AP: Thousands of absentee ballots get rejected in every presidential election. This year, that problem could be much worse and potentially pivotal in hotly contested battleground states.With the coronavirus creating a surge in mail-in balloting and postal delays reported across … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Bloomberg Government reports. … Continue reading
And here’s the subtitle from this must-read piece in The Atlantic from Russell Berman: “Experts now say the health risk of casting an in-person ballot is relatively low. Will Democrats tell their voters that?” I’m thrilled to see this piece. … Continue reading
This looks good: Now, before we’re in the thick of November’s election fever, is an excellent time to pause and reflect on this year’s primary season. What did we learn from the states, starting from Iowa’s caucuses in February all … Continue reading
[Bumping to the top] Looking forward to this (free registration required): This webinar brings together experts in elections and election law to consider whether the United States is prepared to run a fair, safe, and legitimate election process in the … Continue reading
AP: The tensions coursing through the United States over racism and policing are likely targets for adversaries seeking to influence the November election, lawmakers and experts warn — and there are signs that Russia is again seeking to exploit the … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld reports. … Continue reading
Margaret Sullivan WaPo column. … Continue reading
Lots in here from Ben Jacobs, including a mostly Republican legal and campaign team behind the West campaign. … Continue reading
This WSJ piece makes several important points about the absentee voting process. In particular, Rove strongly endorses a crucial policy change that should be made now, particularly in six battleground states: permit election officials to start the processing of verifying … Continue reading
BuzzFeed: Hours before Trump’s post, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced new policies intended to protect the upcoming US election from disruption. Zuckerberg said the company had expanded its voter suppression policy to forbid content containing explicit and “implicit misrepresentations about … Continue reading
Syraucuse.com: A judge’s ruling Friday blocked Dana Balter from gaining a third-party ballot line in her campaign for Congress against Rep. John Katko and could keep a candidate in the race who has no interest in running.The Working Families Party had given its nomination … Continue reading
This looks terrific: Democracy in the Balance INTRODUCTION TO SPECIAL ISSUEIn flux and under threatBY TAGE RAI, BRAD WIBLESCIENCE04 SEP 2020 : 1174-1175Full Text PDFPOLICY FORUMRacial authoritarianism in U.S. democracyBY VESLA M. WEAVER, GWEN PROWSESCIENCE04 SEP 2020 : 1176-1178One segment of the population experiences different rules and … Continue reading
WaPo: A chorus of election officials, legal analysts and social media companies on Thursday rushed to condemn and counter President Trump’s suggestion this week that his supporters attempt to vote more than once, warning that doing so could constitute a … Continue reading
The Hill: Speaking to a crowd during a campaign stop in Latrobe, Pa., Trump expanded on remarks that caused a firestorm on Wednesday, when he urged supporters to vote by mail and then attempt to vote in person.The president reiterated … Continue reading
Latest episode of the Free & Fair with Franita and Foley podcast. … Continue reading
Troubling reports in the Detroit News: Election workers in Detroit’s primary improperly altered some votes and counted thousands of absentee ballots without checks against voter lists, say GOP poll challengers who contend Michigan’s largest city isn’t ready for November’s election.Detroit, … Continue reading
Axios: Big Tech is holding dry runs to game out Election Day chaos scenarios, key participants tell Axios.Axios has learned that Facebook, Google, Twitter and Reddit are holding regular meetings with one another, with federal law enforcement — and with intelligence … Continue reading
Here’s the WaPo writeup of the CNN appearance: Attorney General William P. Barr asserted Wednesday that mass mail-in voting was ripe for potential fraud and that it would be “reckless and dangerous” to convert to such a system in such … Continue reading
Release. … Continue reading
Wendy Weiser and Jennifer Weiss-Wolf for CNN. … Continue reading
PPIC Sept. 10 event. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld reports. … Continue reading
Read the complaint. … Continue reading
Read the complaint. … Continue reading
Baltimore Sun: An audit of U.S. Postal Service performance during this year’s primary election season has found 68,000 pieces of political mail sat untouched at a Baltimore mail processing facility for five days ahead of the June 2 primary.Baltimore was … Continue reading
Analysis from The Economist. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
Harvard Law Review blog post from Ned: The point of this analysis is not to be overly alarmist. The risk of mailed ballots being destroyed so that they cannot be counted is, presumably, extremely low. Nevertheless, the point is to … Continue reading
Tierney Sneed: The Pennsylvania Supreme Court said Tuesday that it will hear a lawsuit brought by Democrats seeking to head-off a dispute Republicans have raised about the use of dropboxes for mail ballots and other aspects of how absentee voting … Continue reading
Marshall Cohen for CNN. … Continue reading
Politifact: To minimize the risk of coronavirus spreading, many states (though not all) have eased the process of mail voting, often by eliminating the need for an “excuse” to vote by mail. A few states are going so far as … Continue reading
538: But even before COVID-19, the wait time for citizenship applications had hit new highs under the Trump administration. According to USCIS numbers, the naturalization process averaged 8.8 months in 2020, compared with 5.6 months in 2016 and a peak of 10.3 months … Continue reading
Release: If 2020 had been a typical election year, a County Clerk would have asked a team of CTCL staff to huddle up in a rural county courthouse to help the Clerk build a new election website. A state association … Continue reading
The Houston Chronicle reports. … Continue reading
Dexter Filkins in the New Yorker. … Continue reading
Pete Williams of NBC News reports. … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
Wired reports. … Continue reading
Great lineup: The 2020 presidential election faces unprecedented challenges, from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, threats of foreign interference, and social unrest, to questions about the United States Postal Service’s resources and ability to handle unprecedented volume of ballots by mail. … Continue reading
WaPo: Twitter flagged a video shared by the second-ranking House Republican on Saturday as “manipulated,” as it spliced quotes together from an activist who speaks through computer voice assistance, making it sound as though he’d convinced Joe Biden to defund police departments.“I … Continue reading
NYT: The decision by the nation’s top intelligence official to halt classified, in-person briefings to Congress about foreign interference in a presidential election that is just nine weeks away exposes the fundamental tension about who needs to know this information: just the … Continue reading
Ned Foley: President Trump and Attorney General Barr can continue to attack the use of vote-by-mail ballots for November’s election, but the rules were largely set even before the pandemic struck, and they are unlikely to change significantly before voting … Continue reading
NPR reports. … Continue reading
Protocol: A coalition of voting rights and watchdog groups is suing the Trump administration over its recent executive order, which aims to curb liability protections for tech platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. They argue that the order was retaliatory, … Continue reading
Sept. 2 webinar: In August 2020, the American Bar Association passed updated Election Administration Guidelines that we encourage election officials to adopt. The panelists will discuss several of the guidelines, including voting during emergencies, absentee ballots, and voter purging. CART … Continue reading
ABC News: ABC News reached out to elections authorities in all 50 states for their assessment of Trump’s claims. Of the nearly 30 secretaries of state and elections board offices who provided on-the-record responses in July none expressed doubts in … Continue reading
Vice News: Kanye West’s presidential campaign continues to push to get him on the ballot in states across the country. But it’s now a full week late with its campaign finance filings, a move that’s allowing the shadowy organization to … Continue reading
Detroit Free Press: In November, Detroit voters are expected to cast absentee ballots in droves, but some voting advocates worry that the city hasn’t done enough to get ready for the onslaught.Unlike most jurisdictions in Michigan that have been using … Continue reading