For those of us who believe strong political parties, at both the national and state level, are important for a strong democratic system of politics and governance, this story from Politico identifies a noteworthy development: Once ignored, underfunded and often … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
From about 1/2 hour ago, the same position I flagged earlier: Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump 33m Glad I was able to get the very dishonest LameStream Media to finally start talking about the RISKS to our Democracy from dangerous Universal … Continue reading
That appears to be the conclusion of this new paper by Ed Stiglitz and Aviv Caspi entitled “Observability and Reasoned Discourse: Evidence from the U.S. Senate”. Here’s the abstract: Many private and public institutions depend on reasoned discourse to reach … Continue reading
With all the attention focused on his “delay the election” tweet, I want to highlight another aspect of this morning’s tweets about voting. The President begins by praising absentee voting: “With Universal Mail-in Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good) … Continue reading
If you think it’s only American media that’s been turned upside down by a tweet like this, I’m already doing interviews on the subject with German and Spanish television, and have turned down requests from still other countries. I’m … Continue reading
From Axios: FBI Director Christopher Wray and other intelligence community officials warned about China’s increased capability to interfere in U.S. elections in separate classified hearings with the Senate Intelligence Committee this week, two sources familiar with the hearings tell Axios. … Continue reading
Troubling story from Politico about congressional oversight of potential foreign influence over the election: The group of congressional leaders responsible for reviewing the nation’s most closely held secrets is engaged in an unusual and bitter partisan fight over how much … Continue reading
In an interview on Fox News two nights ago, Vice President Pence endorsed absentee voting for this fall and drew a distinction between that and full vote by mail. Below is the relevant portion from a transcript of that interview. … Continue reading
From the Washington Post: At an often contentious emergency hearing Wednesday, Democratic lawmakers pressed the director of the Census Bureau on how he will follow last week’s presidential directive to change the way the decennial census is used for congressional … Continue reading
From the WSJ, a troubling report, but negotiations are still ongoing: “We’ve already appropriated an awful lot of money for election assistance,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Monday. “What we’re not going to do is federalize the American election … Continue reading
Washington Post, on a new report from Maplight: Daniel G. Newman, president and co-founder of MapLight, told me: “We are playing with fire as a nation by failing to address the gaps and ambiguities in our election rules that could … Continue reading
Hopefully some of these funds will enable the Postal Service to ramp up for managing the flood of absentee ballots this fall. … Continue reading
The organization Issue One has issued this report. “Secretive shell companies provide ideal cover for foreigners wishing to evade the existing prohibition on their involvement in U.S. elections,” said Issue One Founder and CEO Nick Penniman. “The Justice Department says … Continue reading
Bangor Daily News: Those making a fourth legal challenge in just over two years to Maine’s ranked-choice voting system are using a new lens of equity, but they will have to convince a federal judge that fundamentals have shifted since … Continue reading
In this deep dive analyzing the absentee ballot process in WI’s April 7th primary, the Green Bay Press Gazette (hat tip to local media) concludes that more than 23,000 absentee ballots were rejected in that primary. The story points out … Continue reading
This could be an important option for the fall, for jurisdictions that can manage to do this: Voters don’t have to leave their vehicles to vote in the primary election in Eau Claire. City officials have set up drive-thru service … Continue reading
From the Detroit Free Press: Do you have a completed absentee ballot, but haven’t put it in the mail yet? You need to act immediately — and probably avoid the mailbox altogether — if you want to ensure your vote … Continue reading
I’m going to try to take a few days away from the news and social media, and I’m happy to say that Rick Pildes will be guest blogging. Please direct any queries and tips to him. Thanks to Rick for … Continue reading
AP: Republicans once dominated voting by mail in Florida. But that was before President Donald Trump got involved.After months of hearing Trump denigrate mail-in balloting, Republicans in the critical battleground state now find themselves far behind Democrats in the perennial … Continue reading
Common Cause: The Senate proposal also fails to provide any additional funding for cash-strapped state and local election officials who exhausted their budgets holding primary elections during a public health crisis. The right to vote and vote safely should be … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Listen here: How can we continue the fight of civil rights leader John Lewis, and the many who came before him, in the context of free and fair elections? Election scholars Ned Foley (OSU Moritz College of Law) and Franita … Continue reading
KPIX reports. … Continue reading
Ever since Maine voters approved the use of ranked-choice voting, the system has been under legal attack. Here’s a story about the latest lawsuit. The Fulcrum: The latest suit argues that allowing ranked-choice voting in this fall would deny many … Continue reading
NBC News reports. … Continue reading
Yesterday I summarized my forthcoming work with Jowei Chen on the implications of race-blind redistricting for minority representation. Today I’ll talk about our partisan representation findings: how the major parties would be affected if district lines were drawn on a … Continue reading
NBC News: In mid-2019, researchers at Facebook began studying a new set of rules proposed for the automated system that Instagram uses to remove accounts for bullying and other infractions.What they found was alarming. Users on the Facebook-owned Instagram in … Continue reading
Ben Jacobs for Gen. … Continue reading
Pam Fessler for NPR. … Continue reading
Garrett Graff deep dive for Politico. … Continue reading
NBC News reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Joe Biden on Thursday night warned donors that President Trump will try to “indirectly steal” the 2020 election by making a case against mail-in ballots, a voting method that many are expected to use to avoid exposure to the coronavirus during November’s … Continue reading
Release: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit today declined to halt implementation of a Federal District Court decision, in People Not Politicians Oregon v. Clarno, giving redistricting reform advocates more time to gather signatures with a lower signature threshold to place Initiative Petition … Continue reading
I linked yesterday to my forthcoming article with Jowei Chen on the implications of race-blind redistricting. In this post, I thought I’d provide some additional detail about our methods and findings. First, to conduct a non-racial line-drawing process, we used … Continue reading
In this short piece, Derek Mueller makes an important point: the Supreme Court did not hold, in Bush v. Gore, that the Electoral Count Act mandates that all state counting or recounting processes in the presidential election must end by … Continue reading
Gretchen Helmke, Mary Kroeger, and Jack Paine have posted this new draft paper. Here is the abstract: If politicians and their political parties generally want to stay in power, why would they ever forgo using anti-democratic tactics to win elections? … Continue reading
Reuters reports. … Continue reading
Jeff Toobin for The New Yorker. … Continue reading
TPM: Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Wednesday spelled out the approach the Senate will likely take in providing additional funding for election officials in the next round of pandemic legislation.“I am very open to having that discussion about additional money … Continue reading
Registration link Wednesday, July 29, 2020 10:00 – 11:30 AM | Hacking Democracy: Elections and Beyond Sponsored by: ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, ABA Standing Committee on Law and National SecurityCosponsored by: Division for Public Education Democracy is not inevitable. Right … Continue reading
Jowei Chen and I just posted this article. It’s forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, and its abstract is below: A critical issue in any racial vote dilution case is the proportionality (or lack thereof) of a minority group’s representation: … Continue reading
The Detroit News reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: President Trump’s campaign, the Republican Party and two affiliated committees have spent more than $983 million since 2017, a record-breaking sum toward a reelection effort at this point in the presidential campaign, new filings show.The Trump campaign alone has … Continue reading
07.21.20-Brasher-RecusalDownload … Continue reading
SF Chronicle: Californians’ handwriting is getting worse and it’s causing increasing problems for election officials.More than 14,000 mail ballots were rejected in the March 3 primary because the signature on the vote-by-mail envelope didn’t match the one on the voter … Continue reading
Good news from Alabama: Voters concerned about the COVID-19 outbreak will be able to vote absentee in the August 25 municipal elections and the November general election. The move does not affect any other of Alabama’s strict absentee voting requirements, but … Continue reading
Politico: Democratic leaders are asking the FBI for an urgent briefing arising out of concern that members of Congress are being targeted by a foreign operation intended to influence the 2020 presidential election, according to a letter they released publicly on Monday.Among … Continue reading
Common Cause: A report released today by the University of Southern California (USC), the University of Minnesota and the University of Houston researchers makes the provocative recommendation that the California State Legislature should no longer have the power to strike finalists from the pool … Continue reading
Stateline reports. … Continue reading