Helen Air: The Montana Senate voted down a bill on Wednesday that would have restricted absentee ballot collection in Montana, with some Republicans joining Democrats who opposed the measure as creating an unnecessary barrier for mail-in voting.House Bill 406 sought to outlaw a … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
He’s right that President Biden and other Democrats have overstated the suppressive effects of the law, but he understates many other aspects of the law, which will make it harder for some people to vote. … Continue reading
AP: The nation’s next big voting battle is underway in Texas, where Republicans are trying to outlaw 24-hour polling places and drive-thru voting as options, and to make it a crime for elections officials to mail unsolicited absentee ballot applications.All … Continue reading
Electionline: While the 2020 election may have been the most secure election in our nation’s history, mis/disinformation leading up to November 3, 2020 and most certainly in the days and weeks that followed has plagued elections officials.“Election officials continue to face an … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed for TPM: As the global pandemic required election officials to drastically rethink how voting would work in 2020, philanthropic groups stepped up and contributed millions of dollars that paid for much of the changes needed to election infrastructure. … Continue reading
It’s well-known that one of the issues to keep in mind about public-financing of elections in the United States — whether traditional forms of public financing or small-donor matching funds approaches to public financing — that there is still likely … Continue reading
Looking forward to participating in another “America at a Crossroads” event. Registration required. … Continue reading
NYT: Amazon, BlackRock, Google, Warren Buffett and hundreds of other companies and executives signed on to a new statement released on Wednesday opposing “any discriminatory legislation” that would make it harder for people to vote.It was the biggest show of … Continue reading
New at 538. … Continue reading
Larry Norden and Gowri Ramachandran for Slate. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld: National disability rights organizations are urging the Senate to revise the massive House-passed election reform bill to allow an internet-based voting option for their constituents, who represent one-sixth of the national electorate, and to recognize online voting as a federally … Continue reading
Salon reports. … Continue reading
April 13, 2021 | 2:00 PM EST Join Election Law Journal for an exciting panel discussion led by Editor-in-Chief David Canon and featuring the nation’s leading experts on election administration and election law. This free event will delve into the critical issue of how … Continue reading
Ray La Raja is one of the leading political scientists who writes on campaign finance issues and political polarization. With his co-author, Zach Albert, he has a new working paper that examines small-donor funding patterns for moderate and extreme candidates … Continue reading
April 14 event: The U.S. has an outdated election system that leaves Americans unrepresented while the country faces a polarization crisis. Most countries have chosen an electoral system very different to the one used in national elections in the United … Continue reading
NYT: As corporate America continues to push back against a wave of restrictive voting laws under discussion across the United States, Big Law is joining the fight.A coalition of 60 major law firms has come together “to challenge voter suppression legislation … Continue reading
Just ran across this story on the 12 most gerrymandered House districts, according to some experts The Fulcrum surveyed in 2019. Here is the comment on this district, OH 9, from Jason Fierman, founder and managing director of The Redistrict … Continue reading
Axios: Federal regulators are probing financial reporting discrepancies stemming from an effort to funnel $75 million through state Republican parties to the national GOP effort to reelect Donald Trump, Axios has learned.Why it matters: In comments to Axios and filings with … Continue reading
[Bumping to the top] On January 21, I announced a slowdown at ELB, as I finished a book project, worked on the ALI Torts: Remedies project, and undertook my courses with 200 students this semester. I am now considering the … Continue reading
WaPo: The fast-moving drama reveals just how powerful and combustible the issue of voting has become in U.S. politics — and how fraught it appears to be for Republicans contending with the legacy of Trump’s attacks on the 2020 election. … Continue reading
President Biden’s Commission on the Supreme Court includes several academic figures with ties to the election-law field, including Guy-Uriel Charles, Michael Kang, Heather Gerken, Bertrall Ross, and me, as well as the Commission’s Co-Chair, Bob Bauer. It’s a terrific group … Continue reading
Patrick Marley for the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled Friday that state election officials do not have to quickly take people off the voter rolls when they suspect they may have moved. The 5-2 ruling means the Wisconsin Elections Commission will … Continue reading
Bloomberg Government: JetBlue Airways Corp. is defending its decision to make a PAC contribution to a lawmaker who objected to the presidential vote certification in January, saying it was resuming donations to candidates who are relevant to its business.The company … Continue reading
Disgusting: In an interview with AL.com on Wednesday morning, Merrill denied having had an affair and accused Cesaire McPherson of “stalking” and “harassing” him.McPherson declined to answer questions on the record Wednesday, instead providing a recording and a short statement.“I don’t want … Continue reading
From a WaPo oped, “I will not vote to eliminate or weaken the filibuster:” There is also bipartisan support for voting reform and many of the initiatives outlined in the For the People Act. Our ultimate goal should be to restore … Continue reading
Announcement: AALS is pleased to announce the list of speakers for the upcoming Conference on Rebuilding Democracy and the Rule of Law. Speakers This virtual, nonpartisan Conference, co-hosted by the American Bar Association and the Law School Admission Council, will take … Continue reading
Jesse Wegman column for the NYT. … Continue reading
From Politico’s Huddle: Freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the controversial MAGA firebrand, raised over $3.2 million in the first three months of this year, according to a source close to her campaign. That eye-popping haul came from over 100,000 … Continue reading
One of the most heavily contested voting-policy issues in the 2020 election, in both the courts and the political arena, was the deadline for returning absentee ballots. Now that it’s possible to get data on this issue, I put together … Continue reading
Donald Trump “incited that bloody insurrection for nothing more than selfish reasons, perpetuated by the bullshit he’d been shoveling since he lost a fair election the previous November. . . . He claimed voter fraud without any evidence, and repeated … Continue reading
What fantastic news, for HLS students and for those who will benefit from their work! … Continue reading
Here’s an article about the Election Law Clinic launching this summer at Harvard Law School, as well as a Q&A with the Director, Ruth Greenwood. This is a very exciting development that will further add to HLS’s offerings in the … Continue reading
Mississippi Free Press: Mississippi’s top election official says he is worried that the nation will suffer if more “woke” and “uninformed” college students become registered voters. Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson made that remark in a televised interview while … Continue reading
This Bloomberg piece has a lot of good data on which candidates benefit most and least from small donations. Some excerpts: Democrats in Congress are trying to increase the clout of small donors, yet a provision in their voting-rights legislation … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spellicsy for TPM. … Continue reading
WaPo: Republicans are attacking corporations over their decision to condemn the controversial Georgia voting law, part of the party’s embrace of the populism espoused by President Donald Trump even as it creates tensions with traditional allies in the business community.Senate … Continue reading
AP: When executives from Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines spoke out against Georgia’s new voting law as unduly restrictive last week, it seemed to signal a new activism springing from corporate America.But if leaders of the nation’s most prominent companies are going … Continue reading
NYT: After Mr. Trump’s equivocating response to the white nationalist violence in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017, Ken Frazier, the Black chief executive of Merck, resigned from a presidential advisory group, prompting dozens of other top executives to distance themselves from the president. … Continue reading
Aaron Blake: In the weeks after the 2016 election, we were all trying to explain how Donald Trump had, somehow, narrowly won the presidency. And one phrase that had cropped up just before the election was suddenly on the lips … Continue reading
Watch or listen here. … Continue reading
You can listen here. … Continue reading
Via email: Issue One is convening leading experts and officials tomorrow for a new speaker series designed to explore the most pressing matters facing American democracy today and how we can fix our broken political system. The first event in … Continue reading
NBC News reports. … Continue reading
Important thread. … Continue reading
Nate Cohn at NYT’s The UpShot: There’s nothing unusual about exaggeration in politics. But when it comes to the debate over voting rights, something more than exaggeration is going on.There’s a real — and bipartisan — misunderstanding about whether making … Continue reading
Ciara Torres Spelliscy at the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
Release: Today, more than 170 Civic Alliance member companies issued a Joint Statement for Protecting Voting Access:“The Right to Vote is the Cornerstone of our Democracy. We believe every American should have a voice in our democracy and that voting should be … Continue reading
NPR: Major corporations with offices in Texas are speaking out against new legislative proposals in the state that would curb expanded voter access.Corporate heavy hitters American Airlines, which is located in Fort Worth, and Dell Technologies, headquartered in Round Rock, … Continue reading
NYT analysis: Go page by page through Georgia’s new voting law, and one takeaway stands above all others: The Republican legislature and governor have made a breathtaking assertion of partisan power in elections, making absentee voting harder and creating restrictions and … Continue reading
Among the findings in this Civics Center report on the 50th anniversary of the passage of the 26th Amendment: We put enormous effort into creating it, and it has new research that I think your readers will find meaningful. Here … Continue reading