[EL] Midterms Election Monitoring Efforts

[Luke Mitchell]

Justin — and others responding off list — this is very helpful. It sounds
as if there is good work being done, but on a fragmentary basis. Mostly I
am wondering about mechanisms for creating an overall sense of
post-election legitimacy. It sounds like right now in the U.S., there is no
effort that is comprehensive enough to provide guidance about the
legitimacy of the overall results, which will almost certainly be wildly
contested. What would such a mechanism look like? What can I learn from
case studies in other countries?

On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 12:41 PM Levitt, Justin <justin.levitt at lls.edu>
wrote:

> I think your answer depends on what you mean by “monitor” and “meaningful.”
>
>
>
> The OSCE effort (more info here
> <https://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/how-to-become-an-election-observer>)
> tends to be an overview of the political structure and some of the more
> prevalent rules/regulations in place: as others have said on the list, it’s
> a thoughtful and insightful view of elements of the US system, including
> those many Americans take for granted but those which other countries find
> quite anomalous.  I find it to be a really meaningful perspective on some
> of the nuttier things we do.  I’m more skeptical that legislators or
> election officials pay much attention (though it might behoove them to do
> so).
>
>
>
> There are domestic nonpartisan groups that monitor the process for casting
> and counting ballots, and that offer assistance to voters both at the polls
> and through national hotlines (including assistance from finding the right
> polling place to legal and logistical questions that are considerably more
> complicated).  The largest is the Election Protection
> <https://866ourvote.org/> coalition (866-OUR-VOTE), with other hotlines
> (working in coalition) specifically targeted at language minorities (for
> example, 888-VE-Y-VOTA <http://veyvota.yaeshora.info/> and 888-API-VOTE
> <http://www.apiavote.org/hotline>).  They logged more than 100,000 calls
> in 2016, which is probably meaningful at least to those 100,000 people –
> and to the extent resulting action resolved more systemic issues, well
> beyond.
>
>
>
> From a different perspective, there are also some domestic groups
> organizing to monitor the election process for potential fraud.  As just
> one example, Rick mentioned a True the Vote recruiting email on the blog
> this morning <https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101384>.
>
>
>
> And finally, there are efforts organized by the political parties and
> particular candidates, to monitor the elections in particular districts.
> Those entities are NGOs as well, though I’m not sure if that’s what you
> mean by the question.
>
>
>
> Justin
>
>
>
> *From:* Law-election <law-election-bounces at department-lists.uci.edu> *On
> Behalf Of *Luke Mitchell
> *Sent:* Friday, October 05, 2018 8:34 AM
> *To:* law-election at UCI.edu
> *Subject:* [EL] Midterms Election Monitoring Efforts
>
>
>
> A general query to all on the list: Looking ahead to the midterms, are
> there any NGO or ad-hoc efforts in the works to monitor the election
> process beyond OSCE? Also, will the OSCE effort be meaningful in any way?
>
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