news of the day 10/28/03

Subject: news of the day 10/28/03

From: Rick Hasen

Date: 10/28/2003, 9:35 AM

To: election-law

"E-Voting or Punch Cards?"

The Santa Cruz Sentinel offers this report. In somewhat related news, A.P. offers "Diebold Warns on Electronic Voting Papers."

"Pa. court race turns negative as anonymous calls surface"

The Philadelphia Inquirer offers this report (link via How Appealing).

"The New Soft Money"

Fortune offers this report, with the subheading: "Campaign-finance reform didn't kill big political donations, it just changed the rules of the game. Meet the players." See also this Washington Post report, which details the activities of the "New Democratic Network," aimed at getting around BCRA's ban on soft money spending by national political parties.

Ninth Circuit upholds Seattle, Washington law preventing a candidate from referring to his opponent in a voter pamphlet

The opinion in Cogswell v. City of Seattle is here. (Link via How Appealing.) Applying First Amendment doctrine, the court determined that the ballot pamphlet was a limited public forum and that the limitation preventing references to one's opponents was reasonable:

The restriction in SMC 2.14.060(C), that a candidate's statement “shall not discuss the opponent,” is not unconstitutionally viewpoint biased because Seattle has legitimately preserved the parameters of its voters’ pamphlet by limiting the subject matter included in the forum to candidate selfdiscussion. The restriction is reasonable because it furthers the purpose for which Seattle created the forum.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
Los Angeles, CA  90015-1211
(213)736-1466
(213)380-3769 - fax
rick.hasen@lls.edu
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http://electionlawblog.org