[EL] ELB News and Commentary 2/22/19
Rick Hasen
rhasen at law.uci.edu
Thu Feb 21 19:05:31 PST 2019
“A federal election will be rerun because of fraud. Republicans aren’t talking about it much.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103705>
Posted on February 21, 2019 6:55 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103705> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Philip Bump<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/02/21/federal-election-will-be-rerun-because-fraud-republicans-arent-talking-about-it-much/?utm_term=.907d0bc9b571> for WaPo.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
“NC state board votes for new election in 9th district after Harris calls for new race”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103703>
Posted on February 21, 2019 2:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103703> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
News & Observer<https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article226561504.html>:
After a stunning reversal by Republican Mark Harris, North Carolina election officials Thursday unanimously ordered a new election in the 9th Congressional District.
Their vote came after four days of testimony about what election officials called “a coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” in Bladen and Robeson counties.
It also followed a startling announcement by Harris who had been fighting calls for a new election.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
Jon Eguia: The Artificial Partisan Advantage in NC’s District Map<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103699>
Posted on February 21, 2019 2:24 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103699> by Nicholas Stephanopoulos<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=12>
The following is a guest post from Jon Eguia<http://econ.msu.edu/faculty/eguia/>:
In a previous post<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103669> I introduced a measure of partisan advantage in redistricting. This measure compares the election outcome to a benchmark seat distribution that is not directly influenced by redistricting. More precisely, a party’s artificial partisan advantage is the difference between the number of seats obtained by the party, and the number of seats proportional to the share of the population in counties won by the party.
I suggested that a map be presumed to be a partisan gerrymander if its artificial partisan advantage is greater than 0.5 seats plus 10% of the size of the state’s delegation.
Using election data from 2012 to 2018, I show that according to this rule, North Carolina’s congressional redistricting map must be presumed to be a partisan gerrymander.
North Carolina has 13 seats in the House of Representatives. The following table shows, for the Republican party, and for each US House of Representatives election in North Carolina:
[1] the party’s share of the two-party vote in the state;
[2] the number of counties in which the party won the popular vote;
[3] the share of the state’s population in these counties;
[4] the county-based seat benchmark for the Republican party, computed as 13 * [3];
[5] the number of seats the Republican party won according to the election results; and
[6] the artificial partisan advantage for the Republican party, in seats, computed as [5] – [4].
Republican Party \ Election
2012
2014
2016
2018
[1] Vote-share
49.1%
55.8%
53.3%
51.0%
[2] Counties won
57
74
74
72
[3] Population in [2]
44.6%
62.4%
53.7%
51.1%
[4] Benchmark = [2]*13
5.80
8.02
6.98
6.64
[5] Seats won
9
10
10
10
[6] Artificial partisan
advantage, in seats [5]-[4]
3.20
seats
1.98
seats
3.02
seats
3.36
seats
The first two rows are only for illustration, not used in the computation of the county-based seat benchmark, which only counts the population of counties in which a party wins the popular vote.
In the 2012 election to the US House of Representatives in North Carolina, the Republican party won the popular vote in counties with a total population of 4,253,000 inhabitants, which is 44.6% of the state’s population. The county-based seat benchmark is thus 44.6% of North Carolina’s delegation to the House of Representatives, namely, 44.6% * 13 = 5.80 seats. Since the party won 9 seats, its artificial partisan advantage in this election was 9 – 5.80 = 3.20 seats.
In 2014 the Republican party won the popular vote in seventeen additional counties, so its seat benchmark increased, and the party picked up one seat, to obtain a 10-3 majority. In 2016, the Republican vote share ebbed, and while the popular vote flipped from a Democratic majority to a Republican one in three small counties, it flipped from a Republican to a Democratic majority in three larger ones, for a net substantial decrease in the share of total population in counties won by Republicans, and thus in the party’s seat benchmark. Nevertheless, the party kept its 10 seats.
In the 2018 election, the Republican party vote share decreased further, and the popular vote in two additional counties (New Hannover and Richmond, with a combined population of over 249,000 inhabitants) flipped to the Democratic Party, so the share of the population in counties won by the Republican Party decreased to 51.1%, corresponding to 6.64 seats. Nevertheless, according to election day results, the Republican Party yet again won 10 seats, so the artificial partisan advantage increased once more to 10 – 6.64 = 3.36 seats.[1]<https://electionlawblog.org/#_ftn1>
Averaging across all four congressional elections from 2012 to 2018, the artificial partisan advantage for the Republican party in North Carolina was 2.87 seats. Discounting a rounding margin of 0.5 seats, the remainder 2.37 seats is over 18% of the size of the state delegation, above the suggested 10% threshold. Hence the redistricting map, according to this measure, falls under the presumption of being a partisan gerrymander in favor of the GOP.[2]<https://electionlawblog.org/#_ftn2>
The following figure illustrates these results. The evolution from 2014 to 2018 reflects the essence of a successful partisan gerrymander: as the Republican party’s electoral fortunes worsen, counties fall to the Democratic party… but gerrymandered districts do not. The resulting gap is the artificial partisan advantage.
[https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/pic2-2.png]
This result corroborates what was found according to other measures, such as partisan bias or the efficiency gap. Still, this result provides a novel piece of evidence: it shows an artificial partisan advantage intrinsic to this redistricting map, net of any advantage due to sorting. The evidence of an artificial advantage cannot be explained, at all, by the geographic sorting of the population of voters. Supreme Court hearings on the consolidated cases Rucho v Common Cause and Rucho v League of Women Voters about North Carolina’s congressional redistricting map are scheduled for March 26th, 2019. The evidence on the artificial partisan advantage supports the case to uphold the District Court ruling<https://www.leagle.com/decision/279181739fsupp3d58745> that struck down North Carolina’s redistricting map as a partisan gerrymander.
________________________________
[1]<https://electionlawblog.org/#_ftnref1> Under allegations of fraud, results in district NC-9 were later not certified.
[2]<https://electionlawblog.org/#_ftnref2> In fact, in a working paper<http://www.msu.edu/~eguia/measure.pdf> I compute the artificial partisan advantage for all 43 states that draw congressional redistricting maps, and I find that North Carolina’s map is the worst partisan gerrymander in the nation.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
Breaking: “Mark Harris suddenly calls for a new election in the 9th District, leaves hearing”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103697>
Posted on February 21, 2019 12:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103697> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Well the drama continues<https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article226561504.html>:
In a startling statement, Republican candidate Mark Harris Thursday called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District “to restore the confidence of voters.”
Harris’ statement came after a break in a hearing after he had testified about his dealings with Bladen County operative McCrae Dowless. On the stand, Harris said he suffered two strokes in January while hospitalized for a severe infection and was “struggling” to get through the hearing.
After hearing the evidence of absentee ballot fraud, Harris said, “I believe a new election should be called.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
Mark Harris, Defending Himself in #NC09 Controversy, Throws Son Under the Bus<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103695>
Posted on February 21, 2019 10:13 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103695> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
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Amy Gardner<https://twitter.com/AmyEGardner>
✔@AmyEGardner<https://twitter.com/AmyEGardner>
<https://twitter.com/AmyEGardner/status/1098637197245337600>
Mark Harris says "my 27-year-old son" is "a little judgmental and has a little taste of arrogance and some other things. And I'm very proud of him and and love him with all my heart." #nc09<https://twitter.com/hashtag/nc09?src=hash>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Tech Is Not the Enemy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103693>
Posted on February 21, 2019 8:08 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103693> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Adam Ambrogi<https://www.carnegie.org/news/articles/tech-not-enemy/>:
With the 2018 midterm elections, the United States yet again found itself struggling to shape policies around how it casts and counts votes. Alarm bells were set off by everything from voting machine paper jams<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/07/nyregion/voting-problems-nyc-.html> to the security of paperless electronic voting machines<https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/national/article207851784.html>. Politicians and pundits debated against the uneasy backstory of foreign interference in our most recent presidential election, underscoring the work that remains to be done to improve the efficiency and security of our voting systems. But how did we get here? Why is it that one of the most technically advanced nations in the world is experiencing such an acute crisis in the tallying of votes? The answer is not simple — nor does it have a simple solution. However, at this moment, when faith and trust in our democratic system is in jeopardy, it is crucial that we understand the history of voting technology in this country. It is only then that we can begin to understand how the problem can be fixed.
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Posted in voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>
“Why doesn’t the ‘voter fraud’ crowd care about what happened in North Carolina?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103691>
Posted on February 21, 2019 8:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=103691> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
Matt Dunlap<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/20/why-doesnt-voter-fraud-crowd-care-about-what-happened-north-carolina/?utm_term=.89857ee25de3>:
An election may have been stolen in North Carolina. While evidence continues to be gathered, officials are investigating<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-congressional-candidate-says-he-will-ask-nc-court-to-certify-his-victory-as-election-officials-delay-fraud-hearing/2019/01/02/e465f552-0ed3-11e9-8938-5898adc28fa2_story.html> whether a paid Republican campaign contractor collected mail-in ballots<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/north-carolina-election-fraud-investigation-centers-on-operative-with-criminal-history-who-worked-for-gop-congressional-candidate/2018/12/03/7b270a90-f6aa-11e8-8c9a-860ce2a8148f_story.html?utm_term=.e1b4f5a6bac9> from likely Democratic voters and never turned them in, possibly changing the result of the election. It’s a crisis of democracy: State election officials told a hearing<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/nc-election-officials-harris-operative-collected-and-falsified-ballots-then-tried-to-obstruct-state-investigation/2019/02/18/6501347a-339a-11e9-854a-7a14d7fec96a_story.html?utm_term=.f88d4e9f003b> Monday that North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District was subject to a “coordinated, unlawful, and substantially resourced absentee ballot scheme” orchestrated by a GOP operative.
Here’s my question: Where is the voter fraud crowd? You know, the folks who cry “crime” when two people named John Smith vote in the same state? Their silence in the face of seemingly serious election fraud reveals their fundamental bad faith and hucksterism….
Yet these self-styled “guardians of election integrity” are largely silent<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__thinkprogress.org_north-2Dcarolina-2Drepublicans-2Dvoter-2Dfraud-2Ddonald-2Dtrump-2Dpaul-2Dryan-2Dmarco-2Drubio-2Dkris-2Dkobach-2Dmark-2Dharris-2D2018-2Dmidterms-2D744ac43423af_&d=DwQFaQ&c=RAhzPLrCAq19eJdrcQiUVEwFYoMRqGDAXQ_puw5tYjg&r=z5u3mYs2IBA70RvKORXpCG810817uPwdZNEHRluuZO4&m=9O33jdYAgJVscgU5UaFVx9VlJV5K7QDFGzRJotedsQg&s=fwyBKMC3PPDVqFIXwOi1BTMst2R849rr1n8-hRNcamw&e=>. Kobach says he is “concerned<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__thehill.com_homenews_campaign_420192-2Dkobach-2Dvery-2Dconcerned-2Dvoter-2Dfraud-2Dmay-2Dhave-2Dhappened-2Din-2Dnorth-2Dcarolina&d=DwQFaQ&c=RAhzPLrCAq19eJdrcQiUVEwFYoMRqGDAXQ_puw5tYjg&r=z5u3mYs2IBA70RvKORXpCG810817uPwdZNEHRluuZO4&m=9O33jdYAgJVscgU5UaFVx9VlJV5K7QDFGzRJotedsQg&s=FsajrKH657Kep4j8U26okVr96plJp4BhwDZaSfkrMl0&e=>,” but hasn’t called for any additional action; our former commission colleague von Spakovsky is taking the dubious position that the North Carolina experience vindicates<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.dailysignal.com_2018_12_06_election-2Dfraud-2Ddoesnt-2Dexist-2Duntil-2Dliberals-2Dwant-2Dit-2Dto_&d=DwQFaQ&c=RAhzPLrCAq19eJdrcQiUVEwFYoMRqGDAXQ_puw5tYjg&r=z5u3mYs2IBA70RvKORXpCG810817uPwdZNEHRluuZO4&m=9O33jdYAgJVscgU5UaFVx9VlJV5K7QDFGzRJotedsQg&s=iSUo1O7ZFPxZoayLGYQfipFETcDCDr2zzyBGX1xwldU&e=> his to-date unproved claims of widespread voter fraud. Despite Trump’s unfounded claims that “millions” of people voted illegally, costing him the 2016 popular vote, the president, too, has remained silent.
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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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