Category Archives: chicanery

Unanimous FEC Concludes Project Veritas Employee Likely Violated FEC Rules by Facilitating Foreign Contributions in Sting

August 1, 2017, 7:34 pmcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Bloomberg BNA: An undercover operative for a conservative group likely violated rules against foreign campaign contributions while seeking to show Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was willing to break those same rules, the Federal Election Commission concluded. The FEC said… Continue reading

CA: “DA: Hackers Penetrated Voter Registrations in 2016 Through State’s Election Site”

July 28, 2017, 8:00 amchicanery, election administrationRick Hasen

KQED: Hackers successfully penetrated state-run online voter registration systems in 2016, triggering confusion and heated exchanges between voters, poll workers and poll watchers during California’s June 7 primary, Riverside County District Attorney Michael Hestrin said Friday. “I think that pretty… Continue reading

More Bauer on Trump Campaign Potential Liability for Campaign Finance Violations

July 26, 2017, 7:33 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Here. I think the severability point I raised last week is also important: that is, one can hold that the ban as applied to foreign principals (and particularly foreign governments) is constitutional even if the application to other foreign nationals… Continue reading

Federal Court Affirms $1000 Fine Against Kris Kobach for Misleading Court on Voting Documents Presented to Trump

July 25, 2017, 2:33 pmchicanery, fraudulent fraud squad, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

So reports Jonathan Shorman. Update: The district court’s opinion reviewing an earlier magistrate judge’s sanctions order against Kobach is here. Particularly noteworthy is the district court’s comment that SOS Kobach’s conduct “demonstrate a pattern” of misleading statements to the… Continue reading

“5 Ways to Interfere in American Elections—Without Breaking the Law”

July 24, 2017, 12:40 pmcampaign finance, campaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

Uri Friedman for The Atlantic.

“Five sentenced to days in jail for Supreme Court disruption over campaign finance”

July 24, 2017, 10:42 amcampaign finance, chicanery, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

WaPo: Five protesters who disrupted a session of the U.S. Supreme Court by shouting disapproval of its rulings on campaign finance law were sentenced to either one or two weekends in prison Monday after losing a bid to overturn a… Continue reading

Re Don Jr.: Federal Sentencing Guidelines Punish Campaign Finance Cooperation with Foreign Governments More Severely Than Foreign Nationals

July 24, 2017, 9:59 amcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

Ciara Torres-Spelliscy: As I explain in a forthcoming law review article, Dark Money as a Political Sovereignty Problem, the federal sentencing guidelines already make a distinction between mere foreign nationals and members of foreign governments. The article states, “[t]he… Continue reading

“EXCLUSIVE: Voter fraud in Palm Beach County: State attorney finds crimes, but no suspect”

July 23, 2017, 9:08 pmabsentee ballots, chicaneryRick Hasen

Palm Beach Post: Detectives with the State Attorney’s Office found clear-cut evidence of voter fraud in last year’s August election, with nearly two dozen people’s signatures forged on requests for absentee ballots. But prosecutors are dropping the case. Why?… Continue reading

“Hill investigators, Trump staff look to Facebook for critical answers in Russia probe”

July 20, 2017, 5:16 pmcampaigns, chicanery, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

CNN: There are two questions. One is: Was there coordination or collusion between the campaigns and these technology tools, which overwhelmed the search engine tools so that certain stories popped up at the top of your newsfeed. The second is,… Continue reading

“Kelly: States ‘nuts’ if they don’t ask feds for election protection help”

July 20, 2017, 7:45 amchicanery, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

Politico reports.

Today’s Must Read: “Exclusive: Read the Previously Undisclosed Plan to Counter Russian Hacking on Election Day”

July 20, 2017, 7:44 amcampaigns, chicanery, election administration, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

Quite a wow from Time: President Obama’s White House quietly produced a plan in October to counter a possible Election Day cyber attack that included extraordinary measures like sending armed federal law enforcement agents to polling places, mobilizing components of… Continue reading

“Hacking the Vote: Who Helped Whom?”

July 19, 2017, 8:36 pmchicaneryRick Hasen

NYR Daily: Similarly, bots can be programmed to search for certain keywords and particular users. That could account for why Russian bots were propagating anti-Clinton messages in places like Wisconsin: they might have simply been following the lead of other… Continue reading

Applying the Foreign Solicitation Ban Against the Russian Government Consistent with the First Amendment

July 19, 2017, 8:11 pmcampaign finance, chicaneryRick Hasen

One issue which has arisen over possible campaign finance charges against Donald Trump Jr. concerns whether the statute is substantially overbroad in violation of the First Amendment. Eugene Volokh makes the case here, and I argue against application of… Continue reading

“Fake news microtargeting now part of Russia investigation”

July 18, 2017, 9:44 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

KCRW- To the Point: “Hillary Clinton is running a child sex ring out of a pizza shop.” “Democrats want to impose Sharia law in Florida” These are just some of the headlines you may have seen online last fall. Among… Continue reading

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