I have written this piece for Slate. It begins: Attorney General William Barr’s decision to release a summary of the twin Robert Mueller conclusions in the special prosecutor’s still-secret report—no collusion between the Russian government and the Trump campaign and Mueller’s punt … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
What will happen in the 2020 redistricting cycle if the Supreme Court follows the advice of the defendants in the Maryland and North Carolina cases and holds that partisan gerrymandering claims are nonjusticiable? Some may think that, in that event, … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
A nice analysis by FiveThirtyEight using the partisan bias metric and covering North Carolina’s congressional plan (extremely skewed in Republicans’ favor), the court-drawn remedial plan in Pennsylvania (almost perfectly neutral), and all congressional plans currently in effect (exhibiting a significant … Continue reading
NYT: The academic who helped Cambridge Analytica vacuum up private information from tens of millions of Facebook profiles sued the social media giant on Friday, arguing that the company defamed him when it claimed he had lied about how the … Continue reading
Carol Anderson NYT oped. … Continue reading
WaPo: The FBI participated in a May surveillance operation of a GOP political operative at the center of an election fraud investigation in North Carolina, newly released court documents show, raising fresh questions about how long it has taken federal … Continue reading
Amicus brief. … Continue reading
Ned writes: The two pending cases to be argued March 26 — Rucho v. Common Cause and Lamone v. Benisek, the first from North Carolina and the second from Maryland — attack congressional gerrymanders on multiple grounds: primarily, the First Amendment; and secondarily, Equal Protection and Article … Continue reading
HuffPost reports. … Continue reading
This coming from someone who has done more to make North Carolina a partisan battleground is too, too rich: One of the state’s top Republican politicians, Senate leader Phil Berger, criticized Cooper for not appointing a Republican to the court … Continue reading
This would add a whole other layer of complexity to the issue, raising constitutional questions that the parties were not briefing for the New York case.Then again, if the Court is going to have to address these issues on an … Continue reading
Thanks to Dan and Justin for guest blogging while I was on my spring break week. I finished the first draft of a major writing project (more on that at a later date) and had some other things to deal … Continue reading
One state, three governors, three legislatures. … Continue reading
US News & World Report notes the struggle to boost electoral participation beyond the fight over administrative barriers. … Continue reading
As Dan mentioned, I’ll be the one drinking from the fire hose through the 9th (with, as always, renewed appreciation for how Rick manages to do this every single day). Please send tidbits (and complaints) to me. … Continue reading
Thanks to Rick for inviting me to sit in for him during his absence. Justin Levitt will be guest-blogging through March 9. … Continue reading
NYT: …. Unlike the National Rifle Association, the Human Rights Campaign and other powerful grass-roots advocacy organizations, Aipac, which is bipartisan, does not endorse or raise money for candidates. But its members do, with the organization’s strong encouragement. Mr. Fiske’s … Continue reading
The Oregonian: As the state’s top elections official, she helped bring about a fair election when the Rajneeshees tried in 1984 to bus in homeless people to hijack a local Wasco County election, a stance for which she gained national … Continue reading
Please send any news tips and comments their way. Thanks! … Continue reading
A new column of mine in Slate, based on my new paper with Chris Warshaw. In a nutshell, we found that Kagan was right. A party disadvantaged by gerrymandering fails to contest more districts. The candidates it does nominate have weaker credentials. … Continue reading
The Intercept: By the end of the month, hearings were held on Capitol Hill. One of the witnesses before the House Judiciary Committee hearings was Hans von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commission member who is now a senior legal fellow … Continue reading
Thread on Twitter starts here: We don't know exactly what Cohen will produce tomorrow in terms of documents, but if the only documents produced prove that the Trump Org paid Cohen with Trump's knowledge for hush money payments to Stormy … Continue reading
The GA Secretary of State is trying to ram through a bill to force GA voters to continue to vote on electronic voting machines which will cost over 3x more than using hand-marked paper ballots, a boondoggle to the vendor. … Continue reading
There is still a chance Harris could face criminal liability in the first election.There's also now the issue of the law passed in the #ncga lame duck subjecting #nc09 to a new primary. Will Democrats now challenge? https://t.co/7qWGQELjQ8— Rick Hasen … Continue reading
I’ve got some personal and writing commitments that will keep me mostly off the blog at the beginning of March. Dan Tokaji and then Justin Levitt will be steering the ELB ship from March 1-9. If there’s any key breaking … Continue reading
Watch: Trump addresses the new election in North Carolina…sort of pic.twitter.com/pXDCfVhnrU— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) February 22, 2019 … Continue reading
https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1099031834174861313 … Continue reading
Texas Tribune: For the second time, the Senate Nominations Committee met this week to approve the governor’s appointees — and for the second time, the Republican-dominated committee did not call a vote on David Whitley, the governor’s embattled pick for … Continue reading
News & Observer: After a stunning reversal by Republican Mark Harris, North Carolina election officials Thursday unanimously ordered a new election in the 9th Congressional District.Their vote came after four days of testimony about what election officials called “a coordinated, … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Jon Eguia: In a previous post I introduced a measure of partisan advantage in redistricting. This measure compares the election outcome to a benchmark seat distribution that is not directly influenced by redistricting. More … Continue reading
Well the drama continues: In a startling statement, Republican candidate Mark Harris Thursday called for a new election in the 9th Congressional District “to restore the confidence of voters.”Harris’ statement came after a break in a hearing after he had … Continue reading
Mark Harris says "my 27-year-old son" is "a little judgmental and has a little taste of arrogance and some other things. And I'm very proud of him and and love him with all my heart." #nc09— Amy Gardner (@AmyEGardner) February … Continue reading
Matt Dunlap: An election may have been stolen in North Carolina. While evidence continues to be gathered, officials are investigating whether a paid Republican campaign contractor collected mail-in ballots from likely Democratic voters and never turned them in, possibly changing the result of the … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from Jon Eguia: I propose a measure of partisan advantage in redistricting. A distinctive feature of this measure is that it captures only the partisan advantage that is due to the redistricting map in … Continue reading
https://twitter.com/MarilynRMarks1/status/1097046640312094720 … Continue reading
AP: An internal team at the Census Bureau found that basic personal information collected from more than 100 million Americans during the 2010 head count could be reconstructed from obscured data, but with lots of mistakes, a top agency official … Continue reading
The federal court redrawing portions of Virginia’s House of Delegates map recently announced the new configuration of the district lines. PlanScore evaluated both the old plan and the new one. As you can see below, the improvement is dramatic. The … Continue reading
Joe Bruno, who is a must-follow for the NC09 story, has the details. … Continue reading
Lyle Denniston for Constitution Daily. … Continue reading
Seattle Times: Seattle is mailing out “democracy vouchers” for residents to donate to candidates in this year’s hotly contested City Council elections.Officials intend to send the vouchers to 463,000 residents Tuesday, weather permitting.All seven of the council’s district seats are up for grabs … Continue reading
From the NY brief: Respondents recognize, however, that the resolution of this dispute over the Secretary’s decision to add a citizenship question to the decennial census has consequences for the Nation that may lead this Court to conclude that its … Continue reading
Politifact analysis. … Continue reading
In yesterday’s post, I described the data and methods that Chris Warshaw and I use in a new paper on the effects of partisan gerrymandering on parties’ associational activities. Today I’ll discuss our findings and their implications. In a nutshell, … Continue reading
In her concurring opinion in Whitford, Justice Kagan suggested that partisan gerrymandering might be unconstitutional not just because it dilutes the votes of a party’s supporters but also because it burdens their associational rights. “Members of the ‘disfavored party’ in … Continue reading
Trump says that some of America's greatest accomplishments, including the "abolition of civil rights," have been led by people of faith. Via Fox pic.twitter.com/Gqa8e74jLz— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 7, 2019 … Continue reading
Howard has the details. … Continue reading
Tampa Bay Times: Whether they meant to or not, more than 83,000 Florida voters didn’t cast a valid vote for governor, according to a new report prepared by state officials.The combined total of invalid ballots outnumbered Republican Ron DeSantis’s margin … Continue reading
Daily Kos: Democratic Attorney General Jim Hood is running for governor of Mississippi this year, and as we’ve noted before, a Jim Crow-era law means that Hood could lose even if he wins the most votes on Election Day. That’s because the … Continue reading
Bridge MI: New evidence submitted on the eve of a landmark trial challenging Michigan’s GOP-drawn legislative districts appears to strengthen the claim the maps were drawn in 2011 for partisan, Republican gain.Emails and other documents filed over the weekend in … Continue reading