| Subject: Electionlawblog news and commentary 8/19/06 |
| From: Rick Hasen |
| Date: 8/19/2006, 7:13 AM |
| To: election-law |
Every year there are interesting papers at the APSA convention on papers with an election law angle. Below are some links to papers that may be of interest (feel free to send me additional links, and I'll update this post periodically):
Caroline J. Tolbert, University of Iowa; Daniel A. Smith, University of Florida; John C. Green, University of Akron, Mass Support for Redistricting Reform: Partisanship and Representational Winners and Losers (posted by Ed Still)
more to come...
Roll Call offers this
breaking news report
(paid subscription required), which begins: "Rep. Henry Bonilla
(R-Texas), whose re-election outlook went from safe to shaky when the
Supreme Court changed the boundaries of his district and four others in
the Lone Star State, asked the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday
whether he'll be allowed to solicit a fresh round of campaign cash from
donors who previously had maxed out to the Congressman's coffers."
Stateline.org offers this
report.
A snippet: "Arizona will decide whether to make people who show up at
the polls eligible for a $1 million jackpot. In Michigan, 80,000 people
who've voted only sporadically were put on notice by a political
consultant that, if they didn't vote this year, they'd be outed as
slackers to their friends and neighbors." As I've written in "Voting
without Law?" and "Vote Buying," payments for turnout are not unheard
of in the U.S. I have not heard of any efforts in the U.S., however, to
use shaming to cajole non-voters. In Italy, where voting is compulsory,
there is a history of non-voters' names being posted in the town square.
AP offers this
report,
which begins: "A prominent Republican lawyer filed a state elections
complaint late Friday seeking to knock third-party gubernatorial
contender Mary Starrett off the Nov. 7 ballot on grounds that her
nomination process was legally flawed. Starrett, a former TV talk show
host and anti-abortion activist, is slated to appear on the fall ballot
as the Constitution Party's nominee. Some Republicans fear that
Starrett will play a spoiler's role this fall, taking votes away from
GOP nominee Ron Saxton and tipping the race to incumbent Democratic
Gov. Ted Kulongoski."
Electionline Today offers this
disturbing report. UPDATE: See also this
post by Dan Tokaji on the recent Election Science Institute report
on the use of electronic voting with a paper trail in Cuyahoga County,
Ohio.
USA Today offers this
report
on increased partisan competition for control of secretary of state
positions. This is an unfortunate, but hardly unforeseeable,
development that moves in precisely the opposite direction that reform
should go. Thanks to Election Updates for the pointer.
-- Rick Hasen William H. Hannon Distinguished Professor of Law Loyola Law School 919 South Albany Street Los Angeles, CA 90015-0019 (213)736-1466 - voice (213)380-3769 - fax rick.hasen@lls.edu http://www.lls.edu/academics/faculty/hasen.html http://electionlawblog.org