Jerry Goldfeder for the NYDN. … Continue reading
Rick Hasen
Bart Gellman: There is a cohort of close observers of our presidential elections, scholars and lawyers and political strategists, who find themselves in the uneasy position of intelligence analysts in the months before 9/11. As November 3 approaches, their screens … Continue reading
Politico reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: The Department of Justice asked Congress on Wednesday to adopt a new law that would hold Facebook, Google and Twitter legally accountable for the way they moderate content on the Web, as the Trump administration ratchets up its attacks … Continue reading
Michigan Advance: Citing concerns that President Donald Trump could attempt to declare victory prior to all absentee votes being counted in the Nov. 3 presidential election, Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said Tuesday that he will “basically be shutting down city … Continue reading
NYT: Facebook has detected limited Chinese operations intended to both help and hurt President Trump’s re-election chances, the company announced on Tuesday, the first public disclosure of Chinese efforts to influence the presidential election in November.The Chinese activity, while modest … Continue reading
Video Insider: Political ads have followed consumers to popular streaming services. But unlike traditional TV broadcasters, streamers are not required to disclose how ads are targeted or who is viewing them. And while social media platforms have begun to come under … Continue reading
Axios: The death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and President Trump’s vow to name her replacement to the Supreme Court before November’s election are amplifying Wall Street’s worries about major volatility and market losses ahead of and even after the … Continue reading
NYT: With Mr. Trump trailing Joseph R. Biden Jr. in most national and swing-state polls, Republicans are again trying to help third parties that may appeal to Democratic voters and siphon off votes from Mr. Biden. This is taking place … Continue reading
This seems like a great event: A panel of nationally-recognized, independent election law experts will join Professor Dan Mallinson for a public discussion of how Pennsylvania’s election laws could affect the 2020 voting process and potential legal challenges. The panelists … Continue reading
CNN: The FBI and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency warned the public Tuesday that foreign actors might spread disinformation about the results of the 2020 election and encouraged voters to be patient with delayed results.”The increased use of mail-in ballots due … Continue reading
The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has just published a new paper, “America’s Electorate is Increasingly Polarized Along Partisan Lines About Voting by Mail During the COVID-19 Crisis,” by Mackenzie Lockhart, Seth J. Hill, Jennifer Merolla, Mindy Romero, … Continue reading
The states make an argument on the merits under Anderson-Burdick balancing and argue it is too late to make changes to election rules under the Purcell Principle. I expect Purcell to be invoked more and more as we proceed from … Continue reading
Watch: This webinar, recorded on September 21, 2020, covers international perspectives relevant to the upcoming U.S. Presidential Election. Co-sponsored by The UCI Office of Global Engagement, UCI Law and the Jack W. Peltason Center for the Study of Democracy, this … Continue reading
Greg Sargent sounding the alarm: Trumpworld’s various claims of fraud in mail balloting have been debunked by fact checkers, Republican elections officials, and even Trump’s own intelligence officials. But the president’s son has now explicitly declared that millions of late-counted ballots will be fraudulent.An interesting two-tiered dynamic … Continue reading
News & Observer: People who mess up their mail-in ballots will have an easier time fixing them in order to make sure their vote doesn’t get thrown out, under a deal to resolve a lawsuit against North Carolina.The N.C. State … Continue reading
AJC: The Republican National Committee is getting involved in an appeal over absentee ballot deadlines in Georgia, making it the 20th state where the Republican Party is fighting election lawsuits.The RNC and the Georgia Republican Party filed a motion Monday urging the … Continue reading
Arkansas Times: A lawsuit was filed in federal court today to ensure that the expected surge of absentee ballots in November doesn’t lead to mass disqualifications of ballots because of the election day signature check and inability of voters to correct … Continue reading
Detroit News: The Michigan Legislature is working to appeal a court ruling that would require local clerks to count late absentee ballots postmarked by Nov. 2 and received within 14 days of the Nov. 3 election. Court of Claims Judge Cynthia … Continue reading
The brief (courtesy of John Kruzel) makes two arguments: First, the decision violates federal law, which establishes “the Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November” as a single Federal Election Day, which falls on November 3rd this year. 2 … Continue reading
This is deeply disturbing, and has been part of one of my very greatest concerns about the integrity of the election: that Trump will be ahead in preliminarly vote totals (not including millions of mail-in ballots) in a state like … Continue reading
This is something. https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1308453064223805440?s=20 … Continue reading
Motion to expedite. … Continue reading
Renee DiResta for The Atlantic: In the past, propaganda needed human hands to write it. Eager to create the illusion of popularity, authorities in China began hiring people in 2004 to flood online spaces with pro-government comments. By 2016, members … Continue reading
Cleveland Plain Dealer: Voting-rights advocates say it could take some Cuyahoga County residents as long as 90 minutes in travel time to cast an absentee ballot at the county’s only drop box.Attorneys for the League of Women Voters and the … Continue reading
The decision is here, and it presents a federal constitutional question about the qualifications of ballot circulators. At least in theory, this could be appealed to the Supreme Court. … Continue reading
NYT: The North Carolina Republican Party spent $213,000 on glossy mailers sent out in August to voters believed to be supporters of President Trump.“Urgent Notice,” the mailers warned, alongside a photo of the president. On the flip side, voters found … Continue reading
Detroit Free Press: The company collecting signatures to strip Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of her emergency powers coached paid petition circulators on giving voters false information, illegally collecting signatures without witnessing them, trespassing on private property, and even lying under oath, a … Continue reading
TPM: The Trump administration’s decision to truncate the 2020 census “poses a myriad of risks” to the count’s accuracy and completeness, an inspector general report said Monday.Top Census Bureau officials, including its President Trump-appointed director Steve Dillingham, are still not sure … Continue reading
Release: Richard L. Hasen (Rick Hasen), Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science at the University of California, Irvine School of Law (UCI Law), has received a grant from Craig Newmark Philanthropies for work on a book project entitled, “Cheap Speech: Saving American … Continue reading
Todd Ruger for Roll Call. … Continue reading
Refinery 29: This is especially true for swing states. “If mail-in balloting is slowing down the process in a few swing states, then we may all be waiting for weeks as those key states count their absentee ballots,” Stetson University … Continue reading
NYT: A Texas lawsuit over the mailing of absentee ballots to everyone over 65 but no one else. A Nevada case on whether to count mail ballots that lack postmarks. A Florida lawsuit over the right of former felons to … Continue reading
Jonathan Lai: A lot of comments/replies have been about how easy it is to know to use the secrecy envelope. A child could do it; it’s not rocket science; how dumb do you have to be; etc.Here’s part of an … Continue reading
WaPo: Former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his team have raised more than $16 million to pay the court fines and fees of nearly 32,000 Black and Hispanic Florida voters with felony convictions, an effort aimed at boosting turnout for … Continue reading
Josh Rogin WaPo column: Russian President Vladimir Putin and his top aides are “probably directing” a Russian foreign influence operation to interfere in the 2020 presidential election against former vice president Joe Biden, which involves a prominent Ukrainian lawmaker connected … Continue reading
This development reported by Democratic lawyer Marc Elias is in line with my theory that PA is one of the two states to watch in terms of pre- and post-election litigation by the Trump campaign. Here’s how the Philly Inquirer … Continue reading
Detroit News: In an about face on mail-in voting in Michigan, President Donald Trump took to Twitter Monday to encourage voters to request absentee ballots and vote early. Trump’s latest messaging on mail-in voting marks a mercurial swing from May, when the president threatened … Continue reading
The federal case that had been put on hold pending the resolution of a parallel case in the Pa Supreme Court is now back on following the Pa. Supreme Court’s resolution of related state law claims. Here’s the Trump Campaign’s … Continue reading
New report. … Continue reading
Jonathan Lai for the Inquirer: The state Supreme Court in Pennsylvania, a critical battleground state that’s seen as increasingly likely to determine who wins the White House, last week ordered officials to throw out what’s known as “naked ballots” — mail ballots that … Continue reading
You can find the brief at this link. This is disappointing from Secretary LaRose. The brief argues that to the extent the statute is ambiguous, the courts should give his interpretation deference. Yet Secretary LaRose has said he favored expansive … Continue reading
Equally American blogs. … Continue reading
Order. (The order makes other changes as well.) Update: The opinion is here. … Continue reading
Opinion here. … Continue reading
I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an unparalleled champion of voting rights. One of her most famous dissents in a voting case came in Shelby County v. Holder, the 2013 Supreme Court case holding that … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy writes. … Continue reading
Within minutes of the announcement of Justice Ginsburg’s death, we started seeing the argument advanced that a Supreme Court confirmation needs to be rushed so that a Justice is in place before the election, so as to break a potential … Continue reading
Elie Mystal for The Nation. … Continue reading