[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/9/19

[Rick Hasen]

“The Cybersecurity 202: Russia’s efforts to target U.K. elections a stark warning for 2020”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108333>
Posted on December 9, 2019 8:51 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108333> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cybersecurity-202/2019/12/09/the-cybersecurity-202-russia-s-efforts-to-target-u-k-elections-a-stark-warning-for-2020/5ded59af88e0fa51665be36d/>

An alleged Russian influence campaign to undermine this week’s British elections shows how tough it will be to keep foreign influence out of the 2020 U.S. contest.

Russian-backed accounts on Reddit actively worked to boost the trove of documents appearing to detail key U.S.-U.K. trade negotiations that have been gaining traction over the internet for months, the social sharing site revealed Saturday<https://www.reddit.com/r/redditsecurity/comments/e74nml/suspected_campaign_from_russia_on_reddit/>. It’s not clear whether the documents were leaked or hacked<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-election-documents/britain-investigating-whether-leaked-trade-papers-were-hacked-sources-idUSKBN1YC0CT>, but Britain’s opposition Labour Party, has been using the seemingly genuine documents to slam the ruling conservative party<https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-50572454> for considering giving U.S. companies far more influence over Britain’s popular state-run National Health Service as part of a post-Brexit trade deal.

It’s yet another example of Russia’s powerful digital army allegedly seeking to influence the outcome<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2019/11/05/did-russia-interfere-brexit-an-unpublished-report-roils-uk-politics-before-election/> of a Western election<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-election-russia/u-s-increasingly-convinced-that-russia-hacked-french-election-sources-idUSKBN1852KO> — and it offers a stark reminder of how influence operations can be highly effective even before they’re identified. This dramatically undermines government and industry efforts to blunt their power or hold off their spread.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“House Passes Voting Rights Bill Despite Near Unanimous Republican Opposition”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108331>
Posted on December 8, 2019 8:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108331> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/06/us/politics/house-voting-rights.html>

The House voted on Friday to reinstate federal oversight of state election law, moving to bolster protections against racial discrimination enshrined in the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the landmark civil rights statute whose central provision was struck down by the Supreme Court.

Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, who was beaten in 1965 while demonstrating for voting rights in Alabama, banged the gavel to herald approval of the measure, to applause from his colleagues on the House floor. It passed by a vote of 228 to 187 nearly along party lines, with all but one Republican opposed.

The bill has little chance of becoming law given opposition in the Republican-controlled Senate and by President Trump, whose aides issued a veto threat against it this week.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>, VRAA<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=81>


“Nonprofit founded by Donald Trump allies plans to give away $25,000 in cash at upcoming Cleveland event”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108329>
Posted on December 8, 2019 8:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108329> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Cleveland.com:<https://www.cleveland.com/politics/2019/12/donald-trump-allies-plan-to-give-away-25000-in-cash-at-upcoming-cleveland-event.html>

Prominent supporters of President Donald Trump say they’re planning an event in Downtown Cleveland next weekend, attended by Trump administration officials, that will include a $25,000 cash giveaway for the general public….

Lanier said the event will be held from 3-5 p.m. in the atrium of the Galleria shopping center. He said the money will be given away in increments of $300 to $1,000. He said organizers plan to bring in residents of low-income housing facilities to attend, but the event also is free and open to the general public. Anyone who attends will be given a raffle ticket. Prizes will be awarded in a live drawing, and will be redeemable at the end of the night, he said.

He did not say who donated the prize money, other than to say it’s coming from the non-profit.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“Defining a Theory of ‘Bribery’ for Impeachment”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108327>
Posted on December 7, 2019 1:34 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108327> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Josh Blackman and Seth Barrett Tillman for Lawfare<https://www.lawfareblog.com/defining-theory-bribery-impeachment>.
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Posted in bribery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=54>


Something Stinks with North Carolina Voting Machine Process<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108324>
Posted on December 7, 2019 1:30 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108324> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Carolina Public Press:<https://carolinapublicpress.org/29617/bait-and-switch-by-maker-of-voting-system-for-nc/>

A voting system certified and tested earlier this year for use in North Carolina’s March 2020 primaries won’t be available, according to manufacturer Elections Systems and Software, so the company’s lobbyists have suggested the state quickly approve one of its other systems instead.

While the N.C. Board of Elections director has recommended going along with the vendor on the substitution, others see the move as a deceptive bait and switch.

One Board of Elections member, Stella Anderson, has objected to the situation, thereby forcing the board to convene a special meeting on the issue. She and others have questioned the integrity of the company and suggested both ES&S and board staff have used language that understates the significance of the difference between the two systems and misrepresents federal government requirements for approving such modifications to voting systems.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


Questions About the Small-Donor Matching Program in the Democrats’ Campaign-Finance Reform Bill<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108317>
Posted on December 6, 2019 1:09 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108317> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

I mentioned in a prior post<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108255> that I wanted to raise certain specific issues with the small-donor, public financing program the House Democrats currently propose as their vision of campaign-finance reform.

This proposal is modeled on New York City’s small-donor matching program, which has been in existence for about 30 years. But there is one highly significant difference between the NYC program and the one the House voted for in H.R. 1. The NYC program provides public matching funds only for small-donor contributions made by city residents, while the federal proposal does not analogously limit its matching funds to contributions to candidates from residents of the House district at issue.

In my recent essay<https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/small-donor-based-campaign-finance-reform-and-political-polarization> on small donors and political polarization, I discuss why this choice not to limit public matching funds to contributions from in-district residents is so significant:

When it comes to reducing the polarizing effects of multiplying small donations with a six-to-one match, this is a consequential choice. From a realpolitik perspective, it is easy to understand why House Democrats would not want to limit matching funds to in-district contributions. These days, a substantial percentage of House candidates’ funds from individual contributors come from out of state. This is a reflection of the greater nationalization of elections, as well as the greater national interest in individual House races when partisan control of the House is perceived to be up for grabs. In a major study of the 2004 elections, the average congressional district received contributions from seventy other districts, while in 1996, the figure had only been fifty-five. By 2004, a majority of individual contributions came from district residents in fewer than 20% of congressional districts. In nearly the same percentage of districts, outside money constituted 90% or more of the candidates’ individual contributions. Moreover, this money is mostly not coming from those who live in nearby districts, but from people living in a relatively small number of geographically distant areas, such as wealthy parts of New York, Los Angeles, Florida, Chicago, Maryland, New Jersey, Atlanta, and others. Indeed, 5% of congressional districts in this 2004 analysis provided more than 25% of all non-local money; a mere 20% of congressional districts provided a majority of the outside money. More recent work reaffirms this and concludes that the average House member receives just 11% of individual contributions from in-district donors, while donors come overwhelmingly from a small number of metropolitan areas, such as those noted above.

Moreover, it is hardly surprising that members who receive the most money from outside their districts are more ideologically extreme than their party’s other representatives. Indeed, even for members who represent moderate districts, if they receive more than $353,000 in outside funds, they vote in ways characteristic of the party’s ideological wing rather than the preferences of their more moderate constituents. Money that flows from New York and California to House districts across the country is almost inevitably going to reflect more nationalized, ideological motivations than in-district money. Out-of-state money will flow to those with the highest national profile, and those figures are not likely to be moderates. As one academic expert puts it, “all that outside funding may be leading to a more polarized Congress, as it appears to encourage members to pay attention to donors whose ideologies are more extreme than voters.”

To reduce the polarizing effects of individual contributions, a national small-donor matching bill could limit public matching funds to small-donor contributions from district residents. A direct ban or limit on the aggregate amount of out-of-district campaign contributions from American citizens would almost certainly be unconstitutional. But the constitutional question is considerably different when the government is subsidizing elections and deciding, on non-viewpoint-based grounds, that it wants to match only in-district contributions, for legitimate public policy purposes such as increasing local representatives’ responsiveness to their constituents. Limiting matching funds to district resident contributions would reduce the effects of the currently proposed matching program in stoking the fires of polarization. But because few individual contributions come from within the district, such a limitation would also mean the matching program would be limited in overall effect and would not provide as strong a countervailing force against the weight of larger individual contributions (or against outside spending, as well).
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“‘Dark money’ ties raise questions for GOP Sen. Ernst of Iowa”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108318>
Posted on December 6, 2019 12:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108318> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://apnews.com/eeb44fc06b0cb202bc1edbd1adee7f7d>

An outside group founded by top political aides to Sen. Joni Ernst has worked closely with the Iowa Republican to raise money and boost her reelection prospects, a degree of overlap that potentially violates the law, documents obtained by The Associated Press show.

Iowa Values, a political nonprofit that is supposed to be run independently, was co-founded in 2017 by Ernst’s longtime consultant, Jon Kohan. It shares a fundraiser, Claire Holloway Avella, with the Ernst campaign. And a condo owned by a former aide — who was recently hired to lead the group — was used as Iowa Values’ address at a time when he worked for her.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>



--
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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