[EL] ELB News and Commentary 7/29/20

Tue Jul 28 21:01:56 PDT 2020

Rick Pildes Guest Blogging for the Rest of the Week<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113524>
Posted on July 28, 2020 8:59 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113524> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I’m going to try to take a few days away from the news and social media, and I’m happy to say that Rick Pildes will be guest blogging.

Please direct any queries and tips to him.<https://its.law.nyu.edu/facultyprofiles/index.cfm?fuseaction=profile.overview&personid=20200>

Thanks to Rick for letting me take a short break and thanks to you for reading!
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“New Voter Registrations Have Plummeted Due to COVID-19”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113522>
Posted on July 28, 2020 8:54 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113522> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Civics Center:<https://thecivicscenter.org/blog/2020/7/28/new-voter-registrations-have-plummeted-due-to-covid-19>

Voter registration rates in April and May of 2020 have plummeted in relation to the rates in the same months in 2016. Declines in voter registration rates have been as significant as 75% in some states.

This decrease is likely credited to the COVID-19 crisis. The pandemic has caused the closure of schools and offices including many DMVs and the cancellation of nearly all spring in-person voter registration drives.

New voter registrations declined by 60% or more in Colorado, Florida, Illinois, and Virginia, comparing April 2016 and April 2020 numbers, based on data publicly reported by the state Secretaries of State or provided to The Civics Center.

The same phenomenon occurred in Wisconsin, New Mexico, and Utah. In these states, growth in total registrations during April 2020 was more than 75% lower than during the same period in 2016. ….
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Posted in voter registration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=37>

“Lindsey Graham campaign ad features image of opponent with digitally altered darker skin tone”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113520>
Posted on July 28, 2020 8:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113520> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN reports.<https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/28/politics/lindsey-graham-jaime-harrison-skin-tone-ad/index.html>
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

“Reconsidering Lost Votes by Mail”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113515>
Posted on July 28, 2020 10:26 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113515> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Charles Stewart has posted this important draft<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3660625> on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

A “lost vote” occurs when a voter does all that is asked of her, and yet her vote is uncounted in the final tally. Estimating the magnitude of lost votes in American presidential elections has followed the work of the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project, which initially estimated the magnitude of lost votes in the 2000 presidential election, due to failures of voter registration, polling-place management, and voting technologies, to be between 4 and 6 million out of 107 million cast that year. Because of data and conceptual limitations, lost vote estimates have tended to focus on in-person voting, ignoring lost votes due to mail voting. This paper revisits the one previous effort to estimate lost votes, by considering data available from the 2016 presidential election. Conceptually, the paper highlights how differing mail-ballot legal regimes produce lost mail votes in different ways, and at different rates, on account of differing laws, regulations, and practices. Empirically, the paper draws on administrative records and surveys to provide an estimated number of lost mail votes in 2016. That estimate works out to approximately 1.4 million votes in 2016—4.0% of mail ballots cast and 1.0% of all ballots. These estimates are relevant in light of efforts to expand mail balloting in the 2020 presidential election. States that will see the greatest growth in mail ballots tended to have higher lost vote rates than those with vote-by-mail systems. This implies that a doubling or tripling of the number of mail ballots in 2020 will result in a disproportionate growth in the number of lost votes due to mail ballots.

Via Election Updates.<https://electionupdates.caltech.edu/2020/07/27/nine-thoughts-about-lost-votes-by-mail/>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>

“Here’s how Trump’s opposition to mail voting hurts the GOP”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113513>
Posted on July 28, 2020 9:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113513> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://apnews.com/5d36db352527a393e7dc7b78afc2111a>:

Republicans once dominated voting by mail in Florida. But that was before President Donald Trump got involved.

After months of hearing Trump denigrate mail-in balloting, Republicans in the critical battleground state now find themselves far behind Democrats in the perennial push to urge their voters to cast ballots remotely. While Democrats have doubled the number of their voters who have requested mail ballots compared to 2016, Republicans have increased their numbers by about 20% since then.

The recent tally is the hard evidence confirming many Republicans’ fears about Trump’s tweeting about mail-in voting: GOP voters are listening and appear less likely to take advantage of what many election and health officials agree is the easiest and safest way to vote in a pandemic<https://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak>.

The numbers are so clear that Florida Republicans are shifting their emphasis from years past and are now trying to persuade voters to use another alternative to Election Day voting: in-person early voting.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Big CLC Complaint Against Trump Campaign Using Parscale Firm to Hide Recipients of Campaign Expenditures<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113511>
Posted on July 28, 2020 8:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113511> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Start here<https://twitter.com/brendan_fischer/status/1288101435062788097>:
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>

“Five Steps Colleges Must Take To Ensure Student Voting Rights Are Protected”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113509>
Posted on July 28, 2020 7:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=113509> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Marc Elias<https://www.democracydocket.com/2020/07/student-voting/> is right to be concerned about student voting, especially in the pandemic.
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Posted in voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=31>

--
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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