[EL] ELB News and Commentary 11/5/19

[Rick Hasen]

“Marsy’s Law ballot question will appear in Pa., but state Supreme Court says votes won’t be counted for now”; Odd Decision of Pa. Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107916>
Posted on November 4, 2019 8:17 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107916> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Philly Inquirer:<https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/marsys-law-pennsylvania-crime-victim-rights-ballot-question-20191030.html>

If you’ve turned on network television in Pennsylvania in the last several weeks, you’ve probably been treated to political advertising in the form of the actor Kelsey Grammer telling the story of how, after his father was shot and killed, he found out about the killer’s release through a tabloid.
The actor and other advocates have been drumming up support for Marsy’s Law, a proposed constitutional amendment that Pennsylvania voters will see on election ballots on Tuesday — but those votes won’t be counted or certified until state courts decide whether Marsy’s Law is constitutional.

A divided state Supreme Court on Monday upheld a lower court ruling by Commonwealth Court Judge Ellen Ceisler, who last week ruled partially in favor of the<http://www.pacourts.us/assets/files/setting-6975/file-8123.pdf?cb=818a03> League of Women Voters and others who challenged the proposed amendment. Ceisler concluded Marsy’s Law would, if passed, have “immediate, profound, and in some instances, irreversible, consequences on the constitutional rights of the accused and in the criminal justice system.”

This seems to me to be quite odd, and will potentially affect the votes in the election. Seems the better course would have been to simply stay the effect of the law if it passes, rather than stop the votes from being counted.
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Posted in direct democracy<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=62>


California: “Voting Rights Victory for Limited-English Citizens”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107914>
Posted on November 4, 2019 7:55 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107914> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ACLU:<https://www.aclunc.org/news/voting-rights-victory-limited-english-citizens>

The California Court of Appeal ruled<https://www.aclunc.org/docs/AAAJ_v_Padilla_Ct_of_Apl.pdf> today that Secretary of State Alex Padilla erred when he issued a directive<http://elections.cdn.sos.ca.gov/ccrov/pdf/2017/december/17148sr.pdf> to county election officials in 2017 that deprives tens of thousands of California voters of the language assistance to which they are entitled under state law.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“NC’s congressional district redraw starts Tuesday”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107912>
Posted on November 4, 2019 2:42 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107912> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WRAL:<https://www.wral.com/nc-s-congressional-district-redraw-starts-tuesday/18743971/>

The nuts and bolts of yet another North Carolina redistricting will start getting laid out Tuesday when legislative leaders huddle on the state’s court-challenged congressional maps.
House and Senate leadership announced the committee late Monday, appointing the usual suspects to oversee the process. The interim committee on redistricting plans to meet at 1 p.m. Tuesday in Room 544 of the Legislative Office Building.
The meeting is open to the public.
A three-judge panel last week ordered the state not to proceed<https://www.wral.com/judges-say-nc-congressional-district-map-no-good-for-2020-primaries-could-be-delayed/18729162/> with the 2020 elections under the current congressional map, saying it may soon be declared an illegal partisan gerrymander under the North Carolina constitution. The judges didn’t order the General Assembly to redraw the map yet, but lawmakers expect that’s coming and are taking preemptive steps, as the court said they could.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“‘We Must Fix This.’ John Oliver Casts a Vote for Improved Election Security on Last Week Tonight”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107910>
Posted on November 4, 2019 1:59 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107910> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Time <https://www.yahoo.com/news/must-fix-john-oliver-casts-084613930.html> with the link to the segment<https://youtu.be/svEuG_ekNT0>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>
“Are you supporting Trump with that underwear purchase?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107908>
Posted on November 4, 2019 1:57 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107908> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Star-Ledger editorial.<https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/11/are-you-supporting-trump-with-that-underwear-purchase-editorial.html>
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“New BPC Report on Polling Place Lines: Minority Precincts Have Much Longer Wait Times”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107906>
Posted on November 4, 2019 1:54 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107906> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://bipartisanpolicy.org/press-release/new-bpc-report-on-polling-place-lines-minority-precincts-have-much-longer-wait-times/>:

Using data from the 2018 midterm elections, the Bipartisan Policy Center today released the largest-ever observational study<https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-2018-voting-experience/> on wait times in polling places. The research, conducted with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found that the overall average wait time to vote in the United States was 8.9 minutes. However, precincts with a high percentage of minority voters, renters, and lower incomes saw significantly longer wait times.

“In precincts with 10% or fewer voters, the average wait time was only 5.1 minutes,” says BPC Elections Project Director Matthew Weil<https://bipartisanpolicy.org/person/matthew-weil/>, a co-author of the study. “But in precincts with 90% or more minority voters, the average wait time climbed to an astounding 32.4 minutes.”

The study, called The 2018 Voting Experience: Polling Place Lines<https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-2018-voting-experience/>, also found that lines are far more common at the beginning of the day, with 69% of precincts experiencing their longest lines within the first hour of voting. The data shows that if long lines are not resolved within the first two hours, long wait times at the polls are likely to occur for the rest of the day.

The study<https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/the-2018-voting-experience/> spanned 3,119 precincts, 211 jurisdictions, and 11 states, accounting for 10.5 million votes cast—9% of nationwide turnout. Jurisdiction size ranged from Metz Township, MI, with 230 registered voters, to San Diego County, CA, with nearly 3 million registered voters.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Court Lifts Confidentiality on Hofeller Files in Several Key States”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107904>
Posted on November 4, 2019 1:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107904> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Common Cause:<https://www.commoncause.org/media/court-permits-the-release-of-hofeller-files-in-several-key-states/>

Today Wake County Superior Court Judge Vince Rozier lifted a confidentiality designation<https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/2019.11.04-Order-on-Confidential-Files.pdf> on more than one hundred thousand documents created by the late Thomas Hofeller, the Republican operative responsible for many of the most controversial GOP gerrymanders of the last decade.

The order lifts a confidentiality designation on documents pertaining to Arizona, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and Nassau County, Nueces County and Galveston in Texas. The court gave Hofeller’s former company, Geographic Strategies, more time to substantiate a claim on other files that it has said are proprietary.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“First Amendment (Un)Exceptionalism: A Comparative Taxonomy of Campaign Finance Reform Proposals in the US and UK”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107902>
Posted on November 4, 2019 1:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107902> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Lori Ringhand has posted this draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3475526&dgcid=ejournal_htmlemail_u.s.:constitutional:law:rights:liberties:ejournal_abstractlink> on SSRN (forthcoming, Ohio State L.J.). Here is the abstract:

There is an urgent conversation happening among the world’s democracies about how to respond to the combined threat of online electioneering and foreign interference in domestic elections. Despite the shadow such activities cast over the 2016 presidential election in the United States, the US has been largely absent from comparative discussions about how to tackle the problem. This is not just because of a recalcitrant president. The assumption that America’s “First Amendment Exceptionalism” – the idea that American freedom of expression law is simply too much of an outlier to warrant useful comparative consideration – is strong on both sides of the Atlantic. This is especially true in regard to the regulation of political campaigns.

This article challenges that assumption, and argues that America’s more libertarian approach to the legal regulation of political speech does not pose a barrier to fruitful comparative work in this area. It does so by comparing the law of the US to that of the UK. Specifically, it organizes reform proposals being considered in the US and UK into a common taxonomy, and sets out the legal standard governing each type of proposal in each country. Considering each country’s law through this organizational structure allows us to see that the legal differences between the US and UK, while significant, rarely bar the types of changes being considered in either nation. Indeed, the two countries have much to learn from each other’s efforts in this area, and lawmakers, regulators, and scholars should not hesitate to engage with the experiences of their transatlantic peers.

In reaching this conclusion, the paper makes three distinct contributions. First, by clustering reform proposals into a taxonomy, it provides a structure for comparative work that will be useful not just in the US and UK, but in all countries working to bring their election laws fully into the internet era. Second, by providing an in-depth yet accessible guide to the legal structures undergirding election law in the US and UK, it provides a useful tool for scholars attempting to understand these systems. The US system in particular is often quickly dismissed by other nations, but without a deeper understanding of how and why US law has ended up as it has those nations risk inadvertently following in its footsteps. Finally, it identifies several concrete areas where the US and UK can benefit from each other’s expertise, thereby providing a roadmap for regulators, lawmakers, and reform advocates in both countries.
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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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