All posts by Derek Muller

“How does a movie win a best picture Oscar? There’s a method to the voting madness”

March 27, 2022, 2:37 pmalternative voting systemsDerek Muller

One last post as I wrap up regular blogging this week, from the Los Angeles Times: Also called instant-runoff voting and ranked-choice voting, the preferential ballot is an electoral system used in places around the world — including in … Continue reading

“Trump backers push election change that would make counting slower, costlier and less accurate”

March 27, 2022, 2:32 pmelection administrationDerek Muller

Zach Montellaro at Politico: Trump supporters are pushing to prohibit machine counting of ballots in future elections around the country, which election officials say could make vote-counting slower, more expensive and — most importantly — less accurate.Legislators in at… Continue reading

“‘A Mystifying and Distorting Factor:’ The Electoral College and American Democracy (Reviewing Jesse Wegman, ‘Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College’)”

March 27, 2022, 5:11 amelectoral collegeDerek Muller

A book review from Kate Shaw, forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review: As the 2020 presidential election made clear, the Electoral College is a profoundly dangerous institution. American constitutional democracy survived that election and its aftermath, emerging battered and… Continue reading

“The Dangerous Independent State Legislature Theory”

March 27, 2022, 5:10 amElections ClauseDerek Muller

To the growing body of recent scholarship on the topic, this piece from Jason Marisam, forthcoming in the Michigan State Law Review: In 2020, conservative justices and the Trump Campaign championed a theory, known as the independent state legislature… Continue reading

“Litigating Gerrymandering in the Post-Rucho World: State Law and Political Maps”

March 27, 2022, 5:10 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Kathryn Randolph has a two part series (one, two) with a deep dive on the state law claims over at the State & Local Government Law Blog.

“Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, and the Nineteenth Amendment”

March 26, 2022, 6:13 amvotingDerek Muller

Draft from Ellen D. Katz, forthcoming in the Georgetown Journal of Law & Public Policy: This close examination of two cases is part of a larger ongoing project to provide a distinct account of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921,… Continue reading

“Gerrymandering and the Limits of Representative Democracy”

March 26, 2022, 6:13 amredistrictingDerek Muller

New article from Kai Hao Yang and Alexander Zentefis: We assess the capacity of gerrymandering to undermine the will of the people in a representative democracy. Citizens have political positions represented on a spectrum, and electoral maps separate people into… Continue reading

Some recent law student scholarship on election law

March 26, 2022, 6:12 amabsentee ballots, campaign finance, redistrictingDerek Muller

This weekend, I’ll blog about some recent election law scholarship. I thought I’d start by highlighting a few student notes that caught my eye in recent weeks: Kyle Apple (Iowa), Gerrymandering the Presidency: Why Federal District Popular Voting Presents a … Continue reading

“Justice Thomas Ruled on Election Cases. Should His Wife’s Texts Have Stopped Him?”

March 26, 2022, 6:08 amSupreme CourtDerek Muller

Adam Liptak explores in the New York Times: The disclosure that Virginia Thomas, the wife of Justice Clarence Thomas, had sent a barrage of text messages to the Trump White House urging efforts to overturn the 2020 election brought… Continue reading

Election litigation update for week ending March 25, 2022

March 25, 2022, 2:21 pmelection administration, Elections Clause, redistrictingDerek Muller

Filing a complaint or winning a judgment are actions good enough to earn the headlines, but there’s plenty of election litigation ongoing throughout the United States at various stages. A taste of a few things that happened over the past… Continue reading

“Federal judges mull trimming Ohio early voting among other options to address redistricting delays”

March 25, 2022, 2:21 pmredistrictingDerek Muller

Out of the frying pan, from Cleveland.com: A federal court is considering whether to order Ohio to trim its early voting period for the May 3 primary election to buy more time for the state’s stalled redistricting efforts.During a… Continue reading

“Group Wanted to Kidnap Michigan Governor and Block Biden’s Election, Plotter Says”

March 25, 2022, 2:20 pmelectoral collegeDerek Muller

New York Times: To hear Ty Garbin tell it, the kidnapping of Michigan’s Democratic governor would have been just the beginning.By abducting Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Mr. Garbin and other plotters hoped, he said, to set off a chain of… Continue reading

“Judge throws out Maryland congressional map over ‘extreme’ gerrymandering”

March 25, 2022, 10:10 amredistrictingDerek Muller

Meagan Flynn at the Washington Post: Maryland judge has thrown out the state’s congressional map, calling it an “extreme partisan gerrymander” in what is a victory for Republicans who said Democrats in the state General Assembly sought to silence… Continue reading

“Michigan Supreme Court tosses partisan fairness lawsuit challenging state House map”