Details: TopicPandemic Propaganda: A New Electoral CrisisDescriptionHow will the misinformation pandemic inflamed by the coronavirus crisis reshape the political landscape? And how might domestic and foreign actors weaponize rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about Covid-19 against American voters in the … Continue reading
Category Archives: campaigns
CNN: An anonymous group with ties to Republicans has just emerged with the apparent aim of targeting Senate candidate Kris Kobach of Kansas, according to sources familiar with the effort.Kobach is an anti-immigration firebrand and voter-fraud crusader whose primary campaign has … Continue reading
Important piece: Under pressure to combat the disinformation that politicians — most notably the president of the United States — are spreading on its platforms, Facebook recently announced a new effort to combat lies geared in particular toward misleading Americans about voting.Disinformation … Continue reading
NYT: Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party outraised President Trump and the Republicans for the second straight month in June, announcing a record haul of $141 million on Wednesday night only hours after Mr. Trump’s campaign had trumpeted his … Continue reading
WaPo: Last week, a Ukrainian lawmaker who was once affiliated with a pro-Russian political party and has met with Giuliani released 10 edited snippets of what appeared to be Biden’s official vice presidential phone calls in 2016 with Petro Poroshenko, then … Continue reading
CNN: The Senate will incorporate the annual intelligence policy legislation into the National Defense Authorization Act — but only after stripping language from the intelligence bill that would have required presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign election help.Sen. Mark … Continue reading
OC Register: As she heads into the heart of her first re-election campaign, Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine is quickly becoming a power broker in the House of Representatives.She’s a Democrat in a flip district that still leans slightly red. But … Continue reading
Release: Today, the ACLU Foundation of Northern California settled a lawsuit with Fresno County over the chief elections official’s removal of a polling place at Unitarian Universalist Church of Fresno – all because the church refused to cover up Black Lives Matter … Continue reading
WaPo: Facebook on Thursday deactivated dozens of ads placed by President Trump’s reelection campaign that included a symbol once used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.The marking appeared as part of the campaign’s online salvo against antifa and … Continue reading
The Atlantic: In what appears to be a signal of intensifying political warfare ahead of the November election, One America News Network, the Trump-supporting cable channel that has been promoting anti-Biden conspiracies for several months, says it has obtained several hours of … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump has relentlessly attacked mail voting, calling it a free-for-all for cheating and a Democratic scheme to rig elections.None of the charges are true.But as eight states and the District of Columbia vote on Tuesday in the biggest Election Day since … Continue reading
Laura Edelson and Sheila Krumholz oped in USA Today. … Continue reading
NYT: The Trump administration is preparing an executive order intended to curtail the legal protections that shield social media companies from liability for what gets posted on their platforms, two senior administration officials said early Thursday.Such an order, which officials … Continue reading
Detroit News: At least two judicial candidates who felt they were destined to be left off Michigan ballots this August for not meeting state requirements for collecting petition signatures got new life Wednesday, thanks to a U.S. District Court order.In … Continue reading
Cleveland.com: A federal judge in Cincinnati has ordered Ohio officials to allow state issue campaigns to collect the signatures needed to make the ballot electronically, granting a request from backers of two campaigns targeting the November election.Ohioans for Raising the … Continue reading
Odd ending to an odd story: Six ad-makers and advertising platforms listed in the filings said they’ve never heard of the super PAC and have no records of doing business with it. Since then, no ads from the super PAC … Continue reading
Rob Stutzman WaPo oped. … Continue reading
Rantt Media reports. … Continue reading
Franklin Foer for The Atlantic: Jack Cable is a small emblem of how the U.S. government has struggled to outpace the Russians. After he spent the better part of a semester shouting into the wind, officials in Chicago and in … Continue reading
Yasmin Dawood has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Ohio State Technology Law Journal). Here is the abstract: This Article argues for a multifaceted public-private approach to the challenge of protecting the electoral process from the harms of disinformation. Such … Continue reading
Politico: Coronavirus has campaigns rushing to put voting by mail at the center of their general election strategies — and some Republicans worry they’ve already fallen behind, as President Donald Trump dismisses the method and drives doubt about mail voting … Continue reading
NYDN: Already hedging his bets by running for two offices this year, Assemblyman Dan Quart is looking to boot one of his challengers from the Democratic primary ballot.Quart — who’s seeking re-election to the Assembly at the same time he’s running … Continue reading
NYT: Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Democratic Party could raise almost $1 million every single day between now and November, and he would still barely catch up to what President Trump and the Republican Party had in the bank at … Continue reading
Politico: Mike Bloomberg ended his ill-fated presidential bid on March 4, but his campaign still shelled out nine figures last month anyway, taking his total spending over $1 billion in a losing run for the Democratic nomination.The billionaire’s campaign spent … Continue reading
NYT: President Trump’s re-election campaign and the Republican National Committee said Monday they had raised $212 million in the first three months of 2020, a signal that despite a global pandemic that has put a halt on high-dollar fund-raising events, … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided to donate significant components of his shuttered presidential campaign to the Democratic Party, a historic bequest that includes an $18 million cash infusion to organize for the general election in swing states.The … Continue reading
NYT reports. … Continue reading
WaPo reports. … Continue reading
CNN reports. … Continue reading
WaPo: An onslaught of political advertising is par for the course in any election year. The 2020 presidential contest proves to be no exception.So, on first glance, nothing was unusual when former vice president Joe Biden, who appears to be … Continue reading
Boston Globe: Sudden changes to election procedures could lead to long lines and confusion, Hasen said.“You’ve got to have good planning, and you have to have good messaging. If people don’t know where to go, then they can be disenfranchised,” … Continue reading
AP reports. … Continue reading
Rob Yablon has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Minn. L. Rev. Headnotes). Here is the abstract: Amid ongoing concerns about foreign electoral interference and fake news, digital platforms like Facebook, Google, and Twitter have been rolling out new political … Continue reading
WaPo: Social media sites are once again at the center of a debate over online speech after Twitter applied its new “manipulated media” label for the first time yesterday to a deceptively edited video of former vice president Joe Biden. White House social … Continue reading
WaPo: Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg has decided to form an independent expenditure campaign that will absorb hundreds of his presidential campaign staffers in six swing states to work to elect the Democratic nominee this fall.The group, with a … Continue reading
NYT: Facebook said on Thursday that it had removed misleading ads run by President Trump’s re-election campaign about the 2020 census, in a stand against disinformation ahead of the decennial population count that begins next week.Earlier this week, Trump Make … Continue reading
Judd Legum for Popular Information. … Continue reading
AP: Four years after Russia-linked groups stoked divisions in the U.S. presidential election on social media platforms, a new report shows that Moscow’s campaign hasn’t let up and has become harder to detect.The report from University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Young Mie Kim … Continue reading
Aaron Blake for WaPo. … Continue reading
NYT: In an unprecedented effort to self-finance a presidential campaign — which some rivals derided as an attempt to buy the White House — Mr. Bloomberg’s bid cost him more than half a billion dollars in advertising alone. He also spent … Continue reading
WSJ: TV viewers in Super Tuesday states know this: Michael Bloomberg and his presidential campaign are on almost every channel. All day. And nearly all night.The former New York City mayor appears on presidential primary ballots for the first time … Continue reading
You can listen to the fourth episode of the Election Meltdown podcast (in conjunction with Dahlia Lithwick and Slate Amicus) at this link. (Episode 1 on voter suppression/voter fraud is here, Episode 2 on election administrator incompetence is here, and Episode 3 on campaign dirty tricks is … Continue reading
CNN: The first significant ad buy for state Sen. Erica Smith, a Democratic candidate for US Senate in North Carolina, appears to be backed by Republicans.Faith and Power, a new political action committee with ties to Republicans, formally launched on January … Continue reading
Dave Levinthal thread starts here: 1/ A short thread about a news organization, the Trump campaign and a fundraising message …On Thursday, my colleague @JimSmall received a garden variety campaign solicitation from the Trump Make America Great Again Committee, a … Continue reading
Deep dive by McKay Coppins in The Atlantic. … Continue reading
Rebecca Green has posted this draft on SSRN (forthcoming, Washington Law Review). Here is the abstract: In the United States, we have long accepted that candidates for public office who have voluntarily stepped into the public eye sacrifice claims to … Continue reading
NYT: A doctored, phony image of President Barack Obama shaking hands with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran. A real photograph of a Muslim girl at a desk doing her homework with Donald J. Trump looming in the background on television.It is not always easy … Continue reading
SacBee: Some Northern California voters are receiving documents that resemble U.S. Census forms, but they are in fact fundraising appeals from the Republican National Committee.The document, printed on heavy paper, is labeled “2020 Congressional District Census,” with the words “DO … Continue reading