[EL] ELB News and Commentary 8/20/20

Wed Aug 19 20:53:42 PDT 2020

Trump Phone Calls Add to Lingering Questions About Russian Interference”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114267>
Posted on August 19, 2020 8:51 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114267> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/us/politics/trump-stone-investigation.html>

More than 200 pages into a sprawling, 1,000-page report<https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/senate-intelligence-committee-russian-interference/8cf58e574d235164/full.pdf> on Russian election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee made a startling conclusion endorsed by both Republicans and Democrats: Donald J. Trump knew of and discussed stolen Democratic emails at critical points late in his 2016 presidential campaign.

The Republican-led committee rejected Mr. Trump’s statement to prosecutors investigating Russia’s interference that he did not recall conversations with his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. about the emails, which were later released by WikiLeaks. Senators leveled a blunt assessment: “Despite Trump’s recollection, the committee assesses that Trump did, in fact, speak with Stone about WikiLeaks and with members of his campaign about Stone’s access to WikiLeaks on multiple occasions.”

The senators did not accuse Mr. Trump of lying in their report, released Tuesday, the fifth and final volume from a three-year investigation<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/18/us/politics/senate-intelligence-russian-interference-report.html> that laid out extensive contacts between Trump advisers and Russians. But the report detailed even more of the president’s conversations with Mr. Stone than were previously known, renewing questions about whether Mr. Trump was truthful with investigators for the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, or misled them, much as prosecutors convinced jurors that Mr. Stone himself misled congressional investigators about his efforts to contact WikiLeaks.

The committee’s doubts are significant because the stolen emails were one of the major operations in Russia’s 2016 assault on American democracy, and a central question that remains even after years of intense scrutiny is what the Trump campaign knew, if anything, about the Kremlin’s plans. Mr. Stone, a onetime campaign adviser who promoted his connections to WikiLeaks to other Trump aides, has maintained that he did not know Russia was behind the stolen emails.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Election officials around the country race to expand voting options as Postal Service crisis spurs alarm”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114265>
Posted on August 19, 2020 8:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114265> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/mail-ballot-worries/2020/08/19/d75d97fe-e238-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html>:

Election officials are racing to install more ballot drop boxes and secure large venues for Election Day voting, part of an urgent push to reassure Americans worried about trusting their ballots to a U.S. Postal Service engulfed in a political storm.

State and local election officials say they have been inundated with calls from residents who say they no longer trust voting by mail, given widespread reports of postal delays in recent weeks, as well as President Trump’s public hostility to voting by mail.

“We’re facing a crisis here, a major crisis,” said Steuart Pittman, the top official in Anne Arundel County, Md., outside Baltimore. “If this election is not carried out in a way that people accept the result, we’ll have a national crisis.”

The upheaval comes after months of planning by election administrators, who are expecting historic numbers of voters<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/vote-by-mail-states/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7> to cast their ballots by mail to avoid risking exposure to the novel coronavirus<https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/28/what-you-need-know-about-coronavirus/?itid=lk_inline_manual_7>. Now, officials are worried that legions of voters won’t choose to vote by mail after all, forcing them to reexamine their capacity to safely offer in-person voting and to provide other ways to drop off ballots.

They are also trying to extinguish a growing public panic that ballots cast by mail will not be delivered in time.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“How Paul Manafort promoted Russian disinformation that has been embraced by Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114263>
Posted on August 19, 2020 8:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114263> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/manafort-ukraine-russia/2020/08/19/342b2b6c-e230-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html>

The effort began only days after Paul Manafort resigned as chairman of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in August 2016.

Manafort faced scrutiny for accepting millions in off-book payments from pro-Russian Ukrainian officials — an uncomfortable situation for the longtime lobbyist, since accusations were then emerging that Russia was interfering in the White House race to help Trump defeat Hillary Clinton.

According to a new bipartisan report by the Senate Intelligence Committee released <https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/senate-intelligence-trump-russia-report/2020/08/18/62a7573e-e093-11ea-b69b-64f7b0477ed4_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_4> Tuesday, Manafort began quickly working with a Russian employee based in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on a counternarrative — that it was the Ukrainians who were actually interfering in the U.S. election, not Russia, and that they were framing Manafort to help the Democrats.

That claim has persisted ever since, even after U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials said it had no merit<https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-director-pushes-back-debunked-conspiracy-theory-2016/story?id=67609244> — promoted by Russian President Vladimir Putin abroad and President Trump himself <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-dismisses-new-report-on-2016-election-interference-as-his-allies-continue-to-pursue-theories-it-debunks/2020/08/18/a329fb4e-e189-11ea-8181-606e603bb1c4_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_6> at home.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“New Local Election Ordered in N.J. After Mail-In Voter Fraud Charges; A judge ruled that the election in Paterson had been irreversibly tainted. The president has used the case to assail mail-in voting as dangerous, though election experts disagree.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114261>
Posted on August 19, 2020 8:41 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114261> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/19/nyregion/nj-election-mail-voting-fraud.html>:
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D114261&title=%E2%80%9CNew%20Local%20Election%20Ordered%20in%20N.J.%20After%20Mail-In%20Voter%20Fraud%20Charges%3B%20A%20judge%20ruled%20that%20the%20election%20in%20Paterson%20had%20been%20irreversibly%20tainted.%20The%20president%20has%20used%20the%20case%20to%20assail%20mail-in%20voting%20as%20dangerous%2C%20though%20election%20experts%20disagree.%E2%80%9D>
Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“‘Wet hot mess’: How Trump politicized the mail — and angered conservatives”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114256>
Posted on August 19, 2020 5:05 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114256> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico reports.<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/19/how-trump-politicized-usps-398764>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Democrats push to revamp political money system that’s boosting their campaigns; ‘Dark money’ is funding half of spending on House, Senate ads”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114254>
Posted on August 19, 2020 5:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114254> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Roll Call reports<https://www.rollcall.com/2020/08/19/democrats-push-to-revamp-political-money-system-thats-boosting-their-campaigns/>.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Trump, While Attacking Mail Voting, Casts Mail Ballot Again”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114252>
Posted on August 19, 2020 3:05 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114252> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NPR reports.<https://www.npr.org/2020/08/19/903886567/trump-while-attacking-mail-voting-casts-mail-ballot-again>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“There won’t be official results on election night. There never have been.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114250>
Posted on August 19, 2020 3:04 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114250> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Joanne Lipman and Ned Foley WaPo oped<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/there-wont-be-official-results-on-election-night-there-never-have-been/2020/08/19/be890f6a-e22e-11ea-8dd2-d07812bf00f7_story.html>:

President Trump is ramping up his attacks on mail-in voting by insisting election results “must” be known on election night. “No more big election night answers?” he tweeted<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1281556745211523072?s=20> last month. “Ridiculous! Just a formula for RIGGING an Election . . .”

The news media have pushed back on his baseless claims of fraud. But they agree with him on one point: There is likely to be a “delay” in election results because of a surge in mail-in votes.

But that’s wrong. If results aren’t known on election night, that doesn’t mean there’s a delay. The fact is, there are never official results on election night. There never have been.
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>

Watch Archived Video of UCLAW Event: “19th Amendment at 100: The Struggle for Voting Rights in America”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114242>
Posted on August 19, 2020 12:56 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114242> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can watch here<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UwaRMDiowG0&feature=youtu.be>, with a great lineup:

August 18th marks the one hundredth anniversary of the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, which guaranteed women the right to vote. Join us for a conversation as we reflect on this landmark legislation and how the struggle for voting rights and protections still resonates in 2020. This discussion is hosted by UCLA Law Dean Jennifer Mnookin and features: Ellen DuBois – Professor Emeritus, UCLA History Department

Kathay Feng – National Redistricting Director, Common Cause

Celinda Lake – President, Lake Research Partners

Celinda Vázquez – Vice President of Public Affairs, Planned Parenthood Los Angeles

Sonni Waknin – Managing Legal Fellow, UCLA Voting Rights Project
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Posted in 19th Amendment<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=128>

Montana Supreme Court, on 5-2 Vote (with Opinions to Follow) Keeps Green Party Off the Ballot in November<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114240>
Posted on August 19, 2020 12:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114240> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Details<https://twitter.com/rickhasen/status/1296166899550572544>:
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D114240&title=Montana%20Supreme%20Court%2C%20on%205-2%20Vote%20(with%20Opinions%20to%20Follow)%20Keeps%20Green%20Party%20Off%20the%20Ballot%20in%20November>
Posted in third parties<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=47>

New Jersey: “Judge invalidates Paterson’s 3rd Ward results, orders new election”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114235>
Posted on August 19, 2020 8:33 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=114235> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The system works.<https://patersontimes.com/2020/08/19/judge-invalidates-patersons-3rd-ward-results-order-new-election/>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

--
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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