[EL] ELB News and Commentary 10/28/20

[Rick Hasen]

Another Stay Request to Supreme Court (This One of State Court Ruling) on North Carolina Ballot Receipt Deadlines<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117547>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:52 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117547> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New filing<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20A74/158870/20201027111247913_2020-10-27%20NC%20Alliance%20Emergency%20Motion%20for%20a%20Stay%20vf.pdf> (via John Kruzel<https://twitter.com/johnkruzel/status/1321476114854928386>).
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Kavanaugh’s Opinion in Wisconsin Voting Case Raises Alarms Among Democrats”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117545>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:50 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117545> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/us/kavanaugh-voting-rights.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>:

The Supreme Court decision on Monday barring the counting of mail-in ballots in Wisconsin that arrive after Election Day was not a surprise for many Democrats, who had pressed for it but expected to lose.

But a concurring opinion by Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh set off alarms among civil rights and Democratic Party lawyers, who viewed it as giving public support to President Trump’s arguments that any results counted after Nov. 3 could be riddled with fraudulent votes — an assertion unsupported by the history of elections in the United States.

The decision also unnerved Democrats and local election officials in Pennsylvania, where Republicans are asking the Supreme Court to weigh in again on whether the state can accept ballots received up to three days after Election Day. While Democrats in Wisconsin had been appealing for an extension, the current rules in Pennsylvania allow for ballots to arrive three days after the election. Any change could threaten the more than 1.4 million absentee ballots not yet returned.

In his opinion, attached to the 5-to-3 ruling against the deadline extension<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/26/us/supreme-court-wisconsin-ballots.html> in Wisconsin, Justice Kavanaugh wrote that Election Day mail-in deadlines were devised “to avoid the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after Election Day and potentially flip the results of an election.”

He added, “Those states also want to be able to definitively announce the results of the election on election night, or as soon as possible thereafter.”

Justice Kavanaugh’s statement mirrored in some ways Mr. Trump’s efforts to suggest that only ballots counted by Election Day should decide the result, and more generally to push unfounded claims about widespread voter fraud.

Earlier on Monday, the president had posted on Twitter<https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1320873664296804354> that election officials “must have final total on November 3rd,” alleging without evidence that there are “big problems” with mail-in ballots. Twitter labeled the tweet “misleading.”…

Mr. Kavanaugh’s concurrence was met by a dissent from Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote that “there are no results to ‘flip’ until all valid votes are counted.”

Justice Kagan wrote that nothing could be more suspicious or improper “than refusing to tally votes once the clock strikes 12 on election night.”

“To suggest otherwise,” she added, “especially in these fractious times, is to disserve the electoral process.”

Justice Kagan chastised the majority for disregarding the overriding effects of the pandemic, adding, “What will undermine the ‘integrity’ of that process is not the counting but instead the discarding of timely cast ballots that, because of pandemic conditions, arrive a bit after Election Day.”
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Wisconsin officials stress need for quick return of mail ballots in wake of Supreme Court ruling”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117543>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:45 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117543> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/wisconsin-mail-ballot-deadline/2020/10/27/141488a4-186e-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“In campaign’s closing days, disinformation arrives via text message and email”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117541>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:44 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117541> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/disinformation-emails-texts/2020/10/28/3fd319c8-17ed-11eb-82db-60b15c874105_story.html>:

A video sent to voters falsely claimed that Joe Biden wants to give “sex changes to second-graders.”

A menacing directive advised Democrats to vote for Trump “or else.”

And a years-old photograph newly circulated with erroneous instructions for how to blow past a purported poll watcher on Election Day.

These deceptive, 11th-hour messages are not finding their way to Americans via the now well-trodden paths of Facebook and Twitter. Instead, they’re arriving in waves of text messages and emails, making use of a more intimate and less heavily scrutinized vector of disinformation than the social networking services manipulated four years ago as part of the Kremlin’s sweeping interference in the 2016 election<https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/16/new-report-russian-disinformation-prepared-senate-shows-operations-scale-sweep/?itid=lk_inline_manual_5>.

Texts and emails “have the potential to be more believable than social media,” said Darren Linvill, a specialist in social media at Clemson University who has studied millions of tweets sent by the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency. “I think people are more ready to accept information that comes through their phone than social media, where we’re trained in many ways to be more on guard.”
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


How Far Might Trump Go? No One Is Quite Sure”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117539>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:39 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117539> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Tom Edsall <https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/opinion/trump-biden-election-scenarios.html> for the NYT takes a deep dive into nightmare election scenarios. It includes this quote from me: “If it turns out to be really close and it comes down to Pennsylvania, God help the United States of America.”
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


“Texas voters have to wear masks while voting despite Gov. Greg Abbott’s exemption, federal judge rules”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117537>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:33 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117537> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Texas Tribune<https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/28/texas-voting-mask-abbott/>:

Texas voters are nowrequired to wear face masks when casting ballots during the pandemic, a federal district judge ruled Tuesday, invalidating an exemption for polling places<https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/22/texas-masks-poll-voting/> that Gov. Greg Abbott<https://www.texastribune.org/directory/greg-abbott/> had included in his statewide mask mandate.

The governor’s mandate for Texans to cover their mouths and noses in public does not apply to polling places, an exclusion that has been challenged as discriminatory against Black and Latino voters who are more likely to be harmed by the coronavirus. Abbott has previously said he encourages voters to wear a face mask, but said he excluded polling places from his mandate to prevent people from being turned away from voting just because they don’t have a mask. Under Abbott’s order, poll workers are also not required to wear masks.

In his temporary ruling<https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1102267/gov.uscourts.txwd.1102267.75.0.pdf>, U.S. District Judge Jason Pulliam said the exemption “creates a discriminatory burden on Black and Latino voters.”

Abbott and Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs immediately sought an appeal at the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“The Supreme Court Should Stay Out of State Election Law”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117535>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:29 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117535> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Akhil Amar, Vik Amar, and Neal Katyal NYT oped<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/opinion/supreme-court-elections-state-law.html>:

Just as they did in the infamous Bush v. Gore<https://www.oyez.org/cases/2000/00-949> litigation in 2000, Republican lawyers are trying to get the Supreme Court to undermine state court rulings protecting voting rights under state law. Their theory? That state courts, by relying in part on state constitutions, are wrongly exercising power that belongs to state legislatures.

This idea that state constitutions are irrelevant, and that all that matters is what state legislatures say, is preposterous. Yet recent events suggest this wrongheaded theory may have some traction among the justices.

And this theory has huge consequences. It would mean that many of the decisions you are reading about, where state judges are applying state constitutions to protect the right to vote (say, by finding<http://www.pacourts.us/assets/opinions/Supreme/out/j-96-2020mo%20-%20104548450113066639.pdf#search=%22Nilofer%20%27Supreme%2bCourt%27%22> that ballots postmarked by Election Day will be counted, or that onerous witness requirements will be relaxed because of Covid-19) would now be fair game for the Supreme Court to reverse — even though these decisions are interpretations of state law by state courts.

So far, partisan attempts to involve the federal judiciary have failed, and rightly so. Early last week, the Supreme Court rejected an effort<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/19/us/supreme-court-pennsylvania-voting.html> by Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision that votes postmarked by Election Day but received a few days later must be counted. The court deadlocked 4-4, letting the state court decision stand, with Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s three Democratic appointees in voting to leave undisturbed what the state court had done.

Now the Republican challengers are trying to bring the case back<https://www.scotusblog.com/2020/10/pennsylvania-republicans-return-to-supreme-court-to-challenge-extended-deadline-for-mail-in-ballots/> before the court, hoping to win support from its newest member, Amy Coney Barrett. We may see a similar push to overturn<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/23/pennsylvania-court-ballot-signatures-431794> a second Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling issued last Friday, also protecting state voters’ rights — this time to have their votes counted notwithstanding technical signature glitches in mail-in or absentee ballots.

Federal courts have no business interfering in state-law matters. As the three of us wrote back in 2000, the effort of several justices to hijack state law in Bush v. Gore was a disgrace. These justices asserted that the “Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Florida election laws impermissibly distorted them beyond what a fair reading required.” Of course, “fair reading” meant how these justices read state law, not how Florida’s expert judges saw the matter…
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Posted in Bush v. Gore reflections<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=5>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Top FEC Official’s Undisclosed Ties to Trump Raise Concerns Over Agency Neutrality”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117533>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117533> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Quite a story<https://www.propublica.org/article/top-fec-officials-undisclosed-ties-to-trump-raise-concerns-over-agency-neutrality> in ProPublica today:

Debbie Chacona oversees the division of the Federal Election Commission that serves as the first line of defense against illegal flows of cash in political campaigns. Its dozens of analysts sift through billions of dollars of reported contributions and expenditures, searching for any that violate the law. The work of Chacona, a civil servant, is guided by a strict ethics code and long-standing norms that employees avoid any public actions that might suggest partisan leanings.

But Chacona’s open support of President Donald Trump and her close ties to a former Republican FEC commissioner, Donald McGahn, who went on to become the 2016 Trump campaign’s top lawyer, have raised questions among agency employees and prompted at least one formal complaint. Chacona, a veteran agency staffer who has run the FEC’s Reports Analysis Division, or RAD, since 2010, has made her partisan allegiance clear in a series of public Facebook posts that include a photo of her family gathered around a “Make America Great Again” sign while attending Trump’s January 2017 inauguration.

The public display of partisanship bewildered some FEC staffers, according to a former agency employee. For decades, the agency expressly banned<https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/notice_1986-9_09291986.pdf> employees from engaging in such partisanship, a cultural ethos that has stuck even after those rules were relaxed<https://www.fec.gov/updates/standards-of-conduct-and-ethics-rules-for-commissioners-and-fec-employees-updated/> in 2011. Chacona’s duties included discerning whether the inaugural committee’s disclosures of donor information appeared to contain any “serious violations” of the law, an FEC procedures manual<https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/2015-2016_RAD_review_and_referral_procedures.pdf> states.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>


“‘We Merely Need to Dampen Turnout’: Leaked Docs Show Top Trump Allies’ 2016 Plan to Suppress Black Voters”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117531>
Posted on October 28, 2020 8:21 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117531> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Great new reporting<https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/roger-stone-erik-prince-black-voter-suppression-trump-1081281/> from Andy Kroll:

The disinformation operation was christened “Project Clintonson.” It brought together two notorious figures in Republican political circles, Blackwater founder Erik Prince and Trump adviser Roger Stone<https://www.rollingstone.com/t/roger-stone/>. Their objective couldn’t have been more explicit.

“We do not need to make major gains among African American voters,” said a 13-page proposal for Project Clintonson that Prince sent to unnamed donors a week before Election Day 2016. “We merely need to dampen turn out [sic] and make it difficult for the Black Democratic elected officials in Hillary’s pocket to turn out Black voters at Obama-like levels. A shift of a few points in the right places can swing this election.”

The aim of Project Clintonson was to spotlight a young black man named Danney Williams, who claims<https://twitter.com/danney_williams?lang=en> that he is Bill Clinton’s son, and to cast Hillary Clinton<https://www.rollingstone.com/t/hillary-clinton/> as the “villain of this drama.” The pitch for Project Clintonson says that Williams was “definitively the abandoned son” of Bill Clinton and that “African American voters would be incensed to learn that it was Hillary who demanded that Bill abandon his only son.”

There is no evidence<https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/bill-clinton-illegitimate-son/> to back up the claims about Danney Williams and the Clintons, but proving that wasn’t the point. The goal of this project was to weaponize a conspiracy theory<https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/10/3/13147842/bill-clinton-son-danney-williams> about a supposed illegitimate son of Bill Clinton as a way to disgust black Americans and dissuade them from voting<https://www.rollingstone.com/t/voting/> in the 2016 election, documents obtained by Rolling Stone indicate.

A key piece of Trump’s strategy four years ago — and again this November — is a constant barrage of lies, disinformation, and hyperbolic rhetoric to drown out the news and overwhelm the average voter, to “flood the zone with shit,” as former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon put it<https://twitter.com/brianstelter/status/963076380505370624?lang=en>.

The new documents obtained by Rolling Stone include an emailed fundraising plea from Prince to prospective donors and the 13-page proposal laying out the objectives and multimillion-dollar budget for Project Clintonson, which would be routed through a shadowy nonprofit group tied to Roger Stone called the Committee for American Sovereignty Education Fund.

Internal documents, tax records, and interviews about Stone and Prince’s efforts with Project Clintonson illustrate how a lax campaign-finance system and an overtly racist voter-suppression effort created the perfect opportunity to do just what Bannon said. They show the Trump operation’s real aims when it came to black voters, the lengths they would go to dissuade black voters, and the very real possibility that similar operations are underway in 2020.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Jeering sign-wavers. Caravans of honking trucks. Voter intimidation or free speech?”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117529>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:49 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117529> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/voter-intimidation-free-speech-trump-biden-polls/2020/10/27/515687c4-1884-11eb-aeec-b93bcc29a01b_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Luzerne County Council votes to withdraw motion for Justice Barrett’s recusal”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117527>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:46 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117527> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

PA Home Page:<https://www.pahomepage.com/top-stories/luzerne-county-council-votes-to-withdraw-motion-for-justice-barretts-recusal/>

After a second vote, Luzerne County Council voted 7-4 to withdraw the motion to request Justice Barrett’s recusal in the U.S. Supreme Court decision regarding the mail-in ballot extension….

Councilmen Walter Griffith and Haas spoke up saying the county needed to discuss the motion before it was filed. Moran said the recusal request was his idea, and notified county manager David Pedri about it. Hass proposed a motion encouraging the county manager to tell outside counsel to withdraw the motion immediately but the motion failed.

Councilmembers questioned whether Moran’s filing was politically motivated, bringing up his numerous donations to the Biden campaign. Moran says his only motive is to fight for Luzerne County in court.

No notation of withdrawal appears yet on the Supreme Court docket<https://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=/docket/docketfiles/html/public\20-542.html>.
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Judge orders USPS to reverse mail collection limits now”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117525>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:37 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117525> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/27/postal-service-mail-collection-433112?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=630318>

A federal judge on Tuesday night ordered the U.S. Postal Service to reverse limitations on mail collection imposed by Trump-backed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, giving the agency until Wednesday morning to inform workers of the court’s changes as more mail-in ballots<https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/27/mail-in-ballot-voting-432913> continue to flood in.

In a highly detailed order<https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-6ced-d665-a1ff-eeed21e30000>, Judge Emmet Sullivan of the District Court for the District of Columbia granted an emergency motion by plaintiffs against President Donald Trump<https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000175-6cea-d665-a1ff-eeea1dae0000> to enforce and monitor compliance with Sullivan’s previous injunction tied to USPS services.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“Trump Campaign Website Hacked”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117523>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:28 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117523> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NBC News:<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/trump-campaign-website-hacked-n1245038?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=New%20Campaign&utm_term=First%20Read>

President Donald Trump’s campaign website appeared to fall victim to hackers Tuesday night.

“This site was seized,” read a message that was briefly posted on a page at donaldjtrump.com. The “world has had enough of the fake news spreaded daily” by the president, it continued.

The message said it had information that “discredits” the president and his family, and it demanded cryptocurrency to either release or withhold the information.
[cid:image002.jpg at 01D6AD08.35CCB4C0]An image of www.donaldjtrump.com

The site soon appeared to go offline, and it was restored without the hacked message a short time later.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“A Newly Sworn In Justice Barrett Faces A Motion To Recuse Herself In Election Case”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117521>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117521> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Nina Totenberg<https://www.npr.org/2020/10/27/928385599/a-newly-sworn-in-justice-barrett-faces-a-motion-to-recuse-herself-in-election-ca> for NPR:

But as Case Western Reserve law professor Jonathan Adler observes, “as odd as it may seem, federal judges are under no obligation to recuse in cases involving a prior benefactor, and there is no precedent for judges or justices recusing because the case implicates the interests of the president who nominated them.”

Technically, Supreme Court justices are not bound by the code of conduct in federal law, but they do try to abide by those rules. And as Adler, a conservative scholar, wrote this week, based on these criteria, Barrett may not be required to recuse. And yet, as he observed, there is another ground for recusal, namely, when a justice’s “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” That, he suggests, may be why it would be “prudent” for Barrett to recuse. As he put it in a piece written for the Volokh Conspiracy blog<https://reason.com/2020/10/26/should-justice-barrett-recuse-from-2020-election-litigation/>:

“Trump’s own norm-breaking behavior may justify a departure from the traditional norms of recusal. His repeated comments about the role of courts in the election—and the Supreme Court and his nominee in particular—are [so] high-profile that they might create the sort of appearance problem that the recusal rules are designed to address. Simple prudence may counsel recusal in a special case like this. After all, we’ve never had a justice confirmed in the midst of an election before.”
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Right-wing misinformation machine could gain steam post-election”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117519>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:23 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117519> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Axios reports<https://www.axios.com/right-wing-misinformation-post-election-972db5f6-c6cd-4358-bc0e-fd953ca206ed.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top>.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


“The Two Americas Financing the Trump and Biden Campaigns”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117517>
Posted on October 28, 2020 7:21 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117517> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Deep dive<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/10/25/us/politics/trump-biden-campaign-donations.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top> into the data by zip code, courtesy of the NYT.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“ACLU, Detroit City Clerk agreement to ease backlog of absentee ballot applications”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117515>
Posted on October 27, 2020 6:29 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117515> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News reports<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/detroit-city/2020/10/27/aclu-detroit-city-clerk-agreement-eases-backlog-absentee-ballot-applications/3753193001/>.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“Kavanaugh’s Bush v. Gore citation draws scrutiny ahead of another divisive election”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117513>
Posted on October 27, 2020 6:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117513> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bob Barnes for WaPo.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/brett-kavanaugh-bush-gore-wisconsin-election/2020/10/27/799fe8aa-1876-11eb-befb-8864259bd2d8_story.html>
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Posted in Bush v. Gore reflections<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=5>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Michigan judge halts Benson’s ban on open carry of guns at polling places”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117511>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:31 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117511> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Detroit News<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/10/27/michigan-judge-halts-benson-ban-open-carry-guns-polling-places/3751933001/>:

Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray issued a preliminary injunction Tuesday that effectively halts Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s directive banning the open carry of guns near polling locations on Election Day

Attorney General Dana Nessel announced almost immediately after the decision was issued that her office would appeal to the Court of Appeals “as this issue is of significant public interest and importance to our election process.”

The edict by Benson “smacks of an attempt at legislation” and lacks public input instead of following the regular rule-making process, Murray said during a Tuesday emergency hearing. Further, the state already has a law prohibiting voter intimidation, said Murray, an appointee of Republican former Gov. John Engler.

“The Legislature has said: Here are the places you cannot carry a weapon,” Murray said during the hearing. “The secretary has expanded that. And so how is that in accordance with state law?”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Texas Supreme Court sides with governor on rule requiring one ballot drop box per county”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117506>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:26 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117506> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN reports<https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/texas-supreme-court-drop-boxes/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_allpolitics+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Politics%29>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Supreme Court rejects delay of Minnesota congressional vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117504>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:23 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117504> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP<https://www.startribune.com/kistner-s-election-delay-bid-rejected-at-supreme-court/572889701/>:

A Minnesota Republican candidate’s bid to delay voting in his congressional race to February after the death of a third-party candidate was rejected Tuesday at the Supreme Court.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, who handles emergency requests from the federal appeals court that oversees Minnesota, denied the request from Tyler Kistner. As is typical when the court acts on an emergency basis, Gorsuch did not say anything in denying the request. But he also didn’t ask Kistner’s opponent to respond in writing or refer the question to the full court, suggesting it wasn’t a close question.

Also at the Star Tribune:<https://www.startribune.com/gop-recruited-pot-party-candidate-to-pull-votes-from-dfler-he-said/572888651/>

Four months before Legal Marijuana Now Party candidate Adam Weeks died in September, sending the pivotal Second Congressional District race into a legal tailspin, he told a close friend that he had been recruited by Republicans to draw votes away from Democrats.

In a May 20 voice-mail message provided to the Star Tribune, Weeks told a childhood friend that Republicans in the Second District approached him two weeks before the filing deadline to run for Congress in the hopes he’d “pull votes away” from incumbent DFL Rep. Angie Craig and deliver them to the “other guy,” Tyler Kistner, the Republican-endorsed candidate.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“When Voting by Mail Switches to Voting in Person”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117502>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117502> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Brennan Center resource<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/when-voting-mail-switches-voting-person> about what happens when a voter requests a mail ballot and then decides to vote in person, maybe because the mail ballot never arrived, maybe for other reasons. The piece covers the precautions election officials should take to help ensure these voters can cast ballots in-person, like having enough provisional ballots at polling locations.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


Federal Court Issues Injunction over Signature Mismatches in South Carolina<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117500>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:16 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117500> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://lawyerscommittee.org/victory-federal-judge-grants-emergency-injunction-allowing-south-carolina-voters-to-correct-signature-mismatches-on-absentee-ballots/>:

South Carolina election officials must count absentee ballots that election officials had been planning on rejecting due to an alleged mismatched signature, ensuring voters will not be disenfranchised for this reason in the upcoming November election, a South Carolina district court ruled<https://lawyerscommittee.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/072-Order-granting-preliminary-injunction-in-part.pdf> today.  

United States District Court Judge Richard Mark Gergel issued an order finding a portion of South Carolina’s absentee ballot statutes to be unconstitutional. His order prohibits election officials from rejecting absentee ballots due to an alleged signature mismatch.  This order will prevent legitimate absentee ballots from being thrown out in the November election due to a perceived signature mismatch based on the judgment of election officials who have no background or training in signature matching.  
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


“Mail Voting Litigation During the Coronavirus Pandemic”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117498>
Posted on October 27, 2020 5:14 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=117498> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Helpful new report <https://healthyelections.org/sites/default/files/2020-10/Mail_Voting_Litigation_0.pdf> from the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections project.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>


--
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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