[EL] ELB News and Commentary 3/11/21

[Rick Hasen]

“Civil rights organization files lawsuit over Iowa’s new voting law”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121157>
Posted on March 11, 2021 8:15 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121157> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

KCCI:<https://www.kcci.com/article/lulac-civil-rights-organization-files-lawsuit-over-iowas-new-election-law/35783379>

A civil rights organization is now suing the state of Iowa over a new early voting law.

Late Monday afternoon, Gov. Kim Reynolds signed legislation<https://www.kcci.com/article/gov-reynolds-signs-measure-shortening-early-election-day-voting-into-law/35772599> that shortens Iowa’s early voting period from 29 days to 20 and closes polls an hour earlier at 8 p.m.

LULAC, the League of United Latin American Citizens of Iowa, filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging the bill they say is voter suppression.

The suit claims the new law violates the Iowa Constitution and will “impose burdens on voters generally, with particularly severe impacts on the right to vote for minority voters, elderly voters, rural voters, young voters, poor voters, new voters, and voters with disabilities.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“McConnell, amid Trump’s threats, tells G.O.P. senators their political operation has out-raised the former president’s.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121155>
Posted on March 11, 2021 8:14 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121155> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/10/us/joe-biden-news#mcconnell-amid-trumps-threats-tells-gop-senators-their-political-operation-has-out-raised-the-former-presidents>

Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, boasted privately to fellow Republicans on Wednesday that their fund-raising efforts had outperformed Donald J. Trump’s, after the former president took aim at the party’s committees in a bid to control its financial future.

The comments from Mr. McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, at a weekly party lunch, which were described on condition of anonymity by three people briefed on the meeting, represented a response of sorts to Mr. Trump trying to throw down the gauntlet on fund-raising. The former president has recently suggested that he would be a better steward of the Republican Party’s money, and that he would use the resources to target incumbent Republicans he finds insufficiently loyal.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“How GOP-Backed Voting Measures Could Create Hurdles for Tens of Millions of Voters”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121153>
Posted on March 11, 2021 8:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121153> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Deep WaPo dive:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2021/voting-restrictions-republicans-states/?no_nav=true&tid=a_classic-iphone>

The GOP’s national push to enact hundreds of new election restrictions could strain every available method of voting for tens of millions of Americans, potentially amounting to the most sweeping contraction of ballot access in the United States since the end of Reconstruction, when Southern states curtailed the voting rights of formerly enslaved Black men, a Washington Post analysis has found.

In 43 states across the country, Republican lawmakers have proposed at least 250 laws that would limit mail, early in-person and Election Day voting with such constraints as stricter ID requirements, limited hours or narrower eligibility to vote absentee, according to data compiled as of Feb. 19 by the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Even more proposals have been introduced since then.

Proponents say the provisions are necessary to shore up public confidence in the integrity of elections after the 2020 presidential contest, when then-President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud convinced <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-election-voter-trust/2020/12/20/00282aa6-407a-11eb-8db8-395dedaaa036_story.html> millions of his supporters that the results were rigged against him.

But in most cases, Republicans are proposing solutions in states where elections ran smoothly, including in many with results that Trump and his allies did not contest or allege to be tainted by fraud. The measures are likely to disproportionately affect those in cities and Black voters in particular, who overwhelmingly vote Democratic — laying bare, critics say, the GOP’s true intent: gaining electoral advantage.
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Posted in fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>, The Voting Wars<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=60>


“As GOP makes it harder to vote, few Republicans dissent”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121151>
Posted on March 11, 2021 8:02 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121151> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP:<https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-race-and-ethnicity-voting-iowa-georgia-4ed9243dde80508dd99cf331bab512d6>

In Arizona, a Republican state senator worried aloud that his party’s proposed voter identification requirements might be too “cumbersome.” But he voted for the bill anyway.

In Iowa, the state’s Republican elections chief put out a carefully worded statement that didn’t say whether he backs his own party’s legislation making it more difficult to vote early.

And in Georgia, Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan left the room as Senate Republicans approved a bill to block early voting for all but the GOP’s most reliable voting bloc. Duncan instead watched Monday’s proceedings from a television in his office to protest.

This is what amounts to dissent as Republican lawmakers push a wave of legislation through statehouses across the nation to make voting more difficult. The bills are fueled by former President Donald Trump’s false claims of widespread voter fraud and many are sponsored by his most loyal allies. But support for the effort is much broader than just Trump’s hard-right base, and objections from GOP policymakers are so quiet they can be easy to miss.

“It’s appalling what’s happening,” said former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele, who condemned the silence of the GOP’s elected officials. “There have been no provable, obvious, systemwide failures or fraud that would require the kind of ‘legislative remedies’ that Republican legislatures are embarking on. What the hell are you so afraid of? Black people voting?”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Accusations fly in contest to lead Minnesota Republican Party”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121149>
Posted on March 11, 2021 7:58 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121149> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Star Tribune:<https://www.startribune.com/accusations-fly-in-contest-to-lead-minnesota-republican-party/600032638/>

“People are furious we lost the presidency,” said Sharon Peterson, a longtime GOP activist from Rosemount who’s backing Carnahan. She said many in the party’s volunteer ranks are consumed with worry about the fairness of the next election, having believed Trump’s unproven and legally discredited claims of a rigged election.

Allegations of a manipulated voting process have infiltrated the chair’s race. Koran and some of his supporters are upset that state party staffers, and Carnahan herself, directly managed about half of the local conventions where activists elected the delegates and alternates who will make up the voting pool for next month’s chair election.

“It’s a massive conflict of interest,” Koran said. “Free, fair, open and transparent elections have to be the basic foundation of what we do. If you have distrust in the process, it’s difficult to get people to accept the results of those conventions.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Faces of Small Donor Public Financing 2021”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121147>
Posted on March 11, 2021 7:55 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121147> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

New Brennan Center report<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/faces-small-donor-public-financing-2021>:

To begin to address these deep-rooted problems, lawmakers across the country are turning to the most powerful campaign finance reform available since the Supreme Court tipped the scales toward megadonors in Citizens United. Public campaign financing offers candidates the choice to drop out of the big money chase and run competitive campaigns focused on contact with constituents rather than call lists of big donors and special interests.

Over the last 10 years, more than a dozen<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/public-campaign-financing-bright-spot-shadow-citizens-united> jurisdictions have either adopted new public financing systems or strengthened existing ones, adding to a list of programs that have been operating for decades. These systems are available in state or local elections across the country, from small towns to states and large cities. In 2020, New York became the first state to enact<https://www.gothamgazette.com/state/9274-struck-down-court-new-state-campaign-finance-system-and-political-party-ballot-thresholds-enacted-into-law-cuomo-albany> a statewide public financing program since Citizens United. And most prominently, the House of Representatives has passed<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/03/us/politics/house-voting-rights-bill.html> a congressional public financing program twice as part of the For the People Act.

Public financing of elections can take on various forms<https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/2019-08/Report_2018_10_12_MiPToolkit.pdf>. Small-donor matching systems offer candidates public funds that multiply the value of small contributions. For example, under the program in Montgomery County, Maryland, which matches the smallest donations for county council and executive races at a 4:1 rate, a contribution of $10 becomes worth $50 to the candidate. Another type of program, often called clean elections, offers candidates block grants of public money once they qualify and prohibits them from raising additional private funds. Finally, voucher systems provide constituents with vouchers worth a specified dollar amount to give to the candidates of their choice, who then receive public funds in that amount.

Thousands of candidates — incumbents and newcomers; Democrats, Republicans, and independents — have used these systems to run for office, empowering untold numbers of small donors. With a combined five decades of implementation, just two of the largest jurisdictions, Arizona and New York City, have publicly financed almost 2,000 candidacies. Many officials — both legislative and executive — whose elections were publicly financed represent one million constituents or more. The stories of these publicly financed candidates paint a picture of a reform that makes for a healthier democracy.

In 2016, the Brennan Center published Breaking Down Barriers: The Faces of Small Donor Public Financing<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/breaking-down-barriers-faces-small-donor-public-financing>, featuring firsthand testimony from a bipartisan set of elected officials from across the country. Now, for this report, we interviewed a new set of elected officials, from both parties, with experience running on public financing, many from newly implemented programs such as those in Seattle, Washington; Montgomery County, Maryland; and Washington, DC.

As the number of public financing systems has grown, so have the ranks of candidates and elected officials who can attest to their impact. This report features reflections from individual candidates, but they speak to common benefits of the reform.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“New Congress, Same ‘Committee Tax:’ How the parties pressured legislative leaders to raise huge sums of campaign cash during the 116th Congress — and are poised to do so again this year”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121145>
Posted on March 11, 2021 7:47 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121145> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Updated report<https://www.issueone.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/2020-Price-of-Power-Update.pdf> from Issue One:

One of the open secrets of Washington is that both the Democratic and Republican parties strong-arm influential legislators to raise astronomical amounts of campaign cash. Referred to as paying “party dues,” lawmakers are pressured to transfer huge sums from their campaigns and affiliated PACs to the parties as well as spend countless hours “dialing for dollars” to raise six- and seven-figure amounts for the parties, often by soliciting corporations, labor unions, and other special interests that have business before Congress.

These fundraising demands have morphed into a “committee tax” levied
by the political parties onto legislators. The more influential the role in
Congress, the more money party leaders expect legislators to raise, with
committee chairs being expected to raise more funds than other members of their caucus. This is especially true for the chairs of the most powerful committees in the U.S. House of Representatives — the Appropriations, Energy and Commerce, Financial Services, and Ways and Means Committees, which are sometimes referred to as “A” committees for their prestige and influence.

In fact, according to a new analysis of campaign finance filings by Issue One, approximately $1 of every $5 spent during the 2019-2020 election cycle by several of the top Democratic and Republican lawmakers on these exclusive “A” committees were simply transfers to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>


“Recording of Trump Phone Call to Georgia Lead Investigator Reveals New Details”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121143>
Posted on March 10, 2021 1:51 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121143> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WSJ:<https://www.wsj.com/articles/recording-of-trump-phone-call-to-georgia-lead-investigator-reveals-new-details-11615411561?reflink=desktopwebshare_twitter>

Then-President Donald Trump<https://www.wsj.com/topics/person/donald-trump> urged the chief investigator of the Georgia Secretary of State’s office to look for fraud during an audit of mail-in ballots in a suburban Atlanta county, on a phone call he made to her in late December.

During the six-minute call, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Trump repeatedly said that he won Georgia. “Something bad happened,” he said.

“When the right answer comes out, you’ll be praised,” Mr. Trump told the chief investigator, Frances Watson.

Listen to Trump Call to Georgia Secretary of State Investigator<https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/listen-to-trump-call-to-georgia-secretary-of-state-investigator/9975D267-1345-497C-B061-28383727B7F3>

She responded: “I can assure you that our team and the [Georgia Bureau of Investigation], that we are only interested in the truth and finding the information that is based on the facts.”

The Washington Post reported on the call in January<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-call-georgia-investigator/2021/01/09/7a55c7fa-51cf-11eb-83e3-322644d82356_story.html>, but this is the first time the recording has been released.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Jan 6 Gives Us Yet Another Reminder That We Need To Know How Corporations Spend Money In Politics”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121141>
Posted on March 10, 2021 12:32 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121141> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy<https://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/materiality-corporate-political-spending-biden-administration-sec-reform> for TPM.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“YouTube still hosts extremist videos. Here’s who watches them.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121139>
Posted on March 10, 2021 12:07 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121139> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Brendan Nyhan<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/10/youtube-extremist-supremacy-radicalize-adl-study/> for WaPo:

YouTube is overshadowed by Facebook and Twitter in the debate over the harms of social media, but the site has massive reach — 3 in 4<https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/12/04/10-facts-about-americans-and-youtube/> Americans report using it. This growth has been driven by YouTube’s use of algorithms to recommend more videos to watch, a feature that critics warn can lead people down rabbit holes of conspiracy theories and racism.

In 2018, for example, the sociologist Zeynep Tufekci described<https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html> how YouTube started suggesting she check out “white supremacist rants, Holocaust denials and other disturbing content” after she started watching videos of Donald Trump rallies in 2016, prompting her to warn about the site “potentially helping to radicalize billions of people.”

Google — YouTube’s parent company — has sought to address these concerns. In 2019, for instance, it announced new efforts to remove<https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-four-rs-of-responsibility-remove/> objectionable content and reduce<https://blog.youtube/inside-youtube/the-four-rs-of-responsibility-raise-and-reduce> recommendations to “borderline” content that raises concerns without violating site policies.

Has YouTube done enough to curb harmful material on the platform? In a new report<https://www.adl.org/resources/reports/exposure-to-alternative-extremist-content-on-youtube> published by the Anti-Defamation League, my co-authors and I find that alarming levels of exposure to potentially harmful content continue. When we directly measured the browsing habits of a diverse national sample of 915 participants, we found that more than 9 percent viewed at least one YouTube video from a channel that has been identified as extremist or white supremacist; meanwhile, 22 percent viewed one or more videos from “alternative” channels, defined as non-extremist channels that serve as possible gateways to fringe ideas.

My academic co-authors Annie Y. Chen, Jason Reifler, Ronald E. Robertson, Christo Wilson and I collected this data from April to October 2020 via a browser extension that respondents installed voluntarily to help us track their YouTube habits.

The study revealed that Google’s takedowns have not addressed many channels of potential concern. By combining lists compiled by academic researchers and subject matter experts at groups like the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center, we identified 290 channels that could be categorized as extremist or white supremacist and 322 in the “alternative” category. Of these, 515 channels were still active as of January. We found that participants visited 265 of them during the study, including more than 50 of the extremist channels.

Viewership of these channels was highly concentrated. Among the 1 in 10 participants overall who watched at least one extremist video, for instance, many watched considerably more. Mean viewership of videos from extremist channels among those who saw at least one was 11.5. In total, 6 percent of participants in the study were responsible for 80 percent of consumption of videos from these channels. Similarly, the mean number of videos from alternative channels watched by the 22 percent of participants who watched at least one such video was 64.2.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


More on Small Donors and the Republican Party<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121135>
Posted on March 10, 2021 3:53 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121135> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

From this NYT story<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/us/politics/trump-republican-fundraising.html>, which was also linked to below<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121131>:

The jockeying comes as the party struggles to chart its path forward after losing the House, the Senate and the White House during Mr. Trump’s tenure, with moderate party leaders pushing the party to move beyond the divisive former president while much of the G.O.P. base remains firmly behind him. Who controls a majority of donors’ cash is set to be a fiercely contested point of dispute as Republicans try to regroup and take back power in the 2022 midterm elections.

What’s more, Mr. Trump’s advisers believe the future of party fund-raising is in low-dollar contributions, not the class of major donors who have mostly signaled that they want distance from him after his months long push falsely claiming that the Nov. 3 election had been stolen, which led to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The biggest beneficiaries of rising small-dollar donations are often rabble-rousing politicians who vow to take on the Washington establishment”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121133>
Posted on March 10, 2021 3:46 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121133> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

That’s a line from this Reuters story<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-republican-donations-ins/republican-donations-surge-despite-corporate-boycott-after-capitol-riots-idUSKBN2B118K>, which shows that the cut-off in corporate contributions to candidates who objected to the electoral vote count has been more than offset by the increase in small donations. From 2008-2018, the Democrats had dominated small-donor fundraising, because their allies moved first to build an effective infrastructure. But Republicans are now catching up. Here are a few details from the story:

Right after the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, dozens of U.S. companies announced they would halt political donations to the 147 Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn Donald Trump’s presidential election loss. Two months later, there is little sign that the corporate revolt has done any real damage to Republican fundraising.

If anything, the biggest backers of Trump’s false election-fraud narrative – such as Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene – have been rewarded with a flood of grassroots donations, more than offsetting the loss of corporate money. And contributions from both small donors and rich individuals looking to fight the Democratic agenda have poured into the party’s fundraising apparatus. …

Hawley, the Missouri senator, was pilloried by Republicans and Democrats for leading the coalition of Senate objectors. He took in $969,000 in donations in January, according to a Feb. 1 memo posted on his website. That is eight times some $120,000 in donations Hawley raised in the first quarter of 2020, regulatory filings show.

The corporate PACs that have stopped donating “account for a VERY small percentage of total fundraising that is more than offset by a huge surge in grassroots support,” Hawley’s pollster, Wes Anderson, wrote in the memo.

Greene – the freshman congresswoman who has come under fire for promoting baseless conspiracy theories – said in Twitter posts that she had netted $335,000 in contributions on Feb. 2 and 3 alone. On Feb. 4, the House of Representatives voted to strip Greene of two committee assignments over her remarks, including those in which she advocated violence against Democrats.

“UNREAL! $175,000!!” Greene said in one Twitter post….

The brisk fundraising since the insurrection indicates that most Republican voters are “comfortable” with the party that has been remade in Trump’s mold, says J. Miles Coleman, a nonpartisan analyst at the University of Virginia Center for Politics.

“The Republican Party – it’s not going to go back to the party it was before Trump,” he said.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Trump, Hungry for Power, Tries to Wrestle Away G.O.P. Fund-Raising”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121131>
Posted on March 9, 2021 4:49 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121131> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/us/politics/trump-republican-fundraising.html>

Mr. Trump’s maneuvering is born partly out of his anger toward Republican leaders who he feels were disloyal when they edged away from him after Jan. 6. The former president is also being encouraged by people like Dick Morris, the notorious political consultant known for flipping between the parties, who has been meeting with him in New York and encouraging him to take on the party he once led.

Mr. Trump’s actions could give him a stream of money at a time when his private company is struggling under the scrutiny of investigations, with some discussions of whether properties need to be sold. His business is now politics, and political action committees have few restrictions on how they operate and use their money, according to campaign finance experts.

The former president could, in theory, pay himself and his family members salaries from the money raised there.

“That sort of PAC has no meaningful restrictions on how it could spend its money,” said Adav Noti, the senior director of trial litigation at the Campaign Legal Center.

People close to the former president say there has been no discussion about Mr. Trump giving himself a salary. But historically, his political committees have paid to use his properties, among other things, indirectly enriching him.
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Posted in campaign finance<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=10>, campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“New Report Finds California’s Latino, Asian-American and Youth Voters Remained Underrepresented Among November 2020 Voters, Based on These Groups’ Share of State’s Population”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121129>
Posted on March 9, 2021 4:18 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121129> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release<https://cid.usc.edu/s/USC-CID-Press-Release-Voter-Turnout-Gap-FINAL.docx>:

 The 2020 General Election was historic in many ways, including voter turnout.  According to the California Secretary of State, California saw the highest eligible turnout rate (the percentage of adult citizens who voted) in 2020 for a general election since 1952.  But a new study from the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC has found that despite also seeing higher turnout in 2020, Latinos, Asian Americans and youth did not make headway in closing the gap between their turnout rates and the turnout of California overall.

“We were excited to see record voter turnout across the country this past election, as it represented a huge opportunity to bring in more voters who are typically underrepresented in the electorate,” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy. “Yet in California, these underrepresented groups did not gain ground in terms of actual voter participation rates versus the rest of the voting  population, which was both surprising and disappointing.”

Latino eligible turnout was 53.0% in 2020 compared with 46.4% in 2016. Asian-American eligible turnout was 47.7% in 2020, while it was 38.5% in 2016.

The difference between the eligible voter turnout rates for Latinos and the total population increased to 14.4 percentage points in 2020 compared to a 10.9 percentage point gap in 2016.

The difference between the eligible voter turnout rates for Asian Americans and the total population increased to 19.7 percentage points in 2020 compared to an 18.8 percentage point gap in 2016.

Despite the turnout gap in the 2020 election, the Latino and Asian-American share of California voters casting ballots was the highest seen in any California statewide election.

For Latinos, their share of the state’s voters in the 2020 general election increased from 22.8% to 24.3%, a positive uptick but a number still far below their share of the state’s eligible voter population of 30.9%, or a representation gap of over 6 percentage points. This was also the case for Asian-American voters, whose share of the vote went from 8.3% to 10.4%, an increase of just over 2 percentage points, but again far below their share of the state’s eligible voter population of 14.6%.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Oath Keepers founder directed Capitol rioters on January 6, Justice Department says”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121127>
Posted on March 9, 2021 1:19 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121127> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

CNN<https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/politics/oath-keepers-capitol-riot-justice-department/index.html>:

The founder of the Oath Keepers right-wing paramilitary group was giving directions before and during the Capitol riot to extremists already charged in the largest conspiracy case related to January 6, the Justice Department said in court filings that outlines<http://cdn.cnn.com/cnn/2021/images/03/09/caldwell.memo.pdf> the extent to which the extremist members allegedly discussed stationing guns around Washington, DC, and other plans.

Monday night’s filing highlights newly disclosed communications over the messaging app Signal that investigators have found from Stewart Rhodes<https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/15/politics/capitol-riot-oath-keepers-stewart-rhodes-soh/index.html>, the Oath Keepers’ founder, and regional Oath Keepers leaders.

The Justice Department describes Rhodes as a central presence among the Oath Keepers during the siege, telling some where to go and gathering with them in person at the Capitol….

During the siege, prosecutors say Rhodes also wrote in the Signal a direction to gather Oath Keepers to the southeast side of the Capitol, and at one point was caught on photos and images with several Oath Keepers gathered around him.

“All I see Trump doing is complaining. I see no intent by him to do anything. So the patriots are taking it into their own hands. They’ve had enough,” he allegedly wrote on Signal at 1:38 p.m. that day, shortly after the siege had begun.

Rhodes is called Person One in the court filing but identified in it by prosecutors through a link to a post he made about a call to action on January 6 on the Oath Keepers website<https://oathkeepers.org/2021/01/oath-keepers-deploying-to-dc-to-protect-events-speakers-attendees-on-jan-5-6-time-to-stand/>.

On the Oath Keepers’ site, Rhodes had asked for donations and for volunteers to come to Washington, DC, to assist with “security” on January 5 and 6.

“It is CRITICAL that all patriots who can be in DC get to DC to stand tall in support of President Trump’s fight to defeat the enemies foreign and domestic who are attempting a coup, through the massive vote fraud and related attacks on our Republic. We Oath Keepers are both honor-bound and eager to be there in strength to do our part,” he wrote in the post.Rhodes also writes on the Oath Keeper’s site about so-called “Quick Reaction Forces” or QRFs — a key component of the Justice Department’s descriptions in court of the danger they believe Caldwell and other Oath Keepers post if they were to be released. Prosecutors previously noted Caldwell discussing an idea to ferry weapons across the Potomac River by boat.

“As we have done on all recent DC Ops, we will also have well armed and equipped QRF teams on standby, outside DC, in the event of a worst case scenario, where the President calls us up as part of the militia to assist him inside DC,” Rhodes wrote on the Oath Keepers website before January 6.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Postal Service Delivered Vast Majority Of Mail Ballots On Time, Report Finds”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121125>
Posted on March 9, 2021 12:57 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121125> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NPR:<https://www.npr.org/2021/03/09/975198962/postal-service-delivered-vast-majority-of-mail-ballots-on-time-report-finds?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=politics&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_term=nprnews>

As Americans continue to complain of late-arriving bills, birthday cards and other deliveries, there has been one bright spot in the U.S. Postal Service’s performance in recent months: the 2020 election. The vast majority of mail-in ballots sent during the election arrived on time, according to a report<https://www.uspsoig.gov/document/service-performance-election-and-political-mail-during-november-2020-general-election> by the Postal Service’s inspector general.

The report says the Postal Service processed almost 134 million pieces of election mail — ballots and voter registration materials — sent to and by voters from Sept. 1 through Nov. 3. Of that, 93.8% was delivered on time to meet the agency’s service standard for first class mail of two to five days.

That’s an increase of 11% from the 2018 midterm elections. It’s also, the inspector general noted, 5.6% better than on-time delivery rates for all first class mail, a standard the Postal Service has not met for five years. The Post Office’s goal for on-time delivery of first class mail is 96%.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Report: Florida Voters of Color, Young Voters and New Voters More Likely to Have Their Absentee Ballots Flagged for Rejection As Cure Rates Vary by County”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121123>
Posted on March 9, 2021 9:47 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121123> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Release:<https://allvotingislocal.org/media/report-florida-voters-of-color-young-voters-and-new-voters-more-likely-to-have-their-absentee-ballots-flagged-for-rejection-as-cure-rates-vary-by-county/>

All Voting is Local Florida and Daniel A. Smith, professor of political science at the University of Florida, today released Casting, Rejecting, and Curing Vote-by-Mail Ballots in Florida’s 2020 General Election. Across Florida’s 67 counties, voters of color, new voters, and younger voters disproportionately cast absentee ballots that were flagged to be “rejected as illegal.” This report also highlights a glaring lack of consistency in both the standards used by election officials to initially reject absentee ballots and the ability of voters casting them to resolve outstanding issues.

Amid COVID-19, Floridians turned out in record numbers in the November 3 general election, with vote by mail accounting for 44 percent of all ballots cast. But traditionally disenfranchised groups were more likely to have their ballot flagged for review and potentially discarded if issues were not resolved – or fixed – within 48 hours of Election Day.

The report offers concrete proposals to ensure that all Floridians who vote by mail have an equal opportunity to cast their vote with confidence. Among the recommendations:
·         Greater simplicity with the instructions accompanying vote-by-mail (VBM) ballots; more uniformity in the design of return VBM envelopes; and standard practices to allow voters to cure VBM ballots flagged with a problem;
·         Require supervisors of elections to use their website to inform voters on the status of their absentee ballot;
·         Implement statewide training for supervisors of elections and canvassing boards to ensure uniformity in determining the validity of VBM return envelopes and cure affidavits;
·         The Florida legislature should extend the deadline for voters to resolve issues with their VBM ballots to 5 p.m. on the tenth day after Election Day.

Click on the respective links to access The report<https://allvotingislocal.org/reports/casting-rejecting-and-curing-vote-by-mail-ballots-in-florida/> and press conference recording<http://civilrightsdocs.info/audio/press-calls/2021-03-09%20All%20Voting%20is%20Local%20-%20%E2%80%9CCasting%2C%20Rejecting%2C%20and%20Curing%20Vote-byMail%20Ballots%20in%20Florida%E2%80%99s%202020%20General%20Election%E2%80%9D.mp4>.
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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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