to order mandatory machine recounts in all three statewide races after all counties submitted their unofficial results by noon.

The state’s 67 elections departments have just five days to recount more than 8.2 million combined ballots cast over an entire month leading up to Tuesday’s midterms….

In order to make the Thursday deadline, the county has to count about 6,874 ballots per hour, so that delay puts Broward about 25,000 ballots behind that pace.

Gov. Rick Scott’s attorney, Tim Cerio, said he didn’t know what caused Broward County’s delay Sunday morning, but that two more machines were being sent to the office from Orlando.

In Miami-Dade, the state’s most populated county, the recount officially began early Saturday evening, as workers began to load paper ballots into scanning machines for a tabulation that will likely take days.

Hillsborough and Pinellas Counties, home to Tampa and St. Petersburg each began their respective recounts at 9 a.m. Sunday.

Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Craig Latimer told reporters Sunday that he had no doubt his office would meet Thursday’s deadline for completing the machine recount of more than 520,000 ballots. Nor did he see the likelihood that the results would shift much.

In Palm Beach County, the election supervisor told reporters Saturday afternoon that the Thursday deadline would be “impossible” to meet.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, recounts<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=50>


“Florida judge sees no evidence of vote-counting fraud in Broward County”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102168>
Posted on November 12, 2018 12:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102168> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<http://www.nbc-2.com/story/39465727/florida-judge-says-no-evidence-of-voter-fraud-in-broward-county>

A Florida judge said he’s seen no evidence of wrongdoing in the vote-counting in Broward County and urged all sides to “ramp down the rhetoric.”
Circuit Chief Judge Jack Tuter said during an emergency hearing Monday that there is a need to reassure citizens that the integrity of the Florida recount is being protected.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“About 150 Florida hurricane victims voted by email. That’s not allowed.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102166>
Posted on November 12, 2018 12:34 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102166> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Miami Herald:<https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/election/article221536055.html>

After Hurricane Michael devastated the Florida Panhandle in October, the top elections official in Bay County allowed about 150 displaced voters to cast ballots by email, even though there is no provision that allows for it in state law.

Bay County Supervisor of Elections Mark Andersen defended that decision vigorously Monday, noting the mass devastation that rocked the coastal county one month ago.

“You did not go through what we went through,” he said, describing areas that were shut off by law enforcement and people barred from returning to their homes. “If some are unhappy we did so well up here, I don’t know what to tell them. We sure had an opportunity to not do well, I can tell you that much.”

Andersen said that all of those ballots were verified by signature, and that he made the decision to allow voters to scan and email in their ballots to his office for those who were “displaced.” He declined to elaborate on exactly how his office verified displacement in every case. “If I can validate it with a signature, the ballot is there, how is that different than a ballot that comes in through the post office?”

“When devastation happens, leaders rise to the top and make decisions,” he added. “I will not change my mind on this, not for these voters.”
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Read Stacy Abrams’ Suit Seeking the Counting of Additional Provisional Ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102162>
Posted on November 12, 2018 12:32 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=102162> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Find it here. <https://staceyabrams.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/DPG-v-Crittenden.pdf>
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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
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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