NJ Spotlight: About one in every 10 people who mailed in ballots in last month’s special elections had their votes rejected, which could forebode the potential disenfranchisement of tens of thousands of New Jerseyans in next month’s primaries.An NJ Spotlight … Continue reading
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Brent Ferguson has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Washington Law Review). Here is the abstract: A substantial portion of constitutional law rests on untested factual predictions made by the Supreme Court. Such forecasts have played a large role in … Continue reading
Release: Today, in a decision that will protect the health and right to vote of medically vulnerable Alabamians, a federal court waived onerous absentee ballot requirements in at least Jefferson, Mobile, and Lee Counties – including the requirement that voters have their … Continue reading
From the brief authored by the Consovoy firm: “COVID-19 cannot make an otherwise constitutional law unconstitutional.A global virus is not state action. Even if it were, the State’s interest in maintaining the integrity of elections does not go away during … Continue reading
Order here. There’s also an expedited briefing schedule. … Continue reading
AJC reports. … Continue reading
NYT: First the Covid-19 pandemic upended how people vote, forcing a huge shift to mailed-in ballots in primary elections nationwide. Now it is taking aim at who can vote — the millions of people who would ordinarily register or update … Continue reading
MinnPost reports. … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
I have posted this draft on SSRN, which takes into account recent troubling developments in COVID-related voting cases in the Fifth Circuit, Sixth Circuit, and Texas Supreme Court. Here is the revised abstract: The COVID-19 global pandemic, which already has … Continue reading
Sue Halpern in The New Yorker. … Continue reading
SacBee reports. The order, which lasts only for two weeks pending further hearing, suggests that the governor exceeded legislative powers in ordering that every California voter be sent a ballot. I expect that the CA Legislature will act to authorize … Continue reading
New report at the Columbia Journalism Review, which quotes from our report, Fair Elections During a Crisis. … Continue reading
Upcoming events from the Civics Center and Lawyers’ Committee. … Continue reading
NYT: As Georgia elections officials prepared to roll out an over $100 million high-tech voting system last year, good-government groups, a federal judge and election-security experts warned of its perils. The new system, they argued, was too convoluted, too expensive, … Continue reading
This Friday, June 12th, I’ll be participating on this panel on COVID-19 and the 2020 Elections at the National Federalist Society Convention. The Federalist Society does a good job of ensuring ideological diversity on these panels. The entire conference is … Continue reading
The Tampa Bay Times reports. … Continue reading
Nancy LeTourneau for the Washington Monthly. … Continue reading
Ned Foley WaPo oped: Meanwhile, if healthy voters are expected to cast ballots in person rather than by mail in November, it must be possible to actually vote when going to the polls. Having to wait four hours in line, … Continue reading
WaPo: Joe Biden on Wednesday night had a blunt warning about President Trump and the lengths he would go to limit access to ballots in November, sharply escalating his rhetoric about his Republican rival five months before voters head to the … Continue reading
Politico: Even the act of voting has become a partisan issue with racial implications in 2020.Republicans are far more likely than Democrats to say they’re willing to vote in person during a pandemic, while Democrats outpace Republicans in wanting to … Continue reading
NYT: The N.B.A. superstar LeBron James and a group of other prominent black athletes and entertainers are starting a new group aimed at protecting African-Americans’ voting rights, seizing on the widespread fury against racial injustice that has fueled worldwide protests … Continue reading
Yael Bromberg, Jason Harrow, and Josh Douglas opinion piece in The Hill. … Continue reading
AP: Many Democrats blamed the Republican secretary of state for hourslong lines, voting machine malfunctions, provisional ballot shortages and absentee ballots failing to arrive in time for Tuesday’s elections. Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential campaign called it “completely unacceptable.” Georgia Republicans … Continue reading
Michael Morley has posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract: Federal Election Day didn’t just happen. Instead, it reflects the culmination of a series of federal laws enacted over the course of nearly a century that each set … Continue reading
RSVP link. … Continue reading
Report: For this report, we analyzed data from two nationwide election surveys regarding the 2018 election: the Cooperative Congressional Election Study, a 60,000-person survey on Election Day experiences, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s Election Administration and Voting Survey, which … Continue reading
Here: Working on Wednesday’s front page. Not done yet. It hasn’t been a good day in Georgia. https://t.co/1vvUcjjBrY pic.twitter.com/xDXM0k0nCd— Kevin Riley, Editor (@ajceditor) June 10, 2020 And the final product: Tomorrow’s @ajc today #gapol pic.twitter.com/xbduXsoUu0— Greg Bluestein (@bluestein) June 10, … Continue reading
Fortune reports. … Continue reading
NBC News: Now less than five months out from the general election, Americans need to brace themselves for the real possibility that the presidential contest won’t be decided on Election Night.And that’s even if one of the candidates ultimately pulls … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Eric Geller for Politico. … Continue reading
WaPo: Lines snaked out the doors, some polling locations didn’t open on time, and others had no working voting machines in at least four counties in the first hour of voting in Georgia’s primary elections Tuesday, a potential preview of … Continue reading
AJC: No matter their political party, Georgia voters quickly adapted to voting by mail in a primary election hindered by the coronavirus pandemic.Over 1.2 million people have already voted — about three-quarters of them on absentee ballots — according to … Continue reading
New report from the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
NBC News reports: Republicans are recruiting an estimated 50,000 volunteers to act as “poll watchers” in November, part of a multimillion-dollar effort to police who votes and how.That effort, coordinated by the Republican National Committee and President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, … Continue reading
Orlando Sentinel: A man running for election supervisor in Pinellas County is asking Orange-Osceola State Attorney Aramis Ayala pursue charges against Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis ex-cop accused of killing George Floyd, alleging he voted illegally in two Florida elections.Dan Helm, … Continue reading
NYT: Over the past five years, as demands for reform have mounted in the aftermath of police violence in cities like Ferguson, Mo., Baltimore and now Minneapolis, police unions have emerged as one of the most significant roadblocks to change. … Continue reading
Latest from Bleeding Heartland. … Continue reading
This is exactly what I’ve been worried about: Philadelphia election officials stopped counting mail ballots Thursday and may not start again for days, warning that the outcomes of a number of races in Tuesday’s primary won’t be known for several … Continue reading
Latest episode of Franita and Foley podcast: In response to the Black Lives Matter protests, some are calling for people of color to “just vote.” But in a country with a history of voter suppression and disenfranchisement, is voting enough? … Continue reading
Dayton Daily News: The Ohio House voted 61-34 along party lines Thursday in favor of an elections bill that voting rights groups say will make casting ballots during a pandemic more difficult.House Bill 680 would block the Ohio secretary of … Continue reading
WSJ deep dive. … Continue reading
WaPo: It’s official: The race to hack the 2020 general election is in full swing. Iran tried to hack into Gmail accounts used by President Trump’s reelection campaign staff, the leader of Google’s threat-hunting team revealed in a tweet. China, meanwhile, tried … Continue reading
Sue Halpern in The New Yorker: A few weeks ago, when I asked the legal scholar Rick Hasen about a scenario, then circulating, that laid out a “legal” way for the Trump Administration to bypass elections and keep Trump in … Continue reading
CNN: The Senate Intelligence Committee quietly approved on Wednesday a measure that would require presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign election influence to federal authorities, a move taken in response to Russian election interference in 2016 and one that … Continue reading
New report from Tova Wang at the Ash Center. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. This would be a disaster for the general election. Our cross-ideological, cross-disciplinary committee report, Fair Elections During a Crisis, is unequivocal: “Online return of ballots should not be contemplated for the November 2020 elections.” … Continue reading
Release: Congressman Jamie Raskin (MD-08) and Members of the Maryland Congressional Delegation, including Senators Ben Cardin and Chris Van Hollen and Congressmen Steny H. Hoyer, Dutch Ruppersberger, John Sarbanes, Kweisi Mfume, Anthony G. Brown and David Trone (all D-Md.), issued … Continue reading
NARF: In 2017 and 2018, the Native American Voting Rights Coalition—founded by the Native American Rights Fund—held nine public hearings to better understand how Native Americans are systemically and culturally kept from fully exercising their franchise. More than 120 witnesses testified from … Continue reading