In normal times, I think of absentee voting as an essential option, but I’ve not (yet?) bought into 100% vote-by-mail. The postal service is an astonishingly great institution, but there are some communities it serves less well than others, including … Continue reading
Justin Levitt
And now, I give you the inimitable Dan Tokaji, a national treasure. He’s at the helm for the next week. I can’t leave without thanking Rick, again, for keeping this forum so vigorously alive. It’s like drinking from a fire … Continue reading
Election issues lead the WaPo’s “Cybersecurity 202” daily roundup today. … Continue reading
In the WSJ: Facebook said it would remove or label misleading videos that had been edited or manipulated in ways that would not be apparent to the average person. That would include removing videos in which artificial intelligence tools are … Continue reading
The NYT has published an internal memo written by the Facebook exec overseeing advertising during 2016. The memo touches on Russian ad spending, misinformation, Cambridge Analytica, and more. I have yet to see a headline on stories reporting the memo … Continue reading
The BBC reports on an intriguing episode from the 1992 race. … Continue reading
The latest on the restoration of voting rights in Iowa. … Continue reading
The latest from the Marc Elias litigation machine is a challenge in Texas to the rejection of voter registration forms with digital pictures of signatures. The complaint notes that, among other things, when voters register to vote along with getting … Continue reading
In Arizona, litigants settled an NVRA compliance case over alleged failures in the process of updating voter registration addresses when people change their address during motor-vehicle transactions. The settlement itself is here. … Continue reading
Nikkita Oliver on the aftermath of the VRA case in Yakima, Washington. And a similar story, also today, from Pasco, 90 miles down the road. … Continue reading
The initiative to institute a commission in Nevada was amended and refiled to address a trial judge’s concerns about the ballot description. … Continue reading
ProPublica on the draining of the swamp. … Continue reading
In the wake of substantial spending by Amazon (and others) in 2019 city council elections, Seattle contemplates a Clean Campaigns Act purporting to limit contributions to Super PACs, and to limit spending from corporations with more than 1% ownership from … Continue reading
Two stories today about campaign funds active longer than their campaigners. One focuses on FEC requests for explanation from retired officeholders still spending from campaign accounts. The other describes the plans that Rep. Cummings had for his unspent campaign money … Continue reading
A HuffPost piece on the other side of the odd horserace money count I mentioned last week: Allies of President Donald Trump gloated last week at the news that his campaign outraised each of the Democratic presidential candidates. But when … Continue reading
A piece in the Atlantic on the governance options available to billionaires: When people think about the political relevance of Michael Bloomberg’s money, they tend to think about how his massive spending helps his campaigns: the record $261 million he … Continue reading
Ibram Kendi with a thoughtful piece on the terminology of “swing voters”: some “swing” from candidate to candidate or party to party, and some swing between voting and not voting. … Continue reading
The Seattle Times reviews who’s on and who’s off the Washington State primary ballot. And while the story focuses on the candidates on the ballot who may not still be actively contending by the time March 10 rolls around, the … Continue reading
The lede in Route Fifty: Legislation introduced by a Maryland lawmaker would set new standards for describing ballot measures in the state, with the aim of ensuring that people can clearly understand the proposals they’re casting votes on. … Continue reading
WBUR with an explainer on the ranked choice initiative likely to make it to the ballot if the legislature doesn’t adopt something first. … Continue reading
At the same time as the Thursday hearing on voting system security that I’d mentioned, House Oversight will be holding a hearing on “Reaching Hard-to-Count Communities in the 2020 Census.” The witness list is still TBD, as far as I … Continue reading
The Census Bureau has reached most of its hiring goals in Puerto Rico. And almost everywhere else is still looking for help. They’ve even got a map to show you where (and how much they’re paying). … Continue reading
The AP reports on Florida’s … exceedingly recent efforts to raise census awareness. In this context, I’m not sure whether “it’s never too late” is quite accurate. … Continue reading
Next Tuesday, Jan. 14th, the EAC will host an summit with officials, experts, and advocates discussing the administration of the 2020 elections – and it’ll be livestreamed for those who can’t make it in person. … Continue reading
This Thursday, Congress will hear from three top experts, and three of the primary manufacturers (ES&S, Hart InterCivic, and Dominion Voting Systems), of voting systems. This is apparently the first time the top executives of all three companies have testified … Continue reading
The Hill: Lobbyists and lawyers who specialize in U.S. elections wrote to President Trump and congressional leaders on Monday, urging the confirmation of another federal election commissioner to end “an untenable situation.”The Federal Election Commission (FEC), the government’s campaign watchdog … Continue reading
WUSF reports on the implementation of programs in the courts to reduce the fines and fees of formerly incarcerated individuals, in the continuing fight over the aftermath of Amendment 4 and SB 7066. The report indicates that the only four … Continue reading
The latest issue of The Canvass leads off with a primer on some of the policy options for choosing electors (and the pending litigation on whether the choices of “faithless electors” can be punished or superseded). … Continue reading
A bill has passed the state Senate, and is working its way through the state Assembly. If it gets signed into law, that would make New Jersey the seventh state to change where incarcerated individuals are counted for representational purposes. … Continue reading
Bloomberg: An unusually large number of amicus briefs filed by friends of a charity tied to the Koch brothers have flooded the U.S. Supreme Court, urging the justices to nix a California law requiring charities to disclose their largest donors … Continue reading
I missed this a few days ago. The money quote: McSally suggested last month that outside groups should pitch in to help. “We need close air support to show up. There’s outside groups. We can’t talk to them. We can’t … Continue reading
Joe Spaulding, lead field strategist for the Voters Not Politicians Michigan independent redistricting campaign that got 440,000 signatures in 4 months without paying any signature gatherers, reveals some follicular (and data-supported) tactics for fighting diminishing returns out in canvass-land. Thread. … Continue reading
Bertrall Ross and Doug Spencer have a new paper out in the Northwestern Law Review: “Passive Voter Suppression: Campaign Mobilization and the Effective Disfranchisement of the Poor.” The abstract: A recent spate of election laws tightened registration rules, reduced convenient voting … Continue reading
Speaking of mobilization, the Washington Times has questions: The National Rifle Association, after shedding its president and top lobbyist this year amid a string of internal disputes and legal battles, finds itself at a crossroads with Republican politicos wondering whether … Continue reading
Former WWE star Rhino was a 2016 candidate for Congress … and seems to think that the rigors of campaign finance compliance may have impacted his last run in the WWE. … Continue reading
From The Guardian: An explosive leak of tens of thousands of documents from the defunct data firm Cambridge Analytica is set to expose the inner workings of the company that collapsed after the Observer revealed it had misappropriated 87 million … Continue reading
As Hansi notes, Stephanie Hofeller just dropped the first full tranch of documents on The Hofeller Files. Enjoy. … Continue reading
Ballot access is not for the faint of heart. … Continue reading
Lyz Lenz offers a wry view in The Gazette. But past the humor, her overall point is spot-on: few Americans understand how the Iowa caucuses actually work — and it looks a lot more like a town meeting than a … Continue reading
Hansi Lo Wang reports on the latest federal data-sharing agreement to capture citizenship data for the 2020 census: not on the questionnaire, but through administrative records. … Continue reading
The Savannah Morning News previews what it calls the “largest purchase of new machines in history.” … Continue reading
The Pioneer Press reviews an interesting new facet of Minnesota’s law. As in many states, voters have to declare a party preference before voting in a primary, but apparently, the voters’ choice of party is “secret, just like your actual … Continue reading
The Arizona Daily Star goes quite deep on the past, present, and future of Arizona’s Independent Redistricting Commission. … Continue reading
Reid Wilson, in The Hill, discusses the population shift to cities. For those following census issues closely, one of the impacts of the implementation of differential privacy may blunt that apparent move a bit on the margins. As a really … Continue reading
The Salt Lake Tribune runs a story about potential improper registration in Colorado City (which, despite the name, is half of a community that straddles the Utah-Arizona boder). There are real problems of unlawful behavior in Colorado City. But some … Continue reading
Algernon D’Ammassa offers an intriguing critique of the “running a race” frame of American elections, tied to both news coverage and the “Campaigns, Inc.” influence of consultants. … Continue reading
Bill Leonard weighs in on new opportunities for partisan gerrymandering after the Census. … Continue reading
Larry Wilson contrasts California’s approach to Census outreach with the approach in Texas. … Continue reading
Madelyn Sanfilippo and Yafit Lev-Aretz reflect in NiemanLab on the impact of the structure of the news media market, and innovations in the delivery of news, on coverage of the 2020 elections. The lede: Coverage of the 2020 U.S. presidential … Continue reading
Marc Elias in WaPo about his lawsuits on the ballot-order statutes giving unilateral pole position to candidates of one party. … Continue reading