[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/21/20

[Rick Hasen]

“Shouting matches, partisan rallies, guns at polling places: Tensions high at early-voting sites”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117185>
Posted on October 21, 2020 7:07 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117185> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/voter-intimidation-allegations/2020/10/20/6722d0ae-123e-11eb-82af-864652063d61_story.html>

During a pro-Trump rally earlier this month in Nevada City, Calif., enthusiastic supporters in cars and trucks crowded into the parking lot of the county government center.

As many as 300 people played music, cheered and called out through a megaphone, according to Natalie Adona, a county election official who could see the gathering from her second-floor office at the Eric Rood Administration Center.

But unlike usual Trump rallies, this one was happening at the site of one of the most popular drive-up ballot boxes in the county. And early voting was already underway.

That afternoon, voters were forced to navigate throughthe pro-Trump crowd, and some felt the electioneering amounted to voter intimidation.

In an election year clouded with anxieties about voter intimidation and the possibility of election-related violence<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-call-for-poll-watching-volunteers-sparks-fear-of-chaos-and-violence-on-election-day/2020/09/30/76ce0674-0346-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_8>, the first days of early voting have unfolded with dozens of accusations of inappropriate campaigning and possible voter intimidation in at least 14 states.The reports, though anecdotal, illustrate the tensions unfolding as more than 33 million Americans have already cast ballots two weeks before Election Day.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Trump Has Contributed Only $8,000 to His Campaign”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117183>
Posted on October 21, 2020 6:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117183> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wow<https://politicalwire.com/2020/10/21/trump-has-contributed-only-8000-to-his-campaign/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Don’t Mail It In, Michigan; “Mail delays reportedly continue to dog Detroit area”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117181>
Posted on October 21, 2020 6:57 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117181> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This is why<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/21/mail-delays-reportedly-continue-dog-detroit-area-peters-report/6001912002/> Michigan SOS Benson is urging<https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1318635600388476935> the personal return of absentee ballots via drop boxes or clerk’s offices.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


I Talked to Arya Hariharan for the New Books Podcast About Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117179>
Posted on October 21, 2020 6:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117179> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can listen here<https://newbooksnetwork.com/richard-l-hasen-election-meltdown-dirty-tricks-distrust-and-the-threat-to-american-democracy-yale-up-2020/>.
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


Watch Video of Me on CNN Newsroom with John Vause Talking About the Latest in Election Litigation<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117177>
Posted on October 21, 2020 6:38 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117177> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Watch here:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15XCVKDroe8&feature=youtu.be>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Pharma contributed to attorneys general who want to repeal the Affordable Care Act”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117149>
Posted on October 21, 2020 6:20 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117149> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Stat:<https://politicalaccountability.net/hifi/files/CPA---State---Pharma-contributed-to-attorneys-general-who-want-to-repeal-the-Affordable-Care-Act---10-20-20---CPA-quoted.pdf>

The Affordable Care Act has driven a huge boost in revenue for pharmaceutical companies — but ironically, $1.5 million in drug industry donations last election cycle were funneled to Republican state attorneys general who will soon make a case for repealing the law before the Supreme Court.

In early 2018, a group of Republican state attorneys general filed a lawsuit seeking to repeal the ACA, which expanded prescription drug coverage for millions of people and in turn, helped drug makers rake in more revenue. Later that year, eight of those attorneys general were either elected or re-elected. And during the 2017-2018 election cycle, they received financial backing from the Republican Attorneys General Association, which secured $1.6 million from more than a dozen drug makers and PhRMA, the industry’s influential lobbying group.

The contributions, which were funneled through various state Republican committees, ranged from $2,700 to Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge to $650,000 to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who has spearheaded the lawsuit, according to the Center for Political Accountability, a nonprofit group that studies corporate donations and compiled the contribution data from Political Money Line.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“New York State Bar Association Task Force on the Presidential Election Maps Out Potential Constitutional Crisis Scenarios”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117174>
Posted on October 21, 2020 5:43 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117174> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

I’m a member of this Task Force and we have just released our legal analysis and report <https://nysba.org/app/uploads/2020/10/Final-Report-with-Cover-10-20-20.pdf> on these election issues.

The other members of the task force are James A. Gardner, Deborah Pearlstein, Shugerman, Ava B. Ayers, Wilfred U. Codrington, John Hardin Young, and our Chair, Jerry Goldfeder.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


How Much Do TV Political Ads Matter in the Digital Age?<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117172>
Posted on October 21, 2020 5:35 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117172> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

This Vox story<https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/20/21523492/future-forward-super-pac-dustin-moskovitz-silicon-valley>, titled “Silicon Valley megadonors unleash a last-minute, $100 million barrage of ads against Trump,” is intriguing on several fronts — not just for the massive amount invovled.

Our campaign-finance laws were written before the digital age took off, and one question campaigns and scholars face is how much traditional broadcast ads (TV in particular) matter in the digital age. Yet here are some of the masters of the digital universe concluding, after in-depth data analysis, that TV ads remain late in the election still provide the biggest bang for the buck. Also interesting that this SuperPac has tried to stay below the radar screen and that this is, reportedly, the first story on it:

A little-known Democratic super PAC backed by some of Silicon Valley’s biggest donors is quietly unleashing a torrent of television spending in the final weeks of the presidential campaign in a last-minute attempt to oust President Donald Trump, Recode has learned.

The barrage of late money — which includes at least $22 million from Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz — figures among one of the most expensive and aggressive plays yet by tech billionaires<https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/27/21271157/tech-billionaires-joe-biden-reid-hoffman-laurene-powell-jobs-dustin-moskovitz-eric-schmidt>, who have spent years studying how to maximize the return they get from each additional dollar they spend on politics. Moskovitz is placing his single biggest public bet yet on the evidence<http://chriswarshaw.com/papers/advertising.pdf> that TV ads that come just before Election Day are the best way to do that.

The super PAC, called Future Forward, has remained under the radar but is spending more than $100 million on television and digital in the final month of the campaign — more than any other group — on behalf of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden outside of the Biden campaign itself. And it has been leading a separate, previously unreported $28 million proposed campaign to elect a Democrat to the US Senate from Texas, Recode has learned. . . .

Like other Silicon Valley donors new to politics in the Trump era, Moskovitz has sought to bring the brainy, data-driven approach that he has pioneered in his philanthropy<https://www.vox.com/2015/4/24/8457895/givewell-open-philanthropy-charity> to his political program in 2020. He has tried to calculate the “cost-per-net-Democratic-vote,” combing through academic literature to mathematically determine where each marginal dollar from him can make the biggest difference. Other significant Moskovitz bets this cycle have included millions to the Voter Participation Center, a voter-turnout organization that has been supercharged by tech money over the last two years<https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/5/27/21271157/tech-billionaires-joe-biden-reid-hoffman-laurene-powell-jobs-dustin-moskovitz-eric-schmidt>, and Vote Tripling,<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/19/opinion/it-takes-a-friend-to-get-a-friend-to-vote.html> a “relational organizing” approach to encourage friends to vote.

But the lead conclusion from Moskovitz’s research has been to invest in late TV ads that come just before Election Day, when the ads are still fresh on the minds of voters.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Purcell and Yesterday’s CA 4 Decision on NC<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117168>
Posted on October 21, 2020 4:54 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117168> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

The sharply divided CA 4 en banc decision also illustrates what a mess trying to apply the Purcell “doctrine” can be. Purcell cautions federal courts against changing the status quo in election cases too close to the election. It’s probably best understood not as a “doctrine,” but an equitable consideration courts ought to take into account, along with other factors, in deciding whether to issue an injunction in election cases arising close to an election.

Part of the complexity comes in determining what constitutes the status quo baseline. In NC, the Board of Elections, through a judicial consent decree, changed the receipt deadline for absentee ballots from three days after the election — the policy in the state’s enacted election code — to nine days after the election. That decree was issued a couple weeks ago, on October 2nd.

To make matters far more simple than they are in the actual case, if a plaintiff came to federal court to challenge the order extending this deadline, should the federal court decline to decide the federal question, because it is too late for the court to change the status quo? To sharpen the point, if the federal court believes the late change to the election code is a major one and, on the merits, unconstitutional, should the federal court nonetheless not disturb the “status quo?”

That raises the question of whether the status quo should be understood to be the policies established in the state’s election code — the position of the dissenters in the CA 4 decision — or the new, Oct. 2nd policy reflected in the consent decree the Board entered into — the position of the majority.

Another, more general way to put this: if state executive officials or state courts make major, late-in-the-day changes to election law, can federal courts decide whether those changes are constitutional? Or does Purcell mean the federal courts have to stand down.

Purcell is easiest to apply when plaintiffs bring a last-minute challenge to a state policy that’s been in place for a long time. When policies are constantly changing late in the day, through the actions of state courts or state executive officials, it becomes much harder to figure out exactly how Purcell should be applied.

And I have greatly simplified the actual facts in the NC case. The situation involves a number of actions of the state courts, as well as the federal district court, with state and federal courts in the last couple weeks issuing temporary restraining order, temporary stays, and taking other actions too convoluted to be worth summarizing here. I simply want to flag the Purcell issue that also split the CA 4.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


The “Independent Legislature” Issue Might Be Back to the Supreme Court In Days<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117166>
Posted on October 21, 2020 3:52 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117166> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

After having just divided 4-4 on the PA case, which centered on the “independent legislature” constitutional issue<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/opinions/john-roberts-country-before-politics-pildes/index.html>, the Court might soon be faced with that issue yet again. The en banc 4th Circuit split<https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273830/10-20-20-Wise-v-Circosta-4th-Circuit.pdf> yesterday on precisely this issue — along with a number of other important ones.

The NC Election Code permits absentee ballots to be received up to three days after Election Day. Ballots received later than that are not valid votes, under the Code. Following a lawsuit challenging this deadline, the NC Board of Elections entered into a consent decree in which it agreed to extend that deadline; under this decree, the Board agreed to treat ballots as valid votes if they were received up to nine days after Election Day.

That poses the constitutional question that split the 4th Circuit: did the Board violate the federal constitutional question by changing the deadline the legislature had enacted into law. In particular, did the Board violate Art. I and Art. II of the Constitution because those provisions give “the legislature” the power to regulate national elections and the manner of choosing presidential electors.

The “independent legislature” doctrine is now being litigated, or has been litigated, in several cases during this election cycle.

If the NC legislature takes this case to the Court now, by seeking a stay, the Court might decide it’s too late in the day to act on that issue now, in which case the Court might simply decline to change the status quo.

But one way or another, it now seems increasingly likely that the Court is going to end up addressing that issue, with all its implications<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117040>, one day soon. That might be before the election, if the Court were to issue a stay, or after the election, when the Court would hear a case on the merits. But this issue is not going away.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Elliott Broidy Pleads Guilty in Foreign Lobbying Case”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117164>
Posted on October 20, 2020 9:00 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117164> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/elliott-broidy-foreign-lobbying.html>:

Elliott Broidy, a former top fund-raiser for President Trump, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws as part of a covert campaign to influence the administration on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests.

Mr. Broidy, 63, agreed to forfeit $6.6 million to the federal government and to cooperate with prosecutors on a range of potential investigations related to his fellow conspirators and others.

The charge is a felony that could carry a prison sentence of up to five years, but his cooperation is likely to result in a lesser sentence. His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 12.

Mr. Broidy’s guilty plea relates to his arrangement with the fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, who was not identified by name in court filings or during the hearing on Tuesday.

Mr. Broidy admitted that he had accepted $9 million from Mr. Low, some of which was then paid to an associate, to push the Trump administration for the extradition of a Chinese dissident and to drop a case related to an embezzlement scheme from a Malaysian sovereign wealth fund that the United States has accused Mr. Low of engineering.

He also admitted to meeting with a Chinese government official who was seeking the extradition of the dissident, who was not identified in court, but who is known to be the billionaire Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of China who has been charged by its government with corruption and is seeking asylum in the United States.

Mr. Broidy did not disclose the foreign lobbying work with the Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, but he knew that he should have, he told Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a virtual hearing.

This is the second time Mr. Broidy has pleaded guilty to a felony. He pleaded guilty in 2009<https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/12/03/guilty-plea-in-new-york-pension-bribery-case/> to a felony charge, which was later reduced to a misdemeanor<https://www.nydailynews.com/news/crime/no-jail-time-guilty-israeli-investor-article-1.1209146>, in an unrelated pension fund bribery case.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Trump Campaign’s $63 Million Dwarfed by Biden’s $177 Million”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117162>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:56 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117162> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/trump-money-biden.html>

President Trump<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/donald-trump.html>’s re-election campaign committee ended September with only $63.1 million in the bank despite canceling some television buys late last month, leaving him badly outmatched financially against Joseph R. Biden Jr.<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/elections/joe-biden.html>, who reported $177.3 million in cash on hand for the final stretch of the campaign.

New filings with the Federal Election Commission showed the extent of Mr. Trump’s cash troubles, which are severe enough that he diverted time from key battleground states and flew to California on Sunday for a fund-raiser with just over two weeks until Election Day. The president ended September with just over half as much money as he had at the beginning of the month.

While Mr. Trump’s campaign and its shared committees with the Republican National Committee have raised $1.5 billion since the start of 2019, the disclosures late Tuesday showed that his main re-election committee — the account that must pay for many of the race’s most important costs, including most television ads — had only a small slice remaining.

All told, Mr. Trump’s campaign and its shared committees with the R.N.C. had $251.4 million entering October, compared with the $432 million that Mr. Biden’s campaign and its joint accounts with the Democratic National Committee had in the bank.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“College Students Are Missing From Campus. Will Their Missing Votes Make a Difference?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117160>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:52 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117160> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/20/us/politics/college-students-voting-location.html>

Though young Americans typically vote at lower rates than the electorate does as a whole, the race in Michigan’s Eighth District isn’t the only one where their absence could have an impact. David Wasserman, the House editor at the Cook Political Report<https://cookpolitical.com/>, cited Illinois’s 13th Congressional District, where Betsy Dirksen Londrigan, a Democrat, is again challenging Representative Rodney Davis, who narrowly beat her in 2018<https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/illinois-house-district-13>.

Democrats were hoping a big turnout would increase Ms. Londrigan’s chances in the rematch, especially with the college vote at the campuses of the University of Illinois, Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and Illinois State University. But remote classes have left many students living away from campus, and the Cook Political Report has rated the race as leaning toward Mr. Davis’s re-election.

“The Democratic theory of that race was that all they needed to do was get the turnout up,” Mr. Wasserman said. “But there are a lot of moving parts to this student migration situation.”

Nathan L. Gonzales, editor of the Inside Elections<https://insideelections.com/> newsletter, said the loss of students at the campuses of Oregon State University and the University of Oregon could be a factor in the race for Oregon’s Fourth Congressional District, home to both schools.
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“Threatening emails to Democratic voters spark investigations in Florida and Alaska”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117158>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117158> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/10/20/proud-boys-emails-florida/>

Authorities in Florida and Alaska on Tuesday were investigating threatening emails sent to Democratic voters that claimed to be from the Proud Boys, a far-right group supportive of President Trump, but appeared instead to be a deceptive campaign making use of a vulnerability in the organization’s online network.

The emails, which appeared to target Democrats using data from digital databases known as “voter files,” told recipients the group was “in possession of all your information” and instructed voters to change their party registration and cast their ballots for Trump.

“You will vote for Trump on Election Day or we will come after you,” the emails warned.

Enrique Tarrio, the chairman of the Proud Boys and the Florida state director of Latinos for Trump, denied involvement, saying the group operates two sites, and was increasingly migrating away from the domain used in the email campaign….

The domain, officialproudboys.com<http://officialproudboys.com/>, was recently dropped by a hosting company that uses Google Cloud services, according to Google Cloud spokesman Ted Ladd. The hosting service cancelled the registration after Google Cloud notified the customer that a non-profit group had raised concerns about the Proud Boys, Ladd said.

Following the action from the hosting service, the domain appears to have been left unsecured, allowing anyone on the Internet to take control of it and use it to send out the menacing messages, said Trevor Davis, CEO of Counteraction, a Washington-based digital intelligence firm.

The lapse, which began on Oct. 8, “likely made them vulnerable to this kind of hijacking,” Davis said. “Bad actors are constantly scanning the Internet for opportunities. Given the public profile of the Proud Boys and the likelihood that whoever’s sending these emails has access to a voter file, this appears to be opportunism.”
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Tennessee voters were challenged at the polls for wearing Black Lives Matter and ‘I Can’t Breathe’ shirts, election official says”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117156>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:41 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117156> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/10/20/memphis-blm-shirt-voters/>:

A poll worker in Memphis was fired last week after interfering with early voters who wore T-shirts and masks with slogans supporting Black Lives Matter, according to a Shelby County election official.

Details about the incident remained unclear Tuesday, including how many people were affected. Earlier reports indicated voters had been turned away at the Dave Wells Community Center in north Memphis last week, but no county election board officials were on hand to verify whether the prospective voters ended up casting their ballots, Shelby County Election Commission spokeswoman Suzanne Thompson told The Washington Post on Tuesday.

“Our voters are not going to be intimidated. We’re doing everything we can so that every voter in Shelby County can exercise their right,” Thompson said.

The poll worker “of his own volition” was seen telling people late last week that they had to turn their T-shirt or mask inside out if it said “Black Lives Matter,” according to Thompson. A separate poll worker who worked the check-in table and was believed to be friends with the fired poll worker did not show up for work the next day, Thompson said….

When county officials reminded the poll worker, who has not been identified, of the training that all poll workers undergo — and which this year specifically addressed that racial justice slogans are permitted at the polls — he pushed back, Thompson said. She described the poll worker as expressing his belief that Black Lives Matter and the slogan “I Can’t Breathe” were “political statements connected to the Democratic Party.”
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“Court lets North Carolina keep absentee deadline extension” (12-3 En banc 4th Circuit Vote)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117154>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:38 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117154> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://www.wral.com/court-lets-north-carolina-keep-absentee-deadline-extension/19346042/>:

North Carolina can accept absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day for more than a week afterward, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday.

The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals declined to block an extension for accepting the ballots that was announced in late September. The State Board of Elections decided then that absentee ballots could be accepted until Nov. 12 as long as they were mailed by Election Day, lengthening the timeframe from three to nine days. The change was made as part of a legal settlement with voting rights advocates….

The court’s majority opinion notes that ballots must still be postmarked by Election Day to be counted. The opinion says that “everyone must submit their ballot by the same date. The extension merely allows more lawfully cast ballots to be counted, in the event there are any delays precipitated by an avalanche of mail-in ballots.”

The ruling was decided 12-3. All 15 of the court’s active judges participated, rather than a smaller panel, in a sign of the case’s importance.

You can find the opinions here<https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/7273830/10-20-20-Wise-v-Circosta-4th-Circuit.pdf>. Mark Stern comments on the dissent starting here<https://twitter.com/mjs_DC/status/1318742085919440903?s=20>:
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“Called out for ‘voter intimidation,’ Florida officer faces discipline for wearing ‘Trump 2020’ mask at polling place”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117152>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:28 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117152> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

USA Today reports.<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/20/miami-police-officer-trump-2020-mask-poll-discipline/6001128002/?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzRss&utm_campaign=usatodaycomwashington-topstories>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“John Roberts sides with the liberals on mail-in voting but things may change once Barrett arrives”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117150>
Posted on October 20, 2020 8:25 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117150> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Joan Biskupic<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/politics/john-roberts-pennsylvania-supreme-court-barrett/index.html> for CNN.
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


New Frontline Documentary: “Whose Vote Counts” Focuses on Wisconsin<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117147>
Posted on October 20, 2020 6:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117147> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can watch here<https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/whose-vote-counts/>.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D117147&title=New%20Frontline%20Documentary%3A%20%E2%80%9CWhose%20Vote%20Counts%E2%80%9D%20Focuses%20on%20Wisconsin>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Doomsday Scenarios Abound, But The Next President Will Be Decided By The Voters. Not The Courts, Not Congress”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117145>
Posted on October 20, 2020 5:14 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117145> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Charles Stewart<https://www.wbur.org/cognoscenti/2020/10/20/2020-election-integrity-vote-count-charles-stewart-iii?fbclid=IwAR1XRSIrwh8qzqpsu068jyhI79enKsywaqHfvB_DvFU6Lwxnuf3FQ5xoStk> for WBUR:

These are the types of scenarios that have convinced many people that Biden has no chance of winning, regardless of what happens with the voting.

However, there are two fundamental flaws beneath all this breathless scenario-building. The first is the idea that general, unsubstantiated charges of fraud would carry any weight in a court once counting got underway. The second is the idea that state election officials and courts would cooperate with a rope-a-dope strategy of vote counting, knowing what is at stake.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


I Talked with Ari Shapiro of NPR’s All Things Considered About the Current Election Litigation Environment, and the Supreme Court PA Voting Ruling<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117143>
Posted on October 20, 2020 4:57 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117143> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can listen here.<https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925895724/election-law-blogger-on-the-state-of-voting-related-lawsuits>
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“Supreme Court split in Pa. election case raises questions about how a Justice Barrett would rule”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117141>
Posted on October 20, 2020 4:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117141> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/court-barrett-trump-elections/2020/10/20/e79c7c7a-12ee-11eb-ba42-ec6a580836ed_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Federal lawsuit filed to halt firm hiring armed guards for Minnesota polling sites”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117139>
Posted on October 20, 2020 4:41 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117139> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Star-Tribune reports<https://www.startribune.com/federal-lawsuit-filed-to-halt-firm-hiring-armed-guards-for-minnesota-polling-sites/572804862/>.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


Speaking at LA Law Library Virtually About Election Meltdown, Oct. 27<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117136>
Posted on October 20, 2020 4:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117136> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

RSVP required<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/la-law-library-em.pdf>.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D117136&title=Speaking%20at%20LA%20Law%20Library%20Virtually%20About%20Election%20Meltdown%2C%20Oct.%2027>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Trump pressures Barr to investigate Bidens as election nears”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117134>
Posted on October 20, 2020 3:38 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117134> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/20/trump-pressures-barr-investigate-bidens-election-nears/5996728002/>

President Donald Trump on Tuesday called on Attorney General William Barr to immediately launch an investigation of Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter, effectively demanding that the Justice Department muddy his political opponent and abandon its historic resistance to getting involved in elections.

With just two weeks to go before Election Day, Trump for the first time explicitly called on Barr to investigate the Bidens and even pointed to the nearing Nov. 3 election as reason that Barr should not delay taking action.

“We’ve got to get the attorney general to act,” Trump said in an interview on “Fox & Friends.” “He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast. He’s got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election.”

Julian Zelizer, a presidential historian at Princeton University, suggested that Trump’s pressure campaign on Barr has moved into uncharted territory for presidential politics.

“The question is, Does Barr erode the guidelines and reforms from the post-Watergate era and move forward with this?” Zelizer said. “We are seeing a total politicization of the justice system in the final stages of an election.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“If There’s No Election Night Winner, Don’t Panic”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117132>
Posted on October 20, 2020 2:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117132> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NPR reports.<https://www.npr.org/2020/10/20/925563057/it-might-not-be-clear-who-won-on-election-night-but-that-may-not-mean-a-problem?utm_medium=social&utm_term=nprnews&utm_campaign=politics&utm_source=twitter.com>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Silicon Valley megadonors unleash a last-minute, $100 million barrage of ads against Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117130>
Posted on October 20, 2020 12:44 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117130> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ReCode reports.<https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/10/20/21523492/future-forward-super-pac-dustin-moskovitz-silicon-valley>
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Plutocrats United<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=104>


“Barry Burden and Reid Ribble: Be patient as the votes are carefully counted”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117128>
Posted on October 20, 2020 12:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117128> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Oped<https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/barry-burden-and-reid-ribble-be-patient-as-the-votes-are-carefully-counted/article_cf238cde-4495-5954-be53-7a3f66cd1a48.html> in the Wisconsin State Journal.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Watch Video of My Appearing on CNN’s John King Talking About the Supreme Court Ruling in the Pennsylvania Voting Case<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117126>
Posted on October 20, 2020 12:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117126> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Watch here:<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=533Y0TS87Nw&feature=youtu.be>
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“In last-minute push, DeSantis administration urges Florida election officials to remove felons who owe fines from voting rolls”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117124>
Posted on October 20, 2020 11:37 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117124> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/florida-felon-vote-2020-election/2020/10/20/fd67d51c-11fa-11eb-82af-864652063d61_story.html>:

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s administration delivered last-minute guidance to local election officials recommending measures that voting-rights advocates say could intimidate or confuse voters, the latest salvo in a pitched battle over who is able to cast ballots in a state crucial to President Trump’s reelection.

In a notice sent to local election officials last week, Division of Elections Director Maria Matthews urged them to remove from the voter rolls people with felony convictions who still owe court fines and fees, a move that local officials said is impossible to accomplish before Election Day.

A second memo from Secretary of State Laurel M. Lee’s general counsel recommended that election staff or law enforcement guard all mail ballot drop boxes, a step that local election officials say is not required under the law.

Election officials said they do not have time or resources to implement either measure before the Nov.?3 election, and voting rights advocates cast the back-to-back missives as the latest effort by the Republican governor and Trump ally to impede access to the ballot box.

“They’re attempting to sow confusion,” Patricia Brigham, president of the League of Women Voters Florida said of the state’s instructions. She added: “The state of Florida doesn’t have a spotless record when it come to making sure voters have easy access to the polls.”
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Posted in felon voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>


“John Roberts put the country before politics”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117122>
Posted on October 20, 2020 11:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117122> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

That’s the title CNN put on my piece<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/20/opinions/john-roberts-country-before-politics-pildes/index.html> on the Supreme Court’s decision in the PA case. I’ll keep the excerpt short, since most readers here will already understand much of the background:

In the most important pre-election case this year, Chief Justice John Roberts once again appears to have decided<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/19/politics/pennsylvania-mail-in-voting-supreme-court/index.html> that, for the Supreme Court, discretion is the better part of valor.After sitting for a remarkable several weeks on a Pennsylvania election-law case — the longest the Court has taken with any election case this year — the Court in the end chose to say nothing at all. Instead, it simply released<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/19/politics/pennsylvania-mail-in-voting-supreme-court/index.html> a 4-4 order rejecting the Republican Party’s effort to overturn a decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a decision that permits absentee ballots to be counted even if received three days after Election Day. . . .

In a 5-4 decision that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote<https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/14pdf/13-1314_3ea4.pdf> five years ago, the Court held that “legislature” means the general lawmaking process of a state. That meant a state can give voters the power to regulate national elections. But who wrote the impassioned, vehement, lengthy dissent for four Justices, arguing that “legislature” means just the institution? Roberts.

That is why he almost certainly believes, as a matter of first principle, that “legislature” means the institution, nothing more. And that belief would have led him to a 5-3 decision blocking the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision and re-imposing the legislature’s election night deadline for absentee ballots.

But a 5-3 decision doing that would have led Biden supporters to believe the conservative majority was aligning with the Republican Party, for partisan reasons, in favor of restrictive absentee ballot rules — in a critical swing state like Pennsylvania. On top of that, the Court might well have felt obligated to explain its reasons for such a significant action. That would have required the Court to resolve the meaning of “legislature,” with all the implications doing so would entail.In suppressing his almost certain view about the proper meaning of the Constitution, Roberts chose to let these issues, like sleeping dogs, lie — at least for now. A 4-4 decision says nothing. It settles nothing. Surely a tough vote for the Chief Justice, but exactly the right call, on the eve of an election that is roiling the country like few others.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Beyond the Adjustment Wars: Dealing with Uncertainty and Bias in Redistricting Data”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117120>
Posted on October 20, 2020 9:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117120> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jeff Zalesin<https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/beyond-the-adjustment-wars> at Yale Law Journal Forum. Abstract:

The Constitution requires legislative redistricting plans to have approximately equal populations in each district. But no one knows exactly how many people live in any district, because census data are never fully accurate. Courts have developed little doctrine in response to this problem. Yet, the need for such doctrine is growing. Policymakers have largely given up on improving the census through statistical adjustment. The 2020 Census will likely be less accurate than its predecessors, thanks to political interference and the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Essay offers a pragmatic approach to litigating malapportionment cases with imperfect population data. Courts in malapportionment litigation should clarify that they will consider evidence that the data underlying a redistricting plan are biased, such that the district populations are less equal than they appear. Such evidence will be especially important when courts evaluate maps drawn with novel types of data, such as estimates of citizen voting-age population.
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


--
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>
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http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>

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