Krebs WaPo oped: In 2016, five states used DREs statewide, including Georgia and Pennsylvania, with a handful of others using DREs in multiple jurisdictions. Fortunately, by 2020, Louisiana was the last one with statewide DRE usage. Congress provided grant funding … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Just watch this: Outraged Georgia election official decries threatening rhetoric against election staff: "Mr. President…senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop! We need you to step up—and if you're going to take a … Continue reading
This has a great lineup: The UCLA Voting Rights Project, in conjunction with the UCLA Latino Politics and Policy Initiative, is facilitating a discussion of experts and practitioners to develop key provisions for this generation’s Voting Right Act that build … Continue reading
Over the weekend I wrote about the Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court decision to block a ridiculous lawsuit filed by a Republican state senator in state court which argued that the expansion of absentee voting done in 2019 by the Republican state … Continue reading
Ned’s WaPo piece concludes: At the very least, the new Congress should hold hearings on the topic. The need to improve the Electoral Count Act is made more urgent by this uncomfortable fact: Before 2020, one could think its procedures … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: President Donald Trump sued Wisconsin officials Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to reclaim a state he lost by about 20,700 votes. The Republican president filed his suit against Democratic Gov. Tony Evers a day after the governor … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump’s sustained assault on his own party in Georgia, and his repeated claims of election fraud in the state, have intensified worries among Republicans that he could be hurting their ability to win two crucial Senate runoff races … Continue reading
WaPo: Wisconsin and Arizona on Monday became the last two of six states where President Trump has contested his defeat to finalize their vote counts, dealing a fresh blow to his quest to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory as a … Continue reading
Political Wire: Cook Political Report: “There have only been three federal elections in the last 100 years decided by fewer than 20 votes… But in an insult to injury for House Democrats, who have already lost a dozen incumbents to … Continue reading
There’s an excellent new biography out of James A. Baker III, by Peter Baker (no relation) and Susan Glasser. Some call Baker the most important non-elected figure in Washington in the last half of the 20th Century. He ran five … Continue reading
VoteBeat emerged in this election as an important source of information about election administration and controversies at the state and local level. I’m really glad to see the project continuing. You can sign up here to get weekly updates on … Continue reading
Bright Line Watch: The 2020 election and its aftermath presented severe challenges to U.S. democracy. The election was conducted during a pandemic that required fundamental changes in how Americans cast and counted ballots. The incumbent president refused to commit in advance to a peaceful … Continue reading
Quinta Jurecic for The Atlantic: Donald Trump will not serve a second term. The litigation launched by his campaign and the Republican Party to overturn the election results has no chance of preventing Joe Biden from swearing the oath of … Continue reading
AP: A Pennsylvania state senator abruptly left a West Wing meeting with President Donald Trump after being informed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, a person with direct knowledge of the meeting told The Associated Press on Sunday.Republican state … Continue reading
Bryan Wildenthal for Jurist. … Continue reading
This just in: Laches FTW! https://t.co/p7OW62ZXX7— Rick Hasen (@rickhasen) November 28, 2020 Update. All Seven Justices agreed that an injunction which would disenfranchise voters would be in appropriate in this case. Per curiam order: http://pacourts.us/assets/files/setting-7862/file-10781.pdf?cb=1f7217… Saylor concurring and dissenting statement: … Continue reading
AJC: At a gun range in North Georgia, Republicans roared in applause Saturday as once-bitter rivals Doug Collins and Kelly Loeffler shook hands and then embraced over their shared determination to keep the U.S. Senate in GOP control in Jan. … Continue reading
WITF: Gov. Tom Wolf and Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar say a court order to halt the next steps Pennsylvania’s election certification process could interfere with the state seating its electors – and they’re appealing to the state Supreme Court to … Continue reading
The New Yorker’s Eliza Griswold takes a detailed look at the state legislative politics in PA over whether to conduct an audit of the presidential election. That effort appears to have fizzled out, at least for now: Since November 3rd, … Continue reading
From the cert petition: This case presents critically important issues about the conduct of federal elections that have split the lower courts. Do State courts and executiveofficials have authority to alter legislatively established election rules, despite the U.S. Constitution’s vesting … Continue reading
The following is a guest post from A Wuffle: When President Trump says he really won the election, most Biden supporters think he is delusional and a candidate for an insane asylum, as are Trump voters who, in remarkably large … Continue reading
@RuthMarcus: It’s not an easy call. Anyone who believes it to be simple is not grappling with the implications of taking the unprecedented step of lodging criminal charges against a former president. The United States is not a place, chants … Continue reading
Experts say the languishing legal campaign — which is no longer actively pushing to overturn the results in three or more states, as it would need to do to surpass Biden’s electoral votes — is less about flipping the election … Continue reading
Pam Fessler for NPR: Signs of a tattered, but resilient, voting system were on full display this week as one of the most contentious elections in U.S. history rolled toward completion.Pennsylvania, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina put the final stamp … Continue reading
World Magazine reports. … Continue reading
Seth Barrett Tillman says maybe. … Continue reading
This order comes in a bonkers lawsuit that claims all vote-by-mail in Pennsylvania was illegal, rendering the election for every office a nullity. This won’t stick as the case works its way up the food chain. Update: And now the … Continue reading
From a footnote in this letter from the Trump campaign purportedly about Rudy’s availability to offer oral argument in the 3rd Circuit (one of a series of 5 footnotes seeking to improperly argue the merits in a filing like this): … Continue reading
This is a well-done brief. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
This is a crazy situation (via How Appealing): The Republican challenger in the 45th Senatorial District that includes parts of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties has asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider its Monday order allowing undated mail-in ballots to … Continue reading
And counting. … Continue reading
Philadelphia Inquirer: Pennsylvania’s top elections official certified the state’s presidential election results on Tuesday, officially declaring Joe Biden the winner and paving the way for him to receive the state’s 20 Electoral College votes next month.Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy … Continue reading
I realize this is of interest only to election-law folks at this point, but I wanted to highlight some noteworthy aspects of the PA Supreme Court’s recent 3-1-3 election-law decision. The issues are whether absentee ballots are valid votes if … Continue reading
This election season has been a challenge to American democracy, one that was even more severe than I anticipated in Election Meltdown. That book came out in February, the day of the Iowa caucus debacle, and things declined from there. … Continue reading
David Daley Boston Globe oped. … Continue reading
Detroit Free Press: In what is likely a final blow to the effort to delay the certification of election results in Michigan, the Michigan Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal in a lawsuit filed against Detroit and Wayne County election officials.With all … Continue reading
You can read my thread on both documents, starting here. … Continue reading
NYT: Michigan’s statewide electoral board approved its presidential vote tally on Monday, resisting pressure from President Trump to delay the process and paving the way for President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. to receive the state’s 16 electoral votes.The Michigan vote … Continue reading
Philly Inquirier: Pennsylvania counties rushed Monday to certify their results from the Nov. 3 election, even as President Donald Trump and his Republican allies continued their increasingly long-shot legal effort to disrupt the cementing of the state’s final vote tally. … Continue reading
Read the plurality opinion and two partially concurring and dissenting opinions. There are not enough ballots here to matter for the Presidential race. … Continue reading
WaPo: As more Republicans joined a chorus urging President Trump to concede the election and his legal team splintered over far-fetched conspiracy theories, President Trump spent Sunday at his private golf course in Virginia.Then, just before midnight, he took to Twitter to repeat more of … Continue reading
WaPo: A group of leading GOP national security experts — including former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge — urged congressional Republicans on Monday to demand President Trump concede the election and immediately begin the transition to the incoming Biden administration.“President Trump’s refusal … Continue reading
Order. On why this claim has little chance for success, see my post last night: Breaking: In Federal Case in Pennsylvania, Trump Campaign Seeks Very Limited Emergency Remedy in Third Circuit, and Does Not Ask for a Delay in Certification. … Continue reading
Cincinnati Enquirer oped: This process has now been going on for about three weeks. The Trump campaign has taken steps to insist that only lawful votes were counted in key states, including filing numerous lawsuits. At this point, the vast … Continue reading
Syracuse.com: Central New Yorkers who voted in one of the most competitive House races in the nation still don’t know the results 18 days after the election, whether their vote counted, or exactly what’s happening in a courtroom where the … Continue reading
In a new filing in the Third Circuit (that should appear on the docket tomorrow), the Trump campaign did not ask for the appeals court to issue an immediate order delaying certification, which is what I expected. They do not … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
AP: President-elect Joe Biden was in part powered to victory in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Georgia by Black voters, many of them concentrated in cities such as Detroit, Philadelphia and Atlanta where he received a significant share of their support. … Continue reading
Wendy Weiser and Daniel Weiner Politico piece. I have something sounding similar themes publishing soon. … Continue reading