[EL] ELB News and Commentary 6/7/21

[Rick Hasen]

“In Arizona 2020 Election Review, Risks for Republicans, and Democracy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122504>
Posted on June 7, 2021 7:48 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122504> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/us/arizona-recount-audit-republicans.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>

Now in its seventh week, the review of 2.1 million votes in Arizona’s most populous county has ballooned not just into a national political spectacle, but also a political wind sock for the Republican Party — an early test of how its renewed subservience to Mr. Trump would play with voters.

The returns to date are not encouraging for the party. A late-May poll of 400 Arizonans by the respected consulting firm HighGround Inc.<https://azhighground.com/> found that more than 55 percent of respondents opposed the vote review, most of them strongly. Fewer than 41 percent approved of it. By about 45 to 33 percent, respondents said they were less likely — much less, most said — to vote for a Republican candidate who supported the review.

The review itself, troubled by procedural blunders and defections, has largely sacrificed any claim to impartiality. The Pennsylvania computer forensics firm that was conducting the hand recount of ballots quit without a clear explanation this month, adding further chaos to a count that election authorities and other critics say has been making up its rules as it went along….

Instead, the Republicans in the Arizona Senate have doubled down. And as the review’s notoriety has grown, pro-Trump Republicans in other states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania have begun to promote their own plans to investigate the November vote, even though — as in Arizona — elections in those states have been certified as accurate and free from any fraud that could have affected the outcome.

The sudden interest in exhuming the November election is explained by another number from the poll in Arizona: While only about 41 percent of all 400 respondents said they supported the Maricopa audit, almost 77 percent of Republican respondents did.

Among the Trump supporters who dominate the Republican Party, skepticism about the election results, fueled almost entirely by Mr. Trump’s lies, remains unshaken, and catering to it is politically profitable.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“What Happened When Trump Was Banned on Social Media”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122502>
Posted on June 7, 2021 7:44 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122502> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT analysis:<https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/06/07/technology/trump-social-media-ban.html>

The New York Times examined Mr. Trump’s nearly 1,600 social media posts from Sept. 1 to Jan. 8, the day Mr. Trump was banned from the platforms. We then tracked the social media engagement with the dozens of written statements he made on his personal website, campaign fund-raising site and in email blasts from Jan. 9 until May 5, which was the day that the Facebook Oversight Board, which reviews some content decisions by the company, said that the company acted appropriately<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/us/politics/trump-shuts-down-blog.html> in kicking him off the service.

Before the ban, the social media post with the median engagement generated 272,000 likes and shares. After the ban, that dropped to 36,000 likes and shares. Yet 11 of his 89 statements after the ban attracted as many likes or shares as the median post before the ban, if not more.

How does that happen?

Mr. Trump had long been his own best promoter on social media. The vast majority of people on Twitter and Facebook interacted directly with Mr. Trump’s posts, either liking or sharing them, The Times analysis found.

But after the ban, other popular social media accounts often picked up his messages and posted them themselves. (Last week, Mr. Trump shut down<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/02/us/politics/trump-shuts-down-blog.html> his blog, one of the places he made statements.)…

One topic from Mr. Trump that has not spread far: claims of widespread election fraud.

The Times analysis looked at the 10 most popular posts with election misinformation — judged by likes and shares — from Mr. Trump before the social media bans, and compared them with his 10 most popular written statements containing election misinformation after the ban. All the posts included falsehoods about the election — that the process had been “rigged,” for instance, or that there had been extensive voter fraud.

Before the ban, Mr. Trump’s posts garnered 22.1 million likes and shares; after the ban, his posts earned 1.3 million likes and shares across Twitter and Facebook.

Disinformation researchers say the difference points to the enormous power the social media companies have in curbing political misinformation, if they choose to wield it. Facebook and Twitter curb the spread of false statements about the November election, though Twitter has loosened its enforcement since March to dedicate more resources to fact-checking in other parts of the world.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“The Republicans’ Wild Assault on Voting Rights in Texas and Arizona”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122500>
Posted on June 7, 2021 7:36 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122500> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Sue Halpern<https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/14/the-republicans-wild-assault-on-voting-rights-in-texas-and-arizona> in The New Yorker:

It’s easy to joke about conspiracy hunters searching for bits of bamboo. But the fact is that more than half of Republicans still believe that Trump won, and a quarter of all Americans think that the election was rigged. Republicans in at least four other states—New Hampshire, Michigan, Georgia, and Pennsylvania—are now considering recounts. Soon, Trump will begin to hold rallies again and will use them to amplify his Big Lie lie; he has reportedly suggested that he could be back in the White House in August, after the recounts are completed. The real, and imminent, danger is that all the noise will make it easier for a cohort of Americans to welcome the dissolution of the political system, which appears to be the ultimate goal of the current Republican efforts.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Disclosure re Governor Newsom/CA Recall<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122498>
Posted on June 7, 2021 7:27 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122498> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

My son starts a job today working for CA Governor Newsom, so I won’t be blogging any analysis of election law issues related to the governor or about the CA recall against the governor. I will still link to relevant stories on these topics, without offering my own analysis. And of course other ELB contributors may offer their own opinions on these matters.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“New Hampshire Election Audit, part 2”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122496>
Posted on June 7, 2021 7:20 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122496> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Andrew Appel<https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2021/06/07/new-hampshire-election-audit-part-2/>:

In my previous post<https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2021/06/02/new-hampshire-election-audit-part-1/> I explained the preliminary conclusions from the three experts engaged by New Hampshire to examine an election anomaly in the town of Windham, November 2020. Improperly folded ballots (which shouldn’t have happened) had folds that were interpreted as votes (which also shouldn’t have happened) and this wasn’t noticed by any routine procedures (where either overvote rejection or RLAs would have caught and corrected the problem)–except that one candidate happened to ask for a recount. At least in New Hampshire it’s easy to ask for a recount and the Secretary of State’s office has lots of experience doing recounts.
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Posted in voting technology<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=40>


“Israeli security chief issues rare warning over potential for Jan. 6-style mob violence ahead of Netanyahu departure”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122494>
Posted on June 6, 2021 9:13 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122494> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/netanyahu-trump-capitol-mob-siege/2021/06/06/40a1d10e-c68a-11eb-89a4-b7ae22aa193e_story.html>

The head of Israel’s internal security service said that “extremely violent and inciting discourse” targeting the lawmakers who are seeking to end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year tenure as prime minister could take a potentially lethal form — a grim echo of the warnings ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

Shin Bet chief Nadav Argaman said Saturday that the spike in vitriol targeting Netanyahu’s opponents online and in public demonstrations “may be interpreted by certain groups or individuals as one that allows for violent and illegal activities that may even, God forbid, become lethal.”

He called on public officials to rein in the groups that have vowed to do “anything possible” to prevent the swearing in of a new power-sharing government that has been spearheaded by centrist politician Yair Lapid.ADVERTISING

Netanyahu has said he condemns any incitement and violence, but he said at a meeting with his Likud party on Sunday that “incitement against us is also raging.” He called on lawmakers to vote against the formation of the “fraudulent” alternative government.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122492>
Posted on June 6, 2021 9:10 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122492> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT deep dive.<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“How the national push by Trump allies to audit 2020 ballots started quietly in Pennsylvania”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122490>
Posted on June 6, 2021 9:01 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122490> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pennsylvania-2020-ballot-audits/2021/06/06/4e456952-bfe0-11eb-b26e-53663e6be6ff_story.html>:

Joe Biden’s presidential victory in Pennsylvania had been certified for weeks when officials in some Republican-leaning counties began receiving strange phone calls from GOP state senators in late December.

The lawmakers, who had been publicly questioning Biden’s win, had a request: Would the counties agree to a voluntary audit of their ballots?

The push to conduct unofficial election audits in multiple counties, described in interviews and emails obtained by The Washington Post, served as a last-ditch effort by allies of former president Donald Trump to undercut Biden’s win after failing in the courts and the state legislature.

The previously unreported lobbying foreshadowed a playbook now in use in Arizona<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/maricopa-county-2020-audit/2021/05/17/28292932-b74a-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_6> and increasingly being sought<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-false-claims-fallout/2021/05/19/87aeacc4-b7f9-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_6> in other communities across the country as Trump supporters clamor for reviews of the ballots cast last fall, citing false claims that the vote was corrupted by fraud. The former president’s backers argue that any evidence of problems they can uncover will prove the election system is vulnerable — and could have been manipulated to help Biden win.

The audits are being pushed by a loose affiliation of GOP lawmakers, lawyers and self-described election experts, backed by private fundraising campaigns whose donors are unknown.

In Pennsylvania, the state senators quietly targeted at least three small counties, all of which Trump had won handily. Their proposal was unorthodox: to have a private company scrutinize the county’s ballots, for free — a move outside the official processes used for election challenges.

Only one county is known to have agreed to the senators’ request: rural Fulton County, on the Maryland border, where Trump performed better than anywhere else in the state, winning nearly 86 percent of the roughly 8,000 votes cast.

“I think they thought this was just a small, friendly area. If they could get away with it, they could raise questions about the legitimacy of the election,” said Dayton Tweedy, 60, a teacher in Fulton who, with his wife, Kimbra, spent months trying to learn more about how the audit was conducted in his community — and why.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Pressured Justice Department to Pursue Absolutely Bonkers Election Fraud Theory After 2020 Election<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122488>
Posted on June 6, 2021 8:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122488> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Wow story from the NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/us/politics/mark-meadows-justice-department-election.html>

In Donald J. Trump’s final weeks in office, Mark Meadows, his chief of staff, repeatedly pushed the Justice Department to investigate unfounded conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election, according to newly uncovered emails provided to Congress, portions of which were reviewed by The New York Times.

In five emails sent during the last week of December and early January, Mr. Meadows asked Jeffrey A. Rosen, then the acting attorney general, to examine debunked claims of election fraud in New Mexico and an array of baseless conspiracies that held that Mr. Trump had been the actual victor. That included a fantastical theory that people in Italy had used military technology and satellites to remotely tamper with voting machines in the United States and switch votes for Mr. Trump to votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

None of the emails show Mr. Rosen agreeing to open the investigations suggested by Mr. Meadows, and former officials and people close to him said that he did not do so. An email to another Justice Department official indicated that Mr. Rosen had refused to broker a meeting between the F.B.I. and a man who had posted videos online promoting the Italy conspiracy theory, known as Italygate.

But the communications between Mr. Meadows and Mr. Rosen, which have not previously been reported, show the increasingly urgent efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies during his last days in office to find some way to undermine, or even nullify, the election results while he still had control of the government….

Mr. Meadows’s outreach to Mr. Rosen was audacious in part because it violated longstanding<https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AG-2007-Memo-Communications-with-White-House.pdf> guidelines<https://www.justice.gov/oip/foia-library/communications_with_the_white_house_and_congress_2009.pdf/download> that essentially forbid almost all White House personnel, including the chief of staff, from contacting the Justice Department about investigations or other enforcement actions.

“The Justice Department’s enforcement mechanisms should not be used for political purpose or for the personal benefit of the president. That’s the key idea that gave rise to these policies,” said W. Neil Eggleston, who served as President Barack Obama’s White House counsel. “If the White House is involved in an investigation, there is at least a sense that there is a political angle to it.”

Nevertheless, Mr. Meadows emailed Mr. Rosen multiple times in the end of December and on New Year’s Day.

On Jan. 1, Mr. Meadows wrote that he wanted the Justice Department to open an investigation into a discredited theory, pushed by the Trump campaign, that anomalies with signature matches in Georgia’s Fulton County had been widespread enough to change the results in Mr. Trump’s favor.

Mr. Meadows had previously forwarded Mr. Rosen an email about possible fraud in Georgia that had been written by Cleta Mitchell<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/04/us/politics/cleta-mitchell-trump.html>, a lawyer who worked with the Trump campaign. Two days after that email was sent to Mr. Rosen, Ms. Mitchell participated in the Jan. 2 phone call, during which she and Mr. Trump pushed Mr. Raffensperger to reconsider his findings that there had not been widespread voter fraud and that Mr. Biden had won. During the call, Mr. Trump asked Mr. Raffensperger to “find” him the votes necessary to declare victory in Georgia.

Mr. Meadows also sent Mr. Rosen a list of allegations of possible election wrongdoing in New Mexico, a state that Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani had said in November was rife with fraud. A spokesman for New Mexico’s secretary of state said at the time that its elections were secure. To confirm the accuracy of the vote, auditors in the state hand-counted random precincts.

And in his request that the Justice Department investigate the Italy conspiracy theory, Mr. Meadows sent Mr. Rosen a YouTube link to a video of Brad Johnson, a former C.I.A. employee who had been pushing the theory in videos and statements that he posted online. After receiving the video, Mr. Rosen said in an email to another Justice Department official that he had been asked to set up a meeting between Mr. Johnson and the F.B.I., had refused, and had then been asked to reconsider.
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“On Voting Rights, It Can Cost Companies to Take Both Sides”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122486>
Posted on June 6, 2021 8:40 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122486> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT Dealbook:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/05/business/dealbook/voting-rights-companies.html>

In 2019, there were 51 political spending proposals at S&P 500 companies; none passed, and they received an average of 28 percent support. Last year, of 55 similar proposals, six passed and average support rose to about 35 percent. The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Political Accountability partnered with activist shareholders on many of these resolutions. So far this year it has advanced 30 resolutions, and five of the seven that have been put to a vote won majority support.

Last month, shareholders of Chemed, the health care and cleaning conglomerate, passed a political spending proposal with 80 percent approval, and United Airlines’s investors approved a similar resolution with 67 percent support. Partners of the Center for Political Accountability have also won agreements from nine companies without their resolutions going to a vote, while three proposals were withdrawn based on conversations with companies about improving transparency into their political spending.

“This is the strongest opening we’ve had,” said Bruce Freed, the president of the Center for Political Accountability. “It sends a strong message to companies that shareholders want them to adopt disclosure and accountability policies for their political spending with corporate funds. Companies are really under the gun.”
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Manchin Vows to Block Democratic Voting Rights Bill and Preserve Filibuster”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122484>
Posted on June 6, 2021 12:39 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122484> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/politics/joe-manchin-op-ed.html>

Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia said on Sunday in no uncertain terms that he will not vote for the Democrats’ far-reaching bill to combat voter suppression and restore ethical controls<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/24/us/politics/trump-ethics-voting-rights.html> on the presidency shattered by Donald J. Trump.

In an opinion piece in a West Virginia paper, Mr. Manchin, a Democrat, also reiterated his staunch opposition to ending the Senate’s legislative filibuster, which would seem to doom many of President Biden’s most ambitious legislative goals.

The bill, the For the People Act, would roll back dozens of laws being passed by Republican state legislatures to limit early and mail-in voting and empower partisan poll watchers and voting oversight.

The legislation would also force major-party candidates for president and vice president to release 10 years’ worth of personal and business tax returns and end the president’s and vice president’s exemption from executive branch conflict-of-interest rules, which allowed Mr. Trump to maintain businesses that profited off his presidency.

“I believe that partisan voting legislation will destroy the already weakening binds of our democracy, and for that reason, I will vote against the For the People Act. Furthermore, I will not vote to weaken or eliminate the filibuster,” Mr. Manchin wrote in The Charleston Gazette-Mail<https://www.wvgazettemail.com/opinion/op_ed_commentaries/joe-manchin-why-im-voting-against-the-for-the-people-act/article_c7eb2551-a500-5f77-aa37-2e42d0af870f.html>, his home state capital’s newspaper.
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Posted in Voting Rights Act<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=15>


Facebook’s Response to Oversight Board’s Calls to Examine Its Own Role in Creating the Conditions for January 6 Insurrection is Weak<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122482>
Posted on June 4, 2021 2:42 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122482> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

evelyn douek:<https://www.lawfareblog.com/facebooks-responses-trump-case-are-better-kick-teeth-not-much>

Facebook’s Investigation of its Role Leading Up to Jan. 6

One of the most consequential recommendations the FOB made was for Facebook to “undertake a comprehensive review of its potential contribution to the narrative of electoral fraud and the exacerbated tensions that culminated in the violence in the United States on January 6, 2021.” BuzzFeed has reported<https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/full-facebook-stop-the-steal-internal-report> that even before the FOB’s decision, Facebook had created such a report internally, but the FOB’s recommendation was specifically for an “open reflection.” Interestingly, the FOB’s recommendation became a focal point for public pressure: for example, Bob Bauer, who advised Biden’s presidential campaign and served as White House Counsel during the Obama administration, called on<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/02/building-back-together-facebook-election-fraud-491545> Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to make “an unequivocal commitment to the complete and public review suggested by the Oversight Board.”

Unfortunately, neither Bauer’s plea nor the FOB’s recommendation worked to any substantial extent. Facebook did not commit itself to any further public reflection on the role it played in the election fraud narrative that sparked violence in the United States on January 6, 2021. It pointed to existing research partnerships<https://about.fb.com/news/2020/08/research-impact-of-facebook-and-instagram-on-us-election/> with independent researchers, and did extend the amount of data it will provide them. Facebook also highlighted its previous enforcement actions against groups like QAnon. But it said “the responsibility for January 6, 2021, lies with the insurrectionists and those who encouraged them” and its only further commitment is to “continue to cooperate with law enforcement and US government investigations related to the events on January 6.” This is extremely disappointing. Of course the blame for Jan. 6 does not lie entirely, or perhaps even primarily, with Facebook. Other institutions<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/politics/capitol-riot-commission-republicans.html> also desperately need to hold themselves accountable. But the dramatic failure of other institutions does not mean that Facebook should not have seized this opportunity to do better and to add to the public record about what enabled the insurrection to happen.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


In Calling for Immediate Congressional Action to Stem Risk of Election Subversion, NY Times Editorial Board Calls for Abandoning H.R. 1 in Favor of a Narrower and Better Focused Bill<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122480>
Posted on June 4, 2021 1:06 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122480> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Pretty stunning<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/04/opinion/voting-law-rights-congress.html?smid=tw-share>:

Republican-controlled state legislatures are whittling away at the integrity of electoral democracy in the United States, rushing to pass laws that make it harder for Americans to vote and easier for partisans to tamper with election results.

It is a legislative assault motivated by the failure of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign and justified by baseless allegations about the legitimacy of his defeat. Mr. Trump and his supporters pursued indiscriminate lawsuits to overturn the results and then, urged on by Mr. Trump, some of his supporters stormed the Capitol to halt the completion of the election process. Now they are seeking to rewrite the rules to make it easier for Republicans to win elections without winning the most votes.

This effort is inimical to the most basic principles of free and fair elections: that all who are eligible should have an equal opportunity to vote, that all votes should be counted and that the losing side should accept defeat and acknowledge the legitimacy of the outcome.

In the face of these threats, Democrats in Congress have crafted an election bill, H.R. 1, that is poorly matched to the moment. The legislation attempts to accomplish more than is currently feasible, while failing to address some of the clearest threats to democracy, especially the prospect that state officials will seek to overturn the will of voters.

I made similar points in this NYT oped<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/23/opinion/republicans-voting-us-elections.html> and this WaPo piece<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/16/hr-1-voting-reforms/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“As Trump readies summer rallies and speeches, allies worry he’s stuck in the past”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122478>
Posted on June 4, 2021 11:32 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122478> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN:<https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/04/politics/trump-north-carolina-speech-2020-obsession/index.html?utm_content=2021-06-04T14%3A07%3A07&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twCNN&utm_term=link>

Lately, Trump’s obsession with 2020 has also led him to indulge unhinged and false notions about being “reinstated” as commander-in-chief, according to three people familiar with these conversations, one of whom said he has been constantly watching the conspiracy-laden TV channel One America News and intensely following an ongoing Republican-demanded audit of votes in Arizona’s Maricopa County.

Trump has claimed the Arizona audit could lead to similar investigations in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia that would ultimately prove he won the 2020 election, one person close to Trump said. The reinstatement theory Trump has been sharing with aides was first reported by The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman on Tuesday….

More likely than not, Trump’s remarks will resemble the address he delivered to the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. In that speech, Trump thrilled the crowd of grassroots activists by castigating what he called a “very sick and corrupt electoral process” and teased a 2024 White House run by saying he may even decide to beat Democrats “for a third time.” As is the case with his speech this weekend, his CPAC address was drafted by the same speechwriting crew Trump worked with inside the West Wing: Stephen Miller, Vincent Haley and Ross Worthington.

While some allies have floated Trump’s Saturday appearance as the ideal launchpad for an updated stump speech, the internal push to get him to ditch his intense preoccupation with election fraud goes well beyond his visit to North Carolina.The behind-the-scenes effort, which has included Graham, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News host Sean Hannity, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and other outside advisers, has shifted into full gear amid mounting fears that Trump is alienating certain voters and forcing Republican candidates to adopt the wrong foil in a critical election cycle.”

The conspiracy theories and election fraud rhetoric are helpful for keeping a certain audience engaged but they do virtually nothing to move other voters — especially those who care about pocketbook issues — into our column,” said one person close to Trump.”At some point, the election integrity stuff just becomes dull,” this person added.

“We’re six months out and I think we’re starting to see that happen. He can keep running through the greatest hits but he needs to weave in some new material too.”
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“In Response to Oversight Board, Trump Suspended for Two Years; Will Only Be Reinstated if Conditions Permit”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122474>
Posted on June 4, 2021 9:54 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=122474> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Facebook’s Nick Clegg<https://about.fb.com/news/2021/06/facebook-response-to-oversight-board-recommendations-trump/>:

Last month, the Oversight Board upheld Facebook’s suspension<https://about.fb.com/news/2021/05/facebook-oversight-board-decision-trump/> of former US President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts following his praise for people engaged in violence at the Capitol on January 6. But in doing so, the board criticized the open-ended nature of the suspension, stating that “it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension.” The board instructed us to review the decision and respond in a way that is clear and proportionate, and made a number of recommendations on how to improve our policies and processes.

We are today announcing new enforcement protocols to be applied in exceptional cases such as this, and we are confirming the time-bound penalty consistent with those protocols which we are applying to Mr. Trump’s accounts. Given the gravity of the circumstances that led to Mr. Trump’s suspension, we believe his actions constituted a severe violation of our rules which merit the highest penalty available under the new enforcement protocols. We are suspending his accounts for two years, effective from the date of the initial suspension on January 7 this year.

At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded. We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest. If we determine that there is still a serious risk to public safety, we will extend the restriction for a set period of time and continue to re-evaluate until that risk has receded.

When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future, up to and including permanent removal of his pages and accounts.

In establishing the two year sanction for severe violations, we considered the need for it to be long enough to allow a safe period of time after the acts of incitement, to be significant enough to be a deterrent to Mr. Trump and others from committing such severe violations in future, and to be proportionate to the gravity of the violation itself.

We are grateful that the Oversight Board acknowledged that our original decision to suspend Mr. Trump was right and necessary, in the exceptional circumstances at the time. But we absolutely accept that we did not have enforcement protocols in place adequate to respond to such unusual events. Now that we have them, we hope and expect they will only be applicable in the rarest circumstances.

We know that any penalty we apply — or choose not to apply — will be controversial. There are many people who believe it was not appropriate for a private company like Facebook to suspend an outgoing President from its platform, and many others who believe Mr. Trump should have immediately been banned for life. We know today’s decision will be criticized by many people on opposing sides of the political divide — but our job is to make a decision in as proportionate, fair and transparent a way as possible, in keeping with the instruction given to us by the Oversight Board.

Of course, this penalty only applies to our services — Mr. Trump is and will remain free to express himself publicly via other means. Our approach reflects the way we try to balance the values of free expression and safety on our services, for all users, as enshrined in our Community Standards. Other social media companies have taken different approaches — either banning Mr. Trump from their services permanently or confirming that he will be free to resume use of their services when conditions allow.

Accountability and Transparency

The Oversight Board’s decision is accountability in action. It is a significant check on Facebook’s power, and an authoritative way of publicly holding the company to account for its decisions. It was established as an independent body to make binding judgments on some of the most difficult content decisions Facebook makes, and to offer recommendations on how we can improve our policies. As today’s announcements demonstrate, we take its recommendations seriously and they can have a significant impact on the composition and enforcement of Facebook’s policies.

Its response to this case confirms our view that Facebook shouldn’t be making so many decisions about content by ourselves. In the absence of frameworks agreed upon by democratically accountable lawmakers, the board’s model of independent and thoughtful deliberation is a strong one that ensures important decisions are made in as transparent and judicious a manner as possible. The Oversight Board is not a replacement for regulation, and we continue to call for thoughtful regulation in this space.

We are also committing to being more transparent about the decisions we make and how they impact our users. As well as our updated enforcement protocols, we are also publishing our strike system<https://transparency.fb.com/enforcement/taking-action/counting-strikes>, so that people know what actions our systems will take if they violate our policies. And earlier this year, we launched a feature called ‘account status’, so people can see when content was removed, why, and what the penalty was.

In response to a recommendation by the Oversight Board, we are also providing more information in our Transparency Center about our newsworthiness allowance<https://transparency.fb.com/features/approach-to-newsworthy-content/> and how we apply it. We allow certain content that is newsworthy or important to the public interest to remain on our platform — even if it might otherwise violate our Community Standards. We may also limit other enforcement consequences, such as demotions, when it is in the public interest to do so. When making these determinations, however, we will remove content if the risk of harm outweighs the public interest.

We grant our newsworthiness allowance to a small number of posts on our platform. Moving forward, we will begin publishing the rare instances when we apply it. Finally, when we assess content for newsworthiness, we will not treat content posted by politicians any differently from content posted by anyone else. Instead, we will simply apply our newsworthiness balancing test in the same way to all content, measuring whether the public interest value of the content outweighs the potential risk of harm by leaving it up.

Along with these changes, we have also taken substantial steps to respond to the other policy recommendations the board included in their decision. Out of the board’s 19 recommendations, we are committed to fully implementing 15. We are implementing one recommendation in part, still assessing two recommendations, and taking no further action on one recommendation. Our full responses are available here<https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Facebook-Responses-to-Oversight-Board-Recommendations-in-Trump-Case-1.pdf>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>



--
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
rhasen at law.uci.edu<mailto:rhasen at law.uci.edu>
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org<http://electionlawblog.org/>



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