Category Archives: chicanery

“Political group tied to Kanye West campaign law firm sent misinformation on Biden with mail-in ballot applications to battleground state voters”

September 4, 2020, 7:28 amcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

CNN: An Ohio-based political advocacy group that shares a Republican-allied law firm with Kanye West’s political campaign is sending unsolicited mail-in ballot applications containing misinformation on Democratic candidates to voters in Pennsylvania and Minnesota — both key battleground states for… Continue reading

“Donald Trump’s Encouragement to Vote Twice Could Cause Election Day Chaos”

September 3, 2020, 1:05 pmchicanery, election administration, Election MeltdownRick Hasen

I have written this piece for Slate. A snippet: Another possible defense is that Trump was “joking” or not being serious about his comments and this was typical Trumpian hyperbole. Perhaps so, and I do not expect Trump to be… Continue reading

Ned Foley: The President—and the Poll Worker

September 3, 2020, 7:47 amchicaneryRick Hasen

New guest post from Ned Foley: The news that President Trump suggested that North Carolina voters cast both an absentee and in-person ballot, to test whether the “system” would catch it, reminded me of the case a few years ago… Continue reading

“Blunting Foreign Interference Efforts by Learning the Lessons of the Past”

September 2, 2020, 9:10 amcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

New report from CAP.

“Digital Disinformation and Vote Suppression”

September 2, 2020, 9:04 amcampaigns, cheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

New Brennan Center report.

Suit Seeking to Kick Kanye West Off Virginia Ballot Alleges That At Least Three People Listed as West Electors Had Their Signatures Obtained via Fraud

September 1, 2020, 6:19 pmcampaigns, chicanery, electoral collegeRick Hasen

You can find the complaint at this link. As Ben Jacobs noted the other day, this may be the first time a candidate for President has been sued by one of the candidate’s purported presidential electors.

“Russian internet trolls hired U.S. journalists to push their news website, Facebook says”

September 1, 2020, 5:31 pmcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

NBC News: Peace Data aimed to court left-leaning voters, said Ben Nimmo, whose company, Graphika, released a report on the site.“This looks like an attempt to target left-wing audiences on a range of issues, but the operation got taken… Continue reading

“Instagram Posts Make False Claim California Voters Will Be ‘Turned Away’ From Polls Due To Mail-In Voting”

September 1, 2020, 5:24 pmcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

Cap Radio reports.

“Republicans are flooding the internet with deceptive videos and Big Tech isn’t keeping up”

September 1, 2020, 11:19 amcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

CNN: A series of deceptively edited and misleading videos shared by prominent Republicans have run up millions of views across Facebook and Twitter in just the past few days. And while both companies have pledged to combat misinformation, their… Continue reading

“Senior intelligence officials will no longer brief Congress in person on foreign threats to the 2020 election”

August 30, 2020, 9:05 pmchicanery, election administrationRick Hasen

WaPo: Senior intelligence officials will no longer brief Congress in person on foreign interference in the 2020 election. Instead, they will inform lawmakers of threats in writing, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said Saturday.The decision, made with… Continue reading

“Google greenlights ads with ‘blatant disinformation’ about voting by mail”

August 28, 2020, 1:22 pmcampaigns, cheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

WaPo: Google has declined to remove ads from a shadowy group echoing President Trump’s misleading claim that there is a meaningful difference between voting by mail and absentee voting.Google took five days to reach its decision to leave… Continue reading

“Viral pro-Trump tweets came from fake African American spam accounts, Twitter says; Disinformation experts are anticipating that social media platforms will continue to be central to foreign and domestic efforts to mislead voters.”

August 27, 2020, 8:50 pmcampaigns, cheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

NBC News: Twitter has taken action to stop a spam operation that pushed messages from fake accounts about Black people abandoning the Democratic Party.The company removed two fake accounts and deleted the account of a San Diego man who… Continue reading

Dirty Tricks Dep’t: Detroit Voters Targeted with Robocalls Containing False Voting Information Intended to Suppress Vote By Mail

August 27, 2020, 2:38 pmcampaigns, chicaneryRick Hasen

Detroit News: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is warning Detroit voters of a “racially charged” and false robocall that appears to be discouraging mail-in voting ahead of the November election. The recording tells voters that their personal information… Continue reading

“Black voters are being targeted in disinformation campaigns, echoing the 2016 Russian playbook”

August 27, 2020, 8:41 amcheap speech, chicaneryRick Hasen

WaPo: Four years after Russian operatives used social media in a bid to exacerbate racial divisions in the United States and suppress Black voter turnout, such tactics have spread across a wide range of deceptive online campaigns operated from numerous… Continue reading

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