Federal District Court in Maryland Rules that Rights of Military Voters to Have Their Votes Counted Trumps Nov. 12 Ballot Receipt Deadline

See here (via Election Law Center). It will be interesting to see if this ruling stands on appeal.

"Dem Prevents Civil Rights Panel Vote On New Black Panther Report (VIDEO)"

TPM reports. No word on whether Tom DeLay can track him down for a quorum call.

Here is a draft copy of the Commission's report, leaked to TPM.

More on the walkout from the Washington Post.

"TV Spending Surges in State Supreme Court Races"

Don't miss this press release on the spending in judicial elections.

Earlier this week, Dahlia Lithwick and I offered a scary tour through the most negative judicial campaign ads of the current cycle. As of today, nearly half of the 800 voters on the ads have chosen our bonus feature, "Spouses Gone Wild!," as the scariest video. But this brand new radio ad (out after our Slate piece was completed) by Alabama Justice Tom Parker is pretty scary too. In the ad, Justice Parker compares the federal district judge who decided the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" case to Al Qaeda.

Audio of ACS Event on Legal Issues to Watch in the 2010 Elections Now Available

Following up on a post about this event featuring Eugene Lee, Liz Neubaer, Steve Reyes, and me (moderated by Justin Levitt), you can now listen to the audio.

Would You Like Fries with that Ballot?

McDonald's workers complain about GOP handbills with their paychecks.

"NC GOP sues election board over voting machines"

AP offers this report.

"Roberts Court rulings on campaign finance reveal shifting makeup, forceful role"

The Washington Post offers this extensive report.

What's Worse?

Being a political scientist or a lawyer?

"Voter Fraud Fears Become Latest Partisan Issue"

The Washington Post offers this important report.

Just Wondering Department

How do those who complain about redistricting leading to non-competitive elections explain the last decade in the House? If it is about unprecedented partisanship, when is that supposed to ebb?

"Instant Runoff Voting as a 'Game Changing' Alternative Voting System?"

Kevin Oles has written this commentary for Moritz.

Beer for Votes?

Byron Tau reports.

"Essential Research Needed to Support UOCAVA-MOVE Act: Implementation at the State and Local Levels"

Candice Hoke and Matt Bishop have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

Congress's most recent effort to enable overseas and military voters to cast valid, timely ballots imposed a large number of complex tasks on State and local election administration. By federal mandates, preemptive provisions, and severely constrained implementation timetables, the MOVE Act requires State and local election administration officials to offer Internet transmission of specified services including voter registration and blank ballots. However, Internet-connected election equipment presents many dangers to overseas voters’ ballots and to accurate election totals. Authenticating overseas voters, assuring that they receive only a correct and authentic electronic ballot, guaranteeing vote privacy, maintaining the integrity of the ballots during marking, transmission, storage and canvass, and other essential objectives of election security, are much more difficult -- not less -- when vote transaction data must traverse the Internet. With appropriate infrastructure, however, election offices can reliably serve overseas voters with at least some Internet-transmitted election materials. Achieving reliability, however, requires substantial expert technical services, ongoing staffing and training, and appropriate computer equipment, software, network services, and testing protocols. To avoid repeating the electoral disruptions and injury to public confidence that followed the last federally-induced embrace of problematic computer technologies (paperless electronic precinct voting machines), this paper recommends that Federal assumptions about State and local technical readiness be temporarily set aside. Sound empirical data (that can be anonymized) are needed to document the currently available technical and security infrastructure and changes to that infrastructure which are still needed for MOVE Act full implementation. If Federal election policies and "best practices" continue to be formulated for overseas absentee voting without sound baseline knowledge of existing technical conditions, expertise, and resources, serious election difficulties and inequities are likely to arise. These include (1) Federal Phase-In Planning and Support Errors arising from erroneous readiness assumptions; (2) Insufficient Budgetary Allocations for initial and ongoing technical and security management; (3) Inability to Achieve Voter Privacy, Security, and Reliability Objectives, and thereafter, (4) the likelihood of Unfair Accusations Against Election Officials for not achieving the mandated objectives. To ensure full implementation of the Act and achievement of its objectives, federal agencies, other funding entities, and State and local election administrators should collaboratively support independent research to document both the status quo and needed technical infrastructure.