[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/24/20

[Rick Hasen]

Understanding the Pennsylvania GOP Hail Mary Fighting the Extended Deadline for Receipt of Mailed Ballots, and the Awful Pressure that the GOP’s Petition Could Put on Soon-to-Be Justice Barrett<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117382>
Posted on October 24, 2020 4:45 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117382> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Pennsylvania GOP has gone back<https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Application-for-Relief.pdf-1.pdf> to the U.S. Supreme Court and the state supreme court in an effort to renew its objection to the counting of mail-in ballots<https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/pennsylvania-republicans-return-to-supreme-court-to-challenge-extended-deadline-for-mail-in-ballots/> that arrive after 8 pm on Election night (as set forth in the state statute) to include all ballots arriving within three days of election day postmarked by election day or without a legible postmark. This comes just a few days after the Supreme Court deadlocked on the question<https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/supreme-court-leaves-in-place-order-requiring-pennsylvania-to-count-absentee-ballots-after-election-day/> thereby leaving the deadline in place. The GOP’s play is unlikely to work, first, because the chances are still small that the election would come down not only to Pennsylvania but to these later arriving ballots; and second, because of the reliance interests created by the Supreme Court’s earlier failure to reverse the extension. If it does come down to all that, the request to expedite the cert. petition would put Judge Amy Coney Barrett, soon to be the ninth Justice, in an awful position, perhaps increasing the chances she will recuse<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117015> in the litigation.

I’ve already explained the legal issues involving Article II of the Constitution in this Slate piece<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/10/supreme-court-pennsylvania-election-law-order.html>. To simplify a bit, the GOP claim is that a state supreme court cannot rely upon a state constitution to protect voting rights by expanding rights under a state statute, because doing so usurps the power of the state legislature to set the rules for choosing presidential electors. Republicans asked the Supreme Court to reverse on this ground (and another, weaker ground) and the Supreme Court deadlocked, leaving the Pa. Supreme Court extension in place.

We are now just 9 days away from the election. The GOP’s motion to expedite in the Supreme Court suggests that briefing<https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Republican-Party-of-Pennsylvania-v.-Boockvar-Motion-to-Expedite.pdf> in the case be put on a lightning docket and end on October 28. That suggests a Supreme Court order no earlier than October 29, which is 5 days before election day. By then, millions of voters in Pennsylvania would have heard about the new deadline of a postmark by election day rather than receipt by that day.

The reliance interests of voters at that point would be tremendous; think of the Purcell Principle on steroids if the U.S. Supreme Court announces a rule change just a few days before the election about the deadline for the election, and doing so after the Supreme Court had a full opportunity to block the late receipt of ballots and failing to do so. How would word get out to Pa. voters who heard about the extension with enough time to mail the ballots to arrive by election day, especially with a postal service that says you need to give at least a week for mailing right now?

We’ve had a similar reliance situation to this in the recent South Carolina case. The Supreme Court held that the district court was wrong to eliminate the witness signature requirement for absentee ballots in the state, BUT it held that any ballots already returned without the signature and arriving within two days of the courts order without the witness signature should still be accepted. The reason for such a grandfathering in of the ballots is the reliance interest of voters on valid court orders. In that South Carolina case, only three Justices—Alito, Gorsuch, and Thomas—would have thrown out those ballots and made voters vote again. Kavanaugh and Roberts did not go along with that<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117264>.

In this case, the reliance interests are much stronger because there would be no way for voters to vote again in time. It seems that the equities are clearly on the side of the Pennsylvania voters in this context.

So it seems unlikely that this gambit would succeed unless Justice Kavanaugh would see the reliance interests different in the PA case. If he would do so, it would not only be the reliance problem but a problem for his newest colleague (soon to be) Justice Barrett.

It takes only four votes to grant cert. and hear this case. But it takes five to expedite consideration of the case. Would four conservatives vote to hear the case and to expedite, putting Barrett in the position of casting<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117264> the deciding vote? That would be awful for her, especially given the calls for her to recuse based upon President Trump’s statements that he’d want Barrett on the Court to help decide the election. (The Court could grant cert and not expedite, and then resolve the issue as to future elections not affecting 2020. There’s no reliance or recusal issues with doing that.)

All of this lines up to make it extremely unlikely this play by the GOP will work. It might even backfire with some Justices by putting them in a very difficult position right in the middle of the election.

The 2020 election is unlikely to come down to PA if the polling is accurate, and if it comes down to PA it is unlikely to be close enough that the mail-in ballots received after the election would make a difference in the election outcome. But if it does, the pressure on new Justice Barrett will be positively terrible.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Texas Supreme Court temporarily reinstates governor’s ban on additional ballot drop boxes in state”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117380>
Posted on October 24, 2020 3:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117380> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Hill reports.<https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/522604-texas-appeals-court-temporarily-reinstates-governors-ban-on-additional>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“In high-stakes election, Georgia’s voting system vulnerable to cyberattack”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117377>
Posted on October 24, 2020 3:46 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117377> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AJC:<https://www.ajc.com/politics/election/in-high-stakes-election-georgias-voting-system-vulnerable-to-cyberattack/TBFT5U5BH5AZZPFPZTP3LFQ7RY/>

Headed into one of the most consequential elections in the state’s history, Georgia’s new electronic voting system is vulnerable to cyberattacks that could undermine public confidence, create chaos at the polls or even manipulate the results on Election Day.

Computer scientists, voting-rights activists, U.S. intelligence agencies and a federal judge have repeatedly warned of security deficiencies in Georgia’s system and in electronic voting in general. But state officials have dismissed their concerns as merely “opining on potential risks.”

Instead, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s office weakened the system’s defenses, disabling password protections on a key component that controls who is allowed to vote.

In addition, days before early voting began on Oct. 12, Raffensperger’s office pushed out new software<https://www.ajc.com/politics/fix-upcoming-to-georgia-touchscreens-to-restore-missing-senate-candidates/ASEWAGDAR5DFPGW2OPULV4N3JY/> to each of the state’s 30,000 voting machines through hundreds of thumb drives that experts say are prone to infection with malware.

And what state officials describe as a feature of the new system actually masks a vulnerability.

Officials tell voters to verify their selections on a paper ballot before feeding it into an optical scanner. But the scanner doesn’t record the text that voters see; rather, it reads an unencrypted quick response, or QR, barcode that is indecipherable to the human eye. Either by tampering with individual voting machines or by infiltrating the state’s central elections server, hackers could systematically alter the barcodes to change votes.

Georgia’s Secretary of State is not happy<https://coaltionforgoodgovernance.sharefile.com/share/view/s6ee1e6dd4604d828> with the story.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“‘There is a voter-suppression wing’: An ugly American tradition clouds the 2020 presidential race”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117375>
Posted on October 24, 2020 3:42 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117375> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

L.A. Times:<https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-10-24/voter-suppression-clouds-2020-vote>

A Memphis, Tenn., poll worker turned away people wearing Black Lives Matter T-shirts, saying they couldn’t vote. Robocalls warned thousands of Michigan residents that mail-in voting could put their personal information in the hands of debt collectors and police. In Georgia, officials cut polling places by nearly 10%, even as the number of voters surged by nearly 2 million.

The long American tradition of threatening voting access — often for Black people and Latinos — has dramatically resurfaced in 2020, this time buttressed by a record-setting wave of litigation and an embattled president whose reelection campaign is built around a strategy of sowing doubt and confusion.

Voting rights activists depict the fights against expanding voter access as a last-ditch effort by President Trump and his allies to disenfranchise citizens who tend to favor Democrats. The administration insists — despite no evidence of a widespread problem — that it must enforce restrictions to prevent voter fraud.

“We have an incredibly polarized country and we have a political party whose leader thinks it’s to the party’s advantage to make it harder for people to register to vote and to vote,” said Richard L. Hasen, a UC Irvine law professor and authority on voting. “So that is where we are.”
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


11th Circuit, on 2-1 Vote, Stops District Court Order Which Would Have Required Georgia to Have Paper Backups of Electronic Pollbooks and Other Emergency Procedures in Place<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117373>
Posted on October 24, 2020 3:38 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117373> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

You can find the order (without any stated reasons) at this link<https://coaltionforgoodgovernance.sharefile.com/share/view/sb8df85e9d424b0a8>.

Here<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116639> is my October 11 coverage of the district court’s order.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


“He Fought For Voting Rights In Georgia, Then He Was Locked Up”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117371>
Posted on October 24, 2020 3:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117371> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Johnny Kauffman<https://www.wabe.org/he-fought-for-voting-rights-in-georgia-then-he-was-locked-up/> for WABE:

Tariq Baiyina has lobbied politicians, shaken hands with governors, set up a college program, and delivered dozens of sermons. Despite all this, the 42-year-old has never voted. And the reason is simple: since 2002, when he was convicted of a felony, he hasn’t been allowed.

Felony disenfranchisement has become commonplace in the US, where 5.2 million people can’t vote, according to a new estimate from the Sentencing Project<https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/locked-out-2020-estimates-of-people-denied-voting-rights-due-to-a-felony-conviction/>. While dozens of countries allow all people held in prison to vote, only two states Vermont and Maine — as well as Washington, D.C, do so in the US.  And in some states people lose their voting rights even after they’ve been released. In Georgia, where Baiyina was convicted, for example, the ban lasts through probation and parole, which can extend decades after serving time.

Black Americans, like Baiyina, are about 3.7 times as likely to lose their voting eligibility than other adults. But as the country begins to confront head-on issues of racism and inequality, more states are scaling back felony disenfranchisement. Earlier this year, Iowa became the final state to lift what had been a lifetime ban.  In Florida, voters in 2018 approved a referendum restoring eligibility to people who are off probation or parole, though it was quickly dismantled by Republicans<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/06/republicans-florida-amendment-4-voting-rights>.

When Baiyina was convicted nearly two decades ago of armed robbery and carjacking, he wasn’t thinking about how people elected to run the government might affect his life, but soon he would become part of that movement, fighting to win power for himself and others punished by the legal system. In a few years, he would grow into a leading voice against felony disenfranchisement in Georgia. And for Baiyina, the cause is about more than just winning influence over who writes laws, it’s a personal quest to escape lingering punishment, and find citizenship. A quest that his own mistakes could quickly, and dramatically, interrupt.
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Posted in felon voting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=66>


7th Circuit Reverses District Court Order that Would Have Stopped Indiana Law Limiting Extensions of Polling Place Hours During Emergencies<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117367>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:28 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117367> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The appeals court relied in part on Purcell<http://media.ca7.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/rssExec.pl?Submit=Display&Path=Y2020/D10-23/C:20-2877:J:PerCuriam:aut:T:fnOp:N:2601693:S:0>, and in part on Anderson-Burdick.

More of the same.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Order allowing Texas counties to have multiple mail-in ballot drop off sites is upheld, but appeal will likely halt openings”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117365>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:22 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117365> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Texas Tribune reports<https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/23/texas-mail-in-ballot-drop-off/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The 2020 Campaign Money Story”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117361>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117361> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Axios podcast<https://www.axios.com/the-2020-campaign-money-story-4da6e079-e214-4f9e-b172-f6fa250bc49c.html> speaks to Ciara Torres-Spelliscy.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


Three from Ned Foley<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117359>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:18 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117359> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Could Trump contest even a landslide? That depends on his fellow Republicans<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/23/could-trump-contest-even-landslide-that-depends-his-fellow-republicans/> (WaPo)

The coming Supreme Court showdown that may affect how you vote<https://thefulcrum.us/election-dissection/election-case-in-supreme-court> (on Anderson-Burdick vs. McDonald standard on absentee voting)

Symposium: The particular perils of emergency election cases<https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/symposium-the-particular-perils-of-emergency-election-cases/> (Scotusblog symposium on the shadow docket)
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Kansas: “Secret recording: O’Donnell, Capps, Clendenin plot how to get away with Whipple smear”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117356>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117356> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wichita Eagle<https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article246669242.html?ac_cid=DM308456&ac_bid=-1658370458>:

A secret recording released Friday shows that three Republican officials sought to frame the county’s Republican chairman for a falsified ad they put together smearing then-mayoral candidate Brandon Whipple. One compared their mission to that of the man who shot Wichita abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.

“Us Republicans, we all agree,” Sedgwick County Commissioner Michael O’Donnell said. “The murder of George Tiller was bad. But am I sad that he’s dead? No. I’m just glad I’m not the one who pulled the trigger.”

Tiller was assassinated in 2009 by anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder during a Sunday morning service while Tiller was serving as an usher at Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.

State Rep. Michael Capps said the anti-Whipple video was justifiable to derail Whipple’s candidacy, because he’s a “liberal Democrat.”

“It’s what we do,” Capps said. “It’s the way the system works. Nobody wants to know how the sausage is made, they only want the sausage when it’s done. And that’s the principle: This is the sausage making — nobody likes to see that.”
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Facebook Seeks Shutdown of NYU Research Project Into Political Ad Targeting”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117354>
Posted on October 23, 2020 5:01 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117354> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-seeks-shutdown-of-nyu-research-project-into-political-ad-targeting-11603488533?mod=hp_lista_pos1>:

Facebook is demanding that a New York University research project cease collecting data about its political-ad targeting practices, setting up a fight with academics seeking to study the platform without the company’s permission.

The dispute involves the NYU Ad Observatory, a project launched last month by the university’s engineering school that has recruited more than 6,500 volunteers to use a specially designed browser extension to collect data about the political ads Facebook shows them.

In a letter sent Oct. 16 to the researchers behind the NYU Ad Observatory, Facebook said the project violates provisions in its terms of service that prohibit bulk data collection from its site.

“Scraping tools, no matter how well-intentioned, are not a permissible means of collecting information from us,” said the letter, written by a Facebook privacy policy official, Allison Hendrix. If the university doesn’t end the project and delete the data it has collected, she wrote, “you may be subject to additional enforcement action.”

The clash between the social-media giant and a major research university comes at a time of heightened scrutiny over political advertising on social media ahead of next month’s U.S. election. Facebook in recent weeks has said it would bar new political ads<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-limit-political-ads-week-before-election-label-premature-calls-11599130800> ahead of Election Day and suspend all political ads indefinitely that evening<https://www.wsj.com/articles/facebook-to-suspend-u-s-political-ads-on-election-day-11602115034> to prevent the spread of paid misinformation about the election outcome.

Following a furor about the opaque nature of political advertising in the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook launched an archive of advertisements that run on its platform, with information such as who paid for an ad, when it ran and the geographic location of people who saw it. But that library excludes information about the targeting that determines who sees the ads.

The researchers behind the NYU Ad Observatory said they wanted to provide journalists, researchers, policy makers, and others with the ability to search political ads by state and contest to see what messages are targeted to specific audiences and how those ads are funded.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>, cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


“Court defeat for Trump boosts chances of avoiding election disaster”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117352>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:48 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117352> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Greg Sargent:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/23/court-defeat-trump-boosts-chances-avoiding-election-disaster/>

We’ve spent so many months worrying about a disastrous election day — due to President Trump’s corrupt designs<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/07/31/trump-just-told-us-how-mail-delays-could-help-him-corrupt-election/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2> or other factors such as mail backlogs — that it’s hard to contemplate the possibility that it might come off more smoothly than we expect.

But that more hopeful outcome got a bit more plausible on Friday, when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a ruling<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/pennsylvania-court-ballot-signatures-431794> that mail ballots can’t be rejected due to a failure to meet signature matching requirements.

Greg links to two #ELB blog posts. Just search for the words “complicated technical reasons” LOL.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“A Nonprofit With Ties to Democrats Is Sending Out Millions of Ballot Applications. Election Officials Wish It Would Stop.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117350>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:43 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117350> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

ProPublica:<https://www.propublica.org/article/a-nonprofit-with-ties-to-democrats-is-sending-out-millions-of-ballot-applications-election-officials-wish-it-would-stop>

Gerry Cohen had already voted, dropping off his state-issued ballot at his local post office, by the time the unsolicited mail ballot applications started showing up at his house in early September. The first one or two didn’t bother him. Cohen knows elections: He teaches election law at Duke University and is a Democratic member of the Board of Elections in Wake County, North Carolina. Sending applications directly to voters is “a good public service,” he said.

But Cohen has received at least seven unsolicited mail ballot applications since he voted — not from the state or county, but from the same get-out-the-vote group. “It’s extremely disruptive and reaches the level of a disinformation campaign,” Cohen said. “I think seven is malicious.”

The applications were from the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Voter Information, which, along with its sister organization, the Voter Participation Center, is conducting a massive campaign to register voters and promote mail-in voting. The nonprofits aim to send 340 million pieces of mail this election cycle, with a focus on two dozen key states. The groups describe themselves as nonpartisan, but they were founded by a former Democratic operative, and the organization has spent at least $47,142 this cycle to promote former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential bid and $40,065 supporting other Democrats, according to public filings.

Election officials say CVI has made a host of mistakes that have buried their offices in unnecessary paperwork and swamped them with calls from voters. Mailers from groups like CVI, which can be mistaken for official documents sent by state or local governments, are confusing voters at a time when states are racing to expand voting by mail during a pandemic, according to election officials from both parties. President Donald Trump has stoked fears of voter fraud by citing CVI’s activities.

As states ramp up mail-in voting, CVI and other direct-mail groups across the country are causing friction by tackling responsibilities that traditionally belong to the government: the sending of ballot applications and other election-related materials. Alabama’s secretary of state warned residents in early October<https://www.al.com/election/2020/10/alabama-warns-voters-against-election-mail-service-mailout.html> against using unofficial voter registration forms from a group called Election Mail Service, a project of a Texas public benefit corporation called Civitech. Ohio<https://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/10/07/ohio-civitech-voter-registration-forms-with-errors-confusing/5908328002/> and North Carolina<https://carolinapublicpress.org/38420/11000-incorrect-voter-registration-forms-sent-potential-nc-voters/> officials have also put out public statements about unsolicited registration forms from Civitech, some of which were prefilled with incorrect names, addresses and other personal information.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“A Court Fight Is Brewing Over A Ballot Slip-Up Affecting 29K Pittsburgh-Area Voters”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117348>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:35 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117348> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

TPM:<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/allegeny-county-mail-ballot-slip-up-challenges>

Republicans have gone to federal court to make it easier for them to challenge the ballots of nearly 29,000 Pittsburgh-area voters who were caught up in ballot-sending flub in recent weeks.

The court fight stems from a mail vendor screw-up<https://www.wesa.fm/post/printing-error-sends-wrong-ballots-nearly-29000-voters-allegheny-county#stream/0> that resulted in 28,879 Allegheny County voters being sent the wrong ballots. Election officials have since sent those voters the correct ballots, and have created a process to prevent those voters from having their votes counted twice if they send both of the ballots back in.

But two GOP U.S. House candidates filed a federal lawsuit earlier this month arguing the county’s approach to the blunder violates their constitutional rights. They’ve asked the court to order<https://ecf.pawd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/show_multidocs.pl?caseid=272486&arr_de_seq_nums=117&magic_num=&pdf_header=&hdr=&pdf_toggle_possible=&caseid=272486&zipit=&magic_num=&arr_de_seq_nums=117&got_warning=&create_roa=&create_appendix=&bates_format=&dkt=&got_receipt=1> that any ballot cast by the nearly 29,000 affected voters be automatically treated as “challenged” — a designation that could subject the ballot to an onerous process in order to be counted — and that the court waive the $10-per-ballot fee the candidates would usually face to file challenges. …

At a hearing Friday morning, U.S. District Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan urged Republicans and Allegheny County to work out an agreement over the weekend that would avoid a court fight while the election was underway or right after.

Both sides ultimately said they’d give such a discussion a shot, but Allegheny County lawyer Andrew Szefi stressed that the county officials were already extremely busy managing the current election.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Trump campaign, Nevada Republicans sue to stop Clark County mail vote counting until ‘proper procedures’ in place” [Update: Judge Denies Temporary Restraining Order]<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117346>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117346> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Nevada Independent:<https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-campaign-nevada-republicans-sue-to-stop-clark-county-mail-vote-counting-until-proper-procedures-in-place>

The Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party filed a lawsuit <https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20398857/trumpgopsuit.pdf> Friday requesting a pause in Clark County’s mail ballot counting until “proper procedures” for “meaningful observation” are in place.

The lawsuit — filed in Carson City District Court — names Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican, and Joseph Gloria, Clark County’s Registrar of Voters, as the defendants. Fred Kraus, a registered voter in Clark County and volunteer poll watcher, is listed as a plaintiff in addition to the Trump campaign and Nevada GOP.

Kraus appears to be a former vice president and general counsel at the Venetian, a casino and resort property owned by GOP mega-donor Sheldon Adelson.

The lawsuit asks the judge to temporarily block ballot-counting procedures in populous Clark County until a “meaningful” poll and ballot-counting observation plan can be put in place by state election officials — a potentially major hitch in county plans to process the record number of mail votes expected to be cast in the 2020 election. Election officials are allowed to process mail ballots within 15 days of the election, which ensures a more rapid accounting of vote totals on Election Day after polls close and for any potential issues with a mail ballot to be addressed, or “cured” ahead of actual Election Day.

Update:<https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/trump-campaign-nevada-republicans-sue-to-stop-clark-county-mail-vote-counting-until-proper-procedures-in-place>

The same day the Trump campaign and Nevada Republican Party filed a lawsuit seeking to halt mail ballot counting in Clark County, a judge denied their request for a temporary restraining order.

That doesn’t mean the legal battle is over, though. Carson City District Court Judge James Wilson has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for Wednesday morning.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“In two political battlegrounds, thousands of mail-in ballots are on the verge of being rejected”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117344>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:28 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117344> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Herron & Smith:<https://theconversation.com/in-two-political-battlegrounds-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-are-on-the-verge-of-being-rejected-148616>

Tens of millions of Americans have already cast their ballots for the 2020 election by mail, building on a historic shift<https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10/21/us/trump-biden-election/40-million-americans-have-already-voted-with-the-key-state-of-wisconsin-seeing-a-big-early-vote> in voting methods that started with primary elections held during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mail-in ballots, however, aren’t automatically accepted as in-person ballots are. Rather, they can be rejected if they have signature defects on their return envelopes. Unless cured by voters – which means that voters fix the signature errors on them – these submitted ballots will be rejected.

Thanks to ongoing reporting of voter turnout in two battleground states, Florida<https://countyballotfiles.floridados.gov/VoteByMailEarlyVotingReports/EarlyVotingHome> and North Carolina<https://dl.ncsbe.gov/?prefix=ENRS/2020_11_03/>, we can identify the number of mail-in ballots at risk of being rejected. So far, we can tell that there are thousands of ballots flagged for rejection in these two states. In addition, racial minorities and Democrats are disproportionately more likely to have cast mail ballots this election that face rejection
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“U.S. Businesses Say One Thing on Climate Change, But Their Campaign Giving Says Another”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117342>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117342> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bloomberg<https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-election-company-campaign-finance-climate-change/?srnd=premium>:

Bloomberg Green examined political donations by businesses in the S&P 100 and the U.S.-based members of the Climate Action 100, a group representing the world’s largest corporate contributors to climate change. For every dollar these corporations gave to one of the most climate-friendly members of Congress during this election cycle, they gave $1.84—nearly twice as much—to an ardent obstructionist of proactive climate policy.

This pattern of giving more to candidates who do less for the climate comes as polls show voters are more concerned about climate change than ever before, and it stands in contrast to the bold claims many of these companies make about themselves and their products.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Voting Problems in March May Have Discouraged Some LA Voters”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117340>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:24 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117340> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Eric McGhee<https://www.ppic.org/blog/voting-problems-in-march-may-have-discouraged-some-la-voters/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=voting-problems-in-march-may-have-discouraged-some-la-voters?utm_source=ppic&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=blog_subscriber> for PPIC.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


Historical Review Magazine Features Retrospectives on 20 Years After Bush v. Gore, Featuring Pieces by 5 of 6 Living Florida Supreme Court Justices<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117338>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:21 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117338> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Find it here.<https://flcourthistory.org/resources/Documents/2020Magazine/Historical_Review_Fall2020-web.pdf>
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Posted in Bush v. Gore reflections<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=5>


“I wanted to make doubly sure my Florida vote counted, so I did it in person. Nervously.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117336>
Posted on October 23, 2020 1:20 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117336> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

Here’s the start<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/23/i-wanted-make-doubly-sure-my-florida-vote-counted-so-i-did-it-person-nervously/>:

Monday, Oct. 19, 2 a.m.: I’m so overactivated, I can’t sleep. I want to vote during the first hour of the first day of early voting here in surprisingly purple mid-South Florida. I have to vote ASAP, I suppose out of the same paranoid sense of urgency that made me decide to surrender my absentee ballot at the polling place and vote in person.

I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve left this apartment since covid-19 arrived, and those were to see the dentist and keep my car’s battery from dying. I probably won’t be the only youngish senior there today, in this town full of retirement communities. First, we were told to mail our ballots in really early, but then, thanks to the postmaster general’s boss, the USPS started to look sketchy. I’m hoping there won’t be too many people arriving to vote in person at 6:30, in the pitch dark.
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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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