All posts by Rick Hasen
“Morning Digest: A Georgia Republican says he alone can raise unlimited sums. His rivals have other ideas”
The Downballot:
Lt. Gov. Burt Jones hasn’t yet announced his long-anticipated campaign for governor of Georgia, but he’s already taking advantage of a state law allowing him to raise unlimited sums of money—something none of his would-be rivals can… Continue reading
“Top US Election Security Watchdog Forced to Stop Election Security Work”
Eric Geller for Wired:
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has frozen all of its election security work and is reviewing everything it has done to help state and local officials secure their elections for the past eight years, WIRED… Continue reading
“Government Workers Cannot Be Fired for Their Political Views”
John Langford and Erica Newland in The Atlantic:
Political-patronage systems promote corruption at the expense of effective governance, and Americans grew dissatisfied with the cronyism and moblike rule that flowed from the spoils system. Following decades of effort to enact… Continue reading
“Musk-linked group offered $5m for proof of voter fraud – and came up with nothing”
Brendan Fischer and Emma Steiner in The Guardian:
In May 2024, a flashy ad went viral on social media warning that “across the country, there are real cases of fraud and abuses of the [election] system that have eroded our… Continue reading
“A Supreme Court Race May Shuffle the Rules of Wisconsin’s Democracy, Again”
Bolts:
But voting rights advocates are closely watching the election as well. A host of issues related to voter access—the use of drop boxes, accommodations for disabled voters, and voter ID rules, to name a few—may also ride on this… Continue reading
“How the Trumps Turned an Election Victory Into a Cash Bonanza”
WSJ:
When Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos dined with Donald Trump and his wife Melania at Mar-a-Lago in December, there was a lot at stake for both men: Bezos, a titan of industry whose company is crucial to the U.S. economy,… Continue reading
“Order to Drop Adams Case Prompts Resignations in New York and Washington”
NYT:
Manhattan’s U.S. attorney on Thursday resigned rather than obey an order from a top Justice Department official to drop the corruption case against New York City’s mayor, Eric Adams.
Then, when Justice Department officials sought to transfer the… Continue reading
“Elections, Courts, and Democratic Crisis: Constitutional Structure and the 2020 Election Cases”
Manoj Mate has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, University of Chicago Legal Forum). Here is the abstract:
This essay analyzes how the U.S. constitutional order responds to democratic crisis, by examining how the Supreme Court adjudicated cases related to… Continue reading
Top Recent Downloads in Election Law on SSRN
Here:
RankPaperDownloads1.Misconstruing the Electoral Count Act: A Response to Evan A. Davis and David M. SchulteSeth Barrett TillmanNational University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUI Maynooth) – Faculty of LawDate Posted: 13 Jan 2025Last Revised: 04 Feb 20258752.The … Continue reading
“Meta’s Oversight Board should just quit, critics say”
WaPo:
A coalition of advocacy groups from around the world is calling on Meta’s quasi-independent Oversight Board to resign en masse to protest the social media giant’s recent pullback on content moderation.
In an open letter shared with the Tech… Continue reading
“Trump takes aim at agencies that police wrongdoing, protect federal workers”
WaPo:
President Donald Trump is taking aim at federal offices that investigate government malfeasance and protect workers from retribution, summarily firing and replacing five top ethics officials this week in an apparent attempt to consolidate his power over the sprawling… Continue reading
“The public lost access to Census Bureau data for days after a Trump order”
Hansi Lo Wang for NPR:
An apparent attempt by the U.S. Census Bureau to follow an executive order by President Trump targeting gender identity led to the public losing access for days to certain key statistics.
Close to two weeks… Continue reading
Levitsky and Way: “The Path to American Authoritarianism: What Comes After Democratic Breakdown”
Steven Letvitsky and Lucian Way in Foreign Affairs:
U.S. democracy will likely break down during the second Trump administration, in the sense that it will cease to meet standard criteria for liberal democracy: full adult suffrage, free and fair… Continue reading