[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/12/19

Mon Mar 11 20:09:11 PDT 2019

“Federal investigators issue subpoenas in NC-9 investigation”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104123>
Posted on March 11, 2019 8:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104123> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WBTV<http://www.wbtv.com/2019/03/12/federal-investigators-issue-subpoenas-nc-investigation/>:

The Department of Justice has issued subpoenas<https://www.scribd.com/document/401650118/Grand-Jury-Subpoena#from_embed> for a federal grand jury investigation into allegations of election fraud in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.

The US Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section has issued at least three subpoenas for documents related to the 9th District.

The subpoenas come less than a month after the North Carolina State Board of Elections voted unanimously to hold a new election in the 9th District. The vote came at the abrupt end of a four-day evidentiary hearing held by the board that concluded with Republican Mark Harris–the candidate who received the winning number of votes in the November 2018 content–admitting he had given incorrect testimony and calling for a new election.

The question is why the federal government has waited so long to get involved in this.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

Iowa Looks to Make It Harder for Students and Others to Vote (for Apparently No Good Reason)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104121>
Posted on March 11, 2019 4:56 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104121> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Des Moines Register:<https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/07/election-2020-iowa-senate-bill-public-universities-early-satellite-voting-campus-absentee-ballots/3079160002/>

Students at Iowa’s public universities would not be allowed to vote early on campus under a wide-ranging election bill that advanced in the Iowa Senate this week.
The expansive measure would also make changes to other state election laws. Should it become law, the bill would shorten the number of hours polling places are open on Election Day, change the rules for absentee ballots to require them to be delivered by the time the polls close and require a county’s property tax information to be included on the ballot for bond measures.
One of the bill’s provisions would prevent satellite voting locations from being set up “in any state-owned building.” Critics say that unfairly targets the state’s three public universities — the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa — while allowing private schools to continue providing satellite voting opportunities on campus.
Those who voted at the University of Iowa sites in the last two elections tended to be overwhelmingly Democratic.

And it looks like they are making a bogus “uniformity” argument to justify the anti-student provision. Here’s why<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2497192> such “uniformity” arguments don’t hold water.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Wisconsin: “State finds two dozen possible cases of voter fraud over past year”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104119>
Posted on March 11, 2019 4:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104119> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wisconsin State Journal<https://madison.com/wsj/news/local/govt-and-politics/state-finds-two-dozen-possible-cases-of-voter-fraud-over/article_856de2c6-2692-53c2-be4d-a0ed1fefffa3.html>:

The Wisconsin Elections Commission found two dozen cases of suspected voter fraud or other voting irregularities in the past year’s elections after a statewide review.

The commission documented 24 cases of suspected fraud, such as voters reportedly voting twice in an election, convicted felons casting a ballot, a voter no longer residing at his or her registered address or, in one case, a non-citizen reportedly voting. Other cases involved voters on an ineligible list trying to cast a ballot as well as a deceased voter’s absentee ballot being counted.

The commission received the reports from municipal clerks, who are required by law to provide them. Municipal clerks are also required to submit the information to their respective district attorneys. The list is not necessarily comprehensive. The twenty-four possible cases represent a tiny fraction of the roughly 2.7 million votes cast in the November midterms.

Whether district attorneys have decided to prosecute the alleged voter fraud cases is unknown to the commission. Commission spokesman Reid Magney said it’s also unclear to the commission whether the suspected voters cast ballots or were prevented from doing so. Magney said many of the cases were discovered in post-election audits.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Argument preview: Virginia racial gerrymandering case returns to Supreme Court”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104117>
Posted on March 11, 2019 4:24 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104117> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Very readable Amy Howe preview<http://%20https/www.scotusblog.com/2019/03/argument-preview-virginia-racial-gerrymandering-case-returns-to-supreme-court/> at SCOTUSBlog of Bethune Hill II.
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>, Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“Election Watchdog Hits Jeb Bush’s Super-PAC With Massive Fine for Taking Money From Foreign Nationals”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104115>
Posted on March 11, 2019 3:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104115> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Mother Jones:<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/03/jeb-bush-super-pac-fec-fine-neil-right-to-rise-apic-gordon-tang/>

The Federal Election Commission has hit Right to Rise USA, the super-PAC that backed Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential bid, with a record fine for accepting a seven-figure donation from a company owned by Chinese nationals who were in business with Bush’s brother, Neil, according to FEC documents obtained by Mother Jones. It is illegal for foreign nationals to be involved in making donations to political committees.
Neil Bush, who has extensive business dealings in China, solicited the $1.3 million contribution from American Pacific International Capital (APIC), an international investment holding company where Neil is a board member. Although the contribution to Jeb’s super-PAC came from the American arm of APIC, the company’s owners are Chinese, and Neil Bush initially solicited the money from two Chinese nationals—Gordon Tang, the chair of APIC, and Huaidan Chen, a board member. The FEC has fined APIC $550,000 and Right to Rise $390,000.
The total combined fine against Bush’s super-PAC and APIC, which has not previously been reported, is $940,000, the largest amount levied in a single case against anyone since the 2010 Citizens United ruling<https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/05/james-bopp-citizens-united/>. The penalty is also the biggest fine that the FEC has ever handed down due to foreign national participation. “This is a big, big fine, one of the biggest fines in FEC history,” says Brendan Fischer from the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Texas again mistakenly flags voters for citizenship reviews”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104113>
Posted on March 11, 2019 3:32 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104113> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Texas Tribune<https://www.texastribune.org/2019/03/11/texas-again-mistakenly-flags-voters-citizenship-reviews/?utm_campaign=trib-social-buttons&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social>:

The list of missteps in the Texas secretary of state’s review of the voter rolls for supposed noncitizens grew again Monday, when the office inadvertently added additional people to its already flawed list of voters flagged for citizenship checks.

Blaming a vendor for the error, a spokesman for the secretary of state’s office confirmed new names were sent to certain counties for possible investigation. The mistake occurred while state election officials were analyzing new data from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

As with the state’s initial review of previous years’ data, the secretary of state obtained a list of individuals who had visited DPS offices during January and February and indicated they were not U.S. citizens. The goal was to match those names with individuals on the state’s voter rolls and eventually send that list of names to counties for possible investigations.
But the secretary of state’s office was not ready to send out those lists when some counties received them Monday.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Facebook and Twitter Turned to TurboVote to Drive Registrations. Officials Want Them to Turn Away.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104111>
Posted on March 11, 2019 3:29 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104111> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ProPublica<https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-and-twitter-turned-to-turbovote-to-drive-registrations-officials-want-them-to-turn-away>:

n 2018, Facebook and Twitter decided to play a role in helping people register to vote in what promised to be a momentous midterm election. To do so, the social media platforms directed users almost exclusively to a website called TurboVote, run by a nonprofit organization known as Democracy Works. TurboVote was launched in 2012, and it promised to streamline voter registration and remind people to cast ballots on Election Day.

Evidently, things did not go seamlessly.

The National Association of Secretaries of State, or NASS, whose members oversee elections in all 50 states, has claimed that TurboVote occasionally failed to properly process registrations, and that in other instances it failed to notify people who thought they had registered to vote but had not actually completed the necessary forms.

The TurboVote website went down when it couldn’t handle the volume of attempted registrations on Sept. 25, 2018 — National Voter Registration Day — and the organization was unwittingly used in a scam when someone pretending to be an employee of TurboVote attempted to convince eager voters to share their personal information over the phone.

As a result, NASS has written to Facebook<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5764130-3-7-19-NASS-Letter> and Twitter<https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5764129-3-7-19-NASS-Letter-to-Twitt> asking them to end their relationships with TurboVote as the 2020 election cycle gets underway. The association is asking the social media companies to simply direct prospective voters to government sites with accurate information on how to register.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voter registration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>

Voting Machine Vendors Looking Defensive, Giving Answers Undermining Confidence in Voting Machine Security<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104109>
Posted on March 11, 2019 11:56 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104109> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Thread:<https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1104746464536875009>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/581572256683311104/AnXir1NC_bigger.jpg]<https://twitter.com/rad_atl>
<https://twitter.com/rad_atl>
Richard DeMillo at rad_atl<https://twitter.com/rad_atl>

<https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1104746464536875009>

1/I have Dominion's response to Friday's letter from NY Board of Elections. A rare glimpse into anti-security mindset of voting machine vendors. Hacking concerns may delay Westchester's $6.1M plan to buy new voting machines https://www.lohud.com/story/news/local/westchester/2019/03/08/hackers-voting-machines-imagecast-evolution/3078807002/ …<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu> via @lohud<https://twitter.com/lohud>
READ THIS THREAD
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130<https://twitter.com/intent/like?tweet_id=1104746464536875009>
7:10 AM - Mar 10, 2019<https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1104746464536875009>
Twitter Ads info and privacy<https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175256>
<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/card_img/1101625745426780161/nQzoC8Po?format=jpg&name=600x314]<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu>
Hacking concerns may delay Westchester's $6.1M plan to buy new voting machines<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu>

Basic design flaw identified by Princeton professor may delay Westchester lawmaker vote to buy $6 million worth of new voting machines.<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu>
lohud.com<https://t.co/zmoTv93PJu>

<https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1104746464536875009>
98 people are talking about this<https://twitter.com/rad_atl/status/1104746464536875009>

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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>

NYT Story on NRATV Reveals Possible Tax Code Violations, Self-Dealing<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104107>
Posted on March 11, 2019 11:44 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104107> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Must-read story.<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/11/us/nra-video-streaming-nratv.html>
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, tax law and election law<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=22>

DOJ Will Ask SCOTUS to Bypass 9th Circuit, and Hear Second Census Citizenship Question Case with NY Case at April 23 Oral Argument<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104105>
Posted on March 11, 2019 9:37 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=104105> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>
[https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/1027236869476573184/PFqQJu6__bigger.jpg]<https://twitter.com/rickhasen>
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Rick Hasen<https://twitter.com/rickhasen>
✔@rickhasen<https://twitter.com/rickhasen>

<https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1105144966483857413>

This would add a whole other layer of complexity to the issue, raising constitutional questions that the parties were not briefing for the New York case.
Then again, if the Court is going to have to address these issues on an abbreviated time frame, the sooner the better.
<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1105144538933456902>
Hansi Lo Wang<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1105144538933456902>
✔@hansilowang<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1105144538933456902>

UPDATE: Trump admin plans to ask Supreme Court for sped-up review of California ruling against #2020census #citizenshipquestion that would bypass 9th Circuit. SG Noel Francisco says court should consolidate CA and NY cases for April 23 #SCOTUS hearing[👇]https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-966/91507/20190311115527972_18-966%20letter.pdf …<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1105144538933456902>
[View image on Twitter]<https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1105144538933456902>

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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

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