[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/14/19

Fri Sep 13 20:27:21 PDT 2019

“Montgomery County Public Elections Fund Successfully Encourages and Empowers Small Donors”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107328>
Posted on September 13, 2019 2:38 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107328> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:<https://marylandpirg.org/news/mdp/montgomery-co-public-election-fund-successfully-encourages-and-empowers-small-donors-1>

A report released today by Maryland PIRG Foundation<https://marylandpirg.org/reports/mdp/fair-elections-montgomery-county-0> finds that the Montgomery County Public Election Fund is working as intended, and is encouraging more small donor participation. The report finds that individual donors participated at a higher rate when candidates participated in the small donor program.

CANDIDATES WHO QUALILFIED FOR THE PROGRAM RECEIVED MORE THAN 96% MORE INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTIONS THAN CANDIDATES WHO DID NOT PARTICIPATE IN THE PROGRAM. (850 VS 434)

The fundraising data from the 2018 election also revealed that the small donor matching program is reducing the influence of big money and enabling people to run for office based on support from the community instead of access to large donors.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Washington, Silicon Valley Struggle to Unify on Protecting Elections”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107326>
Posted on September 13, 2019 2:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107326> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ<https://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-silicon-valley-struggle-to-unify-on-protecting-elections-11568392455?mod=djemalertNEWS>:

U.S. national-security officials traveled to Silicon Valley last week to forge deeper ties with big tech companies in hopes of better protecting the 2020 election from foreign intervention. It didn’t go entirely as planned.

At the meeting organized by Facebook<https://quotes.wsj.com/FB> Inc. at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., Shelby Pierson—named over the summer to lead the U.S. intelligence community’s new election-threats group—delivered a blunt message to the assembled executives: You need to share more data with us about your users.

The executives and other U.S. officials in the room were caught off guard by Ms. Pierson’s assertion, according to people in attendance or briefed on the conversation. After a tense moment, another official explained that privacy law limited what social-media platforms could hand over to spy agencies.

A Twitter<https://quotes.wsj.com/TWTR> Inc. executive then offered a rebuke: The Trump administration was failing to share enough information with tech firms about election threats, not the other way around, the executive told the room.
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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>

Nate Persily Appointed as Referee in North Carolina State Partisan Gerrymandering Case: What It Means<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107322>
Posted on September 13, 2019 9:50 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107322> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The three-judge state court which found North Carolina’s legislative districts to be unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders under that state’s constitution has appointed<https://twitter.com/mel_bough/status/1172548834733547520> Stanford professor Nate Persily as the referee/special master in the case<http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org/2019/09/13/judges-appoint-referee-in-partisan-gerrymandering-case-give-lawmakers-1-more-day-to-make-maps/>. This means that Persily at the least will evaluate for the court the maps that the state’s legislature is expected to pass this week, and if the judges are dissatisfied with what the North Carolina General Assembly has come up with, Persily will draw maps to be used for state legislative elections.

To begin with, it seems fairly likely that the court will call on Persily to draw new maps. The maps are being drawn by the NCGA in a strange way by beginning with some maps that were introduced into evidence in the lawsuit to demonstrate the bias of the old plan; these are not being drawn on a bipartisan basis. And the House just gave a few minutes notice before allowing for public comments on the map. This is not the kind of procedure I expect will endear the NCGA to the court, a court which already found unconstitutional action.

What kind of maps will Persily draw? I expect based on his track record that he will draw fair maps that will disappoint both sides. Almost by definition, the maps will provide less Republican advantage than the old maps. While Republicans will likely accuse Persily of bias (and did when he drew less Republican, but still Republican-leaning maps to cure partisan gerrymandering in congressional maps under the Pennsylvania state constitution), Democrats were not happy with the maps Persily drew in Georgia in the Larios case, and Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi was not happy with maps Persily drew in a New York case. Both Democrats and Republicans have called for Persily to draw fair maps in the past.

But Democrats will likely be disappointed in that the maps are likely to still have a pro-Republican bias. That’s because the three-judge North Carolina court has limited the parameters of what the remedial map is supposed to do, and a lot of that can’t be touched by what Persily does.

But whatever Persily does, it is likely to produce a fairer outcome than the old maps found to be among the most extreme gerrymanders in the country. (Persily is not charged with redrawing the congressional maps which were at issue in the U.S. Supreme Court’s Rucho case; that was not at issue in this lawsuit and it may be too late<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107202> to challenge them in time for the 2020 elections).
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>

“A New Look At The Chaos Trump’s Voter Fraud Panel Caused At DHS”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107320>
Posted on September 13, 2019 9:08 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=107320> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tierney Sneed<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/prime/dhs-voter-fraud-commission-kobach> for TPM (behind paywall):

We already know from various court filings<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kobach-doj-at-odds-voter-fraud-probes-next-steps> that President Trump’s voter fraud commission — and Kris Kobach’s claims<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kobach-voter-commission-panel-dhs-take-over>, after its dissolution, that the Department of Homeland of Security was continuing its work — caused the administration a major headache.

But now, thanks to hundreds of pages of DHS emails that were released on Thursday <https://www.dhs.gov/publication/presidential-advisory-commission-election-integrity>  as part of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, we have a behind-the-scenes look at the chaos the commission and its dissolution caused the agency.

The emails also suggest the Department was more involved with the commission’s work than originally known, and the emails give more details on DHS’ decision-making process as it considered continuing the commission’s work once it was disbanded.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

--
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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