Here is the abstract for a forthcoming article of mine in the Yale Law Journal on vote denial cases brought under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act: The last decade has seen the largest wave of franchise restrictions since the dark … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Wichita Eagle: Secretary of State Kris Kobach won the Republican nomination for Kansas governor Tuesday after Gov. Jeff Colyer conceded following a week of stunning twists in the razor-thin contest. The concession came after Kobach widened his lead to more … Continue reading
Release: The Brennan Center and Democracy North Carolina today filed a friend-of-the-court brief to stop North Carolina’s legislature from using misleading language on two ballot initiatives to amend the state constitution. The proposals going before voters this fall would substantially … Continue reading
It will be in Philly. This is a very important case for 2020. … Continue reading
Carol Anderson has written this NYT oped: That’s why Mr. Kemp has worked diligently to fortify the Republicans’ crumbling bulwark since he became secretary of state in 2010. He has begun investigations into organizations that registered nearly 200,000 new Asian-American and African-American … Continue reading
This is such great news for our awesome faculty! We are just beginning our 10 year anniversary as a law school. Here is the Sisk study. A snippet: Among schools in or close to the top ten for Scholarly Impact, … Continue reading
Charleston Gazette-Mail: Terry Shaffer was told he signed a petition to keep Don Blankenship off the ballot for U.S. Senate. In truth, his signature was used for the opposite, and he’s not the only one. Of the roughly 3,000 Kanawha … Continue reading
KC Star: Assistant Secretary of State Eric Rucker will take over Kobach’s duties and will serve on the State Board of Canvassers, which will certify the final election results. Rucker donated $1,000 to Kobach’s campaign last fall, according to campaign … Continue reading
Part I Part II … Continue reading
The court held the argument was foreclosed by a recent published 6th Circuit decision. … Continue reading
Ballot Access News has the details and the brief. … Continue reading
Fresno Bee: Several residents within California’s 22nd Congressional District filed a petition in Sacramento Superior Court on Thursday morning, asking the court to remove “farmer” from Rep. Devin Nunes’ description on California ballots…. “I don’t believe (Nunes) has had any … Continue reading
WBUR: Massachusetts on Thursday became the 14th state in the country to adopt an automatic voter registration system, according to Secretary of State William Galvin and advocates who backed the measure. Galvin announced that Gov. Charlie Baker signed into law … Continue reading
Sam Levine for HuffPo: One morning in June last year, just before 3 a.m., Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach emailed White House officials with an editing suggestion for a draft letter they were preparing on behalf of President Donald Trump’s … Continue reading
Cincinnati Enquirer: The tight race between Democrat Danny O’Connor and Republican Troy Balderson just got tighter. Election officials in Franklin County found 588 previously uncounted votes in a Columbus suburb. The result: O’Connor had a net gain of 190 votes, … Continue reading
https://xkcd.com/ … Continue reading
Josh Douglas for CNN Opinion. … Continue reading
News and Observer: Gov. Roy Cooper sued the state elections board and Republican legislative leaders over two constitutional amendments planned for the fall ballot. Rather than fighting Cooper, the state lawyer representing the elections board has jumped in on Cooper’s … Continue reading
McClatchy: Georgia election officials got a friendly warning in August 2016 that their electronic voting system could be easily breached. But less than a month before the November election, a state cybersecurity official fretted that “critical vulnerabilities” persisted, internal emails … Continue reading
Republican members of the board opposed the student voting site. … Continue reading
NYT: The Kansas Republican primary for governor and Ohio’s high-stakes special election for Congress both remained too close to call on Wednesday morning, with razor-thin margins separating the candidates in each race. With all precincts reporting in Kansas shortly before … Continue reading
Last chance to recharge my batteries before the semester begins. Back with you all Wednesday! … Continue reading
NYT: Keith Sellars and his daughters were driving home from dinner at a Mexican restaurant last December when he was pulled over for running a red light. The officer ran a background check and came back with bad news for … Continue reading
Paul Waldman for WaPo. … Continue reading
HuffPost: Cook County jail is one of the largest jails in the country. It’s had its share of civil rights violations, though in recent years the jail has undergone major changes, with the reduction of on-site violence being one major … Continue reading
Analysis at NYT’s The Upshot. … Continue reading
Court ruling (via Jessica Huseman). … Continue reading
Here. … Continue reading
HuffPo: North Carolina lawmakers rushed back to the state capital with less than 24 hours notice last week because Republicans called for a special session to block voters from receiving more information about a wide range of proposed changes to … Continue reading
WaPo: The right wing has launched an attack on representation Balkinization: Count All the People … Continue reading
Courthouse New Service reports. … Continue reading
Daily Beast: The Russian intelligence agency behind the 2016 election cyberattacks targeted Sen. Claire McCaskill as she began her 2018 re-election campaign in earnest, a Daily Beast forensic analysis reveals. That makes the Missouri Democrat the first identified target of the Kremlin’s … Continue reading
Eliza Newlin Carney for TAP. … Continue reading
IndyStar: The Marion County Election Board announced Wednesday the addition of six early voting sites ahead of the general election. The announcement comes just months after U.S. District Judge Sarah Evans Barker called for at least two satellite voting locations to be added to Marion County … Continue reading
The SF Chronicle reports. … Continue reading
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: State Rep. Tom Weatherston said Wednesday his aide had acknowledged posting what Weatherston has dubbed a “racist tweet” under the lawmaker’s name and he is reviewing whether to discipline him. The Caledonia Republican said his aide, Keith Best, had … Continue reading
The ACLU of Northern California has issued this press release. … Continue reading
With the release of a mountain of emails and documents in discovery over the citizenship question on the census, expect to see a lot more like this: https://twitter.com/JesseLehrich/status/1021621371200331777 Ross claimed the citizenship question was added to the #Census due to … Continue reading
Concerns from House rules chair @RepDavidRLewis over how wording will be decided for proposed amendments on the constitution. Copy of letter he sent @NCHouseSpeaker asking to be called back in to session for legislature to do wording themselves. #ncpol #ncga … Continue reading
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. … Continue reading
Cronkite News reports. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
IndyStar: Jeff Gleason of Fort Wayne was surprised when he received a text Tuesday encouraging him to call Sen. Joe Donnelly in support of President Trump’s newly announced Supreme Court nominee. The text seemed odd because Gleason, who works for … Continue reading
Via email: On the heels of new indictments of Russians for hacking the 2016 election, former cybersecurity officials are warning that the nation’s “foundation for fair and just elections” — the Census — could be ripe for hacking. Despite repeated calls … Continue reading
Vik Amar for Justia: Among the legal stumbling blocks currently being talked about is the California Constitution’s vexing distinction that I analyzed in detail (in the two postings linked above) between so-called “amendments” to and “revisions” of the document. I continue to … Continue reading
As Dan mentioned, the League of Women Voters and Common Cause each filed a brief yesterday explaining how Gill v. Whitford affects the North Carolina partisan gerrymandering case. I wanted to flag the litigants’ subtly different (but complementary) ways of establishing standing. The … Continue reading
Here are the Appellants’, Appellees’, and Reply briefs in Hand v. Scott, to be argued before the Eleventh Circuit July 25. The district court concluded that Florida’s scheme violated the First Amendment by giving officials unfettered discretion over whether felons would … Continue reading