N.Y. Times reports on the formation of American Sunlight Project by Nina Jankowicz and Carlos Álvarez-Aranyos:

“The inception of the group, the American Sunlight Project, reflects how divisive the issue of identifying and combating disinformation has become as the 2024 presidential election approaches. It also represents a tacit admission that the informal networks formed at major universities and research organizations to address the explosion of disinformation online have failed to mount a substantial defense against a campaign, waged largely on the right, depicting their work as part of an effort to silence conservatives.

“Taking place in the courts, in conservative media and on the Republican-led House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, the campaign has largely succeeded in eviscerating efforts to monitor disinformation, especially around the integrity of the American election system. …

“Many experts have warned that the problem of false or misleading content is only going to increase with the advent of artificial intelligence.

““Disinformation will remain an issue as long as the strategic gains of engaging in it, promoting it and profiting from it outweigh consequences for spreading it,” Common Cause, the nonpartisan public interest group, wrote in a report published last week that warned of a new wave of disinformation around this year’s vote. …

“The American Sunlight Project has been established as a nonprofit under the section of the Internal Revenue Code that allows it greater leeway to lobby than tax-exempt charities known as 501(c)(3)s. It also does not have to disclose its donors, which Ms. Jankowicz declined to do, though she said the project had initial commitments of $1 million in donations.

“The budget pales in comparison with those behind the counteroffensive like America First Legal, the Trump-aligned group that, with a war chest in the tens of millions of dollars, has sued researchers at Stanford and the University of Washington over their collaboration with government officials to combat misinformation about voting and Covid-19.

“The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon in a federal lawsuit filed by the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana accusing government agencies of using the researchers as proxies to pressure social media platforms to take down or restrict the reach of accounts.”

POLITICO reports on new polling that suggests RFK Jr. might pull support from Trump as well as Biden. Although the story doesn’t say so, the key point should be that a well-designed electoral system wouldn’t let a third-party or independent candidate like RFK Jr. have an effect on whether Trump or Biden wins. It’s too bad that the two major parties, both afraid of the “spoiler” effect that RFK Jr. might have to their chances of winning, couldn’t agree on the need to adopt some sort of runoff mechanism (at least in the battleground states) to assure that whichever candidate wins a state’s electoral votes has the support of a majority–and not just a plurality–of the state’s voters.

AP reports:

“The court’s conclusion: James Holkeboer’s conduct was improper but not a crime.

He was charged with election fraud. But Holkeboer’s lawyers pointed out that the state law used by prosecutors only bars acts that change the election record.

“The prosecution had to demonstrate that Holkeboer fraudulently removed or secreted the election list of voters such that the information was no longer available or altered,” the court said in a 3-0 opinion Thursday.

“Here, no evidence was presented that election information was altered or made unavailable” to local election officials, the court said.”

Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel. The focus of the story is “Trump’s decision to attack Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator Meagan Wolfe.” Some details:

“Meagan Wolfe will try and steal another election,” Trump said in an interview earlier this month with conservative radio show host Joe Giganti on “The Regular Joe Show,” which aired on Green Bay-based WTAQ. “Robin Vos should terminate Meagan Wolfe and they should put somebody in who’s going to be fair, not for the Republicans — just fair. And if they do that, we’re going to win the election by a lot in Wisconsin.”

Trump’s attack is of course baseless and reprehensible. But as long as other Republicans stand by Trump, including so-called “grown ups” like Bill Barr and Chris Sununu, it will be difficult to protect Republican voters–and thus the public as a whole–from the pernicious consequences of Trump’s irresponsible rhetoric.

Arizona Republic. No surprise: “Legal experts had predicted the court would not exercise its discretion to add the case to its docket, citing well-established legal precedent and the court’s low acceptance rate.” Moreover:

“U.S. District Judge John Tuchi dismissed their claims and what he called their “frivolous complaint” in Aug. 2022, saying they did not have standing — a legal precedent that requires an individual who files a case is directly impacted by the conduct they are suing over. Tuchi later ordered their legal team to pay six figures in sanctions to deter “similarly baseless suits in the future.” 

“The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in October upheld Tuchi’s ruling and agreed the case rested on hypotheticals. The case was funded by Mike Lindell, founder of MyPillow and a fervent ally of Trump who promotes false claims that elections are rigged.”

Op-ed by the leaders of the new United Kansas party. For anyone who has been following the advocacy for fusion voting over the last couple of years, the arguments in the op-ed will be familiar. For example, the new party’s… Continue reading

An editorial castigating the Alabama Secretary of State’s partisan enforcement of election laws, including the refusal to grant the Biden campaign the same kind of deadline extension previously granted the Trump campaign in 2020.

AP reports: “The Republican National Committee, newly reconstituted under Trump, has filed election-related lawsuits in nearly half the states. Recent lawsuits over voter roll maintenance in Michigan and Nevada are part of a larger strategy targeting various aspects… Continue reading

USA Today: The Supreme Court on Monday declined to decide if states that automatically let senior citizens vote by mail must let younger voters do the same, an issue that could affect millions of voters….. Seven states – Texas, Indiana,… Continue reading

Josh Gerstein for POLITICO as opening statements in the trial begin.

The N.Y. Times take on the development covered in POLITICO (and blogged about) yesterday. The Times asserts that GOP recruits “have been told to make so-called election integrity central to the party’s ground game and to be far more… Continue reading

Interesting story from the N.Y Times on how RFK, Jr. became the nominee of the Natural Law Party, which has retained ballot access under Michigan law. In my judgment, it would be helpful if stories like these explained to readers… Continue reading