[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/15/20

Thu Oct 15 19:05:01 PDT 2020

“White House was warned Giuliani was target of Russian intelligence operation to feed misinformation to Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116922>
Posted on October 15, 2020 7:02 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116922> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/giuliani-biden-ukraine-russian-disinformation/2020/10/15/43158900-0ef5-11eb-b1e8-16b59b92b36d_story.html>:

U.S. intelligence agencies warned the White House last year that President Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani was the target of an influence operation by Russian intelligence, according to four former officials familiar with the matter.

The warnings were based on multiple sources, including intercepted communications, that showed Giuliani was interacting with people tied to Russian intelligence during a December 2019 trip <https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/as-impeachment-tide-swirls-around-trump-giuliani-drops-anchor-in-ukraine/2019/12/06/8f454a7a-184e-11ea-bf81-ebe89f477d1e_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_3> to Ukraine, where he was gathering information that he thought would expose corrupt acts by former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

The intelligence raised concerns that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president, the former officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information and conversations.

The warnings to the White House, which have not previously been reported, led national security adviser Robert O’Brien to caution Trump in a private conversation that any information Giuliani brought back from Ukraine should be considered contaminated by Russia, one of the former officials said…

Several senior administration officials “all had a common understanding” that Giuliani was being targeted by the Russians, said the former official who recounted O’Brien’s intervention. That group included Attorney General William P. Barr, FBI Director Christopher A. Wray and White Counsel Pat Cipollone.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

“Will my ballot get counted? How the pending Supreme Court decision could impact voting in Pa.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116920>
Posted on October 15, 2020 6:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116920> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WHYY reports.<https://whyy.org/articles/will-my-ballot-get-counted-how-the-pending-supreme-court-decision-could-impact-voting-in-pa/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“California Republicans spark national feud over ‘harvesting’ ballot boxes”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116918>
Posted on October 15, 2020 6:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116918> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/10/15/california-republicans-spark-national-feud-over-harvesting-ballot-boxes-1325367>:

Behind the brewing legal battle is a nationally reverberating dispute over a 2016 California law authorizing third parties to collect filled-out mail ballots from voters and submit them to elections officials. Republicans here and in Washington have excoriated the process, saying it’s susceptible to fraud and allows liberals to manipulate election outcomes (a House Republican study<https://republicans-cha.house.gov/sites/republicans.cha.house.gov/files/documents/CA%20Ballot%20Harvesting%20Report%20FINAL.pdf> raised security concerns but found no concrete instances of fraud in California).

After California Democrats swept competitive House contests in 2018, some California Republicans conceded that they had no choice but to match their counterparts by embracing the tactic. In leaked audio<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/we-got-our-clocks-cleaned-gop-quietly-works-to-expand-ballot-harvesting-in-california-while-criticizing-democrats-for-the-practice/2019/03/13/a432d902-41b7-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html>, National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Tom Emmer said Republicans had to adapt after getting “their clocks cleaned.”

This week’s drama shows the party further embracing that change. In doing so, Republicans are trying to paint Democrats as hypocrites wielding a partisan double standard when it comes to election tactics. The party is “going to be ballot harvesting throughout the entire state,” Millan Patterson said.

That stance has echoed to the highest levels of national politics. Trump has constantly assailed California’s voting rules, but this week he repeatedly urged California Republicans to charge ahead, asserting on Twitter that Democrats have “been taking advantage of the system for years!”

California Republicans have acknowledged placing the boxes in three large counties that contain the most contested House races of 2020. And they’re exploring a similar tactic in other states that allow third-party ballot collection, albeit with more constraints than in California.

“Chairman Emmer has said repeatedly that anywhere Democrats have legalized ballot harvesting Republicans will play by the same rules those Democrats put in place,” NRCC spokesperson Torunn Sinclair said in a statement.

California is one of 26 states that allow a voter to designate someone to deliver their ballot, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The state has some the most relaxed laws on third-party collection based on the NCSL database; 12 states, for instance, limit the number of ballots that one person can collect to deter coordinated campaign efforts. California does prohibit payment for ballot collection

Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California, Irvine, cited two potential “overlapping rationales” for California Republicans’ strategy.

“Number one is they’re trying to thread the needle between Trump’s claims of fraud with mail-in ballots and the reality that Republicans in California like elsewhere have long relied on vote by mail,” Hasen said, “and the other possibility is it’s a way of trying to highlight the Democrats’ laws that allow for ballot harvesting and to highlight the insecurity of the practice.”

Hasen said he supports curtailing California’s voter-collection law, such as limiting the number of ballots any given person can pick up and deliver. But he argued Republicans are pursuing a “bone-headed means of getting out the vote” given the potential for people tampering with the boxes.

“It just doesn’t seem like a very smart way to get out the vote,” Hasen said. “It would be far better for them to go door-to-door to Republican households.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Anyone Thinking About Partisan Gerrymandering These Days?<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116858>
Posted on October 15, 2020 2:12 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116858> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

If not, you will be soon enough. To get you in the spirit, Prof. Derek Muller and I will be debating partisan gerrymandering later tonight for the University of Utah’s 37th Annual Jefferson B. Fordham Debate<https://law.utah.edu/event/37th-annual-jefferson-b-fordham-debate/>, with link for Zoom access here<https://zoom.us/webinar/register/2416002920704/WN_FpCi4tRRSim3C13qL2GM8A>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“The election is in 19 days. The legal battles have already begun.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116856>
Posted on October 15, 2020 1:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116856> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CSM reports<https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2020/1015/The-election-is-in-19-days.-The-legal-battles-have-already-begun>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Alabama SOS John Merrill Asks Supreme Court to Kill Curbside Voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116853>
Posted on October 15, 2020 1:23 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116853> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Find it here.<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/20A67-Merrill-Stay.pdf>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>

“Adelsons pour $75M into last-ditch effort to save Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116851>
Posted on October 15, 2020 1:07 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116851> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/15/adelson-trump-super-pac-429688>

Casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam Adelson gave $75 million to a super PAC that flooded battleground states with anti-Joe Biden ads in September, a huge investment from the GOP megadonors as President Donald Trump slipped in the polls.

The Adelsons gave the massive sum to Preserve America PAC, accounting for roughly 90 percent of the group’s fundraising in September, according to a person familiar with the group’s finances who shared details with POLITICO ahead of the group’s campaign finance filing.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Sixth Circuit Panel on Party Line Vote, Over Stinging Dissent by Judge Moore, Rejects Challenge to Tennessee’s Absentee Ballot Verification Procedures<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116848>
Posted on October 15, 2020 12:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116848> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The majority<https://www.opn.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/20a0331p-06.pdf> decides the case primarily on standing grounds.

From Judge Moore’s dissent:

Make no mistake: today’s majority opinion is yet another chapter in the concentrated effort to restrict the vote. See, e.g., Raysor v. DeSantis, 140 S. Ct. 2600 (2020) (mem.); Republican Nat’l Comm. v. Democratic Nat’l Comm., 140 S. Ct. 1205 (2020); Democratic Nat’l Comm. v. Bostelmann, — F.3d —-, 2020 WL 5951359 (7th Cir. 2020) (per curiam); New Ga. Project v. Raffensperger, — F.3d —-, 2020 WL 5877588 (11th Cir. 2020); A. Philip Randolph Institute of Ohio v. LaRose, — F. App’x —-, 2020 WL 6013117 (6th Cir. 2020); see generally Richard L. Hasen, The 2016 U.S. Voting Wars: From Bad to Worse, 26 Wm. & Mary Bill Rights J. 629 (2018). To be sure, it does not cast itself as such—invoking instead the disinterested language of justiciability—but this only makes today’s majority opinion more troubling. As a result of today’s decision, Tennessee is free to—and will—disenfranchise hundreds, if not thousands of its citizens who cast their votes absentee by mail. Masking today’s outcome in standing doctrine obscures that result, but that makes it all the more disquieting. I will not be a party to this passive sanctioning of disenfranchisement. I dissent….

“While I am saddened, I am not surprised by today’s ruling.” Warshak v. United States, 532 F.3d 521, 538 (6th Cir. 2008) (en banc) (Martin, J., dissenting). That is because many federal courts—more specifically, many federal courts of review—have sanctioned a systematic effort to suppress voter turnout and undermine the right to vote. Rarely does this have anything to do with the merits of the case. No, the effort has not been so bold as that. Most often, Purcell provides the cover—a convenient court-made doctrine that provides plausible deniability sounding in vague cries of “confidence in the electoral process.” See Purcell, 549 U.S. at 4. Today, however, standing is the shroud of choice. Whatever the disguise, the result is the same.

Hiding behind closed courthouse doors does not change the fact that ruling by ruling, many courts are chipping away at votes that ought to be counted. It is a disgrace to the federal courts’ foundational role in ensuring democracy’s function, and a betrayal to the persons that wish to participate in it fully. See Wesberry v. Sanders, 376 U.S. 1, 17 (1964) (“Other rights, even the most basic, are illusory if the right to vote is undermined.”).

On its own, today’s ruling may not—likely will not—change the course of this election. But it is another drop in the bucket that is the degradation of the right to vote in this country. See, e.g., Raysor, 140 S. Ct. at 2600 (“This Court’s order prevents thousands of otherwise eligible voters from participating in Florida’s primary election simply because they are poor.”) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting); Republican Nat’l Comm., 140 S. Ct. at 1211 (“The majority of this Court declares that this case presents a ‘narrow, technical question.’ That is wrong. The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic.”) (internal citation omitted) (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Bostelmann, 2020 WL 5951359, at *13 (“It is a virtual certainty that current conditions will result in many voters, possibly tens of thousands, being disenfranchised absent changes to an election code designed for in-person voting on election day.”) (Rovner, J., dissenting). I fear the day we come out from behind the courthouse doors only to realize these drops have become a flood.

I dissent.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“ActBlue’s stunning third quarter: $1.5 billion in donations”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116846>
Posted on October 15, 2020 12:30 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116846> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/15/actblues-stunning-third-quarter-15-billion-in-donations-429549>

Democratic candidates and left-leaning groups raised $1.5 billion through ActBlue over the last three months — a record-smashing total that reveals the overwhelming financial power small-dollar donors have unleashed up and down the ballot ahead of the 2020 election.

From July through September, 6.8 million donors made 31.4 million contributions through ActBlue, the Democratic Party’s favored online donation platform, averaging $47 per donation. More than 14,223 campaigns and organizations benefited from the surge in donations, the largest single quarter in the platform’s 15-year history, according to figures shared first with POLITICO. Just in September, ActBlue processed $758 million.

It’s the latest example of ActBlue’s exponential growth and how online fundraising is fundamentally reshaping politics. During the entire 2018 election cycle, ActBlue donors gave candidates and groups nearly $1.6 billion, a total almost matched in a single quarter this summer and fall.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>

Possible Good News in PA<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116844>
Posted on October 15, 2020 10:51 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116844> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

There are some signs PA’s legislature and Governor might be moving toward a compromise that would permit election officials to start processing absentees before Election Day. Far from a done deal, but some positives signs and I’ve heard the local papers have stories on this issue every day now:

From Spotlight PA<https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2020/10/pa-election-mail-ballots-counties-legislature-talks/?utm_source=Spotlight+PA&utm_campaign=6eec0030e4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_08_27_09_12_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_6c1fbeb603-6eec0030e4-219434477&mc_cid=6eec0030e4&mc_eid=9f05e5795e>:

With a partisan logjam holding up election reforms in the Pennsylvania legislature, lawmakers are making one final push to fix what county officials across the state say is the number one issue standing in the way of a timely counting of votes.

Facing an unprecedented deluge of potentially millions of mail-in and absentee ballots, county election officials are currently prevented from beginning to process any of them until Nov. 3. As a result, it could take many days after the election for them to finalize an accurate tally.

County commissioners for months have pleaded for more flexibility to begin the process in advance, a practice known as “pre-canvassing.”

“That’s our main need from the legislature right now on this,” Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar said Wednesday at a news conference. “So far, it seems like all or nearly all of the largest counties that I’ve spoken with so far are planning to count 24/7.”

Now, with the election fast approaching, one House Democrat, Kevin Boyle, has introduced new legislation<https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/billInfo/billInfo.cfm?sYear=2019&sInd=0&body=H&type=B&bn=2916> solely focused on pre-canvassing, giving counties a 10-day window before Nov. 3. . .

“There’s no reason that we can’t come to an agreement,” Boyle (D., Philadelphia) said, “unless — and I think with every passing day it’s looking more and more likely that this is the case — the Republicans don’t want additional pre-canvassing time for counties because it would not serve their political ends.”

House Republicans this week participated in a call to discuss granting counties four or five days to pre-canvass ballots, the Associated Press first reported<https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-harrisburg-pennsylvania-legislation-elections-5603c90faf7328228a7b92cc36c4ac6c>.

Rep. Russ Diamond (R., Lebanon), who sits on a key committee and participated in the call, told Spotlight PA that lawmakers discussed amending an election bill that has advanced to the Senate to provide for pre-canvassing as well as instituting additional requirements to physically secure drop boxes.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Learning From Paterson’s Election Scandal to Prevent Voter Fraud”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116841>
Posted on October 15, 2020 9:38 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116841> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NBC News New York video report<https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/learning-from-patersons-election-scandal-to-prevent-voter-fraud/2664501/>:

Recent election fraud problems in Paterson are being used by President Trump to question vote-by-mail ballots, but election experts say the problems there are the exception rather than the rule. NBC New York’s Jonathan Dienst reports on the lessons learned in New Jersey’s third-largest city, and whether the problems have been addressed.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>

Must-read: “For Trump’s ‘rigged’ election claims, an online megaphone awaits; sizable online network built around the president is poised to amplify claims about a rigged election, adding reach and enthusiasm to otherwise evidence-free allegations.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116839>
Posted on October 15, 2020 9:17 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116839> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NBC News:<https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/trump-s-rigged-election-claims-online-megaphone-awaits-n1243309>

The idea of a rigged election has already taken hold in Trump’s fervent online base, a horde of digital activists who dutifully share links from right-wing blogs and junk news sites and turn the president’s message into memes.

Trump’s message has spread in two distinct echo chambers with little or no contact from outsiders, according to an analysis of tweets about a “rigged” election using RAND’s social media and text analytics platform, RAND-Lex, conducted for NBC News.

The bulk of the explicit conversation — nearly 2 million tweets from April to September — originates with Trump. His top five tweets reached an estimated 425 million views, according to an analysis metric from the social intelligence company Brandwatch.

Following a Trump tweet, the “rigged” claims move through a conservative, pro-Trump meta-community, whose members rally around several shared narratives: a dislike of former President Barack Obama, a belief that Covid-19 is being used as an excuse to suppress in-person voter turnout and enable mail-in ballot fraud, and an overwhelming support for the QAnon conspiracy theory, according to the analysis.

A progressive online community has responded by attacking Trump and claiming that he and his Republican allies will “rig the election” by discrediting mail-in ballots and other subterfuge.

Conversations about voting methods are increasing, online and off, according to the media intelligence platform Zignal Labs, which is analyzing social media, broadcast, traditional media and online conversations around the presidential election. Those conversations are also heavily misinformed, particularly around topics involving absentee voting, voter fraud, voter identification, foreign interference and ballot harvesting, with an average of 22 percent of vote-by-mail mentions across all media including misinformation, according to Zignal Labs’ analysis.

On Facebook, Trump’s posts attacking the integrity of the election have racked up millions of views, comments and shares. In his most popular “rigged” post, he said, “We voted during World War One & World War Two with no problem, but now they are using Covid in order to cheat by using Mail-Ins!” Trump followed the next month with the post “IF YOU CAN PROTEST IN PERSON, YOU CAN VOTE IN PERSON!” The post attracted 1 million interactions on Facebook alone, and supporters took the framing and made their own memes, which in turn garnered millions of views and shares on Instagram and TikTok.

One popular meme format<https://www.tiktok.com/@red.man.in.a.blue.state/video/6866909446539349254?lang=en> asked a false hypothetical: “If you won the lottery, would you mail in your winning ticket? Why not?”
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>

“Small Donor Public Financing Could Advance Race and Gender Equity in Congress”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116837>
Posted on October 15, 2020 9:13 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116837> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New Brennan Center report.<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/small-donor-public-financing-could-advance-race-and-gender-equity>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Federal Court Rips Georgia’s Arguments Seeking Stay of Order on Paper Backups of ePollbook Data, Says Georgia’s Arguments Come from “The Twilight Zone”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116835>
Posted on October 15, 2020 8:39 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116835> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Judge Totenberg pulls no punches<https://coaltionforgoodgovernance.sharefile.com/share/view/scaaa40ea1d24bfe9>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

Long Lines in Georgia’s Early Voting Attributed at Least in Part to Slow Statewide Voter Registration System for Checking in Voters<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116833>
Posted on October 15, 2020 8:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116833> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AJC<https://www.ajc.com/politics/voter-check-in-system-to-blame-for-slow-moving-lines-in-georgia/Z6BVSDEIQBDHVHDPDJ5I3OPDRQ/>:

Voting slowed to a crawl across Georgia this week in large part because of check-in computers that couldn’t handle the load of record turnout at early voting locations.

The problem created a bottleneck<https://www.ajc.com/politics/polls-open-across-georgia-for-early-voting-in-2020-election/AR25324QBBHPJANXPZBMNF6WQM/> as voters reached the front of the line, when poll workers had to deal with sluggish laptops to verify each voter. Some early voting sites reported checking in just 10 voters per hour at each computer.

The computer problem shows why poll workers struggled to clear long lines<https://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta-news/long-lines-persist-on-second-day-of-early-voting-in-metro-atlanta/SKIHMUW6I5DNNIZCK6K5U6F7UU/>: They could only move as quickly as the technology would let them while managing 243,000 voters in the first two days of Georgia’s three-week period of early voting.

Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger initially attributed the lines to high turnout, which is part of the reason for delays. But it became clear from interviews with poll workers, election officials and voters this week that technical difficulties contributed to severe waits.

Raffensperger said Wednesday that he’s working with the state’s election software company to improve speeds and process voters more quickly.

Later in the day, his office said the state’s elections software vendor, New Orleans-based Civix, had increased bandwidth, resulting in immediate improvements reported by many counties. Wait times fell from over three hours to about one hour Wednesday afternoon at several early voting sites in metro Atlanta.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D116833&title=Long%20Lines%20in%20Georgia%E2%80%99s%20Early%20Voting%20Attributed%20at%20Least%20in%20Part%20to%20Slow%20Statewide%20Voter%20Registration%20System%20for%20Checking%20in%20Voters>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Trump team finds early success in restricting mail-in ballots”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116831>
Posted on October 15, 2020 8:01 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116831> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/15/trump-restricting-mail-in-ballots-429545?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=630318> reports.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D116831&title=%E2%80%9CTrump%20team%20finds%20early%20success%20in%20restricting%20mail-in%20ballots%E2%80%9D>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>

“Postal Service agrees to reverse service changes”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116828>
Posted on October 15, 2020 7:53 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116828> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-lawsuits-montana-steve-bullock-4bdadb8d76f97eccaed706fcaf79f50e?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiTmpBNE1XSmpNMkl6WkdZdyIsInQiOiJHdmhhdUlxejYwU3dldnYzMmorQjRyeks4a3BCREZ4UURSZkdTN0ZEditiVk5HREwybTNleE4xYUZVWExUNHVESWVZZDN1NER4KzJpcDlsM0ljNTJQVXNYM3FueU1EYUdzNVJGbnF6RlNvVTBTaVVkTHBTNkVzeVZxd1JtVUVNMCJ9>:

The lawsuit filed against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the U.S. Postal Service on Sept. 9 argued changes implemented in June harmed access to mail services in Montana, resulting in delayed delivery of medical prescriptions, payments, and job applications, and impeding the ability of Montana residents to vote by mail.

The postal service agreed to reverse all changes, which included reduced retail hours, removal of collection boxes and mail sorting machines, closure or consolidation of mail processing facilities, restriction of late or extra trips for timely mail delivery, and banning or restricting overtime.

The agreement also requires the Postal Service to prioritize election mail.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D116828&title=%E2%80%9CPostal%20Service%20agrees%20to%20reverse%20service%20changes%E2%80%9D>
Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>

Biden Voters Switching to In-Person Voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116826>
Posted on October 15, 2020 6:00 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116826> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

In this important Washington Post story<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/early-voting-2020-election/2020/10/14/500c22ce-0d90-11eb-8a35-237ef1eb2ef7_story.html> about early voting, I was heartened to see this passage:

While polls show that Democrats are more likely to vote by mail this year, there are signs that many are abandoning those plans and showing up in person instead. That trend was apparent this week in Fulton County, Ga., where it helped drive long lines at early voting centers, officials said.

“We’re getting a lot of reports of people canceling their ballots by mail,” said Rick Barron, the elections chief in Fulton County, home of downtown Atlanta.

As regular readers here know, my view <https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/23/absentee-ballots-will-be-critical-this-fall-in-person-voting-is-even-more-essential/> is that the higher the percentage of votes cast in person, the better.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D116826&title=Biden%20Voters%20Switching%20to%20In-Person%20Voting>
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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