[EL] ELB News and Commentary 1/30/20

Thu Jan 30 08:22:41 PST 2020

“Illinois Discloses New Problems With Voter Registration”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109221>
Posted on January 30, 2020 8:20 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109221> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/29/state-discloses-new-problems-with-voter-registration/>:

Illinois elections officials disclosed fresh problems Wednesday with the state’s automatic voter registration program, saying at least one eligible voter who declined to register to vote was signed up anyway.

The program is already under fire for mistakenly registering over 500<https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2020/01/23/illinois-mistaken-voter-registrations-secretary-of-state-noncitizens/> people who indicated they weren’t U.S. citizens, of which 15 people voted in 2018 and 2019 elections. Officials in the Illinois secretary of state’s office said at least eight of the people have long voting histories and were likely U.S. citizens, leaving seven voters in question. The individuals involved were applying for standard drivers’ licenses at secretary of state’s offices.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“The Cybersecurity 202: There’s a new cross-country effort to train election and campaign pros on digital security”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109219>
Posted on January 30, 2020 8:14 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109219> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports<https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/the-cybersecurity-202/2020/01/30/the-cybersecurity-202-there-s-a-new-cross-country-effort-to-train-election-and-campaign-pros-on-digital-security/5e31bdd8602ff14e6605bfcc/>.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

I Spoke with Sean Illing of Vox about My New Book, Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109217>
Posted on January 30, 2020 8:08 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109217> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can read the interview here<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/30/21058609/2020-election-donald-trump-voter-fraud>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“As public schools grow more diverse, school board elections are largely determined by white voters”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109215>
Posted on January 30, 2020 8:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109215> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Chalkbeat reports.<https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2020/01/29/demographic-disconnect-school-board-elections/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Crum: Racially Polarized Voting and the Fifteenth Amendment<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109174>
Posted on January 30, 2020 6:00 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109174> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The following is the fourth in a series of guest posts by Travis Crum<https://www.law.uchicago.edu/faculty/crum> on the 150th anniversary of the 15th amendment:

In yesterday’s post, I outlined how originalist Justices have conflated the Reconstruction Amendments and applied Fourteenth Amendment principles in Fifteenth Amendment cases. In today’s post, I challenge the application of colorblindness to the Fifteenth Amendment.

In recent years, the conservatives on the Court have questioned<https://repository.law.umich.edu/articles/527/> the legitimacy of anti-discrimination statutes that impose liability without a showing of discriminatory intent. According to the conservatives, discriminatory-effects standards unduly inject racial considerations into the decision-making process, raising constitutional concerns. This critique evolved from the colorblind view of the Equal Protection Clause and has now migrated to the voting rights realm.

As applied to redistricting, the colorblind approach targets race-based redistricting and Section 2’s requirement<https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/478/30/> that voting be racially polarized. The Court has opined<https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/509/630/> that race-based redistricting oftentimes relies on an “impermissible racial stereotype” that “members of the same racial group … share the same political interests and will prefer the same candidates at the polls.” And in his oft-quoted concurrence in Holder v. Hall<https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/512/874/>, Justice Thomas stated that the “underlying premise” of “every minority vote dilution claim” is “that the group asserting dilution is not merely a racial or ethnic group, but a group having distinct political interests as well.”  The colorblind critique, therefore, treats recognition of racially polarized voting as a constitutional problem<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/supreme-court-voting-rights-act-obliteration.html> and endangers Section 2’s attempts to ameliorate the predictable effects of racially polarized voting.

Contrary to what the colorblind critique assumes, racially polarized voting was a feature—not a bug—in the passage and ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. Whereas the Founders failed to foresee the rise of party politics<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=890105>, the Reconstruction Framers were intimately familiar with partisanship. Indeed, the Reconstruction Amendments were passed on nearly uniform party-line votes. Prior to the Fifteenth Amendment, Republicans had already received overwhelming support<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3524597> from newly enfranchised black voters in the former Confederate States and expected that support to continue. In fact, in pushing for the Fifteenth Amendment, the Reconstruction Framers were explicit in their belief that blacks and whites in the South and Border States had divergent political views and voted as racial blocs.

The Reconstruction Framers, moreover, understood that the right to vote is more than an individual right to cast a ballot. Political rights are exercised collectively and votes need to be aggregated to have real-world meaning. And once empowered by the ballot, blacks could defend their political interests and safeguard their civil rights.

Thus, the Fifteenth Amendment’s historical context turns the colorblind critique on its head. Rather that treating recognition of racially polarized voting as a constitutional taboo, the Reconstruction Framers were attentive to the realities of racially polarized voting. This insight puts racial vote-dilution claims—and their predicate findings of racially polarized voting—far closer to the heart of the Fifteenth Amendment than they are under current doctrine. And Congress’s decision to counter the predictable consequences of racially polarized voting by amending the VRA in 1982 to encompass a discriminatory-effects standard and prohibit vote dilution should be entitled to considerable deference.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

My Interview with Terry Gross on NPR’s Fresh Air: “‘Election Meltdown Is A Real Possibility’ In 2020 Presidential Race, Author Warns<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109213>
Posted on January 29, 2020 11:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=109213> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can listen to the interview with Fresh Air at this link<https://www.npr.org/2020/01/29/800778189/election-meltdown-is-a-real-possibility-in-2020-presidential-race-author-warns>.

Preorders<https://www.amazon.com/Election-Meltdown-Distrust-American-Democracy/dp/0300248199/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=hasen+election+meltdown&qid=1565015345&s=digital-text&sr=1-1-catcorr> of Election Meltdown; Episode 1<https://megaphone.link/SLT6839728202> of the Election Meltdown Podcast (in conjunction with Slate Amicus); Book Tour info<https://sites.uci.edu/electionmeltdown/book-tour/>; Washington Post Sunday Outlook preview<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-loser-of-novembers-election-may-not-concede-their-voters-wont-either/2020/01/23/4d81be8c-3d6c-11ea-baca-eb7ace0a3455_story.html>.
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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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