[EL] ELB News and Commentary 9/30/20

[Rick Hasen]

“Top Intelligence Official Releases Unverified, Previously Rejected Russia Information”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115986>
Posted on September 29, 2020 10:15 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115986> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/john-ratcliffe-russian-disinformation.html>:

President Trump’s top intelligence official on Tuesday released unverified information about the 2016 campaign that appeared to be a bid to help Mr. Trump politically and was said to be disclosed over the objections of career intelligence officials who were concerned that the material could be Russian disinformation.

The disclosures<https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/09-29-20_Letter%20to%20Sen.%20Graham_Declassification%20of%20FBI's%20Crossfire%20Hurricane%20Investigations_20-00912_U_SIGNED-FINAL.pdf> were the latest by John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence and previously an outspoken congressional ally of the president, that highlighted information that helped Mr. Trump but that critics have called distortions.

Mr. Ratcliffe sought to shore up the credibility of the material, which centered on claims about Hillary Clinton, saying that it was not a product of Russian disinformation after initially acknowledging that it could be. But his initial disclosure, coming hours before the first presidential debate<https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/09/29/us/presidential-debate-trump-biden>, offered fresh ammunition for Mr. Trump to attack his political enemies.

In a letter to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Ratcliffe laid out snippets of previously classified reports suggesting that Russian intelligence had acquired information that Mrs. Clinton had approved a plan for her 2016 campaign to “stir up a scandal” against Mr. Trump by tying him to the Russian hackers who had broken into Democratic servers.

Other officials — including Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel appointed by the Justice Department, and the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee — had evaluated and rejected the information in the years since, according to three current and former officials familiar with those inquiries.

An official familiar with the committee’s work said that Mr. Ratcliffe and Mr. Graham released it over the objections of other intelligence officials.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Project Veritas Video Was a ‘Coordinated Disinformation Campaign,’ Researchers Say”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115984>
Posted on September 29, 2020 10:11 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115984> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/project-veritas-ilhan-omar.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article>:

A deceptive video released on Sunday by the conservative activist James O’Keefe, which claimed through unidentified sources and with no verifiable evidence that Representative Ilhan Omar’s campaign had collected ballots illegally, was probably part of a coordinated disinformation effort, according to researchers at Stanford University<https://www.eipartnership.net/rapid-response/project-veritas-ballotharvesting> and the University of Washington.

Mr. O’Keefe and his group, Project Veritas, appear to have made an abrupt decision to release the video sooner than planned after The New York Times published a sweeping investigation<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/27/us/donald-trump-taxes.html> of President Trump’s taxes, the researchers said. They also noted that the timing and metadata of a Twitter post in which Mr. Trump’s son shared the video suggested that he might have known about it in advance.

Project Veritas had hyped the video on social media for several days before publishing it. In posts amplified by other prominent conservative accounts, Mr. O’Keefe teased what he said was evidence of voter fraud, and urged people to sign up at “ballot-harvesting.com” to receive the supposed evidence when it came out. (None of the material in the video actually proved voter fraud.)

Mr. O’Keefe’s promotional posts had said the video would be released on Monday, but Project Veritas released it on Sunday instead, a few hours after the publication of The Times’s investigation. The researchers concluded that this timing was unlikely to be a coincidence “given the huge marketing about a 9/28 release date,” they wrote in an analysis that Alex Stamos, who led the research team at the Stanford Internet Observatory, shared with The Times.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“A State Legislature Cannot Appoint Its Preferred Slate of Electors to Override the Will of the People After the Election”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115982>
Posted on September 29, 2020 10:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115982> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The latest<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e70e52c7c72720ed714313f/t/5f625c790cef066e940ea42d/1600281722253/State_Legislature_Paper.pdf> from the National Task Force on Election Crises.
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


“Trump Repeatedly Attacked Mail-In Voting During the Debate. There’s No Evidence Behind His Claim”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115980>
Posted on September 29, 2020 10:03 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115980> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Time<https://time.com/5894501/trump-repeatedly-attacked-mail-in-voting-during-the-debate-theres-no-evidence-behind-his-claim/>:

Trump’s rhetoric on the validity of the elections process was both lacking evidence and in stark contrast to how the issue is being judged in courtrooms across the country. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have filed a series of lawsuits in states that have expanded mail-in-voting — many as a result of the coronavirus pandemic — alleging that these new regulations are a blueprint for fraud and will undermine the integrity of the election system. This has largely been a losing battle. In crucial swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, the courts have ruled in favor of expanded access to mail-in voting.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Another Must-Read from Republican Star Election Lawyer Ben Ginsberg: “How Trump’s evidence-free attacks on elections damage the Republican Party”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115978>
Posted on September 29, 2020 9:58 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115978> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The WaPo oped<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/29/how-trumps-evidence-free-attacks-elections-damage-republican-party/> concludes:

The great danger for the Republican Party is that the president’s claims will shine a spotlight on whether proof of widespread fraud exists to support their positions. Again, such proof doesn’t exist.

Rather than suffer a series of defeats, Republican lawyers should evaluate the evidence and settle some of those cases<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/08/us/politics/voting-nov-3-election.html> they joined reflexively to counter Democrats. As a general matter, Republicans are on the strongest ground in the cases in which they are arguing to uphold existing state laws against Democratic attempts to weaken protections. In such situations, the elected legislature and governor have made a policy judgment that should be respected. The Supreme Court has been reluctant to allow unelected judges to overturn elected officials’ decisions, especially close to elections.

But in other cases Republicans need to guard against having their arguments for preventing fraud look like efforts to stop groups from voting because they might not support the president. That more Democrats than Republicans seem to be getting ready to vote by mail makes the president’s rhetoric on mail-in ballots sound like a blatant attempt to stop non-supporters’ votes from being counted.

Then there is the question of what happens after Election Day, in particular to Republican candidates in tight races. Imagine a down-ballot Republican candidate clinging to a narrow lead in a state — especially a presidential battleground state — where Republicans are litigating, pre- or post-election, on the basis of fraud.

That Republican — picture Senate candidates in Georgia, North Carolina, Maine, Colorado, Arizona, Iowa or Montana who want to defend their leads — would have the added burden of explaining away Trump’s claims that the results are rigged or fraudulent. In such a situation the president’s words are certain to be used against those candidates.

The president’s absence of commitment to the peaceful transfer of power and his call to invalidate millions of mailed-in and absentee ballots are his latest actions painting the Republican Party into a dangerous corner. Granting his wish to disenfranchise millions of voters without evidence of widespread fraud would actually cause a “rigged” election and threaten a peaceful transfer of power. As when he urged his North Carolina supporters to vote both by mail and in-person<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/05/trump-voting-twice-north-carolina/?itid=lk_inline_manual_28>, Trump would be the arsonist firefighter committing the crime about which he complains.
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Posted in Election Meltdown<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=127>


“The battleground states that might count election results the slowest”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115976>
Posted on September 29, 2020 6:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115976> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/29/battleground-states-that-might-count-slowest-election-night/?arc404=true>

More than 1 million early votes have already been cast in the 2020 election, but in several battleground states, mail-in ballots will go virtually untouched until right before Election Day. This delay, which is dictated by state laws, could cause results to trickle in for some of the closest races nationwide.

The Bipartisan Policy Center recommends states allow processing of ballots to start at least seven days <https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/logical-election-policy/> before the Election, on Oct. 27. Five states with competitive races for the presidency allow less time than that, with two — Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — not allowing ballots to be processed before Election Day.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Pennsylvania politicians go topless to warn mail-in voters against ‘naked ballots'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115974>
Posted on September 29, 2020 5:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115974> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

This<https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/518834-pennsylvania-politicians-go-topless-to-warn-mail-in-voters-against-naked> should get some attention.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Early surge of Democratic mail voting sparks worry inside GOP”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115972>
Posted on September 29, 2020 5:20 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=115972> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/gop-mail-ballots/2020/09/29/131a06fc-0263-11eb-b7ed-141dd88560ea_story.html>

Democratic voters who have requested mail ballots — and returned them — greatly outnumber Republicans so far in key battleground states, causing alarm among GOP party leaders and strategists that President Trump’s attacks on mail voting could be hurting the party’s prospects to retain the White House and the Senate this year.

Of the more than 9 million voters who requested mail ballots through Monday in Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine and Iowa, the five battleground states where such data is publicly available, 52 percent were Democrats. Twenty-eight percent were Republicans, and 20 percent were unaffiliated.

Additional internal Democratic and Republican Party data obtained by The Washington Post shows a similar trend in Ohio, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Wisconsin.

Even more alarming to some Republicans, Democrats are also returning their ballots at higher rates than GOP voters in two of those states where that information is available: Florida and North Carolina.
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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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