[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/17/20

Fri Apr 17 08:48:07 PDT 2020

“LWV Virginia Files Lawsuit to Protect Absentee Voters During COVID-19”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110808>
Posted on April 17, 2020 8:29 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110808> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://www.lwv.org/newsroom/press-releases/lwv-virginia-files-lawsuit-protect-absentee-voters-during-covid-19?utm_source=PressRelease&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=04172020>:

Friday morning, the League of Women Voters of Virginia filed a challenge to the state’s witness signature requirement for absentee ballots. With the increased demand for absentee ballots due to COVID-19, the witness requirement presents a burden for voters’ health and safety.

“The witness signature requirement creates a health risk during the COVID-19 pandemic and threatens to disenfranchise voters who live alone or otherwise do not have access to a witness for their ballot,” said Deb Wake, president of the League of Women Voters of Virginia. “Because African American voters are disproportionately impacted by the virus, the witness requirement presents greater risk to this community’s voting rights.”

Prior to filing litigation, election officials were contacted multiple times asking them to clarify what is expected of voters during COVID-19. Following a lack of response, the League filed this lawsuit against the Virginia State Board of Elections, the Chair, Vice Chair, and Secretary of the Virginia State Board of Elections, and the Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Elections in order to resolve the witness requirement question before ballots are cast in the next election.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>

Pam Fessler: “Coronavirus Likely To Supercharge Election-Year Lawsuits Over Voting Rights”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110806>
Posted on April 17, 2020 8:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110806> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Pam Fessler<https://www.npr.org/2020/04/17/836671427/coronavirus-likely-to-supercharge-election-year-lawsuits-over-voting-rights> for NPR:

Election year legal battles around voting procedures are nothing new. But their scope and intensity are growing this year amid deep partisan polarization and the logistical challenges presented by the coronavirus pandemic. The legal fights are expected to heat up in the coming weeks.

Exhibit A is a new lawsuit filed by Democrats in Nevada Thursday challenging the state’s plans to conduct a mostly all-mail primary June 2 and to drastically limit in-person polling sites. Democrats say the moves — including automatically sending ballots only to active voters who have taken part in recent elections, but not all registered ones — are an infringement of voter rights.

Republicans counter that Democrats want to overturn rules intended to protect the integrity of the state’s elections and would unnecessarily put voters’ health at risk.
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>

Charles Stewart’s Must-Read: Wisconsin Election Takeaways: State Ramped Up Absentee Voting from 10 Percent to 70 Percent; About 16,000 Fewer Voters in Milwaukee Thanks to Pandemic; State Will Need to Double Mail Capacity for November<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110804>
Posted on April 17, 2020 8:19 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110804> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Here<https://www.mischiefsoffaction.com/post/important-lessons-from-the-wisconsin-primary> at MOF.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“House Democrats Back Changing Rules to Allow Remote Voting During Pandemic”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110802>
Posted on April 17, 2020 8:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110802> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/16/us/politics/house-coronavirus-remote-voting.html>:

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday threw her support behind a plan to allow House members to cast votes by proxy, conceding for the first time that the coronavirus pandemic<https://www.nytimes.com/news-event/coronavirus> that has forced Congress into an extended recess would require historic modifications to how the institution has operated for centuries.

The announcement was a stark shift for Ms. Pelosi, who as recently as last week dismissed the idea of remote voting, which would require a change to House rules. Speaking to reporters shortly after noon by teleconference, she said the issue was not yet settled — “It’s not as easy as you might think” — but made clear that she believed change was coming.

“Everybody’s working so hard on all of these initiatives, including on how we can come together, whether it’s by proxy voting or remote voting or whatever it is,” Ms. Pelosi said then. “When we are ready, we will do it.”

A few hours after Ms. Pelosi spoke, Representative Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the Rules Committee chairman who has been studying the issue at the speaker’s request, briefed his fellow Democrats on a private conference call on his recommendation that House rules be changed to allow remote voting by proxy during the pandemic.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>

Video: “Joint Center Hosts Online Briefing with CBC Staff on Accessible Vote-by-Mail and Safe In-Person Voting in Black Communities”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110800>
Posted on April 17, 2020 8:03 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110800> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://jointcenter.org/joint-center-hosts-online-briefing-with-cbc-staff-on-accessible-vote-by-mail-and-safe-in-person-voting-in-black-communities/>:

On Wednesday, April 15, the Joint Center hosted an online briefing on accessible vote-by-mail and safe in-person voting for Black communities. The session—organized in partnership with the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights<https://civilrights.org/> and NAACP LDF<https://www.naacpldf.org/>— explored safeguards necessary to ensure an accessible vote-by-mail system that does not dilute Black votes, and ensures sanitized and uncrowded in-person polling places.

The expert panelists included:

Fair Fight Founder Stacey Abrams

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson

Black Voters Matter Fund Co-Founder LaTosha Brown

Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law President Kristen Clarke

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights President Vanita Gupta

NAACP LDF President and Director-Counsel Sherrilyn Ifill

Joint Center President Spencer Overton

[With link to video]
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>

Georgia: “Lawsuit demands Spanish absentee ballot applications in Gwinnett”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110798>
Posted on April 16, 2020 4:11 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110798> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AJC reports.<https://www.ajc.com/news/local/lawsuit-demands-spanish-absentee-ballot-applications-gwinnett/3Earr6IjzbeJ5NWGReJ6AJ/>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>

“Free Speech For People Publishes Guide for Safe Voting During COVID-19 Pandemic”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110795>
Posted on April 16, 2020 10:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110795> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://freespeechforpeople.org/free-speech-for-people-publishes-guide-for-safe-voting-during-covid-19-pandemic/>:

Free Speech For People published today a report<https://freespeechforpeople.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/FSFP-Report-on-Safe-Voting-04-07-2020-11.pdf> entitled: “Safe Voting During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” in collaboration with Dr. Joia Mukherjee, a physician, clinical researcher, and educator trained in Infectious Disease, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and public health at the Massachusetts General Hospital and the Harvard School of Public Health, and Mark Ritchie, an election management expert, advisor to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, and Minnesota’s Secretary of State from 2007-15. The report identifies voting machines themselves as possible vectors of infection in the novel coronavirus pandemic, and examines the consequences and possible remedies. While some states have already begun postponing primary elections, the guide outlines four legal and policy changes every state should make to ensure a safe, accessible, and trustworthy election.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Wisconsin: “After losing election, state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly signals he will participate in voter rolls case”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110792>
Posted on April 16, 2020 10:06 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110792> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports<https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/politics/2020/04/16/wisconsin-election-justice-kelly-signals-hell-join-voter-purge-case/5143755002/?fbclid=IwAR1Jel9fbJWvpOeXDy16QdigD0_wNVtwnZV5H8Nx92CKgT4dUbdhHpN5Nd8>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“The Neutral Partisan Effects of Vote-by-Mail: Evidence from County-Level Roll-Outs”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110790>
Posted on April 16, 2020 9:34 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110790> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Important new study<http://www.andrewbenjaminhall.com/Thompson_et_al_VBM.pdf> from Stanford’s Daniel Thompson, Jennifer Wu, Jesse Yoder and Andrew Hall. Here is the abstract:

In response to COVID-19, many scholars and policymakers are urging the U.S. to implement a nationwide system of voting-by-mail to safeguard the electoral process. What are the effects of vote-by-mail programs? In this paper, we provide a comprehensive design-based analysis of the effect of vote-by-mail on electoral outcomes. We collect data from 1996-2018 on all three U.S. states who implemented vote-by-mail in a staggered fashion across counties, allowing us to use a difference-in-differences design at the county level to estimate the causal effect of vote-by-mail programs. We find that: (1) vote-by-mail does not appear to affect either party’s share of turnout; (2) vote-by-mail does not appear to increase either party’s vote share; and (3) vote-by-mail modestly increases overall average turnout rates, in line with previous estimates. All three conclusions support the conventional wisdom of election administration experts and contradict many popular claims in the media

WaPo coverage<https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/16/universal-vote-by-mail-doesnt-benefit-any-political-party-study-finds/?utm_campaign=wp_main&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook>.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

Texas Expected to Appeal Court Decision Expanding Excuses for Absentee Balloting to Include Fear of Contracting COVID-10<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110788>
Posted on April 16, 2020 8:41 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110788> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Dallas Morning News reports.<https://www.dallasnews.com/news/public-health/2020/04/15/texas-ag-ken-paxton-fear-of-contracting-coronavirus-doesnt-qualify-voters-for-mail-ballots/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Judge+says+all+Texans+should+be+able+to+vote+by+mail+due+to+virus+fears+Congressional+candidates+haul+in+campaign+cash+despite+pandemic++Trump+s+authority+questions&utm_campaign=Politics_04162020>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Chad Flanders and Sean Oliveira: Changing the rules in the middle of a pandemic”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110786>
Posted on April 16, 2020 8:35 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=110786> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Interesting oped<https://www.stltoday.com/opinion/columnists/chad-flanders-and-sean-oliveira-changing-the-rules-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/article_21a6544d-2c51-5c9e-b0fb-e92fa5e27d9b.html> in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
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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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