[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/12/19

Wed Jun 12 20:14:45 PDT 2019

“Mitch McConnell is Making the 2020 Election Open Season for Hackers” (though much of this New Yorker article is about dysfunction or worse at the EAC)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105597>
Posted on June 12, 2019 8:08 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105597> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Sue Halpern must-read.<https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/mitch-mcconnell-is-making-the-2020-election-open-season-for-hackers>
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, Election Assistance Commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=34>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

Trump Says He Would Accept Foreign Government In-Kind Contributions of Opposition Research in the 2020 Elections, in Violation of American Law<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105595>
Posted on June 12, 2019 5:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105595> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Watch the clip<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>:
<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>
[Embedded video]<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1059952422351785986/TzvOPOiF_bigger.jpg]<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry>
<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry>
Evan McMurry<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry>
✔@evanmcmurry<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry>

<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>

EXCLUSIVE: Pres. Trump tells @GStephanopoulos<https://twitter.com/GStephanopoulos> he wouldn't necessarily alert the FBI if approached by foreign figures with information on his 2020 opponent: "It’s not an interference. They have information. I think I’d take it." https://abcn.ws/2R8UZp2 <https://t.co/7gvoAViw9r>
<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1138936855435591681>
4,523<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1138936855435591681>
3:31 PM - Jun 12, 2019<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>
<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>
5,310 people are talking about this<https://twitter.com/evanmcmurry/status/1138936855435591681>

Twitter Ads info and privacy<https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256>

In a few pieces<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/07/donald-trump-jr-s-free-speech-defense-is-as-bogus-as-it-sounds.html> in Slate, I explained<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2017/07/donald-trump-jr-s-free-speech-defense-is-as-bogus-as-it-sounds.htmlhttps:/slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/04/donald-trump-jr-mueller-report-campaign-finance.html> why an offer of free opposition research from a foreign government is a crime, and there is no good First Amendment defense for doing so. (I also have explained that the Steele Dossier involved the payment at market rates from a foreign individual for services, which is legal.) I’m not going to rehash it all here. Click the links for more.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Breaking: Plaintiffs in Census Case Want #SCOTUS to Send Case Back to District Court for More Factfinding if Government Lied About Reason for Citizenship Question; Thoughts on What the Court Will Do<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105593>
Posted on June 12, 2019 5:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105593> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Plaintiffs have filed this unusual motion<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-966/102858/20190612195236397_18-966%20US%20Dept%20of%20Commerce%20v%20State%20of%20New%20York%20et%20al%20NYIC%20Respondents%20Motion%20for%20Limited%20Remand.pdf> in the Supreme Court asking for the Court to send the case back to the district court to engage in factfinding over whether government officials lied about why Secretary Ross decided to include the citizenship question on the census. This is based on newly-discovered evidence on the Hofeller hard drives.

Back on May 30 I had noted<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105359> the problem facing the plaintiffs: the Supreme Court does not hear evidence for the first time; it reviews evidentiary findings of the lower courts. I said there was no good way to get this information before the Supreme Court, especially given the impending printing deadline.

The plaintiffs now say the printing itself could be delayed until October rather than done in July as had been expected. The Court could send the case to the lower courts for a few months, and then decide the case again (perhaps scheduling a rare oral argument in August or September).

What’s the Court likely to do? This is a really unusual procedure, so that alone makes this a motion unlikely to be granted. But it is more complicated. The political stakes though are extraordinarily high. If the Court is otherwise going to side with the government (in a case that I think all reasonable observers must think the government should lose 9-0<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/john-roberts-supreme-court-gerrymandering-cases.html>), this new development (and the failure to allow factfinding about it) makes things much worse. It is not just that we don’t know the official reasons why Secretary Ross included the citizenship question. It is that we now know it was to be included to help push white voting power against Latinos<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/census-memo-supreme-court-conservatives-white-voters-alito.html>, the exact opposite of what the government claimed was the purpose of including the question.

As I asked at <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/john-roberts-supreme-court-gerrymandering-cases.html> Slate<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/john-roberts-supreme-court-gerrymandering-cases.html> <https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/03/john-roberts-supreme-court-gerrymandering-cases.html> back in March, the question is which John Roberts “will show up: the solid conservative who wrote the opinion to kill a key provision<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/12-96> of the Voting Rights Act and voted with four other conservatives to allow corporate money into candidate elections<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html>, or the institutionalist chief justice who is desperate to show that there remains a distinction between law and politics.”

We may have our answer by next week.
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Posted in census litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=125>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

New Hampshire: “Charlestown mother investigated for voter fraud after helping disabled son vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105590>
Posted on June 12, 2019 1:02 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105590> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Valley News:<https://www.vnews.com/Voting-concerns-in-Charlestown-26199334>

When Dee Milliken took her 19-year-old son to vote in November, she hoped the experience would strengthen his ties to the community.
Justin Milliken, who has cerebral palsy and a seizure condition and uses a wheelchair, is nonverbal and largely communicates through grunts and facial expressions. But his mother assumed that with a little help, he could participate in elections.

More than six months later, she’s no longer sure that’s the case.
Poll workers last fall made the process difficult, Dee Milliken said, and have questioned whether Justin Milliken was mentally capable of casting a ballot. Then last Friday, she received a call from the New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office from an official investigating whether she committed voter fraud seven months ago by helping her son fill out the ballot, she said.
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Posted in voters with disabilities<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=71>

“Trump Asserts Executive Privilege on 2020 Census Documents”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105588>
Posted on June 12, 2019 12:55 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105588> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/12/us/politics/us-census-2020-trump.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>:

President Trump on Wednesday invoked executive privilege to block Congress from obtaining documents about how a citizenship question was added to the 2020 census, ahead of a House committee vote to recommend that two cabinet secretaries be held in contempt of Congress over the matter.
In a letter to the chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the Justice Department said that Mr. Trump had decided to invoke his secrecy powers because Mr. Cummings had “chosen to go forward with an unnecessary and premature contempt vote.” The letter came just as Mr. Cummings was convening the panel to consider a contempt recommendation for Attorney General William P. Barr and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
While Mr. Cummings put off the vote for several hours to allow lawmakers to review Mr. Trump’s privilege assertion, he made it clear that he did not intend to back down, escalating the latest battle between the House and the president over the Constitution’s separation of powers.

No wonder they are continuing to fight: The materials could well reveal that Secretary Ross and others lied to Congress.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Canada: “Taking Youth Seriously: Reconsidering the Constitutionality of the Voting Age”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105585>
Posted on June 12, 2019 11:27 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105585> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Colin Feasby analysis.<https://ablawg.ca/2019/06/11/taking-youth-seriously-reconsidering-the-constitutionality-of-the-voting-age/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“These voters are using democracy vouchers to influence Seattle’s City Council races”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105583>
Posted on June 12, 2019 11:24 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105583> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Seattle Times:<https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/candidates-for-seattle-city-council-have-collected-1-6-million-in-democracy-vouchers-so-far/>
[https://static.seattletimes.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/vouchers-democracy-W.jpg]
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Ocasio-Cortez: Why are Kobach’s ‘fingerprints’ on controversial Census question?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105581>
Posted on June 12, 2019 9:34 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105581> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The KC Star reports<https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/news-columns-blogs/the-buzz/article231472803.html>.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D105581&title=%E2%80%9COcasio-Cortez%3A%20Why%20are%20Kobach%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%98fingerprints%E2%80%99%20on%20controversial%20Census%20question%3F%E2%80%9D>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Experiment will gauge how citizenship question affects Census return rates”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105579>
Posted on June 12, 2019 7:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=105579> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP reports.<https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/bureau-preps-census-with-and-without-citizenship-question/>
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Posted in census litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=125>

--
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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