A Happy New Year to All
May your ’20s be even better than you allow yourself to imagine.
All posts by Justin Levitt
“John Lewis and the need to preserve history”
Brandon Tensley offers
thoughts on the occasion of Rep. John Lewis’s announcement
of his fight against pancreatic cancer – the most recent courageous fight of an
iconic career.
(We know that animal Twitter is heartwarming, sure. But if you’re… Continue reading
New apportionment estimates
Election
Data Services and Polidata have
their new apportionment calculations up, based on the latest year-end Census
estimates – they estimate the congressional seats apportioned to each state if
the Census count follows past trends … and if the count… Continue reading
“’Your Body Being Used’: Where Prisoners Who Can’t Vote Fill Voting Districts”
Hansi Lo Wang with an NPR report on prison
gerrymandering.
I’ve tried
to convince the Census Bureau to change the way it counts people who are
incarcerated, but no national change is coming this decade. States and localities are… Continue reading
“Census Bureau Finds Latinos, Asians Sensitive to Now-Blocked Citizenship Question”
Hansi also
covers the Census Bureau’s final
report on its 2019 test of placing a citizenship question on the decennial
enumeration. (That test, of course, was
conducted after Secretary Ross had already decided to include the question.)
The final report… Continue reading
“37 quotes that defined American politics in 2019”
I have to assume that quote #30 – from the SCOTUS decision on the census’s citizenship question – is just a shameless attempt to get a retweet from @LeahLitman. (Hi, Leah!)
“Feds: No Evidence Hackers Disrupted North Carolina Voting”
With lots of election security concerns in the air, a
problem in 2016 with electronic pollbooks in Durham County generated a fair
amount of attention. At the time, it
didn’t look like a malicious incursion, but that didn’t stop speculation,… Continue reading
Purges and the 2020 election
Sam Levine, from his new post at the Guardian, with a report.
“What Campaign Finance Enforcement Could Look Like in 2020”
Campaigns & Elections magazine looks to the year ahead.
“Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission applications mailed out”
Michigan’s new independent commission law requires the Secretary of State to send hundreds of thousands of applications to randomly selected citizens … and the applications are now in the mail.
“Final Pennsylvania county OKs new paper-trail voting system”
Dauphin County is the last over the line to purchase a new voting system with a paper trail, right at the deadline.
“Beauty on the Ballot: Candidates’ Attractiveness Plays Role in Voters’ Decisions, Especially in U.S.”
A study by Sebastian Jäckle et al. finds an advantage up to 11% for congressional candidates based on appearance alone. The study itself – titled “A Catwalk to Congress” – is here.
“Federal Judge Won’t Undo Georgia Voter Purge”
On Friday, the federal court rejected a preliminary injunction seeking to reinstate about 98,000 registration entries who had not responded to notices or contacted election officials since January 1, 2012 – declining (under Pennhurst) to issue a federal order enforcing… Continue reading
While in Wisconsin, a purge sits temporarily on hold…
The lede from the Milwaukee
Journal-Sentinel:
“The Wisconsin Elections Commission deadlocked Monday over whether to remove the voter registrations of more than 200,000 people in response to a judge’s order. The commission’s inability to reach a consensus means the… Continue reading