[EL] ELB News and Commentary 5/3/21

[Rick Hasen]

“Senate Dems agonize over voting rights strategy”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121931>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:32 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121931> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/03/senate-democrats-voting-rights-strategy-485127>:

Senate Democrats made a major commitment to muscle through Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s ethics and voting reform bill. Yet many say they have no idea how to pass it and wonder what exactly the end game is for a signature Democratic priority.

Democrats are preparing to kick off a sensitive internal debate over the issue this month as the Senate Rules Committee takesup the sprawling House package. But no Republicans support it, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) hasn’t signed on and at least a half-dozen Democrats have issues with the bill, according to senators and aides. That’s not to mention the constraints of the filibuster in a 50-50 Senate.

Though the bill has 49 co-sponsors, a Democratic source said a handful of Democrats still have some reservations. Not signing on, however, would risk public blowback from the left. And Manchin, the most-reluctant Democrat, wants to reimagine the bill’s focus.

He said “there’s a lot of good stuff” in the larger bill but said the party should concentrate on the voting rights standalone bill, named after the late Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.).

The Congressional Black Caucus is considering such a strategy<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/04/22/black-democrats-voting-rights-484089> and Manchin advised Democrats to come up with “one piece of legislation that really basically has accessibility, security and fairness in it. And I think we can.” Warnock is making his own entreaties to Manchin and said his colleague knows “how urgent this is.”

Democratic leaders have continued heaping attention on the wider voting rights bill even as its prospects dim. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly said “failure is not an option” on the package and wants to put the bill on the floor by August to give states time to implement it.

See my earlier WaPo opinion piece, H.R. 1 can’t pass the Senate. But here are some voting reforms that could.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/03/16/hr-1-voting-reforms/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


WaPo Retracts Claim FBI Warned OAN, Giuliani About Russian Influence<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121929>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:28 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121929> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

I’ve just removed an earlier ELB blog post that linked<https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/rudy-giuliani-fbi-warning-russia/2021/04/29/5db90f96-a84e-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html> to a story that now begins with this correction:

Correction: An earlier version of this story, published Thursday, incorrectly reported that One America News was warned by the FBI that it was the target of a Russian influence operation. That version also said the FBI had provided a similar warning to Rudolph W. Giuliani, which he has since disputed. This version has been corrected to remove assertions that OAN and Giuliani received the warnings.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Newsmax apologizes to Dominion employee for falsely alleging he manipulated votes against Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121927>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:26 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121927> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo reports<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/05/01/newsmax-apologizes-dominion-employee-falsely-alleging-he-manipulated-vote-against-trump/>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Facebook and the Normalization of Deviance”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121925>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:21 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121925> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Sue Halpern for The New Yorker<https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/facebook-and-the-normalization-of-deviance?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=onsite-share&utm_brand=the-new-yorker&utm_social-type=earned>.
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Posted in cheap speech<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=130>


“Florida Republicans rushed to curb mail voting after Trump’s attacks on the practice. Now some fear it could lower GOP turnout.”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121923>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:18 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121923> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Amy Gardner<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/florida-republicans-mail-voting/2021/05/02/4c133920-a9bf-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html> for WaPo:

Virtually every narrow Republican victor of the past generation — and there have been many, including two of the state’s current top officeholders, Gov. Ron DeSantis and Sen. Rick Scott — owes their victory, at least in part, to mail voting.

Now, some Florida Republicans are reacting with alarm after the GOP-dominated state legislature, with DeSantis’s support, passed a far-reaching bill Thursday night<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/florida-voting-legislation/2021/04/29/829e0362-a90b-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_11> that puts new restrictions on the use of mail ballots.

Not only are GOP lawmakers reversing statutes that their own predecessors put in place, but they are also curtailing a practice that millions of state Republicans use, despite former president Donald Trump’s relentless and baseless claims that it invites fraud.

Even as Democrats and voting rights advocates accuse the proponents of Senate Bill 90 of attempting to suppress the votes of people of color, these Republicans say their own political fortunes are in peril, too….

As Gruters’s Senate Bill 90 was debated in the legislature this year, some Republicans privately expressed worry that it could further undercut the party’s ability to encourage mail voting — particularly among military voters and the elderly, who overwhelmingly use that method to cast their ballots.

One former state party official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to relay private conversations said some Republicans briefly discussed whether lawmakers could exempt those two groups from the provision requiring voters to request mail ballots every election cycle. “Key lawmakers said, ‘You can’t do that,’ ” the former official said. “It would raise equal protection problems.”

Now, the damage is done, he added. “Now, you’ll have military personnel who might not think they have to request a ballot who won’t get it. And we’ve got senior voters who have health concerns or just don’t want to go out. They might not know the law has changed, and they might not get a ballot, because they’re not engaged.”

Several state Republican operatives said they have spoken directly to lawmakers in their party who did not like Senate Bill 90 — but were unwilling to speak up for fear of incurring the wrath of party leaders and their own supporters.

Greg Sargent column:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/03/voter-suppression-bill-florida-gop/>

Republicans are responding to their 2020 losses by doing everything they can to restrict the size of the electorate wherever possible, in ways they think will advantage them. To disguise this ugly game, they’ve rolled out all sorts of disingenuous talking points, claiming they want to restore “confidence<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/25/republicans-lie-2020-voter-fraud-todd-rokita/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2>” in our elections or, even more absurdly, to ensure “election integrity<https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/04/09/josh-hawley-fox-news-rant-woke-corporations/?itid=lk_inline_manual_2>.”

But every now and then the mask slips, making the truth about these efforts even harder to deny.
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“The Dangerous Part of Georgia’s Voter Suppression Law That No One Is Talking About”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121921>
Posted on May 3, 2021 7:12 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121921> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Glad to see my former student Orion de Nevers on the pages of Slate<https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/georgia-voter-suppression-provisional-ballots-2000-election.html> talking about Georgia and provisional ballots.
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Posted in provisional ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=67>


“Census Bureau: 70% of voters cast ballots early or by mail”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121919>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:59 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121919> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP reports.<https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-politics/census-bureau-70-of-voters-cast-ballots-early-or-by-mail/>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“The politicians who tried to overturn an election — and the local news team that won’t let anyone forget it”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121917>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:57 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121917> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Maragaret SullivanWaPo column.<https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/the-politicians-who-tried-to-overturn-an-election--and-the-local-news-team-that-wont-let-anyone-forget-it/2021/05/01/cc8764f6-a91e-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html>
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“G.O.P. Seeks to Empower Poll Watchers, Raising Intimidation Worries”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121915>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:55 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121915> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/01/us/politics/republican-pollwatchers.html>

As Republican lawmakers in major battleground states seek to make voting harder and more confusing through a web of new election laws, they are simultaneously making a concerted legislative push to grant more autonomy and access to partisan poll watchers — citizens trained by a campaign or a party and authorized by local election officials to observe the electoral process.

This effort has alarmed election officials and voting rights activists alike: There is a long history of poll watchers being used to intimidate voters and harass election workers, often in ways that target Democratic-leaning communities of color and stoke fears that have the overall effect of voter suppression. During the 2020 election, President Donald J. Trump’s campaign repeatedly promoted its “army” of poll watchers<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/30/us/trump-election-poll-watchers.html> as he publicly implored supporters to venture into heavily Black and Latino cities and hunt for voter fraud.

Republicans have offered little evidence to justify a need for poll watchers to have expanded access and autonomy. As they have done for other election changes — including reduced early voting, stricter absentee ballot requirements and limits on drop boxes — they have grounded their reasoning in arguments that their voters want more secure elections. That desire was born in large part out of Mr. Trump’s repeated lies about last year’s presidential contest, which included complaints about insufficient poll watcher access.

Now, with disputes over the rules governing voting now at a fever pitch, the rush to empower poll watchers threatens to inject further tension into elections.

Both partisan and nonpartisan poll watching have been a key component of American elections for years, and Republicans and Democrats alike have routinely sent trained observers to the polls to monitor the process and report back on any worries. In recent decades, laws have often helped keep aggressive behavior at bay, preventing poll watchers from getting too close to voters or election officials, and maintaining a relatively low threshold for expelling anyone who misbehaves.

But now Republican state lawmakers in 20 states have introduced at least 40 bills that would expand the powers of poll watchers, and 12 of those bills in six states are currently progressing through legislatures, according to the Brennan Center for Justice<https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/who-watches-poll-watchers>.
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Posted in election administration<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Delayed census data kicks off flood of redistricting lawsuits”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121913>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:52 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121913> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Politico:<https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/01/redistricting-lawsuits-485161?nname=playbook&nid=0000014f-1646-d88f-a1cf-5f46b7bd0000&nrid=0000014e-f109-dd93-ad7f-f90d0def0000&nlid=630318>

States are months away from getting the census data they need to draw new political maps, but courts are already filling up with lawsuits challenging the redistricting process.

One of the Democratic Party’s most prominent lawyers quickly filed three suits in states where neither Republicans nor Democrats have full control over the redistricting process, in preparation for court action to resolve potential impasses over new maps. Ohio and Alabama are suing the Census Bureau over its delayed timeline for giving the states what they need to draw maps. New York is even contemplating legal action after the census count showed it missed out on an extra House seat by just 89 people.

Every redistricting cycle brings a torrent of litigation over the country’s political boundaries, which can play an outsized role in determining which party controls the House of Representatives and statehouses around the country. But this year, a confluence of forces — including the census delays, pending federal legislation about redistricting and major Supreme Court rulings earlier in the decade — could transform that steady stream of lawsuits into a downpour. Combined with the compressed timeline for making new maps, the litigation promises to make redistricting a more chaotic and unpredictable affair in 2021 and 2022.

“We will see a lot of lawsuits,” said Kathay Feng, the national redistricting director at the good government group Common Cause, chuckling at a question about how much litigation there will be this redistricting cycle. Redistricting, she said, “is always a breeding ground for people who are discontent with the results.”
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Posted in redistricting<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=6>


“Arizona Republicans Continue Recount Drive in ‘Fealty’ to Trump”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121911>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:51 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121911> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Bloomberg:<https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/arizona-republicans-continue-recount-drive-in-fealty-to-trump>

Arizona Republicans still distraught that voters rejected both Donald Trump and their incumbent U.S. senator are hyper-scrutinizing millions of ballots, looking for anything other than the candidates themselves to account for their top-of-the-ticket defeats.

Six months after a presidential election that saw Joe Biden become the first Democrat in a quarter century to capture Arizona, an unconventional audit and recount of 2.1 million ballots continues in the state’s most populous county, funded by taxpayers and undisclosed amounts of private money and ordered by Republican lawmakers giving credence to Trump’s claims of voter fraud.

GOP leaders are promising that the audit, which can’t legally overturn the results, will help restore confidence in an election system that already included multiple accuracy checks and certification by the secretary of state.

“The sole thing is to get answers so that if we have any problems, we can fix them and we make sure that the next election is safer, cleaner, and run smoothly,” Senate President Karen Fann (R) told KTAR News<https://ktar.com/story/4358700/senate-president-fann-says-finding-answers-goal-of-maricopa-county-audit/>.

But Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law who specializes in election law, said: “This particular audit is another way to show fealty to Donald Trump.”

Fann said the audit is addressing concerns of people who don’t believe the 2020 election was fair, but Hasen called it “more of a performance than any attempt at determining the truth.”
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“Swiss Billionaire Quietly Becomes Influential Force Among Democrats”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121907>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:42 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121907> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

NYT:<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/us/politics/hansjorg-wyss-money-democrats.html?campaign_id=9&emc=edit_nn_20210503&instance_id=30139&nl=the-morning%C2%AEi_id=117282&segment_id=57092&te=1&user_id=73afc232b34fb48763946ae71c55eb73>

He is not as well known as wealthy liberal patrons like George Soros or Tom Steyer. His political activism is channeled through a daisy chain of opaque organizations that mask the ultimate recipients of his money. But the Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss has quietly become one of the most important donors to left-leaning advocacy groups and an increasingly influential force among Democrats.

Newly obtained tax filings show that Mr. Wyss’s foundations donated $208 million from 2016 through early last year to three nonprofit funds that doled out money to a wide array of groups that backed progressive causes and helped Democrats in their efforts to win the White House and control of Congress last year.

Mr. Wyss’s representatives say his foundations’ money is not being spent on political campaigning. But documents and interviews show that his foundations have come to play a prominent role in financing the political infrastructure that supports Democrats and their issues.

While most of his operation’s recent politically oriented giving was channeled through the three nonprofit funds, Mr. Wyss’s foundations also directly donated tens of millions of dollars since 2016 to groups that opposed former President Donald J. Trump and promoted Democrats and their causes.

Beneficiaries of his direct giving included prominent groups such as the Center for American Progress and Priorities USA, as well as organizations that ran voter registration and mobilization campaigns to increase Democratic turnout, built media outlets accused of slanting the news<https://www.newsguardtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Courier-Newsroom-NewsGuard-Nutrition-Label.pdf> to favor Democrats and sought to block Mr. Trump’s nominees, prove he colluded with Russia and push for his impeachment.

Several officials from organizations started by Mr. Wyss and his team worked on the Biden transition or joined the administration, and on environmental policy in particular Mr. Wyss’s agenda appears to align with President Biden’s.

Mr. Wyss’s growing political influence attracted attention<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/13/business/media/wyss-tribune-company-buyer.html> after he emerged last month as a leading bidder<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/05/business/media/tribune-publishing-newspapers-alden.html> for the Tribune Publishing newspaper chain. Mr. Wyss later dropped out of the bidding<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/17/business/media/wyss-bainum-tribune-bid.html> for the papers.

Born in Switzerland and living in Wyoming, he has not disclosed publicly whether he holds citizenship or permanent residency in the United States. Foreign nationals without permanent residency are barred from donating directly to federal political candidates or political action committees, but not from giving to groups that seek to influence public policy — a legal distinction often lost on voters targeted by such groups.

This type of spending — which is usually channeled through nonprofit groups that do not have to disclose much information about their finances, including their donors — was embraced by conservatives<https://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/koch-brothers-network-gop-david-charles-217124> after campaign spending restrictions were loosened by regulatory changes and court rulings, most notably the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision in the Citizens United case<https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/22/us/politics/22scotus.html>.Keep up with the new Washington — get live updates on politics.

While progressives and election watchdogs denounced the developments as bestowing too much power to wealthy interests, Democratic donors and operatives increasingly made use of dark money. During the 2020 election cycle, groups aligned with Democrats spent more than $514 million in such funds, compared to about $200 million spent by groups aligned with Republicans, according to an analysis<https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2021/03/one-billion-dark-money-2020-electioncycle/> by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some of the groups financed by Mr. Wyss’s foundations played a key role in that shift, though the relatively limited disclosure requirements for these types of groups make it impossible to definitively conclude how they spent funds from the Wyss foundations.
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Posted in campaigns<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=59>


“For Republicans, fealty to Trump’s election falsehood becomes defining loyalty test”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121905>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:36 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121905> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

WaPo:<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/republicans-trump-election-falsehood/2021/05/01/7bd380a0-a921-11eb-8c1a-56f0cb4ff3b5_story.html>

Debra Ell, a Republican organizer in Michigan and fervent supporter of former president Donald Trump, said she has good reason to believe the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

“I think I speak for many people in that Trump has never actually been wrong, and so we’ve learned to trust when he says something, that he’s not just going to spew something out there that’s wrong and not verified,” she said, referring to Trump’s baseless claims that widespread electoral fraud caused his loss to President Biden in November.

In fact, there is no evidence to support Trump’s false assertions, which culminated in a deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. But Ell, a Republican precinct delegate in her state, said the 2020 election is one of the reasons she’s working to censure and remove Jason Cabel Roe from his role as the Michigan Republican Party’s executive director — specifically that Roe accepted the 2020 results, telling Politico that “the election wasn’t stolen”<https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/11/24/michigan-election-trump-voter-fraud-democracy-440475> and that “there is no one to blame but Trump.”

“He said the election was not rigged, as Donald Trump had said, so we didn’t agree with that, and then he didn’t blame the Democrats for any election fraud,” said Ell, explaining her frustration with Roe. “He said there was no fraud — again, that’s something that doesn’t line up with what we think really happened — and then he said it’s all Donald Trump’s fault.”

Nearly six months after Trump lost to Biden, rejection of the 2020 election results — dubbed the “Big Lie” by many Democrats — has increasingly become an unofficial litmus test for acceptance in the Republican Party. In January, 147 GOP lawmakers — eight senators and 139 House members<https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2021/politics/congress-electoral-college-count-tracker/?itid=lk_inline_manual_10> — voted in support of objections to the election results, and since then, Republicans from Congress to statehouses to local party organizations have fervently embraced the falsehood.

In Washington, normally chatty senators scramble to skirt the question, and internal feuding over who is to blame for the Jan. 6 insurrection has riven the House Republican leadership, with tensions between House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the No. 3 House Republican, spilling into public view. Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) is facing a Trump-aligned primary challenger in her 2022 race, inspired by her call for Trump to resign<https://www.adn.com/politics/2021/01/08/alaska-sen-lisa-murkowski-calls-on-president-trump-to-resign-questions-her-future-as-a-republican/> after the Jan. 6 attack and her later vote to convict him over his role in inciting the insurrection.

Local officials, too, are facing censure and threats — in states from Iowa to Michigan to Missouri — for publicly accepting the election results. And in Arizona’s largest county, a hand recount of 2.1 million votes cast in November is underway<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-arizona-recount/2021/04/29/bcd8d832-a798-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_12> by Republicans who dispute the results, in yet another effort to overturn the results of the November contest.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


“How a $1-million donation on behalf of Newsom was hidden in plain sight”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121903>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:29 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121903> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

LAT:<https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-30/charity-contributions-california-lawmakers-hidden-donor-advised-funds-nonprofit>

The $1-million donation came as the COVID-19 crisis was unfolding, a charitable gift given on behalf of Gov. Gavin Newsom last year. But unlike with other so-called behested payments, philanthropic contributions made at the request of an elected official, the source of the donation was concealed in public disclosures required under a state law meant to ensure transparency and limit undue influence in government.

The seven-figure gift was made from a donor-advised fund, a type of charitable giving account offered by some nonprofit foundations and for-profit investment firms that provides more generous income tax deductions and anonymity. The practice of routing behested payments through such accounts is little known, even to the most seasoned political insiders, but it is raising concerns with government watchdogs who say it allows unidentified donors to avoid scrutiny when making charitable contributions on behalf of politicians with whom they may be trying to curry favor.

In required filings with the California Fair Political Practices Commission, Newsom’s office reported that the $1-million donation was made in April 2020 from the Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The foundation confirmed to The Times that the money was not from the charity itself, but was made at the request of a person or company with a donor-advised fund at the organization.

“The public needs to know who the original donor is,” said Bob Stern, a co-author of the state’s Fair Political Practices Act, approved by voters in 1974 and updated in 1997 through legislation to include behested payments. “This clearly wasn’t anticipated when the law was passed.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Antifa fears, UV lights: What the group running Arizona GOP’s election audit tried to keep secret”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121901>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:26 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121901> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

Jane Timm<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/antifa-fears-uv-lights-what-group-running-arizona-gop-s-n1265925> for NBC News:

The private companies hired by Arizona Senate Republicans<https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/lone-arizona-republican-votes-no-blocking-passage-voting-bill-n1264885> to recount millions of ballots from the 2020 election are concerned about possible Antifa attacks and planned to use UV lights to hunt for fraud, internal documents released as part of a legal battle with Democrats revealed.

State Senate Republicans and the companies also initially sought National Guard protection for their review of Maricopa County ballots but were turned down by Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, according to one of the documents, which was released Thursday by the Maricopa Superior Court over GOP objections. A judge ruled on Friday that the security document, which was posted publicly to the court’s electronic docket on Thursday night, could be sealed by agreement of the parties.

The documents offer a detailed look at the conspiratorial thinking behind an extraordinary partisan hunt for fraud some six months after former President Donald Trump lost the election and began pushing the lie that it was stolen from him.

“It would be comical if it weren’t so scary,” Rick Hasen, an election law expert and a professor at the University of California, Irvine, said of the audit.
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Posted in chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>, fraudulent fraud squad<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>


Five Years Probation for a PA Man Who Admitted to Voter Fraud by Voting His Dead Mother’s Absentee Ballot for Donald Trump<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121899>
Posted on May 3, 2021 6:22 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121899> by Rick Hasen<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

AP reports.<https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-government-and-politics-d34effeea6c341d6c44146931127caff>
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Posted in absentee ballots<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=53>, chicanery<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=12>


“Create More Competitive Seats to Limit Extremism” Part I<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121896>
Posted on May 2, 2021 1:33 pm<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121896> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

In Real Clear Politics, I published a longish essay arguing that one direction political reform should take to limit the forces of extremism in our politics is the creation of more competitive election districts. I will blog about the analysis in that essay in two parts. Here are some excerpts for Part I:

With the Census Bureau having released the 2020 population numbers, which trigger the start of states’ redistricting process, this is the moment to focus on the importance of emphasizing political competition<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=898221> when the states create their new maps of congressional districts. Competitive districts have generally been defined as those in which the winning candidate receives 55% of the vote or less. (Given increasing partisan loyalty among voters, which means fewer voters shift back and forth between the parties, swing districts today might have to include no more than 53% of likely voters for one party to be competitive.)…

As a recent report from the Unite America Institute notes, in the 2020 election<https://www.uniteamerica.org/reports/the-primary-problem>, 83% of candidates to the U.S. House were elected from safe seats. Only 17% of members were elected from seats in which they faced significant competitive pressure from the other party’s candidate – a dramatic decline from the late 1990s, when 38% of districts<https://cookpolitical.com/index.php/analysis/national/pvi/introducing-2021-cook-political-report-partisan-voter-index> were competitive.

 The dynamics and incentives for candidates running in competitive districts are dramatically different than those candidates face in safe districts. For competitive seats, candidates know they must win over enough voters in the center, who might swing to either party, while also holding on to their base. If they move too far toward the wings of their party, they risk losing the centrist voters needed to win. These dynamics not only weaken the power of the wings of each party but also create incentives for more centrist candidates to run in the first place. Competitive districts also make legislators more responsive to changes in voter preferences; if public opinion on important policies shifts by five points, legislators who want to keep or gain office will need to respond to that change.

In safe seats, by contrast, incumbents’ main threat comes from being “primaried.” Given the make-up of primary voters, that threat mostly comes from the ideological poles of their party. As the authors of a recent book titled “Rejecting Compromise: Legislators’ Fear of Primary Voters” find: “Legislators believe that primary voters are much more likely to punish them for compromising than general election voters or donors.” This point was made in characteristically bald form in Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 speech on the Ellipse when he mainly attacked Republicans who would not vote to object to the counting of electoral votes: “[I]f they don’t fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don’t fight. We primary them.”

When the major competitive threat that safe-seat incumbents face is from the ideological wings of their party, little incentive exists to appeal to the center of the political spectrum. Primary voters in safe-seat districts also have less incentive to compromise and back moderate candidates because the party’s candidate will win the general election regardless of where they fall along the party’s ideological spectrum; In turn, moderates are less likely to run in the first place, because they know they can’t survive the primary electorate. The overwhelming dominance of safe seats in Congress contributes significantly to a Congress that is much more polarized than are citizens themselves<https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/controversies-in-voting-behavior/book236590>.

Over the last decade, gerrymandering has received broader public attention than ever before. And the political system is responding, at least to some extent. Through direct democracy, voters in a number of states have adopted independent commissions to take over redistricting. A centerpiece of the massive voting-reform bill that has passed the House and is now before the Senate are provisions that would require independent commissions to do redistricting and would impose standards of “partisan fairness” on plans. These are moves in the right direction; I have long argued<https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=669068> that we should take redistricting out of the hands of the most self-interested actors – partisan legislatures – and use independent commissions.

But the substantive standards in H.R. 1/S. 1 risk giving short shrift to the importance of competitive districts. A plan can be fair in terms of the partisan outcomes it is likely to generate and yet still result in every officeholder being elected from a safe seat. Indeed, when government is divided and both parties have a say in redistricting, it’s not uncommon to see “sweetheart” gerrymanders, in which politicians from both parties agree to give one another safe seats. Incumbents want to be in safe seats – the safer the better (this can be in tension with the party’s goal to maximize its prospects overall). But that’s not good for creating a Congress actually capable of governing, one in which members have incentives to compromise and forge the coalitions needed to enact most major legislation.

In Part II, I respond to some standard critiques of this view.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Texas Uses Top-Two Primary in Special Election to Fill House Seat for TX CD6<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121892>
Posted on May 2, 2021 8:09 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121892> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

For its special election to fill a vacant House seat, Texas used the top-two primary structure<https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-special-election-texas/2021/04/30/5e1a3776-a9cf-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html> currently used more generally in CA and WA. There were 23 candidates who ran, and since no one is going to win an outright majority, there will be a run-off election. This is a competitive congressional seat. Susan Wright (R), the widow of the man who had been elected to the seat, is the plurality winner; it is currently uncertain whether the person who will come in second and make the run-off is another Republican or a Democrat.

There is a debate, among those seeking to reform primary elections to increase the chances that more broadly consensual candidates will get elected, as to whether the top-two structure is the best form for this change or whether a top-four system (as Alaska voters recently adopted) or a top-five system would be better. In a top-two system, it is possible, and happens not infrequently, that two candidates from the same party will be the only ones who make it to the general election — which might happen in this TX race, even though the district is competitive in the general election. The top-four system makes it likely that each party will get at least one candidate through to the general election; Alaska combines this structure with RCV in the general election, to make it more likely the candidate with the broadest appeal will win.

There is a currently a debate, not widely recognized, within the groups that focus on primary-election reforms about which of these options is the best structure for reforming primaries.

Update: Now that the tallies are in, the general election will indeed be between two Republicans. According to the WP story, “Wright and Ellzey, who had challenged Ron Wright in 2018, had no substantive policy differences when compared with the other GOP candidates.” This is a district Donald Trump won by 3 points in 2020.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


VA Republican Convention Using RCV to Choose Nominee<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121887>
Posted on May 1, 2021 9:07 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121887> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

From the Washington Pos<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/virginia-republican-convention-governors-race/2021/04/30/f074420e-a79c-11eb-8d25-7b30e74923ea_story.html>t:

The race for second place is on.

The seven Republicans running for Virginia governor are making their final appeals to the record 53,000 delegates who’ve signed up to vote in their party’s May 8 nominating convention.

Because it’s a ranked-choice contest that requires a majority to win, ballots will be tallied over and over — meaning when a voter’s first choice is cut, their second choice gets counted.

So it helps to be a bunch of voters’ Plan B.

“Number two wins it,” state Sen. William M. Stanley Jr. (R-Franklin), who made a video for candidate Kirk Cox<https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/kirk-cox-virginia-governor/2020/11/16/b4c77634-2526-11eb-952e-0c475972cfc0_story.html?itid=lk_inline_manual_6> this week that combined full-throated endorsement — “We need to save Virginia . . . and this is the man that can do the job” — with a more modest ask: “If he’s not your first, please make Kirk Cox your second selection.”
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Why Utah’s conservatism is better”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121885>
Posted on May 1, 2021 5:25 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121885> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

From The Economist<https://www.economist.com/united-states/2021/04/29/why-utahs-conservatism-is-better>, subtitle: “The Mormon right has not followed white evangelicals’ descent into grievance politics”

ONE OF THE few uplifting notes of last year’s election season was struck by the candidates for Utah’s governorship. “Win or lose, in Utah, we work together,” said Christopher Peterson, the Democrat, in a humorous ad featuring him and his Republican opponent. “So let’s show the country that there’s a better way,” said that rival, Spencer Cox.

Now Utah’s governor, Mr Cox seems to be keeping his pledge. The upbeat 45-year-old is winning plaudits for his pragmatism and evenhandedness. After Utah’s Republican legislature demanded an early end to its mask mandate, he negotiated a month-long extension, with exceptions for schools and businesses. He issued his first veto of a bill sponsored by his brother-in-law (it was an attack on social-media firms and probably unconstitutional).

He is popular with Democrats as well as Republicans—as Utah’s governors tend to be. Gary Herbert and Jon Huntsman had similar records. Though Utah is one of the most conservative states, the relative moderation of its Republican leaders has helped make it one of the less polarised. “We have a history here of wanting to bring the other side to the table,” says Mr Cox….

Sadly, a comparison between the Mormon and evangelical churches also suggests how hard it will be for evangelicals to follow the Latter-day Saints’ lead. The big difference between the two is psychological and rooted in their divergent histories. “My great-great-great-grandparents’ home was burned to the ground by a mob in Illinois,” said Mr Cox. “You don’t forget stuff like that.” That past not only explains Utah’s openness to immigration. It represents for Mormons a parable of existence as a sacred struggle, demanding humility and accommodation with a hostile world. Unlike aggrieved evangelicals, says Richard Mouw, a leading evangelical theologian, “Mormons are not angry, they don’t want to win, they just want a place at the American table.”

Mormons’ and evangelicals’ distinct perspectives are also a product of their churches’ organisation. The decentralised nature of evangelical America has allowed worshippers to sort themselves into racially and otherwise homogeneous congregations. This has in turn led them to elevate cultural over spiritual concerns. By contrast, Mormons’ centralised institutions underpin their greater pragmatism and openness to diversity….

Utah conservatism is a reminder to the American right of its more expansive, optimistic past. It also offers a warning of where Republicans’ current pessimistic course may lead. Almost half of Mormons under the age of 40 voted for Joe Biden.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


“Language of Polling Questions Impacts Support For A $15 Minimum Wage”<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121882>
Posted on May 1, 2021 5:04 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121882> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

Polling questions about the minimum wage perform better when using language similar to the Florida minimum wage ballot measure

Framing the Raise The Wage Act as a $9.50 an hour wage that increases by $1.50 each year, as opposed to simply describing it as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2025, significantly increases support among Republicans and Democrats

More here, from Data for Progress<https://www.dataforprogress.org/blog/2021/4/30/minimum-wage-framing>.
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Posted in Uncategorized<https://electionlawblog.org/?cat=1>


Issue Gerrymandering?<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121879>
Posted on May 1, 2021 4:53 am<https://electionlawblog.org/?p=121879> by Richard Pildes<https://electionlawblog.org/?author=7>

In the state of Washington, the legislature just passed a capital-gains tax, which the Governor is expected to sign. Washington also has a voter referendum process. But according to this story<https://www.geekwire.com/2021/washington-lawmakers-approve-capital-gains-tax-first-time-state-history/>, the legislation includes a provision that prevents a referendum to challenge this particular measure. In other words, the legislature has withdrawn the direct-democracy process for this specific issue.

I believe that in some states with direct democracy, there is general legislation that defines in advance certain subjects for which direct democracy (1) is required, see Gordon v. Lance, 403 U.S. 1 (1971) and (2) is not permitted. But I’m wondering if there are other examples of specific legislation that includes provisions that withdraw an otherwise available direct-democracy option for that specific issue.
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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
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