[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/27/19

Fri Apr 26 20:57:31 PDT 2019

“Pete Buttigieg Swears Off the Lobbyist Money He Once Accepted”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104886>
Posted on April 26, 2019 8:55 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104886> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<http://%20%20%20%20https/www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-fundraising-lobbyists.html>:

Pete Buttigieg, whose upstart presidential campaign has benefited from an early surge of donations and national attention, will no longer accept contributions from federal lobbyists, his campaign said Friday, bowing to pressure from fellow Democrats who want to reform the way campaigns raise money.

Mr. Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Ind., was somewhat isolated among his rivals for the 2020 Democratic nomination because he initially accepted lobbyist money, putting him at odds with the more progressive wing of his party and its increasing demands to take big money out of politics.

He will return the contributions he had already accepted from lobbyists, which his campaign said totaled $30,250 from 39 individuals
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Posted in lobbying<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=28>

“The Dark Side of Sunlight: How Transparency Helps Lobbyists and Hurts the Public”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104884>
Posted on April 26, 2019 8:50 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104884> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

James D’Angelo<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/james-dangelo> and Brent Ranalli<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/authors/brent-ranalli>write in Foreign Affairs.<https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2019-04-16/dark-side-sunlight>
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>

“Russian Hackers Were ‘In a Position’ to Access Florida Voter Rolls, Rubio Confirms”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104882>
Posted on April 26, 2019 8:13 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104882> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/florida-russia-hacking-election.html>:

But, it now appears, someone did.

Slipped into the long-anticipated special counsel report on Russian interference in the 2016 election last week was a single sentence that caused a stir throughout the state<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/us/florida-russia-2016-election-hacking.html?searchResultPosition=2&module=inline> and raised new questions about the vulnerability of the nation’s electoral systems.

Although the spearphishing attempt in Florida had first been brought to light nearly two years ago when The Intercept<https://theintercept.com/2017/06/05/top-secret-nsa-report-details-russian-hacking-effort-days-before-2016-election/> cited a secret National Security Agency report, state officials said they were certain no elections computers had been compromised. The Mueller report<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/18/us/politics/mueller-report-document.html?searchResultPosition=2&module=inline>turned that assertion on its head. “The F.B.I.,” it said, “believes that this operation enabled the G.R.U. to gain access to the network of at least one Florida county government.”

The report has sent Florida officials scurrying once again for specifics. Which county? Could there have been more than one?

“They won’t tell us which county it was. Are you kidding me?” an exasperated Ron DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, said at a news conference in Miami on Thursday. “Why would you have not said something immediately?”

The Florida Secretary of State’s office in Tallahassee said it had been unable to learn which county it was. “The department reached out to the F.B.I. and they declined to share that information with us,” said Sarah Revell, a department spokeswoman. “No county has come forward.” The secretary of state who was running the department at the time, Ken Detzner, did not respond to requests for comment.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Online voter registration spikes in PA, outpaces paper by 50 percent”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104880>
Posted on April 26, 2019 3:16 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104880> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Billy Penn reports<https://billypenn.com/2019/04/26/online-voter-registration-spikes-in-pa-outpaces-paper-by-50-percent/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“F.B.I. Warns of Russian Interference in 2020 Race and Boosts Counterintelligence Operations”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104878>
Posted on April 26, 2019 3:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104878> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/26/us/politics/fbi-russian-election-interference.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur>

The F.B.I. director warned anew on Friday about Russia’s continued meddling in American elections, calling it a “significant counterintelligence threat.” The bureau has shifted additional agents and analysts to shore up defenses against foreign interference, according to a senior F.B.I. official.

The Trump administration has come to see that Russia’s influence operations have morphed into a persistent threat. The F.B.I., the intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security have made permanent the task forces they created to confront 2018 midterm election interference, senior American national security officials said.

“We recognize that our adversaries are going to keep adapting and upping their game,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, said Friday in a speech in Washington, citing the presence of Russian intelligence officers in the United States and the Kremlin’s record of malign influence operations.

“So we are very much viewing 2018 as just kind of a dress rehearsal for the big show in 2020,” he said.

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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Settlement Reached to End Texas Voter Purge and Protect Voting Rights”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104876>
Posted on April 26, 2019 3:01 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104876> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:

A group of civil rights organizations reached an agreement today with Texas state officials to settle a lawsuit challenging the creation and rollout of a flawed voter purge list that discriminated against naturalized citizens. The American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, the national ACLU Voting Rights Project, the Texas Civil Rights Project, Demos, and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law filed the lawsuit against Texas Secretary of State David Whitley and Director of Elections Keith Ingram, as well as local elections officials in eight counties.

According to the terms of the settlement<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.aclutx.org_sites_default_files_4-2D25-2D10-5Fvoter-5Fpurge-5Fsettlement-5Fagreement.pdf&d=DwMF-g&c=_LAjAGye_IIiKN_ovTDKew&r=12xINLgBrWYYwa9x74kL4g3uFRYnJ-KqPy4b3BUIO3k&m=ElOj4RkS7dFnT2RoEk0OoHmjFy7402QNxhaPSU_G3EQ&s=QPkZOgszQ4u8yxGKW4gdelXvo37jtg3n8iYN9cQyw3o&e=>, the state will rescind its original advisory announcing the purge effort and agree to a new voter database maintenance process that is much more limited in scope. The state has also agreed to provide and maintain information regarding the implementation of the process. The plaintiffs will also retain the right to bring another challenge to the process if the state continues to discriminate or violate protected rights.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voter registration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>

--
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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