From this Think Progress piece on whether any commission members might leave the Commission given President Trump’s abhorrent comments calling some of the white supremacists marching in Charlottesville “very fine people,” is this discussion from Democratic commissioner David Dunn: “I’ve … Continue reading
Category Archives: The Voting Wars
This was fun! … Continue reading
NYT: With President Trump’s poll numbers slipping, a group of the president’s former campaign aides is beginning an effort to encourage new voters in parts of the country that supported him in the election, and to stop what they contend … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed for TPM: Vice President Mike Pence, leader of President Trump’s shady “Elections Integrity” commission kicked off its first meeting last month with a promise that it would have “no preconceived notions or preordained results.” But like many of its other members, commissioner … Continue reading
Elias audio interview on law.com. … Continue reading
NYT WaPo … Continue reading
Sue Halpern NYRB. … Continue reading
Must-read Pam Fessler for NPR: When people showed up in several North Carolina precincts to vote last November, weird things started to happen with the electronic systems used to check them in. “Voters were going in and being told that … Continue reading
IndyStar: State and local Republicans have expanded early voting in GOP-dominated areas and restricted it in Democratic areas, an IndyStar investigation has found, prompting a significant change in Central Indiana voting patterns. From 2008 to 2016, GOP officials expanded early voting stations … Continue reading
AP: In Maine, Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap, a Democrat who is a member of Trump’s voting commission, is not handing over the information. Dunlap said the information the commission is getting from other states “isn’t wicked intimate” and may … Continue reading
Ariel Malka and Yphtach Lelkes for The Monkey Cage: The survey interviewed a sample of 1,325 Americans from June 5 through 20. Respondents were recruited from the Qualtrics online panel who had previously reported identifying with or leaning toward one of the two … Continue reading
LAT: California’s top elections officer and 11 county registrars have been asked to hand over detailed voter registration records or face a federal lawsuit, a request that centers on new accusations that the records are inaccurate. The effort by the … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
AP: Secretary of State Corey Stapleton’s allegations of voter fraud in Montana has widened a rift with elections officers across the state, some of whom want the elections chief to dial back his rhetoric. As they prepare to meet for … Continue reading
Interview. … Continue reading
Miles Rapoport at TAP. … Continue reading
NBC News reports. … Continue reading
Sun Sentinel: A ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom isn’t expected for several months. The ACRU, which filed the suit a year ago, is being represented by the Public Interest Legal Foundation. Both are conservative organizations that say their … Continue reading
Release: Today, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law and Democracy North Carolina filed an amicus brief with the North Carolina Supreme Court in Cooper v. Berger, in which the state’s newly-elected Governor, Roy Cooper, is challenging the General Assembly’s … Continue reading
Mic: A watchdog group is pushing the state of Georgia to explain why more than 591,000 people were struck from the voter rolls. “Each of the 591,548 voters affected by the move had already been on the state’s ‘inactive’ registration … Continue reading
Lawrence Journal-World: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach does not appear to have conducted any public information campaign, as required by law, to publicize the fact that the state recently shifted the election cycle for municipal elections from the spring … Continue reading
Order (via Josh Gerstein). … Continue reading
I spoke with Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio. … Continue reading
WaPo: A federal judge on Tuesday declined to temporarily bar President Trump’s voting commission from collecting voter data from states and the District, saying a federal appeals court likely will be deciding the legality of the request. U.S. District Judge … Continue reading
Release: Today marks the launch of The Franchise Project (TFP), a voting rights advocacy organization that aims to educate and empower grassroots activists to engage in effective voting rights advocacy at the local level. The group’s 50-State Voting Access Scorecard helps identify state … Continue reading
Josh Douglas oped. … Continue reading
New & Observer: Republicans and voting-rights advocates went head-to-head over a proposal that would have people make fact-based claims when they allege voters have committed fraud. The State Board of Elections has proposed a stiffer standard for elections protests that … Continue reading
Press Herald: Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap said Monday that he is unlikely to release any state voter registration data to the federal voter fraud commission to which he was appointed by President Trump. Dunlap said he will reject … Continue reading
WaPo: A federal judge will hear arguments Tuesday over whether a Watergate-era law prohibiting the government from collecting data on how Americans exercise their First Amendment rights bars President Trump’s Election Integrity Commission from American’s voting records. U.S. District Judge … Continue reading
WaPo editorial on SOS Kobach. … Continue reading
WSJ: Officials from a dozen states and the federal government took preliminary steps this week toward more formal cooperation regarding election-security efforts at a two-day meeting near Albany, N.Y. Attendees at the meeting Tuesday and Wednesday discussed coordinating information-sharing about … Continue reading
HuffPost: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) continued to fight releasing documents from a meeting with President Donald Trump in November, saying that the public did not need to see them and that disclosing them would impede his ability to serve … Continue reading
Politico: Verified Voting, Simons said, plans to partner with Braun and several other groups that have not yet been named to aggressively campaign for increasing DHS grants that would pay for states to make specific upgrades to their election security … Continue reading
LAT reports. … Continue reading
Interview over at FairVote. … Continue reading
Stephen Pettigrew and Mayya Komisarchik for the Monkey Cage: Presumably, the commission will use the names and birthdays in these lists to identify potential duplicate registration records between states. That’s the method used by the Interstate Crosscheck Program pioneered by Kansas Secretary of State Kris … Continue reading
I’ve said for years that if Republicans were serious about combatting voter fraud, at the top of the list would be measures to stop absentee ballot fraud. Voter fraud is rare, but when it does happen, it more often involves … Continue reading
Seems fair. (Earlier post on Kobach’s pattern of misleading court in voting litigation) … Continue reading
LAT: Local election officials are looking for some good hackers. As part of an effort to create a new voting system, Los Angeles County computer specialists are headed this week to Defcon, one of the world’s largest hacking conventions, where … Continue reading
From an interview in The Atlantic: Dunlap: Some of the people who are opposed rather vehemently to the very existence of this commission say that I should resign, because being a respected elections official and a Democrat only lends legitimacy to … Continue reading
So reports Jonathan Shorman. Update: The district court’s opinion reviewing an earlier magistrate judge’s sanctions order against Kobach is here. Particularly noteworthy is the district court’s comment that SOS Kobach’s conduct “demonstrate a pattern” of misleading statements to the court … Continue reading
Michael Halpern and Michael Latner in The Guardian: But by far the most glaring omission in membership concerns people who can most effectively evaluate data on elections and voter fraud: election scientists. The last commission, headed by Obama White House Counsel … Continue reading
The KC Star reports. … Continue reading
Cleveland.com reports. … Continue reading
35-page order and opinion. … Continue reading
WaPo: Five protesters who disrupted a session of the U.S. Supreme Court by shouting disapproval of its rulings on campaign finance law were sentenced to either one or two weekends in prison Monday after losing a bid to overturn a … Continue reading
Andrew Cohen for the Brennan Center for Justice. … Continue reading
Jennifer Rubin for WaPo: And that in a nutshell is the problem: We have an administration that finds it more helpful to fan Russian propaganda than to speak simple truths about America’s democratic system and Russia’s corrupt thugocracy. Supporting Russian … Continue reading
E.J. Dionne column. … Continue reading
Well done NYT editorial. … Continue reading