[EL] ELB News and Commentary 12/16/19

[Rick Hasen]

Election Meltdown Book, Book Tour, and Related Event/Ad Hoc Commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108429>
Posted on December 16, 2019 9:07 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108429> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I am pleased to report that my book Election Meltdown will be published on February 4 (preorders<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300248199/?tag=yaleunivpres-20>; book website at electionmeltdown.com<https://sites.uci.edu/electionmeltdown/>). Here is a brief description from the publisher:

“A hard-hitting critique of the American election process as timely as it is frightening. In a slim, cogently argued analysis, legal scholar points to four dangers threatening the voting process in 2020 and beyond . . . Required reading for legislators and voters.”

—Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)<https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/richard-l-hasen/election-meltdown/>

From the nation’s leading expert, an indispensable analysis of key threats to the integrity of the 2020 American presidential election

As the 2020 presidential campaign begins to take shape, there is widespread distrust of the fairness and accuracy of American elections. In this timely and accessible book, Richard L. Hasen uses riveting stories illustrating four factors increasing the mistrust. Voter suppression has escalated as a Republican tool aimed to depress turnout of likely Democratic voters, fueling suspicion. Pockets of incompetence in election administration, often in large cities controlled by Democrats, have created an opening to claims of unfairness. Old-fashioned and new-fangled dirty tricks, including foreign and domestic misinformation campaigns via social media, threaten electoral integrity. Inflammatory rhetoric about “stolen” elections supercharges distrust among hardcore partisans.

Taking into account how each of these threats has manifested in recent years—most notably in the 2016 and 2018 elections—Hasen offers concrete steps that need to be taken to restore trust in American elections before the democratic process is completely undermined.

More information at Yale University Press<https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300248197/election-meltdown>

I will also be embarking on this book tour<https://sites.uci.edu/electionmeltdown/book-tour/>:

Times/dates are subject to change.

________________________________

Feb. 2, 3 pm. Washington, DC, Politics and Prose bookstore<https://www.politics-prose.com/event/book/richard-l-hasen-election-meltdown-dirty-tricks-distrust-and-threat-to-american-democracy>, in conversation with Pam Fessler

Feb. 3, 4 pm. Washington DC, Campaign Legal Center, in conversation with Trevor Potter

Feb. 4, 6 pm. New York City, Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law

Feb. 12, 5:30 pm. Irvine CA, UCI School of Law<https://calendar.law.uci.edu/event/election_meltdown_dirty_tricks_distrust_and_the_threat_to_american_democracy#.XfaJGZNKjSw>

Feb. 18, 7 pm, Atlanta, GA, Jimmy Carter Presidential Library<https://www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov/events/>, in conversation with Richard Fausset

Feb. 20, Chapel Hill, NC (details TBA)

Feb. 26, 7:30 pm, Los Angeles, CA, Hammer Museum, in conversation with Kristen Clarke

Feb. 28, all day symposium, UCI Law, “Can American Democracy Survive the 2020 Elections?”<https://www.law.uci.edu/events/election-law/election-2020/>

Mar. 5, 12 pm, Stanford CA, Stanford University Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law<https://fsi.stanford.edu/events/can-american-democracy-survive-2020-elections>

Mar. 25, 7 pm, Boston/Cambridge, MA, Harvard Coop Bookstore

Mar. 26, 12 pm, Philadelphia, PA, National Constitution Center, in conversation with Ned Foley

I wanted to highlight the Feb. 28 event<https://www.law.uci.edu/events/election-law/election-2020/> at UCI Law. After the public event, there will be a private meeting of an ad hoc task force to come up with concrete things to be done in the months leading up to the election which can minimize the chances of #ElectionMeltdown<https://twitter.com/hashtag/ElectionMeltdown?src=hash>. We hope to produce a white paper with suggestions by early May.

I’ll be going off the grid before all this starts for the first half of January, with Justin Levitt and Dan Tokaji guest blogging then.

Hope to see you all in one of these conversations!
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


“Judiciary Committee Report Argues Trump ‘Betrayed the Nation'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108427>
Posted on December 16, 2019 9:00 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108427> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/us/politics/judiciary-committee-impeachment.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>

The House Judiciary Committee formally presented its case for impeaching President Trump in a 658-page report<https://rules.house.gov/sites/democrats.rules.house.gov/files/CRPT-116hrpt346.pdf> published online early Monday morning, arguing just days before a final vote in the House that he “betrayed the nation by abusing his high office.”

The report, which echoes similar documents produced after the committee’s approval of impeachment articles for Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, contains no new allegations or evidence against Mr. Trump.

But it offers a detailed road map for the two articles of impeachment<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/10/us/politics/articles-impeachment-document-pdf.html> the committee approved<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/13/us/politics/impeachment-vote.html>, charging that Mr. Trump abused the power of the presidency to enlist Ukraine in tarnishing his political rivals and obstructing Congress by blocking witnesses from testifying and refusing to provide documents.

The House is expected to vote on Wednesday on whether to impeach the sitting president for only the third time in the nation’s history, setting in motion a trial in the Senate<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/politics/trump-impeachment.html> early next year that could lead to Mr. Trump’s removal from office.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Voting-Machine Parts Made by Foreign Suppliers Stir Security Concerns”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108425>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:57 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108425> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ:<https://www.wsj.com/articles/voting-machine-parts-made-by-foreign-suppliers-stir-security-concerns-11576494003?mod=hp_listb_pos2&mod=article_inline>

A voting machine that is widely used across the country contains some parts made by companies with ties to China and Russia, researchers found, fueling questions about the security of using overseas suppliers, which has also sparked scrutiny in Washington.

Voting-machine vendors could be at risk of using insecure components from such overseas suppliers, which generally are difficult to vet and monitor, said a report being released Monday by Interos Inc., an Arlington, Va.-based supply-chain monitoring company that has consulted for government agencies and Fortune 500 companies.

The findings are likely to fan worries about whether voting-machine vendors are doing enough to defend themselves against foreign interference ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections, which U.S. intelligence officials say hostile powers could try to disrupt.

Voting-machine vendors assailed the research, which Interos conducted independently, saying the report failed to note existing safeguards, such as testing done at the federal, state and local levels, and the vendors’ internal protocols.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“In 2020 Census, Big Efforts in Some States. In Others, Not So Much.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108423>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:54 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108423> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/census-california-texas-undercount.html>

Equally remarkable, however, are the 24 states like Texas that are not spending a penny. The political divide is stark: Seventeen of those 24 are led by Republican governors and legislatures, including population heavyweights like Texas, Florida and Ohio. But of the 26 states that are spending money, only four are Republican-controlled.

Tight state budgets could be a factor. So could inertia; sinking millions of state dollars into census outreach is a fairly new idea. But few doubt that a prime factor is politics: An accurate census would include more people from harder-to-count groups like Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians and the poor who tend to vote Democratic.

If they do not participate, the population count would skew Republican — and so would political maps, based on census results, that legislatures will draw in 2021.

What I don’t understand in states like Texas is that an undercount will hurt not only in the size of the state’s congressional delegation; it also lessens the amount of federal funding overall. Do the other political considerations trump these?
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Posted in census litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=125>


“2020 Campaigns Throw Their Hands Up on Disinformation”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108421>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:42 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108421> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/technology/2020-campaigns-disinformation.html?searchResultPosition=7>

In 2018, Lisa Kaplan assembled a small team inside the re-election campaign for Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine. Wary of how Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/us/politics/russian-hacking-elections.html>, it set out to find and respond to political disinformation<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/21/technology/facebook-disinformation-russia-iran.html> online.

The team noticed some false statements shared by voters, and traced the language back to Facebook pages with names like “Boycott The NFL 2018.” It alerted Facebook, and some pages were removed. The people behind the posts, operating from places like Israel and Nigeria, had misled the company about their identity.

Today, Ms. Kaplan said, she knows of no campaigns, including among the 2020 presidential candidates, that have similar teams dedicated to spotting and pushing back on disinformation.

They may “wake up the day after the election and say, ‘Oh, no, the Russians stole another one,’” she said.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, social media and social protests<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=58>


“Thousands of Ohio voters denied absentee ballots, Associated Press finds”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108419>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:38 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108419> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://www.cleveland.com/open/2019/12/thousands-of-ohio-voters-denied-absentee-ballots-associated-press-finds.html>

Thousands of Ohio voters were held up or stymied in their efforts to get absentee ballots for last year’s general election because of missing or mismatched signatures on their ballot applications, an Associated Press review has found.

The signature requirement on such applications is a largely overlooked and spottily tracked step in Ohio’s voting process, which has shifted increasingly to mail-in ballots since early, no-fault absentee voting was instituted in 2005.

To supporters, the requirement is a useful form of protection against voter fraud and provides an extra layer of security necessary for absentee balloting.

To detractors, it’s a recipe for disenfranchisement — a cumbersome addition to an already stringent voter identification system.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Ned Foley on Billionaires, Ranked Choice Voting, and the Electoral College<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108417>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:33 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108417> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ned at CNN:<https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/16/opinions/election-2020-third-party-candidates-foley/index.html>

How can it be that our electoral system is so vulnerable to the personal fancies of individual plutocrats? I explore the answer in my new book<https://global.oup.com/academic/product/presidential-elections-and-majority-rule-9780190060152?cc=us&lang=en&>, but the short of it is that our Electoral College was designed for two-party competition and, without modification, cannot adequately handle third-party or independent candidates.

Even worse, as the book explains through its historical analysis, America has become increasingly vulnerable to this “spoiler effect” in the last 30 years, and we ignore at our peril the degree to which our presidential elections are currently at the mercy of a third-party candidate’s caprice.

There is, however, a remedy. States could require the winning candidate to receive a majority, and not just a plurality, of the state’s popular vote in order to obtain the state’s Electoral College votes. (A majority requires more than 50% of the vote, whereas a plurality means winning more votes than any other candidate. In a race with three or more candidates, it often happens that the top candidate has secured less than 50% of the vote.)States could do this by holding runoffs between the top two candidates if neither wins a majority on Election Day. Even better would be for states to adopt ranked-choice voting as Maine recently has done for its presidential elections (and New York City for some local ones), which allows voters to choose numerous candidates in order of their preference.

Both options (holding runoffs or adopting ranked choice voting) cure the “spoiler effect” — allowing multiple candidates on the ballot, as is their right, while eliminating the risk that any of them will distort the result between the two main contenders.Get our free weekly newsletter

State legislatures currently have all the constitutional power they need to do this, as the Supreme Court confirmed in Bush v. Gore (observing that Article Two of the Constitution explicitly gives state legislatures the authority to determine the “manner” of appointing their presidential electors).

If these reforms are not in place<https://www.dhs.gov/cisa/election-security> by the 2020 elections, then America faces this ugly prospect next fall: After undertaking major steps to secure the electoral infrastructure against foreign attack, the nation is still vulnerable to the subversion of majority rule by a third-party candidate. And it’s particularly easy for a vainglorious billionaire to do so.
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Posted in alternative voting systems<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=63>, electoral college<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=44>


“When Madison Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue Merge: A Review of “Political Brands'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108415>
Posted on December 16, 2019 8:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108415> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Eric Segall:<http://www.dorfonlaw.org/2019/12/when-madison-avenue-and-pennsylvania.html>

f you are worried about the state of our political system in the age of Facebook advertising, Russian interference in our elections, dark money in politics, and President Trump’s Twitter account, among many other disturbing trends, Professor Ciara Torres-Spelliscy’s wonderful new book “Political Brands”<https://www.amazon.com/Political-Brands-Ciara-Torres-Spelliscy/dp/1789901812> is unlikely to make you feel any better. However, it will make you much better informed regarding the many threats facing American democracy. I strongly recommend this book to anyone interested in how Madison Avenue and political movements have merged to present new and unique risks to our representative, constitutional democracy.

Professor Torres-Spelliscy is a law professor whose legal expertise no doubt informed her readable and accessible analysis of the role branding plays in our political system. The major contribution of the book, however, is not law-centered but rather the laying out in great detail the many dangers posed by politicians, interest groups, political parties, and even foreign countries who use branding to “influence public opinion…even if what is getting branded is the truth, a lie, a myth, or a conspiracy.” (p.1).
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


Federal Court Stays Litigation Over Mississippi Voting Requirement to Give State a Chance to Amend Its Constitution<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108409>
Posted on December 14, 2019 12:29 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=108409> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Read the court order <https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/mclemore-stay.pdf> in McLemore v. Hosemann. See my earlier coverage<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107866>.
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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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