[EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/19/19

Mon Aug 19 07:49:49 PDT 2019

“FEC chair calls out Trump over voter fraud claims”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106955>
Posted on August 19, 2019 7:46 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106955> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ellen Weintraub<https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2019/08/19/fec-chair-trump-election-fraud-claims-undermine-faith-sot-newday-vpx.cnn/video/playlists/this-week-in-politics/> on CNN New Day.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Donald Trump touts voter ID laws as an issue in the 2020 election. Here’s why.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106953>
Posted on August 19, 2019 7:44 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106953> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

USA Today reports<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/08/17/donald-trump-voter-id-laws-must-part-election-security-measures/2030487001/>.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

“Trump’s Pittsburgh Speech Was a Paying Gig for the Audience”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106951>
Posted on August 18, 2019 8:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106951> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/17/us/politics/trump-shell-workers.html>:

Thousands of union workers at a multibillion-dollar petrochemical plant being built outside Pittsburgh were given the choice of attending a speech by President Trump on Tuesday or staying away — and losing some of their pay for the week.
“Your attendance is not mandatory,” one of the construction site’s contractors wrote in rules for the speech that were shared with its employees, according to The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette<https://www.post-gazette.com/business/powersource/2019/08/16/Trump-speech-union-crowd-Shell-ethane-plant-natural-gas-beaver-county-pennsylvania-attendance-pay-overtime/stories/201908160113>, which first reported on the matter. But the rules said that only those who arrived at 7 a.m., had their work IDs scanned and then stood waiting for the president for several hours would get paid for the time.
“NO SCAN, NO PAY,” a supervisor for the contractor wrote, according to the paper.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Personal Data About Small-Donor Democrats Is All Over the Internet”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106949>
Posted on August 18, 2019 8:16 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106949> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

David Primo NYT oped<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/18/opinion/democrats-donor-data.html>:

One of the largest single disclosures of small-donor information in American history took place on July 31. On that day, the names, addresses, occupations and employers of at least 2.3 million people who contributed money to 2020 Democratic presidential candidates were listed on the internet for all to see. The culprits were not Russian hackers or disgruntled tech workers, but the Democratic presidential candidates and the federal government.

How can this be? The answer, as with all things about campaign finance, is convoluted — but also troubling, as it highlights how transparency in campaign finance can go too far.

Leading (and not so leading) Democratic presidential candidates use ActBlue, an organization that helps Democrats in local, state and federal races raise money with a state-of-the-art online fund-raising infrastructure. ActBlue eliminates the need for campaigns to worry about the technical side of fund-raising and makes it feasible for candidates to raise contributions from donors giving as little as a dollar. (Small donations really matter in the 2020 campaign, as the Democratic Party’s new debate qualification rules include having a sufficient number of unique campaign donors.)

Each time an individual contributes to a presidential candidate using its site, ActBlue collects the donor’s information and then turns around and reports it to the Federal Election Commission — which then puts this information on the internet. Give just one dollar to a candidate through ActBlue and your donation becomes public for the world to see.

This may seem puzzling. Under federal law, candidates must publicly disclose the personal information of only those donors who give them more than $200 in an election cycle. Viewed in this light, ActBlue’s most recent filing<https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00401224/?tab=filings>, from July 31, makes no sense, as many of the disclosed donors had given tiny amounts well below this threshold.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Sen. Wyden Sends Letters to National Party Organizations Asking About Their Cybersecurity Preparations<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106947>
Posted on August 18, 2019 1:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106947> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Find it here<https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/cybersecurity-letter-to-national-parties/c43610c8-4a38-43a1-9161-cd6365d0c319/>.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

Georgia Secretary of State’s Spokesperson Calls Judge Totenberg’s Conclusions About the Unconstitutionality of Georgia’s Voting Systems “Silly and Unfounded”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106945>
Posted on August 17, 2019 6:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106945> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://www.apnews.com/3bb82cd078444a42b9aad64faadc802b>:

Totenberg cited a “mountain of voter testimony showing that these vulnerabilities have a tangible impact” on voters’ attempts to cast a ballot and have their vote counted.

The plaintiffs provided statements from 137 Georgia voters, two county poll workers and 15 poll watchers about problems during the November 2018 midterm election. Those included: self-casting ballots, malfunctioning voting machines, voter selections flipping to another candidate, and electronic pollbooks showing incorrect polling places or addresses for voters.

STATE RESPONSE

In an email to The Associated Press, Tess Hammock, spokeswoman for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, said, “These conclusions are silly and unfounded. At the end of the day no judge should be susceptible to political Rhetoric.”

In a subsequent email she added that the secretary of state’s office looks forward to implementing the new system.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Four Separate Draft Advisory Opinions Signals Potential Deadlock at FEC on Tom Price Plan to Use Campaign Funds for 501c(4) Electioneering<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106943>
Posted on August 17, 2019 6:30 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106943> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

See here<https://www.fec.gov/data/legal/advisory-opinions/2019-10/>. If the FEC deadlocks, Price will have to decide whether to go forward with his plan and risk liability for doing so. But given how lax FEC enforcement is these days, it is not clear how much of a risk this is.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>, tax law and election law<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>

Breaking: Republican FEC Commissioners Block Investigation into NRA Russian Ties in 2016 Election<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106940>
Posted on August 16, 2019 11:54 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=106940> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203> (whose full statement is here<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/MUR-7314-NRA-Butina-et-al.-SOR-ELW-FINAL.pdf>):
[cid:image002.jpg at 01D55662.AD2FC370]<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub>
<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub>
Ellen L Weintraub<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub>
✔@EllenLWeintraub<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub>

<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203>

BREAKING: @FEC<https://twitter.com/FEC>'s Republicans block all investigation of & enforcement against Russians Torshin & Butina re the NRA & the 2016 presidential election.

Result: FEC does nothing to find out the truth behind one of the most blockbuster campaign finance allegations in recent memory.
[View image on Twitter]<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203/photo/1>[View image on Twitter]<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203/photo/1>[View image on Twitter]<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203/photo/1>
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1162429772590387203>
12.1K<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1162429772590387203>
11:23 AM - Aug 16, 2019<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203>
Twitter Ads info and privacy<https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256>
<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203>
12.5K people are talking about this<https://twitter.com/EllenLWeintraub/status/1162429772590387203>

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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>

--
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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