[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/29/18

Mon Oct 29 09:02:23 PDT 2018

The NY Times is quite excellent and happy to see many of my election science colleagues quoted. With all due respect to the economist quoted, what he misses is the basic logic of new institutionalism: if everyone voters, parties and candidates would adapt. 

In particular, it would almost surely not have allowed a candidate like Trump to take such a strident position against immigration reform. Ultimately, I think it would benefit both parties and our political system if we had more (if not everyone) voting. 

Paul Gronke
Professor, Reed College 

> On Oct 29, 2018, at 7:40 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
> 
> “What If Everyone Voted?”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:39 am by Rick Hasen
> NYT’s The Upshot explores.
> <image001.png>
> Posted in Uncategorized
>  
>  
> “Ahead Of The 2018 Election, Texas AG Ramps Up Voter Fraud Prosecutions”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:30 am by Rick Hasen
> NPR:
> Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has been charging a record number of people with committing voter fraud, an effort his critics decry as an intimidation campaign designed to discourage minority voters from casting ballots.
> 
> In 2018 alone, Paxton’s office has prosecuted “33 defendants for a total of 97 election fraud violations” compared to a total of 97 prosecutions on similar charges for the 12 year period between 2005 to 2017, according a release this month from Paxton’s office.
> 
> <image001.png>
> Posted in The Voting Wars
>  
>  
> Supreme Court Won’t Take Pa Gerrymandering Case, Arguing State Supreme Court Didn’t Have Power to Draw New Districts
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:24 am by Rick Hasen
> View image on Twitter
> <image002.jpg>
> <image003.jpg>
> Michael Li
> ✔@mcpli
>  
>  
> 
> SCOTUS declines this a.m. to hear Pennsylvania Republicans’ appeal of state court ruling ordering new congressional map.
> 
> https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legal-work/2018-10-29-SCOTUS%20Order.pdf …
> #fairmaps
>  1/
> 6:59 AM - Oct 29, 2018
> ·        
> 
> 132
> 
> ·        
> 
> 75 people are talking about this
> 
> Twitter Ads info and privacy
> I expect this issue to be back before the Supreme Court soon after the election, where its outcome is uncertain at best.
> <image001.png>
> Posted in redistricting, Supreme Court
>  
>  
> “N.H. Supreme Court Says SB3 Can Stay In Place, Reversing Lower Court Order”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:21 am by Rick Hasen
> NHPR:
> In a hearing on Thursday, Brown shot down that request and attempted to address any lingering questions the state had about his initial order, but — in a unanimous ruling issued at 5 p.m. Friday — the New Hampshire Supreme Court took the state’s side.
> The justices took no position on the merits of the underlying voter registration law at the center of the ongoing court case, but they said the state made a convincing argument that it’s too close to the election to switch out the registration rules.
> The timing of Brown’s order, the justices wrote, “entered by the trial court a mere two weeks before the November 6 election, creates both a substantial risk of confusion and disruption of the orderly conduct of the election, and the prospect that similarly situated voters may be subjected to differing voter registration and voting procedures in the same election cycle.”
> (h/t Doug Chapin)
> <image001.png>
> Posted in residency
>  
>  
> “Cyber Interference in Elections and Federal Agency Action”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:18 am by Rick Hasen
> Derek Muller at the HLR Blog.
> <image001.png>
> Posted in voting technology
>  
>  
> “To Fix Congress, Make It Bigger. Much Bigger.”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:14 am by Rick Hasen
> Lee Drutman for Washington Monthly.
> <image001.png>
> Posted in legislation and legislatures
>  
>  
> “Think you’ll know who won on Election Night? Not so fast …”
> Posted on October 29, 2018 7:13 am by Rick Hasen
> WaPo reports.
> <image001.png>
> Posted in Uncategorized
>  
>  
> “Democratic super PACs and other outside groups are poised to outspend their Republican counterparts by a wide margin, erasing an advantage Republicans planned on having.”
> Posted on October 28, 2018 12:43 pm by Rick Hasen
> NYT:
> For the final two weeks of the election, Democratic campaigns and outside groups are on track to substantially outspend Republicans, strategists on both sides say. Democrats are set to spend $143 million on television advertising in House races, compared with $86 million for Republicans, according to one analysis by a Democratic strategist tracking media buys….
> 
> Much of the Democrats’ unanticipated firepower comes from one source: Michael R. Bloomberg, the liberal former New York City mayor who may run for president, plans to spend about $20 million on House advertising through his super PAC, Independence USA, in the final week of the campaign, a Bloomberg adviser said.
> 
> <image001.png>
> Posted in campaign finance, campaigns
>  
>  
> “Lack of proof aside, Kris Kobach can’t stop talking about voter fraud in Kansas governor’s race”
> Posted on October 28, 2018 12:21 pm by Rick Hasen
> WaPo:
> He’s brushed aside the state’s woeful financial straits. He’s dismissed concerns that driving in parades with a machine-gun replica mounted on his Jeep might come off as offensive.
> 
> Instead, in an audacious performance that mimics President Trump more than anyone else, Republican gubernatorial candidate Kris Kobach at every campaign stop touts his biggest achievement, a strict citizenship law for voters — that no longer exists.
> 
> Kobach has spent the last seven years as the state’s chief election officer burnishing his national profile as a crusader against illegal immigration and fashioning one of the toughest voting laws in the country, one that included a proof-of-citizenship requirement struck down as unconstitutional by a federal judge in June.
> 
> But that has not stopped him from promoting the failed law as a career triumph as the heated race enters its final stretch, using deliberately misleading language that mocks the judge’s ruling. Polls show Kobach virtually tied with his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Laura Kelly.
> 
> “Every time an alien votes, it cancels out the vote of a U.S. citizen!” Kobach said at a rally here earlier this month as Trump beamed approvingly at his side, to a rousing chant of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” He called for other states to require proof of citizenship, too — “Just like Kansas!”…
> 
> He supports President Trump’s assertion that millions fraudulently voted for Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election, even though no evidence for that assertion has surfaced and voting experts roundly disagree. (The president, too, is not dissuaded, warning in an Oct. 20 tweet that poll violators would be prosecuted: “Cheat at your own peril.”)
> 
> <image001.png>
> Posted in fraudulent fraud squad
>  
>  
> -- 
> 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
> http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
> http://electionlawblog.org
> <image004.png>
>  
>  
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> https://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20181029/a3c18bb6/attachment.html>