New Brennan Center report: On Election Day in 1960, four unanswerable questions awaited Clarence Gaskins, a Black voter in Georgia looking to cast his ballot for president. Upon arrival at his designated polling place, he was ushered into a room … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Voting Wars
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports. Update: The Court of Appeals opinion explaining its putting the purge on hold is here. (h/t Sam Levine) … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
The latest from the Marc Elias litigation machine is a challenge in Texas to the rejection of voter registration forms with digital pictures of signatures. The complaint notes that, among other things, when voters register to vote along with getting … Continue reading
WUSF reports on the implementation of programs in the courts to reduce the fines and fees of formerly incarcerated individuals, in the continuing fight over the aftermath of Amendment 4 and SB 7066. The report indicates that the only four … Continue reading
Marc Elias in WaPo about his lawsuits on the ballot-order statutes giving unilateral pole position to candidates of one party. … Continue reading
Rick already mentioned a few of the exceptional election-related events at AALS so far. There are still several to come, including my stint tomorrow at 8:30 as least valuable player on a 2020 census panel with Dale Ho, Christina Mora, … Continue reading
Looks like Judicial Watch released another tranch of NVRA demand letters. Also looks like they’re still identifying allegedly non-compliant jurisdictions at least in part by comparing point-estimate registration data on legal domicile to trend-estimate ACS data on physical CVAP presence. … Continue reading
There’s always a fair amount of controversy around the scheduling of special elections to fill vacancies, particularly when the date seems to create particularly advantageous or disadvantageous terrain. The latest takes shape in New York, for the special election to … Continue reading
The real story isn’t that state party officials are defending state party associational rights under the First Amendmetn (even if they also benefit opposing parties). The real story is the practical recognition that litigation now begins to creep up on … Continue reading
The latest on this saga is a motion seeking to hold the members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission in contempt for failing to remove 200,000 voter registrations pending an appeal of a state trial court’s order. More here. … Continue reading
Two studies newly published in the latest issue of the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics series: Ethan Kaplan and Haishan Yuan, Early Voting Laws, Voter Turnout, and Partisan Vote Composition: Evidence from Ohio We estimate effects of early voting on … Continue reading
The Virginia Mercury looks at the legislative session ahead. … Continue reading
The law, enacted over the Governor’s veto, usually requires a qualifying photo ID to vote. As compared to the previous ID law passed in the wake of Shelby County and invalidated in 2016, it expands the list of acceptable IDs … Continue reading
NPR’s Pam Fessler. … Continue reading
AP: One of President Donald Trump’s top re-election advisers told influential Republicans in swing state Wisconsin that the party has “traditionally” relied on voter suppression to compete in battleground states but will be able to “start playing offense” in 2020 … Continue reading
AJC: The Georgia secretary of state’s office announced Thursday that it would reinstate about 22,000 voters that it had removed from the rolls earlier this week.The announcement came two hours before state attorneys returned to federal court to defend the … Continue reading
You can watch here: … Continue reading
Jonathan Zasloff has posted this paper on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Requiring photo identification before voting has generated fiercely contested litigation and scholarly literature. This Article attempts to move the debate forward by examining how precisely Voter ID works … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: An Ozaukee County judge on Friday ordered the state to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Wisconsin’s voter rolls because they may have moved. The case is being closely watched because of the state’s critical role in next … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ten percent or more of registered voters in dozens of communities could be removed from the voter rolls if a lawsuit against the state succeeds.Some of the highest dropoff would occur in Wisconsin’s two largest cities and … Continue reading
Roll Call: More than in previous election cycles, national Democratic groups are making litigation over election and voting laws a key part of their 2020 strategy. A handful of Democratic groups are currently litigating about a dozen cases over what they see as unfair … Continue reading
New report from SSN. … Continue reading
Michael G. DeCrescenzo and Kenneth R. Mayer have written this article for ELJ. Here is the abstract: How much did Wisconsin’s voter identification requirement matter in 2016? We conducted a survey of registered nonvoters in the counties surrounding the cities … Continue reading
NYT reports. During the debate Sen. Cory Booker stated: “Right here in this great state of Georgia it was the voter suppression, particularly of African-American communities, that prevented us from having a Gov. Stacey Abrams right now. “ Politifact: “We previously found it … Continue reading
AP: More than 234,000 voters in Wisconsin would be made unable to cast their ballot unless they register again before the next election under a lawsuit filed Wednesday that liberals fear could dampen turnout among Democrats in the 2020 presidential … Continue reading
BREAKING: On behalf of @prioritiesUSA we have sued Michigan over two laws, the Voter Transportation Ban and the Absentee Ballot Organizing Ban, that make it more difficult for voters for whom voting is already difficult—e.g., voters without access to transportation—to … Continue reading
Reid Wilson in The Hill. … Continue reading
Extensive piece in The Guardian (which in a coup just hired Sam Levine from HuffPost). … Continue reading
Marc Elias and Co. have been busy. Democrats file lawsuit to restore last Saturday early voting in North Carolina Texas Democratic Party challenges mobile voting ban in lawsuit Suit opposes signature check of Michigan absentee ballots … Continue reading
WaPo Fact Checker: “Racially motivated patterns of voter suppression are responsible for Stacey Abrams not being governor of Georgia right now.”— South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg (D), in remarks in Bow, N.H., Oct. 25, 2019It has become an article … Continue reading
WaPo editorial. … Continue reading
Michael Wines for the NYT: The story at Austin Community College is but one example of a political drama playing out nationwide: After decades of treating elections as an afterthought, college students have begun voting in force.Their turnout in the … Continue reading
This is a big deal, and no surprise given the earlier ruling (except that it came very quickly after the rejection of the motion to dismiss). The real question is whether the Sixth Circuit, which is becoming increasingly conservative, will … Continue reading
“Restricting voter registration drives in order to try to preserve election commission resources is like poisoning the soil in order to have an easier harvest.” —Federal district court judge Aleta Trauger, in order denying Tennessee’s motion to dismiss lawsuit over … Continue reading
Daniel Block for Washington Monthly. … Continue reading
WaPo: The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State is launching an initiative to try to wrest control of those offices from Republicans, who the group claims have used their power to make it harder for certain demographics to vote.Buoyed by … Continue reading
AP: Georgia voters who want hand-marked paper ballots are challenging the new election system state officials are rushing to implement in time for next year’s presidential primaries, saying the new touchscreen machines remain vulnerable and their results unverifiable, even though … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: After losing his last chief election officer over a botched review of the state’s voter rolls, Gov. Greg Abbott on Monday appointed a new secretary of state: Ruth Ruggero Hughs.Ruggero Hughs is moving from the Texas Workforce Commission, which she … Continue reading
HuffPost: Civil rights groups sued Tennessee on Thursday over a controversial new law that will subject voter registration groups to potential fines and criminal penalties, saying the measure is unconstitutional, vague and will intimidate people from helping others sign up to vote. … Continue reading
USA Today reports. … Continue reading
AP: Totenberg cited a “mountain of voter testimony showing that these vulnerabilities have a tangible impact” on voters’ attempts to cast a ballot and have their vote counted.The plaintiffs provided statements from 137 Georgia voters, two county poll workers and … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
I understand that this presentation (backup version here) at NCSL raised some eyebrows. In my view, there is no good First Amendment argument against automatic voter registration, because any voter can choose not to register if they desire. This is … Continue reading
Jelani Cobb in the New Yorker. … Continue reading
This new draft has a much more extensive discussion of First Amendment issues related to the regulation of deep fakes: Deep Fakes, Bots, and Siloed Justices: American Election Law in a Post-Truth World This Essay forms the basis for the … Continue reading
Here is the appellate opinion in Brakebill v. Jaeger. … Continue reading
Florida gonna Florida. … Continue reading
ThinkProgress on the challenged Florida law requiring sufficient parking for early voting sites, and its impact on college voters. … Continue reading
Wherein J. Christian Adams rails against “personal destruction” and “demonization,” and compares Kris Kobach (or, possibly, himself) to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. … Continue reading