Stateline: After a presidential primary season plagued by long lines, confusion over mail-in voting and malfunctioning equipment, election experts are increasingly concerned about the resiliency of American democracy in the face of a global pandemic.With four months until the presidential … Continue reading
Category Archives: Election Meltdown
Michael Wines for the NYT: Four months before Election Day, a barrage of court rulings and lawsuits has turned one of the most divisive elections in memory into one that is on track to be the most litigated ever.With voting … Continue reading
Jerry Goldfeder in NYLJ. … Continue reading
Max Boot WaPo column: In our scenario, there was no congressional commission. Instead, the Republican Party bombarded the airwaves with claims of electoral fraud and insisted that Trump had been cheated of victory. The GOP filed suit to prevent the … Continue reading
Walter Shapiro at the Brennan Center. … Continue reading
Listen here. … Continue reading
Good quote in an article entitled “The waiting game: Slow vote-counting in primaries could foreshadow November chaos:” The National Association of Secretaries of State told Fox News that “the likelihood of delayed election results in November due to increased absentee … Continue reading
David Corn for Mother Jones: Edward Foley has a nightmare. It’s a poli-sci horror tale. A professor of constitutional law and elections expert at The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law, Foley foresees a scenario for the coming election … Continue reading
Ned Foley has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming Ohio State L.J. Online). Here is the abstract: In RNC v. DNC, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an important, but sharply divided, 5-4 ruling concerning the power of courts to remedy … Continue reading
The Guardian: Over the last few months, states across the US have seen record numbers of their voters cast their votes by mail as states expand and encourage its use during Covid-19. It’s a change that means election officials are … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
Ariel Malka and Christopher Federico for The Monkey Cage. … Continue reading
Politico: President Donald Trump called mail-in voting the biggest threat to his reelection and said his campaign’s multimillion-dollar legal effort to block expanded ballot access could determine whether he wins a second term.In an Oval Office interview Thursday focusing on the 2020 … 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
Washington Examiner: Republican insiders in Georgia are warning after a balloting meltdown in Fulton County that Democrats could wield voting rights like a cudgel, galvanizing turnout this fall to defeat President Trump in the traditionally red state.Georgia Republicans blame problems … Continue reading
WSJ Saturday Essay: On Tuesday, citizens in Georgia stood in lines for hours to vote—and some just gave up. The state struggled to handle its primary election, hobbled amid the coronavirus pandemic by a shortage of poll workers and polling … Continue reading
AP: The chaos that plagued Georgia’s primary this week is raising concerns about a potential broader failure of the nation’s patchwork election system that could undermine the November presidential contest, political leaders and elections experts say.With less than five months … Continue reading
Updated as of July 6: the post below lists 142 cases in 40 states and DC. Hi, all. Justin here. A few months ago, I set out to try to follow a few lawsuits brought over election practices in light … Continue reading
NYT: Before Georgia’s embattled election officials can fix a voting system that suffered a spectacular collapse, leading to absentee ballots that never got delivered and hourslong waits at polling sites on Tuesday, they must first figure out who is responsible.As multiple … Continue reading
Watch here. … Continue reading
WaPo: Multiple problems plagued voters as they went to the polls yesterday in Georgia’s primary, from hours-long lines, technical disasters and absentee ballots that never arrived.They’re another ominous sign for states and the general election officials trying to run a … Continue reading
WaPo: The chaos in Georgia offered another example of election troubles as states adjust their procedures in response to the pandemic. The problems could foreshadow significant challenges in November at a time of deepening partisanship around voting, with President Trump and his … Continue reading
Matthew Brown for the Deseret News: Even before COVID-19 complicated voting this year, Richard Hasen worried about the American public losing confidence in the elections. Mostly, he feared a “doomsday” scenario of public protest against a government voters don’t accept. He and … Continue reading
AP: Voters endured heat, pouring rain and waits as long as five hours Tuesday to cast ballots in Georgia, demonstrating a fierce desire to participate in the democratic process while raising questions about the emerging battleground state’s ability to manage … Continue reading
You can now watch the video of my talk last week with my UCI Law colleague Henry Weinstein as part of UCI Law’s “Covid and the Law” series. … Continue reading
E.J. Dionne in WaPo: All who rightly insist that remedying embedded racism and economic injustice requires both organized protests and election victories must reckon with this possibility: Election Day 2020 could be a catastrophic mess.Whose interest would a chaotic election … Continue reading
Decision Desk: The Covid-19 pandemic has changed how we live our daily lives in so many ways over the last two months. As we’ve seen across the country these changes, great and small, have reached the world of politics and … Continue reading
Lou Jacobson for the Cook Political Report: Every four years, political obsessives like to scare themselves like kids around a campfire, sharing stories about weird presidential election outcomes — such as a divergence between the popular and the electoral vote … Continue reading
You can watch at this link. We discussed the new report, Fair Elections During a Crisis. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
Ciara Torres-Spelliscy for TPM on the Fair Elections During a Crisis committee report. Ciara was a member of the committee. … Continue reading
I was a guest on the McGeorge Cap Center podcast. Listen. … Continue reading
This is a very useful guide for journalists covering the 2020 elections, and includes links to relevant recommendations of our Fair Elections During a Crisis report. … Continue reading
I talked to KJZZ about our Fair Elections During a Crisis report. … Continue reading
Ellen Weintraub and Kevin Kruse NYT oped. … Continue reading
I was very happy to participate in this panel (where I talked about my book, Election Meltdown) with Alan Hirsch, Abdi Soltani, and Lala Wu for the Bay Area Book Festival Unbound. Watch here: … Continue reading
NYT: Six months before a presidential election in which turnout could matter more than persuasion, the Republican Party, the Trump campaign and conservative activists are mounting an aggressive national effort to shape who gets to vote in November — and … Continue reading
At the Law & Liberty blog. … Continue reading
Steven Rosenfeld: With six months to go until November’s 2020 election, dozens of America’s top legal minds convened to consider what would have been unthinkable before Donald Trump’s presidency. They gathered to brainstorm what could be done to prevent the … Continue reading
Part of UCI Law’s COVID-19 and the Law lecture series. Details to RSVP and get CLE credit. … Continue reading
You’ll be able to watch this program I’m participating in for the Bay Area Book Festival on May 14 at 7 pm. Program will air Thursday May 14th, 7:00 PM PST Abdi Soltani, Alan Hirsch, Richard HasenModrated by Lala Wu We’ve all seen the … Continue reading
Listen here. … Continue reading
Paul Blumenthal for HuffPost: Election night is supposed to be a night of hyper cable news hosts, color-coded Magic Walls, flickering needles and overwrought homilies to U.S. democracy that ends, maybe in the wee hours, with the American People making … Continue reading
The first airing is May 9 at 8 pm eastern on CSPAN-2; there are other airings and it will eventually be posted on C-SPAN’s website. Author Discussion on Presidential Elections Law professors Richard Hasen and Edward Foley offer their thoughts … Continue reading
Wisconsin Examiner: Political polarization and intense partisanship in media and social media have laid the groundwork for distrust about the fairness of the 2020 elections, and the COVID-19 pandemic seems likely to escalate those problems.Those are the conclusions of a … Continue reading
Zack Stanton does a Q and A with me for Politico Magazine. … Continue reading
John Wildermuth of the SF Chronicle: A ballot count that lasts for weeks, an unintended feature of California voting, can undermine confidence in the results, according to a new report about conducting elections during the coronavirus pandemic and other troubled … Continue reading
Release from me: Fair Elections During a Crisis: Bipartisan and Diverse Blue-Ribbon Group of Scholars and Thinkers Releases Report on Urgent Changes Needed for November U.S. Elections Ad Hoc Committee for 2020 Election Fairness and Legitimacy Issues Recommendations in Law, … Continue reading
NYT: For months, Joseph R. Biden Jr. has argued that under pressure and political duress, President Trump may pursue increasingly extreme measures to stay in power.In November, Mr. Biden said he feared that “as the walls close in on him … Continue reading
Watch: As the 2020 presidential campaign begins, join two of America’s leading election law experts, Richard Hasen and Edward Foley, for a discussion on how to fix presidential elections, in 2020 and beyond. Building on Foley’s Presidential Elections and Majority Rule: The Rise, Demise, and … Continue reading