[EL] ELB News and Commentary 4/19/21

[Rick Hasen]

“Trump’s grip on GOP looms as support falters for independent probe of Capitol riot”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121713>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121713> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/capitol-riot-january-6-commission/2021/04/17/109572e6-9ed9-11eb-9d05-ae06f4529ece_story.html>

Congress’s pursuit of an independent investigation into the Jan. 6 insurrection is facing long odds, as bipartisan resolve to hold the perpetrators and instigators accountable erodes, and Republicans face sustained pressure to disavow that it was supporters of former president Donald Trump who attacked the U.S. Capitol.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced late last week that she had drafted a fresh proposal for an outside commission to examine what caused the deadly riot. But in a sign of how delicate the political climate has become, she has yet to share her recommendations with Republican leaders, who shot down her initial approach, labeling it too narrow in scope and too heavily weighted toward Democrats in composition.

“Compromise has been necessary,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to other Democrats, informing them she had begun to share her latest proposal with other Republicans in Congress. “It is my hope that we can reach agreement very soon.”

A spokesman for House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) declined to comment on a proposal that the leader had not yet seen, adding that “hopefully the speaker has addressed our basic concerns of equal representation and subpoena authority.”

Behind the scenes, Democrats are developing contingency plans. Pelosi acknowledged this week that one backup option is to appoint a select committee of House members to investigate events surrounding the riot, though she told USA Today<https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/13/pelosi-jan-6-mob-would-have-had-battle-if-they-had-caught-her/7194674002/> that it was “not my preference.” Another would be to defer to congressional committees that are currently examining the failures in planning that left the Capitol vulnerable to attack, which Pelosi has called a potential “resource” to a future commission, should one be established.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


More from the NYT Story on the Surge in Donations for Election Objectors<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121707>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:47 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121707> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

Rick Hasen linked to this story<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/us/politics/republicans-fund-raising-capitol-riot.html> already, but I wanted to add some additional excerpts from political insiders. These excerpts bolster the concerns I’ve expressed<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/opinion/elections-politics-extremists.html> for some time now about small-donor money fuels the more extremist forces in politics:

“The outrage machine is powerful at inducing political contributions,” said Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman from Florida.

Shortly after the storming of the Capitol, some prominent corporations and political action committees vowed to cut off support for the Republicans who had fanned the flames of anger and conspiracy that resulted in violence. But any financial blowback from corporate America appears to have been dwarfed by a flood of cash from other quarters….

The sums reflect an emerging incentive structure in Washington, where the biggest provocateurs can parlay their notoriety into small-donor successes that can help them amass an even higher profile. It also illustrates the appetites of a Republican base of voters who have bought into Mr. Trump’s false claims of widespread election fraud and are eager to reward those who worked to undermine the outcome of a free and fair election….

“We’re really seeing the emergence of small donors in the Republican Party,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist. “In the past, Democrats have been the ones who have benefited most from small-dollar donations. We’re seeing the Republicans rapidly catching up.”..

As provocative freshmen like Ms. Greene, Ms. Boebert and Mr. Cawthorn took in high-dollar figures, other more conventional members of their class in competitive districts — even those praised for their fund-raising prowess — were substantially behind….

“It pays to be high-profile,” Mr. Conant said. “It’s more evidence that there’s not a lot of grass-roots support for milquetoast middle of the road. It doesn’t mean you have to be pro-Trump. It just means you need to take strong positions, and then connect with those supporters.”

If Dave Wasserman wrote about small donors and political extremism, he would probably about now be writing: “I’ve seen enough.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The GOP’s fallout with big business is already mending”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121711>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:42 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121711> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Roll Call:<https://www.rollcall.com/2021/04/19/the-gops-fallout-with-big-business-is-already-mending/>

Some of America’s most prominent corporations infuriated Republicans in Congress earlier this month when they protested a Georgia law setting state voting rules. The longtime alliance between the GOP and business seemed on the verge of cracking up. But when it comes to Democrats’ priority bills in Congress, the old allies are still on the same side.

Indeed, corporate America is joining Republicans in opposing both the House-passed voting rights measure, or HR 1, that is Democrats’ answer to the Georgia law, as well as President Joe Biden’s pending infrastructure bill.

While the spat over the Georgia law embarrassed Republicans, business has not joined Democrats in their proposed solution to that law’s election strictures — the voting rights, campaign finance and ethics bill, known as S 1 in the Senate, that Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer<https://www.rollcall.com/members/371?utm_source=memberLinks&utm_medium=memberlinks&personid=371> called a “must do” on April 13.

The same day, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, business’s most prominent advocate in Washington, announced that it “strongly opposes” the Democrats’ bill and that it was considering counting votes in favor of it against lawmakers in the group’s annual scorecard. Specifically, Jack Howard, the chamber’s senior vice president of government affairs, in a letter to senators<https://www.uschamber.com/letters-congress/us-chamber-key-vote-letter-s-1-the-the-people-act> said the bill would impose unacceptable new regulations on companies engaging in electioneering and even lobbying.

Howard echoed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell<https://www.rollcall.com/members/202?utm_source=memberLinks&utm_medium=memberlinks&personid=202>’s complaints that the bill would turn the bipartisan Federal Election Commission into a body run by the party of the president, and about a provision that would match small-dollar contributions sixfold with public funds.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Democrats Aim to Revive a Campaign Finance Watchdog”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121709>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:39 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121709> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/us/federal-election-commission.html>

Yet as the Senate prepares to begin work on a sweeping voting rights and elections overhaul bill, the two parties are bitterly divided over a proposal to restructure the enforcer of campaign finance rules, a central plank of the legislation. It is a significant reason Republicans oppose the measure so strongly.

The bill would reconfigure the panel from being evenly divided to having a 3-to-2 split, making stalemates far less likely, giving more power to its presidentially appointed chairman and building in stronger enforcement mechanisms.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and the minority leader who has long fought against campaign finance restrictions — including by steering like-minded allies onto the commission — placed revamping the panel at the top of his list of examples of Democratic overreach in a measure he said was stuffed with outlandish ideas.

“First, I would list turning the F.E.C. from the judge into a prosecutor and giving the party of the president the opportunity to harass opponents,” said Mr. McConnell when asked to itemize his objections to the bill. “Completely outrageous.”

He and fellow Republicans argue that the commission’s overhaul would set off a series of back-and-forth partisan campaign investigations each time power shifted in Washington and the makeup of the panel changed.

“I think that is a mistake,” said Senator Richard C. Shelby, Republican of Alabama and a senior member of the Rules Committee that is scheduled to take up the elections and campaign bill in May. “One group will go after the other. With Republicans in control, they will go after the Democrats, and vice versa.”

He also questioned whether it was necessarily bad that the commission often could not agree on enforcement measures.

“Maybe they don’t need to,” he said. “Most things are disclosed, and you all are sure watching,” he said of the news media.

Democrats suspect that Mr. Shelby nailed the true reason that Republicans oppose the overhaul — that they prefer the tightly leashed watchdog that exists now over an empowered election commission that would rigorously carry out the law.

“Republicans want to keep it broken because they want people to be able to skirt the law with impunity,” said Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland and a proponent of the changes. “The problem is that it is so broken, people have accepted it as the status quo. But campaign finance laws are meaningless if they are not enforceable.”
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>


“The Supreme Court hears a case next week that could make Citizens United even worse”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121706>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:36 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121706> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ian Millhiser<https://www.vox.com/2021/4/17/22384256/supreme-court-citizens-united-disclosure-americans-for-prosperity-rodriquez-thomas-more> for Vox:

The Supreme Court will hear a major case on April 26 that could fundamentally alter the Court’s approach to laws requiring political organizations to disclose their donors — a change that could make it much easier for big spenders to hide the ways they seek to influence policy and elections.

That case is Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Rodriquez<https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/americans-for-prosperity-foundation-v-becerra/>. But to fully understand it, it’s important to keep in mind the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC<https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZO.html>(2010).

Citizens United is best known forits anti-canonical holding that corporations may spend unlimited money to influence elections. While five of the justices who heard Citizens United voted to dismantle much of the nation’s campaign finance laws, eight justices also voted that the government has fairly broad authority to require advocacy groups to disclose major funders of their political activity.

Disclosure requirements should be upheld, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the Court, so long as there is “a ‘substantial relation’ between the disclosure requirement and a ‘sufficiently important’ governmental interest.”

A lot has changed since Citizens United tucked this pro-disclosure ruling into its broader ruling against campaign finance limits, however. Four of the eight justices who supported disclosure rules have since left the Court, and three of them were replaced by judges who are significantly more conservative than the person they replaced.

Which brings us to Americans for Prosperity Foundation. The plaintiffs in the case — which include a conservative advocacy group closely associated with the billionaire Koch brothers<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/26/koch-brothers-americans-for-prosperity-rightwing-political-group>, and the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative law firm that claims it was formed to promote “America’s Judeo-Christian heritage<https://www.thomasmore.org/about-the-thomas-more-law-center/>” — seek to undercut pro-disclosure decisions such as Citizens United. And, with six Republican appointees on the Supreme Court, they have a very good chance of prevailing.

The specific issue in Americans for Prosperity is fairly far afield of the foundational questions about money in politics that animated Citizens United. The plaintiffs challenge a California regulation that requires charities that wish to raise tax-deductible funds in California to disclose their largest contributors to the state attorney general’s office. State regulations require the attorney general to keep this information confidential from the public, but the attorney general’s office may use it to investigate allegations of fraud by nonprofits.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“The Supreme Court’s Increasingly Dim View of the News Media”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121704>
Posted on April 19, 2021 7:01 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121704> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Adam Liptak<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/19/us/supreme-court-news-media.html?searchResultPosition=1> for the NYT:

No other member of the Supreme Court joined Justice Thomas’s opinion urging it to revisit the foundational 1964 libel decision, and Judge Silberman’s dissent was widely criticized. J. Michael Luttig<https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/luttig-j-michael>, a former federal appeals court judge who was on President George W. Bush’s short list<https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/washington/11luttigcnd.html> of potential Supreme Court nominees, called the dissent shocking and dangerous in an opinion essay in The Washington Post<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/25/federal-judges-dangerous-assault-free-press/> last month.

But the negative views from the bench of the news media may not be outliers. A new study<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3787709>, to be published in The North Carolina Law Review, documents a broader trend at the Supreme Court. The study tracked every reference to the news media in the justices’ opinions since 1784 and found “a marked and previously undocumented uptick in negative depictions of the press by the U.S. Supreme Court.”

The study was not limited to cases concerning First Amendment rights. It took account of “all references to the press in its journalistic role, to the performance of commonly understood press functions or to the right of press freedom.” Many of these references were in passing comments in decisions on matters as varied as antitrust or criminal law.

“A generation ago, the court actively taught the public that the press was a check on government, a trustworthy source of accurate coverage, an entity to be specially protected from regulation and an institution with specific constitutional freedoms,” wrote the study’s authors, RonNell Andersen Jones<https://faculty.utah.edu/u6007959-RONNELL_ANDERSEN_JONES/hm/index.hml>, a law professor at the University of Utah, and Sonja R. West<http://www.law.uga.edu/profile/sonja-r-west>, a law professor at the University of Georgia. “Today, in contrast, it almost never speaks of the press, press freedom or press functions, and when it does, it is in an overwhelmingly less positive manner.”
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Posted in First Amendment theory<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=133>


Supreme Court Dismisses as Moot the Last Pending Challenge Out of Pennsylvania to 2020 Election (No Noted Dissents)<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121702>
Posted on April 19, 2021 6:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121702> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bognet <https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/041921zor_g31h.pdf> on the order list.
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Posted in Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


“Fund-Raising Surged for Republicans Who Sought to Overturn the Election”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121699>
Posted on April 18, 2021 7:55 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121699> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/us/politics/republicans-fund-raising-capitol-riot.html>:

Republicans who were the most vocal in urging their followers to come to Washington on Jan. 6 to try to reverse President Donald J. Trump’s loss, pushing to overturn the election and stoking the grievances that prompted the deadly Capitol riot, have profited handsomely in its aftermath, according to new campaign data.

Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, who led the challenges to President Biden’s victory in their chamber, each brought in more than $3 million in campaign donations in the three months that followed the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia who called the rampage a “1776 moment”<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/11/us/politics/republicans-capitol-riot.html> and was later stripped of committee assignments<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/04/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene.html> for espousing bigoted conspiracy theories and endorsing political violence<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-republicans.html>, raised $3.2 million — more than the individual campaign of Representative Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader, and nearly every other member of House leadership.

A New York Times analysis of the latest Federal Election Commission disclosures illustrates how the leaders of the effort to overturn Mr. Biden’s electoral victory<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/07/us/elections/electoral-college-biden-objectors.html> have capitalized on the outrage of their supporters to collect huge sums of campaign cash. Far from being punished for encouraging the protest that turned lethal, they have thrived in a system that often rewards the loudest and most extreme voices<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/19/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-congress-gop.html>, using the fury around the riot to build their political brands. The analysis examined the individual campaign accounts of lawmakers, not joint fund-raising committees or leadership political action committees.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“One America News Network Stays True to Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121697>
Posted on April 18, 2021 7:50 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121697> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/18/business/media/oan-trump.html>

Months after the inauguration of President Biden, One America News Network, a right-wing cable news channel available in some 35 million households, has continued to broadcast segments questioning the validity of the 2020 presidential election.

“There’s still serious doubts about who’s actually president,” the OAN correspondent Pearson Sharp said in a March 28 report<https://www.oann.com/growing-number-of-state-governments-questioning-election-results-pushing-for-hand-recounts/>.

That segment was one in a spate of similar reports from a channel that has become a kind of Trump TV for the post-Trump age, an outlet whose reporting has aligned with the former president’s grievances at a time when he is barred from major social media platforms.

Some of OAN’s coverage has not had the full support of the staff. In interviews with 18 current and former OAN newsroom employees, 16 said the channel had broadcast reports that they considered misleading, inaccurate or untrue.

To go by much of OAN’s reporting, it is almost as if a transfer of power had never taken place. The channel did not broadcast live coverage<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/business/media/misinformation-trump-media.html> of Mr. Biden’s swearing-in ceremony and Inaugural Address. Into April, news articles on the OAN website consistently referred to Donald J. Trump as “President Trump” and to President Biden as just “Joe Biden” or “Biden.” That practice is not followed by other news organizations, including the OAN competitor Newsmax<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/22/business/media/newsmax-trump-fox-news.html>, a conservative cable channel and news site.

OAN has also promoted the debunked theory that the rioters<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/01/us/politics/antifa-conspiracy-capitol-riot.html> who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 were left-wing agitators. Toward the end of a March 4 news segment<https://www.oann.com/fbi-cant-find-proof-of-antifa-involvement-in-jan-6-protests-despite-mountains-of-video-evidence/> that described the attack as the work of “antifa” and “anti-Trump extremists” — and referred to the president as “Beijing Biden” — Mr. Sharp said, “History will show it was the Democrats, and not the Republicans, who called for this violence.” Investigations have found no evidence that people who identify with antifa, a loose collective of antifascist activists, were involved in the Capitol riot.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“The 2020 election still hovers over the Supreme Court with another pending Pennsylvania case”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121695>
Posted on April 18, 2021 7:47 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121695> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ariane de Vogue<https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/17/politics/2020-election-supreme-court-pennsylvania/index.html> for CNN:

Five months after the presidential election<https://www.cnn.com/election/2020/results/president> and nearly 100 days into President Joe Biden<https://www.cnn.com/specials/politics/joe-biden-news>‘s term, the Supreme Court is still considering whether to take up a case related to voting rights in the battleground state of Pennsylvania

.So far, the justices declined several requests to dive into one of the most litigious elections in history, denying petitions from then-President Donald Trump and other Republicans seeking to overturn election result in multiple states Biden won.

But at their closed-door conference on Friday the justices discussed a case that has been lingering on the docket<https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/20/20-740/161431/20201120145219303_2020-11-20%20Bognet%20Cert%20Petition.pdf> since just after the election, brought by a former GOP congressional candidate concerning a state Supreme Court decision that allowed an expansion of ballot deadlines amidst the pandemic.

Trump’s name isn’t on the case and the court’s action wouldn’t impact the last election. But the justices surely know that if they engage now, even with a promise to look toward future elections, the former President would likely link their action to his own loss.

“With the election finally settled, the justices might believe now is the time to wade into the issue, though certainly they may prefer to do so in a case where the word ‘Trump’ would not have to be uttered and give the former president more fodder to advance the false claim that he actually won the election<https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/politics/fact-check-trump-republicans-electoral-college-objections/index.html>,” said election law expert Richard L. Hasen of the University of California, Irvine School of Law.
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Posted in legislation and legislatures<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=27>, Supreme Court<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=29>


Far Right Wing Bloggers Who Believe That Alabama SOS John Merrill Protected Voting Rights Too Much (!) and That He Allowed for Voter Fraud Outed Explicit Details of His Extra-Marital Affair<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121693>
Posted on April 17, 2021 4:13 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121693> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Quite a story<https://www.al.com/news/2021/04/sex-lies-and-the-alabama-secretary-of-state-the-fall-of-john-merrill.html>:

A former Spanish teacher in North Carolina, Noel Fritsch has in recent years built a career as a conservative operative with a history of involvement in Republican campaigns and far-right causes across the country.

Described by a political news site<https://yallpolitics.com/about-us/> in Mississippi in 2015 as a political consultant who provides “local help” rather than trying to be a kingmaker, he served as spokesman for Chris McDaniel, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in 2014. A columnist for the state’s Clarion-Ledger compared <https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2015/05/30/fritsch-people-person-like-darth-vader/28232981/> Fritsch to Darth Vader and suggested he was “responsible for McDaniel snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”

Little-known in Alabama politics, Fritsch does have at least one connection. In 2017, he consulted for the Roy Moore campaign. The Moore campaign paid a North Carolina company owned by Fritsch more than $60,000.

In 2018, he also consulted for Paul Nehlen, a Republican businessman who ran in a primary for the seat vacated by House Speaker Paul Ryan in Wisconsin. Nehlen has been criticized for expressing white supremacist views.

Fritsch himself has a history of spreading misinformation on social media. On Twitter, he promoted the debunked “Pizzagate” sex-trafficking tale and the unfounded allegation that Democrats killed a Democratic National Committee staffer. In 2018, he tweeted that “in Hollywood it’s OK to be a rapist as long you’re black.”

Today, Fritsch is part of a burgeoning far-right media that has broken some stories, but is also known for conspiracy theories. Yet when stories do land, they spill over into mainstream outlets, forcing responses from targeted politicians, as the revelations about Merrill’s affair did last week in Alabama.

The connection

Fritsch made his views about Merrill clear in text messages that he sent to McPherson.

On April 2, he told her, “[t]his is and has always been about the bad person you said Merrill is,” adding in another message that day that “[h]e’s a s**t person. Clearly.”

Fritsch expanded on his concerns about Merrill during a phone interview with AL.com<http://al.com/> last week in which he accused the secretary of state of election meddling, a popular topic among Trump supporters who claim that Democrats rigged the November presidential election.

“The reasons for this might be many, but at the very moment that the affair between Cesaire and John Merrill began, John Merrill was deep in the process of trying to cover up massive Russian-style voter fraud in the state of Alabama during the 2017 election,” Fritsch said.

There is no evidence that Merrill engaged in such a cover-up or that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2017 special U.S. Senate race pitting Roy Moore against various Republican rivals and then against Democrat Doug Jones.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Draft Ohio election bill would ax day of voting, require more ID; Lawmaker says it won’t be introduced”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121691>
Posted on April 16, 2021 5:09 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121691> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Cincinnati Enquirer<https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/elections/2021/04/16/progressive-group-circulates-ohio-election-bill-gop-lawmaker-says-its-not-final/7261744002/>:

A progressive group published a draft of an Ohio election overhaul that would eliminate a day of early voting, require more forms of identification to vote early in person and allow drop boxes only during a statewide emergency.

However, Rep. Bill Seitz, R-Green Township, says that draft<https://more-perfect-union-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/media/documents/Ohio_voting_bill.pdf> won’t turn into proposed legislation.

“What you have is not what will be introduced,” said Seitz, one of several lawmakers working on changes to Ohio election law. “Drafts are drafts. That’s all they are.”

What changes will be introduced? Seitz wouldn’t share any details, but Rep. Bride Rose Sweeney, D-Cleveland, said the fact that a draft like that exists at all says something about the “misguided notions” of her Republican colleagues.

“They have had these false notions of we need to have more strict voter ID laws because of voter fraud, and that’s just not true,” Sweeney said. “That’s a lie, and it’s part of voter suppression.”
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Posted in The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>
New Republican FEC Commissioners Vote Against Disclosure of Funding Backing Fundraising Letters Containing Express Advocacy<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121689>
Posted on April 16, 2021 3:09 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121689> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Democratic commissioners issued a statement<https://www.fec.gov/resources/cms-content/documents/MississippiRepublicanParty_SOR_2016.pdf> on the 3-3 deadlock.
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Posted in federal election commission<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=24>


“The Blue States That Make It Hardest to Vote”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121687>
Posted on April 16, 2021 3:05 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121687> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

The Atlantic:<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/04/democrats-voting-rights-contradiction/618599/>

If president Joe Biden wants to vote by mail next year in Delaware, he’ll have to provide a valid reason for why he can’t make the two-hour drive from the White House back to his polling place in Wilmington. Luckily for him, Biden’s line of work allows him to cast an absentee ballot: Being president counts as “public service” under state law. Most Delaware residents, however, won’t have such a convenient excuse. Few states have more limited voting options than Delaware, a Democratic bastion that allowed little mail balloting before the pandemic hit.

Biden has assailed Georgia’s new voting law as an atrocity akin to “Jim Crow in the 21st century”<https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/26/politics/joe-biden-georgia-voting-rights-bill/index.html> for the impact it could have on Black citizens. But even once the GOP-passed measure takes effect, Georgia citizens will still have far more opportunities to vote before Election Day than their counterparts in the president’s home state, where one in three residents is Black or Latino. To Republicans, Biden’s criticism of the Georgia law smacks<https://www.wsj.com/articles/bidens-election-reform-deception-11617229306> of hypocrisy.<https://twitter.com/Jim_Jordan/status/1379221399613636612> “They have a point,” says Dwayne Bensing, a voting-rights advocate with Delaware’s ACLU affiliate. “The state is playing catch-up in a lot of ways.”

Delaware isn’t an anomaly among Democratic strongholds, and its example presents the president’s party with an uncomfortable reminder: Although Democrats like to call out Republicans for trying to suppress voting, the states they control in the Northeast make casting a ballot more difficult than anywhere else.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


“Why Local Election Officials In Georgia Take Issue With Many Parts Of New Law”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121685>
Posted on April 16, 2021 11:51 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121685> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NPR:<https://www.npr.org/2021/04/16/987825440/why-local-election-officials-in-georgia-take-issue-with-many-parts-of-new-law>

Three weeks after it was signed<https://www.npr.org/2021/03/25/981357583/georgia-legislature-approves-election-overhaul-including-changes-to-absentee-vot> into law, local election officials in Georgia are still trying to understand all the implications of the state’s controversial election overhaul.

In a series of interviews, election officials said that while the Republican-led measure has some good provisions, many felt sidelined as the legislation was being debated, and believe that parts of it will make Georgia elections more difficult and expensive.

One provision that particularly worries many officials is a new ability for the State Election Board to take over a county’s election management. The law<https://www.legis.ga.gov/api/legislation/document/20212022/201498> empowers the state panel to take over if, in at least two elections within two years, the board finds “nonfeasance, malfeasance, or gross negligence in the administration of the elections.”

Tonnie Adams, chief registrar of Heard County on the Alabama state line, said this provision, coupled with another change — which replaces the secretary of state as board chair with an appointee of the General Assembly — are problematic.

“The legislature now has three seats that they appoint on the State Election Board,” he said. “We thought that that was a gross overreach of power from one branch of government.”

Joseph Kirk, Bartow County’s elections supervisor, also took issue with the hypothetical scenario.

The legislature could effectively “replace a bipartisan board [of elections] with a single appointee that has complete control over that department,” Kirk said. “So a person could come in, and hire and fire and discipline as they see fit. And as I read this law, I’m really hoping they never need to go that route.”

Both Kirk and Adams highlighted that there was already a mechanism for the state to intervene in problematic elections administration in the Georgia state code, through the courts<https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-21/chapter-2/article-2/part-1/subpart-1/21-2-32/>.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>


2020 Election Conspiracist Lin Wood Says He’s Donated a Five-Figure Sum to Help Cover Cost of Sham Arizona Ballot Audit<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121682>
Posted on April 16, 2021 10:50 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121682> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Sigh.<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/arizona-audit-lin-wood-fundraising>
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Facebook oversight board delays decision on Trump ban to ‘the coming weeks'”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121680>
Posted on April 16, 2021 10:46 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121680> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico reports.<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/16/facebook-delays-decision-on-trump-ban-482367?nname=playbook-pm&nid=0000015a-dd3e-d536-a37b-dd7fd8af0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=964328>
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


“Armed ‘quick reaction force’ was waiting for order to storm Capitol, Justice Dept. says”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121678>
Posted on April 16, 2021 9:43 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121678> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/legal-issues/quick-reaction-force-capitol-riot/2021/04/14/2021da66-9d39-11eb-8005-bffc3a39f6d3_story.html>

As the Capitol was overrun on Jan. 6, armed supporters of President Donald Trump were waiting across the Potomac in Virginia for orders to bring guns into the fray, a prosecutor said Wednesday in federal court.

The Justice Department has repeatedly highlighted comments from some alleged riot participants who discussed being part of a “quick reaction force” with stashes of weapons. Defendants have dismissed those conversations as bluster. But in a detention hearing for Kenneth Harrelson, accused of conspiring<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/oattkeepers-capitol-riots-conspiracy/2021/03/11/03c26114-8291-11eb-9ca6-54e187ee4939_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_3> with other members of the Oath Keepers militia group to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeffrey S. Nestler said the government has evidence indicating otherwise.

“This is not pure conjecture,” Nestler said. In a court filing this week, he noted, prosecutors obtained cellphone and video evidence from the day before the riot showing that Harrelson asked someone about the quick reaction force. He then went to a Comfort Inn in the Ballston area of Arlington for about an hour before driving into D.C., prosecutors said. The day after the riot, surveillance video from the hotel shows him moving “what appears to be at least one rifle case down a hallway and towards the elevator,” according to the court records.

In court, Nestler said another Oath Keeper carried what appeared to be a rifle under a sheet out of the hotel on Jan. 7.

“We believe that at least one quick reaction force location was here and that Mr. Harrelson and others had stashed a large amount of weapons there,” Nestler said. “People affiliated with this group were in Ballston, monitoring what was happening at the Capitol and prepared to come into D.C. and ferry these weapons into the ground team that Kenneth Harrelson was running at a moment’s notice, if anyone said the word.”

Nestler did not detail the number of guns the group is alleged to have stashed.

Judge Amit Mehta called the evidence among the “most troubling and most disconcerting” he has seen in nearly a dozen cases related to Oath Keepers.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Bill restricting ballot collection voted down by Montana Senate”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121676>
Posted on April 16, 2021 7:54 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121676> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Helen Air:<https://helenair.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/bill-restricting-ballot-collection-voted-down-by-montana-senate/article_0b384acc-ba52-589c-8381-2328690a49fd.html>

The Montana Senate voted down a bill on Wednesday that would have restricted absentee ballot collection in Montana, with some Republicans joining Democrats who opposed the measure as creating an unnecessary barrier for mail-in voting.

House Bill 406<http://laws.leg.mt.gov/legprd/LAW0203W$BSRV.ActionQuery?P_SESS=20211&P_BLTP_BILL_TYP_CD=HB&P_BILL_NO=406&P_BILL_DFT_NO=&P_CHPT_NO=&Z_ACTION=Find&P_ENTY_ID_SEQ2=&P_SBJT_SBJ_CD=&P_ENTY_ID_SEQ=> sought to outlaw a practice commonly used by get-out-the-vote groups, in which organizations submit mail-in ballots collected from voters. Under the measure, voters could have still let family members and legal guardians submit their ballots for them, but they would have been be required to enter their personal information into a state registry subject to public information laws.

Sen. Bryce Bennett, D-Missoula, pointed out that an amendment added to the bill Friday by a Senate panel went further than just prohibiting get-out-the-vote groups from collecting voters’ ballots. Caregivers for voters with disabilities, limited mobility or medical problems would also be prohibited from turning in those ballots.

“This bill is not just unconstitutional, as I’m sure the courts will find. It’s just cruel,” Bennett said.

The bill failed on a 23-27 vote on second reading, with eight Republicans joining all 19 Democrats in voting against it. Chester Sen. Russ Tempel was one of two Republicans who spoke against the bill, saying that although “some of this stuff needs to be done,” county officials in his district were worried it would create significant costs for them. Democratic Sen. Jen Gross, of Billings, echoed that sentiment, saying that the elections administrator in Yellowstone County had estimated HB 406 would add $640,000 in costs per election.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Election objectors leaned on small donors after corporate PAC backlash”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121674>
Posted on April 16, 2021 7:40 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121674> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/16/election-objectors-small-donors-pac-backlash-482316>

Most House Republicans who objected to the certification of President Joe Biden’s victory saw their small-dollar fundraising rise in the first three months of this year compared to the same quarter in 2019, in the latest indication that Republicans aren’t facing a major cash crunch three months after many corporate PACs vowed to stop giving to their campaigns.

The rise in small-dollar donations helped to offset a decrease in PAC donations for many members, according to an analysis of quarterly campaign finance data that was due Thursday.

While 55 of the 95 House Republican objectors whose filings POLITICO analyzed saw their fundraising decline compared with the first quarter of 2019, 40 saw it rise.

And a majority of them — 57 — saw their small-dollar fundraising go up compared with the first quarter of 2019.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“A cybersecurity expert who promoted claims of fraud in the 2020 election is leading the GOP-backed recount of millions of ballots in Arizona”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121672>
Posted on April 16, 2021 7:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121672> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/arizona-recount-cyber-ninjas/2021/04/16/b3cbbf08-996e-11eb-962b-78c1d8228819_story.html>

The nearly 2.1 million ballots cast in Maricopa County, Ariz., last fall are currently packaged in 40 cardboard shrink-wrapped boxes and stacked on 45 pallets in a county facility in Phoenix known as “the vault,” due to its sophisticated security and special fire-suppression system.

But on order of the Republican-led state Senate, the ballots and the county’s voting equipment are scheduled to be trucked away next week — handed over for a new recount and audit spurred by unsubstantiated claims that fraud or errors tainted President Biden’s win in Arizona’s largest county.

The ballots will be scrutinized not by election officials, but by a group of private companies led by a private Florida-based firm, whose owner has promoted claims that the 2020election was fraudulent and who has been cited as an expert by allies of former president Donald Trump seeking to cast doubt on the election in other parts of the country.

Trump supporters, including a lawyer who volunteered with his post-election legal team, have been raising private dollars to supplement $150,000 in taxpayer money that has been earmarked to fund the Arizona recount.

Nearly three months after Biden took office<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/joe-biden-sworn-in/2021/01/20/13465c90-5a7c-11eb-a976-bad6431e03e2_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_9> and despite dozens of courtroom losses<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judges-trump-election-lawsuits/2020/12/12/e3a57224-3a72-11eb-98c4-25dc9f4987e8_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_9> and previous recounts, many Republicans around the countrycontinue to echoTrump’s falsehoods that the election was rigged as justification to pass new voting restrictions….

Logan was listed in December as a potential expert witness<https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/antrim-county-lawsuit-expert-witness-list/8dc05aea-63b8-4a24-9eaf-1bca7fbfcdb8/?itid=lk_inline_manual_62> in a lawsuit brought by a voter challenging the election results in Antrim County, Mich.,according to court filings. The county has emerged as a fixation of Trump supporters after an error not long after polls closed led the county briefly to report that Biden won the heavily Republican area.

Allies of Trump claimed it showedthe election could be stolen by manipulating voting machines. In fact<https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/interactive/2020/election-integrity/?itid=lk_inline_manual_64>, the mistake was the result of human error and swiftly corrected, according to the county clerk<https://www.freep.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/06/antrim-county-results-election-2020/6185031002/> and other Michigan officials<https://www.michigan.gov/sos/0,4670,7-127-93094-544676--,00.html>.

When asked how Logan got involved in the lawsuit, Matthew DePerno, a Michigan lawyer handling the Antrim County case, did not answer directly, responding instead by email: “Can you answer my question, how much election fraud is acceptable to you and the Washington Post?”

Logan also confirmed to the Arizona Mirror<https://www.azmirror.com/2021/04/09/arizona-audit-leader-doug-logan-wrote-fraud-claims-on-kraken-lawyers-website/> that he wrote a document<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5e80e0d236405d1c7b8eaec9/t/60721f5f4048257b9ae3ca32/1618091871435/Election-Fraud-Facts-Details+-+Copy+%281%29.pdf> titled “Election Fraud Facts & Details” that is posted on the website<https://www.sidneypowell.com/election-evidence-2020> of conservative attorneySidney Powell, a Trump ally who filed a number of unsuccessful lawsuits challenging the election results in various states.

In an email, Logan told the Arizona publication that he prepared the document for use by U.S. senators who sought to challenge the election results when Congress formally countednthe electoral college ballots on Jan. 6. The Mirror reported that he did not indicate who asked him to compile the document or for which senators it was intended. It is also not clear how it came to be posted on Powell’s website.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Gabriel Sterling, Top Georgia Election Official Who Stood Up to Trump, Whitewashes Problematic Aspects of Georgia’s New Voting Law in WaPo Oped<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121668>
Posted on April 15, 2021 4:38 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121668> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

He’s right<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/mr-president-your-misinformation-on-georgias-voting-law-is-dangerous/2021/04/14/59b8a53c-9d4f-11eb-9d05-ae06f4529ece_story.html> that President Biden and other Democrats have overstated the suppressive effects of the law, but he understates many other aspects of the law, which will make it harder for some people to vote.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121668&title=Gabriel%20Sterling%2C%20Top%20Georgia%20Election%20Official%20Who%20Stood%20Up%20to%20Trump%2C%20Whitewashes%20Problematic%20Aspects%20of%20Georgia%E2%80%99s%20New%20Voting%20Law%20in%20WaPo%20Oped>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Houston’s expanded voting becomes target of GOP restrictions”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121666>
Posted on April 15, 2021 4:28 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121666> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/04/15/houstons-expanded-voting-becomes-target-gop-restrictions/7241775002/>

The nation’s next big voting battle is underway in Texas, where Republicans are trying to outlaw 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting as options, and to make it a crime for elections officials to mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications.

All were efforts that Harris County, which includes Houston and is the state’s largest Democratic stronghold, tried last year, when the threat of the coronavirus made voting in-person more hazardous.

Republican lawmakers have been unusually explicit in zeroing in on Houston and surrounding Harris County as they push to tighten the state’s voting laws. One of the country’s largest and most racially diverse counties, Harris County rolled out new ways to vote in 2020 on a scale like nowhere else in Texas, and although there is no evidence of fraud resulting from votes cast from cars or in the dead of night, Republicans are determined to prevent it from happening again.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121666&title=%E2%80%9CHouston%E2%80%99s%20expanded%20voting%20becomes%20target%20of%20GOP%20restrictions%E2%80%9D>
Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


LOL<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121664>
Posted on April 15, 2021 10:21 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121664> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Von Spakovsky at hearing<https://twitter.com/JessicaHuseman/status/1382742368319799296>.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121664&title=LOL>
Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Being online isn’t enough; CISA works to get election website to move to .GOV domain”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121662>
Posted on April 15, 2021 10:05 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121662> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Electionline<https://electionline.org/electionline-weekly/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=April%2015%202021&utm_content=April%2015%202021+CID_52272f7102ea817bfd9d54c703a68a7b&utm_source=Campaign%20Monitor&utm_term=Read%20More#tab-1>:

While the 2020 election may have been the most secure election<https://www.cisa.gov/news/2020/11/12/joint-statement-elections-infrastructure-government-coordinating-council-election> in our nation’s history, mis/disinformation leading up to November 3, 2020 and most certainly in the days and weeks that followed has plagued elections officials.

“Election officials continue to face an uphill battle of misinformation being spread about elections and voting,” said Trish Robertson, public relations officer for the Collier County, Florida Supervisor of Elections Office<https://www.colliervotes.gov/>.

But the county has made a change that it hopes will help elections officials and voters alike.

“By changing our website to CollierVotes.gov, we hope voters will be confident in using our website knowing that the .gov means it belongs to an official government organization in the United States,” Robertson said.

With the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency<https://www.cisa.gov/> (CISA) taking over responsibility for the TLD program<https://www.cisa.gov/news/2021/03/08/cisa-announces-transfer-gov-top-level-domain-us-general-services-administration> under the DOTGOV Online Trust in Government Act of 2020, the agency is looking to support election offices and understand where it can ease their transition and get more sites migrated to the .GOV domain.

Because only US-based government organization can obtain a .GOV domain, using one shows you’re official. Anyone, malicious actors included, can get a .COM, .NET, .ORG, or .US domain.
[Share]<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=https%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D121662&title=%E2%80%9CBeing%20online%20isn%E2%80%99t%20enough%3B%20CISA%20works%20to%20get%20election%20website%20to%20move%20to%20.GOV%20domain%E2%80%9D>
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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