David Daley in NYT points to troubling developments with independent redistricting commissions. It’s early to reach any definitive judgments about these processes, but there are certainly disturbing signs. From Arizona in 2000 to California, Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Utah and Virginia… Continue reading

From Mother Jones, by Stephanie Mencimer, who has been covering this issue since 2018 (Hat tip to Howard Bashman at How Appealing): It’s become a predictable pattern: The Supreme Court issues a controversial ruling on a hot-button social… Continue reading

From Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said Tuesday that municipal and county clerks should get “lawyered up” as the attorney overseeing the effort sought to meet with Milwaukee County’s clerk during a partisan review of the 2020… Continue reading

From the Daily Beast. Note that the issue is potential vulnerabilities in voting machines: A cybersecurity official at the Department of Homeland Security has shown interest in seeing a copy of a report alleging “severe” vulnerabilities in Georgia’s voting… Continue reading

NYT Guest Essay: Income tax forms are notoriously complicated, but there is one simple question that is missing: “Would you like to register to vote in your home state?” With over 150 million American households filing federal income tax… Continue reading

The dynamics of internet and social-media based disinformation, misinformation, and conspiracy theorizing are similar in the election-law domain and the pandemic/vaccination domain. Although this story involves the issue of vaccinations, the structure of the argument reveals much about our current… Continue reading

From Politico: The poll released Thursday by UC San Diego’s Yankelovich Center found more than two-thirds of the electorate back some form of change, with 40 percent supporting “major” alterations — a 10-point increase compared to the findings of a… Continue reading

Here is Duke’s press release, with information on how to attend virtually. Jonathan Mattingly, referred to below, is one of the very best social scientists who works on redistricting. We worked together on behalf of Common Cause in the challenge… Continue reading

Press Release from the Election Law Journal: New Rochelle, NY, September 27, 2021 — Two surveys conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that support for vote by mail (VBM) fell sharply because Republicans became less worried about catching COVID-19. As… Continue reading

Here’s the abstract from a fascinating new NBER study by Sarah Cohodes & James J. Feigenbaum: In the United States, people with more education vote more. But, we know little about why education increases political participation or whether higher-quality… Continue reading

From CNN: In the days since the final report was released in Arizona last week, Trump and his supporters have ignored its topline result. Instead, they have insisted the review backed up various conspiracy theories they have spent months… Continue reading

The Washington Post has this story: Twitter is testing a host of new features the social network says will boost user safety on the platform, but free speech advocates warn that the tools could be easily exploited by government officials… Continue reading

From the Washington Post: The legislation permanently extends vote-by-mail provisions enacted in California during the coronavirus pandemic. Those provisions were in place during the 2020 election as well as during this month’s unsuccessful campaign to recall Newsom.Even though ballots… Continue reading

From the AP: Days before Germany’s federal elections, Facebook took what it called an unprecedented step: the removal of a series of accounts that worked together to spread COVID-19 misinformation and encourage violent responses to COVID restrictions.The crackdown, announced Sept.… Continue reading