"Oliphant Charged with 55 Count of Election Law Violations"

The Orlando Sentinel offers this report, which begins; " Suspended Broward Supervisor of Elections Miriam Oliphant has been charged with 55 counts of violating election laws. Oliphant, already facing a Senate trial for her conduct in office, is accused of not opening polls on time and not keeping them open late enough during the September 2002 primary."

Floyd Abrams on McCain-Feingold

See here.

"Bush Campaign Seeks Probe of Election Ads"

See this A.P. report. Now the issue is the Media Fund 527. The RNC has raised similar complaints against Moveon.org. See here. No doubt these moves are meant to put pressure on the FEC as it goes through its rulemaking, as well as intimidate some local stations against running these ads.

"Kerry Prepared in Case of Another Recount"

A.P. offers this report. I'd be interested to know if the Florida legislature has done anything to better define the "intent of the voter" for those voting systems that will be in place for the November vote.

New article on Felon Disenfranchisement and Voter Turnout

Thomas J. Miles has published Felon Disenfranchisement and Voter Turnout in Volume 33 (1) (January 2004) of the Journal of Legal Studies. Abstract:

Several states permanently disenfranchise convicted felons, and according to existing estimates, the population of disenfranchised felons is disproportionately male and African-American. This paper examines the impact of felon disenfranchisement on state-level voter turnout. First, the paper shows that the number of disenfranchised felons is so large that conventional measures of voter turnout, which fail to correct for the ineligibility of disenfranchised felons, significantly understate the participation rates of eligible African-American men. Second, the paper uses a triple-differences framework to test whether disenfranchisement actually reduces the turnout of African-American men. The estimates reveal that disenfranchisement has no discernible effect on state-level rates of voter turnout. The absence of an effect is consistent with the view that on average felons belong to demographic groups that, although eligible to vote, infrequently exercise that right. The estimates suggest that the impact and purpose of these laws are more modest than previously thought.

-- 
Rick Hasen
Professor of Law and William M. Rains Fellow
Loyola Law School
919 South Albany Street
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http://electionlawblog.org