[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/31/18

Tue Oct 30 21:21:12 PDT 2018

“Voters Could Clamp Down On Ethics, Campaign Finance At The Ballot Box”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101829>
Posted on October 30, 2018 9:07 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101829> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Peter Overby for NPR. <https://www.npr.org/2018/10/30/661878646/voters-could-clamp-down-on-ethics-campaign-finance-at-the-ballot-box>

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Native American Rights Fund, Robins Kaplan, and Campaign Legal Center File Lawsuit Challenging North Dakota Voter ID Law and Call for Relief for Many Eligible North Dakota Voters At Risk of Disenfranchisement Before Election Day”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101827>
Posted on October 30, 2018 4:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101827> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://campaignlegal.org/press-releases/native-american-rights-fund-robins-kaplan-and-campaign-legal-center-file-lawsuit>:

Today, Tim Purdon with Robins Kaplan, the Native American Rights Fund (NARF)<https://www.narf.org/>, and Campaign Legal Center (CLC) filed a lawsuit<https://campaignlegal.org/document/spirit-lake-tribe-v-jaeger-complaint> on behalf of the Spirit Lake Tribe and six individual plaintiffs to ensure that eligible Native American voters residing on reservations in North Dakota will be able to cast a ballot in the 2018 midterm elections and in all future elections.

Under current law, North Dakotans can’t vote unless they have identification that shows their name, birth date, and residential address. Recent investigations demonstrate that the law threatens to disenfranchise not only those who do not have street addresses or access to the necessary ID but also those whose addresses the state deems “invalid.” The state’s own addressing system appears to be incomplete, contradictory, and prone to error on reservations.

North Dakota tribal communities have been mobilizing to provide the necessary IDs to those living on reservations, with no help from the state of North Dakota. Despite their efforts, North Dakota’s voter ID law could prevent many eligible Native Americans from casting a ballot in the upcoming election on November 6. The lawsuit asks the court to provide targeted relief for affected voters in time for Tuesday’s election.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Smells Like Jim Crow: Native American Ballot in North Dakota Rejected for Wrong Ink Color<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101825>
Posted on October 30, 2018 2:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101825> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jim Crow may be mostly a thing of the past, but not for Native Americans.

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/us/politics/north-dakota-voter-id.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>

Voters’ experiences have varied greatly based on which county they live in. In Rolette County, where the Turtle Mountain Reservation is, they have been able to get addresses from the county and IDs from the tribe without much red tape. But at Standing Rock, in Sioux County, the 911 coordinator is the sheriff, Frank Landeis. That’s a deterrent to people who are afraid to interact with law enforcement, much less tell the sheriff where they live, and Sheriff Landeis is not easy to reach.

When Ms. Finn called him on Oct. 12, three days after the Supreme Court ruling, he was out. On Oct. 15, he said he was transporting prisoners and could not assign addresses that day. He was also unavailable when The New York Times called on Friday.

And in an episode recounted independently by Ms. Finn, Mr. Semans and Ms. Young, a tribal elder, Terry Yellow Fat, got through to Sheriff Landeis only to be assigned the address of a bar near his house. Mr. Semans worried that, in addition to playing into stereotypes about Native Americans and alcohol, this could expose Mr. Yellow Fat to fraud charges if he voted under an address he knew was incorrect.

Then there are more subtle problems. For instance, while Sioux County does not offer early voting, it does — like all North Dakota counties — allow early, no-excuse-needed absentee voting, which is functionally almost identical. But Mr. Semans said that when one woman went to the county auditor’s office and asked to vote early, the auditor, Barbara Hettich, simply told her there was no early voting and didn’t mention the absentee option. (Ms. Hettich did not respond to a request for comment.)

Later, when Ms. Young filled out an absentee ballot, Ms. Hettich told her she had to use blue ink or the ballot would not be counted. But literature on the secretary of state’s website says ballots must be filled out in black ink. Mr. Semans ping-ponged back and forth between Standing Rock and Bismarck, trying to get a guarantee that ballots would not be thrown out because of ink color. On Friday, Lee Ann Oliver in the secretary of state’s office told The Times that both blue and black were acceptable.

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

“How a right-wing troll and a Russian Twitter account created 2016’s biggest voter fraud story”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101823>
Posted on October 30, 2018 2:10 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101823> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NBC News<https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/how-right-wing-troll-russian-twitter-account-created-2016-s-n925711>:
When Naim Tyler tweeted a video on Nov. 8, 2016, that showed an alleged voting machine malfunction in favor of Hillary Clinton, he expected some attention. But he didn’t realize what was about to happen.
The video he posted showed him repeatedly pressing the button for Donald Trump, while the machine’s indicator light stayed on for Clinton. It turned out that the machine was working properly, and that Tyler wasn’t following the instructions for changing his vote. But nonetheless, the video aligned with right-wing conspiracy theories and went viral, aided by Russia’s then-unknown disinformation campaign.
“BREAKING: Machine Refuses to Allow Vote For Trump in Pennsylvania!! RT the hell out of it! #VoterFraud #voted #ElectionDay” tweeted @Ten_GOP, a Kremlin-backed Twitter account masquerading as Tennessee’s Republican party<https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2018/02/16/fake-tennessee-gop-twitter-account-highlighted-indictment-13-russians/345835002/>. It was retweeted more than 29,000 times and picked up by dozens of media outlets….
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“We posed as 100 Senators to run ads on Facebook. Facebook approved all of them.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101821>
Posted on October 30, 2018 10:47 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101821> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

VICE:<https://news.vice.com/en_us/article/xw9n3q/we-posed-as-100-senators-to-run-ads-on-facebook-facebook-approved-all-of-them?utm_campaign=sharebutton>

One of Facebook’s major efforts to add transparency to political advertisements is to require those paying for the ads to make a “Paid for by” disclosure, which appears at the top of the ad and supposedly tells users who is paying for political ads that show up in their news feeds.

But on the eve of the 2018 midterm elections, a VICE News investigation found the “Paid for by” feature is easily manipulated, and appears to allow anyone to lie about who is paying for a political ad, or to pose as someone else paying for the ad.

To test it, VICE News applied to buy fake ads on behalf of all 100 sitting U.S. senators, including ads “Paid for by” by Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer. Facebook’s approvals were bipartisan: All 100 sailed through the system, indicating that just about anyone can buy an ad identified as “Paid for by” by a major U.S. politician.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Backlash over North Dakota voter ID law could rally Native Americans”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101819>
Posted on October 30, 2018 10:11 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=101819> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CPI:<https://www.publicintegrity.org/2018/10/30/22398/north-dakota-voter-id-law-backlash>

Leaders of the state’s tribes are pouring resources into making sure residents obtain addresses in some way and offering free updated tribal identification <https://www.lakotalaw.org/resources/vote> that would meet the requirements, available up through Election Day. Nonprofits are raising hundreds of thousands of dollars<https://secure.actblue.com/donate/dkndnativevote> and promising the cash will go towards helping Native American voters in the state.

Tribal leaders say the requirements are an attempt to disenfranchise Native Americans, the state’s largest minority group.

“We believe the requirement of a physical, residential property with a street address was intended to disenfranchise Native American voters,” four of the tribes said in a joint press release<https://twitter.com/StandingRockST/status/1053046107331289088> issued Oct. 17. “We will not be silenced by the blatant efforts to rob our people of our voice.”

North Dakota Secretary of State Al Jaeger, a Republican, said the voter identification requirements aren’t meant to disenfranchise anyone, only to ensure the integrity of elections. He argues that most states require voters to have a residential address at some point.

“I don’t know why North Dakota is being singled out in being somewhat unusual,” he said.

Last weekend, Mark Ruffalo<https://twitter.com/MarkRuffalo/status/1056657522990505984>, the Dave Matthews Band<https://twitter.com/lakotalaw/status/1056627373112807426> and Billy Ray Cyrus<https://twitter.com/billyraycyrus/status/1056908489107365888>joined Native American performers for a star-studded series of events on North Dakota reservations meant to promote voting.

But is it enough to prompt Native Americans here to stand and vote?
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://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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