[EL] ELB News and Commentary 2/24/20

[Rick Hasen]

“If Democrats fight right-wing ‘fake news’ fire with fire, we all lose”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109696>
Posted on February 24, 2020 11:34 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109696> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I have written this piece for Salon<https://www.salon.com/2020/02/23/if-democrats-fight-right-wing-fake-news-fire-with-fire-we-all-lose/>. It begins:

Democrats are increasingly worried about losing the 2020 presidential election to Donald Trump. The party is in seeming disarray from the botched Iowa caucuses and the failure of an “electable” frontrunner to emerge early in the primary season. Trump’s fundraising and digital operations are humming, buoyed in part by his acquittal at the Senate trial which refused to remove him from office for soliciting foreign interference in the 2020 elections and obstructing the House’s investigation of it.

As reported recently in The Atlantic by McKay Coppins<https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-2020-disinformation-war/605530/>, many Democrats believe Trump’s success stems in part from an extended campaign of disinformation across social media, aided by malign foreign actors, and that it is time to fight fire with fire. But these nascent Democratic efforts at media manipulation and misinformation will only make things worse and can undermine an intelligent democracy in the long run. They are also likely to be ineffective and even counter-productive.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Harry Reid Says Nevada Should Have a Primary: ‘All Caucuses Should Be a Thing of the Past’”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109694>
Posted on February 24, 2020 11:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109694> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT reports.<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/us/politics/harry-reid-nevada-caucuses-primary.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Dueling Narratives Emerge From Muddied Account of Russia’s 2020 Interference”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109691>
Posted on February 24, 2020 11:22 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109691> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/23/us/politics/russia-2020-election-interference.html>

At the root of the confusion is what Shelby Pierson, a senior intelligence official responsible for overseeing the issues of election interference, said in that briefing.

Ms. Pierson, a longtime intelligence official, said there was no doubt the Russians were continuing to insert themselves in the election process. That would be consistent with past intelligence reports, and the effort by the United States Cyber Command in 2018 to block Russian intelligence from manipulating social media before the midterm congressional elections.

But some intelligence officials said Ms. Pierson did not say that the current interference was explicitly on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Others in the briefing said that in response to lawmakers’ follow-up questions, officials made the connection between the Russian preference for Mr. Trump and Moscow’s efforts to interfere in the election.

The difference between actively backing Mr. Trump and preferring his re-election is a subtle nuance, officials say, but an important one: It is probably too early for the Russians to begin any significant move to bolster a specific candidate. In 2016, they at first sought to cause chaos and hurt Hillary Clinton, intelligence reports released later that year said, but only in the last few months before the election did they actively work to elect Mr. Trump.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Coronavirus May Disrupt the 2020 Election. We Need a Plan Quarantines and fear could decimate voter turnout. Congress needs to fund mail-in ballots nationwide now.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109689>
Posted on February 24, 2020 11:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109689> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

As if we didn’t have enough<https://www.wired.com/story/opinion-coronavirus-may-disrupt-the-2020-election-we-need-a-plan/> to worry about.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Must Read from John Myers: “A new voting system in L.A. raises the stakes for California’s primary”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109687>
Posted on February 24, 2020 11:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109687> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Huge changes <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-02-24/california-presidential-primary-could-hinge-on-big-voting-changes-in-los-angeles> arrive in Los Angeles County.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The Cybersecurity 202: Americans should not be confident about security of 2020 election, experts say”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109685>
Posted on February 24, 2020 10:45 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109685> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cybersecurity-202/2020/02/24/the-cybersecurity-202-americans-should-not-be-confident-about-security-of-2020-election-experts-say/5e52c8f8602ff108c8ca0cb7/>:

Americans should not be confident about the security of the 2020 election, according to a slim majority of experts surveyed by The Cybersecurity 202.

The assessment from 57 percent of The Network<https://wapo.st/the-network>, a panel of more than 100 cybersecurity experts who participate in our ongoing informal survey, puts a serious damper on the years-long push by federal, state and local government officials and political parties to bolster election security since a Russian hacking and influence operation upended the 2016 contest.

“There are no signs that any part of our institutions are capable of providing an election that is reasonably secure from tampering and manipulation,” said Dave Aitel, a former NSA computer scientist who is now CEO of the cybersecurity company Immunity.

“Every part of the voting process is vulnerable. This includes the voter registration process, the voting itself, the vote tabulation, and the results-reporting system,” said Bruce Schneier, fellow and lecturer at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
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Posted in voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


“Reliability of Voting Machines Doubted”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109683>
Posted on February 24, 2020 10:42 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109683> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/02/23/voting-machine-reliabilty-doubted-new-technology/111365646/> on the controversy over BMDs.
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Posted in voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


“Election Meltdown, Part 5; Doomsday scenarios and hopeful actions in the final part of our voting-rights series.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109680>
Posted on February 22, 2020 12:41 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109680> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can listen to the final episode of the Election Meltdown podcast (in conjunction with Dahlia Lithwick and Slate Amicus) at this link<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/election-meltdown-live-gillum-citron-ho-hasen>. From the Episode Notes:

In the fifth and final part of this special series of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick is joined live on stage in Washington by former Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum, MacArthur fellow Professor Danielle Citron of Boston University law school, director of the ACLU’s voting-rights initiative Dale Ho, and election law professor Rick Hasen of the University of California, Irvine. Together, they pick themselves up from the rug of despair with a pile of can-do fixes for the stress points threatening the integrity of U.S. elections.

Rick Hasen’s new book Election Meltdown<http://www.amazon.com/dp/0300248199/?tag=slatmaga-20> forms the basis for this special series of Amicus.

Podcast production by Sara Burningham

I want to offer my deep appreciation to producer Sara Burningham and co-host Dahlia Lithwick for a series that has far exceeded my expectations when I first thought turning my book into a podcast series. Dahlia’s wit and wisdom made the topic as entertaining as it was terrifying and Sara is a brilliant producer who could take a string of random thoughts and make them into a coherent and beautifully produced story. Thanks as well to Gabriel Roth of Slate podcasts for supporting the project. And thanks to all those who gave interviews and participated in the Slate Live! event.

Here is the full list<https://sites.uci.edu/electionmeltdown/podcasts-interviews-and-opeds/> of Election Meltdown episodes (although there will be two more bonus episodes coming for Slate Plus members):

Episode 1<https://megaphone.link/SLT6839728202>, The voter fraud that wasn’t, the voter suppression that is.
Episode 2<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/administrative-incompetence-undermines-elections>, Paper jams, lost forms, and lost boxes—incompetence and elections
Episode 3<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/dirty-tricks-to-disenfranchise-voters>, Delving into the big bag of dirty tricks ahead of the 2020 election
Episode 4<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/election-meltdown-harsh-words>, Rhetoric and reality: When is it OK to say an election was ‘stolen’?
Episode 5<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/election-meltdown-harsh-words>, Doomsday scenarios and hopeful actions in the final part of our voting-rights series.

Bonus Episode 1 <https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/01/widespread-voter-fraud> (Slate Plus) (Interview with Matt Dunlap)
Bonus Episode 2<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/election-meltdown-michigan> (Slate Plus) (Interview with Jocelyn Benson)
Bonus Episode 3<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/not-just-russians-hacking-us-elections> (Slate Plus) (Interview with Brendan Nyhan)
Bonus Episode 4<https://slate.com/podcasts/amicus/2020/02/fish-v-kobach-state-of-voting-rights> (Slate Plus) (Interview with Dale Ho)
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


--
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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