Arizona Republic: The Arizona Senate, apparently not satisfied with one recount, is close to signing a deal for its second review of Maricopa County’s 2020 general election ballots.The effort would expand the ongoing audit and is expected to use a … Continue reading
Rick Hasen
Ron Brownstein for The Atlantic: Still, it’s clear that the White House is operating at a more tempered level of concern than other Democrats about the threats to small-d democracy emerging in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s attacks on the 2020 … Continue reading
New at Sightline. … Continue reading
NYT: Yet even with his decades of work on the topic, he faces especially wrenching decisions when it comes to the voting rights legislation. Known as the For the People Act, the bill is the professed No. 1 priority of … Continue reading
Ned Foley for WaPo: It’s become increasingly clear that Democrats lack the votes in the Senate to pass their dream elections bill, the behemoth known as S. 1. Before time runs out, they would be wise to come up with … Continue reading
Patrick Marley: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos is hiring retired police officers to investigate aspects of the November election, joining with Republicans from around the country who have questioned President Joe Biden’s victory.Vos, of Rochester, said he recognizes Biden narrowly won … Continue reading
I earlier posted a link to the video of an Election Law Journal roundtable on this topic, featuring Guy-Uriel Charles, Edward Foley, Richard Hasen, Lisa Manheim, Charles StewartIII, and Daniel Tokaji, and moderated by ELJ editor-in-chief, David Canon. You can now read an edited transcript … Continue reading
WaPo: Manhattan’s district attorney has convened the grand jury that is expected to decide whether to indict former president Donald Trump, other executives at his company or the business itself, should prosecutors present the panel with criminal charges, according to … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Michigan’s top election official and the company whose voting equipment has been the subject of baseless claims of fraud are cautioning local governments in the state that outside audits of the 2020 election results like the one underway in … Continue reading
NYT: Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state in Georgia, earned widespread praise for his staunch defense of the election results in his state last year in the face of growing threats and pressure from former President Donald J. Trump.As … Continue reading
NYT: Ms. Clarke was confirmed by a vote of 51 to 48, largely along party lines. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, broke with her party to support Ms. Clarke’s confirmation. Senator John Kennedy, Republican of Louisiana, did not vote.A … Continue reading
Arizona Republic: The Pennsylvania-based IT company that was in charge of running the hand recount of Maricopa County ballots is no longer involved in the audit.The contract with Wake TSI ended May 14, the original completion date for the hand count, and … Continue reading
You can use this link to sign up (no need to be a TPM Prime member, though if you can afford it, you should anyway!). Tierney’s coverage is always terrific. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld: About 75,000 Republican-leaning voters in Arizona’s two most populous counties did not vote to re-elect President Donald Trump in the 2020 election, according to an analysis of every vote cast by a longtime Arizona Republican Party election observer … Continue reading
Guy Charles and Larry Lessig in Slate: We strongly support H.R. 4, and firmly believe that the Constitution, properly interpreted, would support it. But we are also fully convinced that a clear majority on this Supreme Court would invalidate H.R. … Continue reading
Release: Today, Common Cause filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) violated the ‘soft money’ ban in the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) by soliciting unlimited contributions for a super PAC raising money for use in the Georgia Senate runoff elections. The allegations, first published by ProPublica, stem … Continue reading
Houston Chronicle: Texas Secretary of State Ruth Hughs announced her resignation Friday after Republicans in the Senate declined to confirm her appointment by Gov. Greg Abbott.While Republicans have not publicly expressed any lack of faith in Hughs, Democrats point to … Continue reading
CNBC: Corporate leaders are now fighting behind the scenes against Republican-supported voting laws they consider too restrictive, following repeated attacks from GOP leaders and their well-funded allies.Since the outcry earlier this year over the passage of Georgia’s new voting law, … Continue reading
Zach Montellaro for Politico: Republicans who sought to undercut or overturn President Joe Biden’s election win are launching campaigns to become their states’ top election officials next year, alarming local officeholders and opponents who are warning about pro-Trump, “ends justify … Continue reading
Cameron Joseph reports for Vice News. … Continue reading
Nicholas Riccardi for AP. … Continue reading
Axios: Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) told “Axios on HBO” that she won’t support Democrats in their fight against the GOP’s push for more restrictive voting laws — a sign that she’ll be no hero to the resistance.Why it matters: Ten days … Continue reading
CSM: America’s democratic process has been severely tested in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Former President Donald Trump’s personal push to overturn results in key states revealed vulnerabilities in the nation’s electoral system – including how many important … Continue reading
Pittsburgh: The Fayette County District Attorney’s office is requesting the execution of a search warrant on the county bureau of elections to investigate ballot issues during Tuesday’s primary.There are multiple investigations underway after ballot issues in Fayette County. Commissioners said … Continue reading
Read it and weep. … Continue reading
The NY Times article in the post below this one on Republican measures to curtail direct democracy noted among other changes was a $3,000 individual limit on contributions to ballot petition drives in Florida. This seems clearly unconstitutional under existing … Continue reading
NYT: n 2008, deep-blue California banned same-sex marriage. In 2018, steadfastly conservative Arkansas and Missouri increased their minimum wage. And last year, Republican-controlled Arizona and Montana legalized recreational marijuana.These moves were all the product of ballot initiatives, a century-old fixture … Continue reading
WaPo: In Georgia, Superior Court Judge Brian Amero ruled on Friday that the nine plaintiffs and their experts could examine copies of the ballots but never touch the originals, which will remain in the possession of Fulton election officials. Further … Continue reading
538: Understanding how new voting restrictions will influence our elections is difficult. Political science hasn’t found that these types of laws have that big of an effect, at least as individual measures. But, while laws that make it more taxing to … Continue reading
Jim Oliphant column. … Continue reading
The Texas Tribune reports. … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy for the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
NYT: In the latest example of divisions among congressional Democrats over voting rights, four House Democrats emailed the party caucus on Thursday pushing for their colleagues to muscle through two election bills now being considered on Capitol Hill, arguing that … Continue reading
NYT: Arizona’s top elections official on Thursday urged the state’s most populous county to replace hundreds of voting machines that have been examined as part of a Republican-backed review of the state’s November election.The request added fuel to charges by … Continue reading
I participated in a great conversation with Derek Muller and host Jeffrey Rosen. Listen! … Continue reading
Looking forward to participating in this virtual event (registration required) at Minnesota’s Humphrey School’s Center for the Study of Politics and Government: Topic: The New Danger in Voting LegislationDescriptionGeorgia, Texas and other states are pursuing legislation that will make it … Continue reading
Paul Gronke, Paul Manson, Jay Lee, and Heather Creek at Electionline: Who are the professionals doing the day-to-day work of running American elections? As we touched on in a preceding post, local election officials are not a population that mirrors the … Continue reading
MarketWatch reports. … Continue reading
Dave Levinthal for Business Insider: But this wildly popular — and demonstrably bogus — fundraising gimmick could soon be dead. That’s because the Department of Justice on Monday indicated that fraudulent “match” solicitations were one of several misdeeds that factored into … Continue reading
CNN: After the House passed a bill to establish a commission to investigate the events surrounding January 6, Senate Republicans look poised to torpedo the commission with few Republicans signaling they’d vote with Democrats to support it.Democrats would need 10 Republican lawmakers … Continue reading
Charles Hammer column in the KC Star: We Kansans owe Kris Kobach warm thanks for his greatest triumph: He proved that voter fraud is virtually nonexistent in our state. He achieved that by fiercely striving to prove the opposite.In 2010 … Continue reading
CNN: In a bid to bolster former President Donald Trump’s lies about widespread fraud in the 2020 election, Trump’s Republican allies are now seeking Arizona-style audits in other swing states — including Georgia, where the former President’s false claims have set off … Continue reading
Kevin Johnson oped at The Fulcrum. … Continue reading
WaPo: At a public meeting last week in Cheboygan County, Mich., a lawyer from Detroit told county commissioners that the voting machines they used in 2020 could “flip” votes and throw an election. She offered to send in a “forensic … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: Two reporters at One America News, a far-right TV station, are running a dark money organization that they say is helping fund a counter-reality “audit” that former president Donald Trump and his supporters believe will overturn Arizona’s 2020 election results … Continue reading
Patrick Berry and Alicia Bannon WaPo Outlook piece: By the Brennan Center for Justice’s count, state lawmakers have introduced more than 360 voter suppression bills across the nation, and the aim seems clear: Despite rhetorical nods to protecting “election integrity,” it’s a … Continue reading
Richard Briffault has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Notre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy). Here is the abstract: Recent years have witnessed the growing use by elected officials, particularly state and local chief executives, of affiliated … Continue reading
Detroit Free Press: A series of Republican bills that would dramatically expand the rights of poll watchers and election challengers would burden election administrators, cause delays for voters at polling locations, open the door to voter intimidation and re-create the chaos that unfolded last … Continue reading
Doyle McManus LAT column. … Continue reading