Category Archives: The Voting Wars

“Republicans have relied on volunteer election lawyers acting as a ragtag army of free, seasonal law militia”

January 19, 2023, 8:00 pmThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Election lawyer (and candidate for RNC Chair) Harmeet Dhillon: On the watershed day of January 8, 2021, Ronna McDaniel was elected at an RNC meeting to a third term as RNC chairman. At the time, she promised it would… Continue reading

“New year expected to bring more changes to state voting laws”

December 29, 2022, 8:31 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

AP: States routinely make adjustments in their voting laws — some subtle, some dramatic. But experts have never seen an explosion of legislation like that which followed the 2020 presidential election, when more than 3,600 election bills were introduced, according… Continue reading

Republican Confidence in Election Administration Up in 2022 Compared to 2020, But There’s a Ways to Go on Mail-in Balloting

December 3, 2022, 6:12 pmThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Pew Research Center: Voters are generally confident ballots were counted accurately in this year’s election, yet they express greater confidence in in-person ballots being counted accurately than they do in counts for absentee or mail-in ballots. Republican voters are more… Continue reading

“TV Prepares for a Chaotic Midterm Night; Broadcasters face challenges as they approach the climax of an election season marked by disinformation and distrust.”

October 30, 2022, 9:07 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

NYT reports.

Supreme Court Has Decided at Least 65 Emergency (Shadow Docket) Election Law Cases in Last 12 Years, Including 15 Cases in the 2020 Term; The Number Could Explode after Moore v. Harper

October 28, 2022, 7:11 amSupreme Court, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

I wanted to highlight some numbers I put together with my co-authors at Manatt for our amicus brief in the Moore v. Harper case: The amount of emergency election-related litigation filed in this Court is already high. In the… Continue reading

“State courts are fielding sky-high numbers of lawsuits ahead of the midterms – including challenges to voting restrictions and to how elections are run”

October 27, 2022, 7:03 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Miriam Seifter and Adam Sopko with some interesting data on a shift from federal to state courts in terms of election litigation: In 2020, election litigation reached a new record high, with hundreds of lawsuits filed around the presidential… Continue reading

“How votes are cast and counted is increasingly decided in courtrooms”

October 26, 2022, 7:25 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Patrick Marley for the NYT: In the United States, election season has turned into lawsuit season.One legal challenge in Michigan seeks to remove thousands from the voter rolls. Two lawsuits in Wisconsin seek to have more absentee ballots counted, even… Continue reading

“Trump Allies Challenging Georgia Voters To Suppress Midterm Turnout”

September 25, 2022, 11:27 amThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

Steven Rosenfeld: On August 29, eight cartons of notarized paperwork challenging 25,000 voter registrations were delivered by pro-Donald Trump “election integrity” activists to Gwinnett County’s election offices in suburban Atlanta. They were accompanied by additional paperwork claiming that 15,000… Continue reading

“The Fight Against an Age-Old Effort to Block Americans From Voting”

September 13, 2022, 6:42 amelection administration, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

ProPublica: Even though federal law guaranteed the two women the right to have someone help them vote, Coley-Pearson knew too well that this right was under attack. For all of the recent uproar over voting rights, little attention has… Continue reading

ELB Podcast Episode 3:8: Wendy Weiser: Assessing the State of American Elections and Democracy

April 27, 2022, 1:15 pmELB Podcast, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

New ELB Podcast: Why has it gotten harder rather than easier to vote in the United States over the past decade?What can be done about the risk of stolen elections in the United States?How have the Supreme Court’s decisions… Continue reading

“Voter ID, mail voting rollback ballot questions likely dead after court rulings”

April 26, 2022, 2:22 pmdirect democracy, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

Nevada Independent: A pair of Carson City judges struck what appeared to be fatal blows to proposed GOP-backed voting initiatives on Monday, invalidating efforts to roll back the Democrat-backed universal vote by mail law passed in 2021 and… Continue reading

My New Essay Posted in the Harvard Law Review Forum: “Identifying and Minimizing the Risk of Election Subversion and Stolen Elections in the Contemporary United States”

April 20, 2022, 7:55 amelection subversion risk, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

The Harvard Law Review Forum has posted my new Essay, Identifying and Minimizing the Risk of Election Subversion and Stolen Elections in the Contemporary United States (see also this more readable version). Here is the Introduction: The United States… Continue reading

“What the New Yorker Article Got Wrong About Marc Elias’s Litigation Strategy”

April 18, 2022, 8:08 pmThe Voting WarsRick Hasen

The author of this post sends along this follow-up: This week’s New Yorker profile of Marc Elias was another entry in the ongoing media coverage about the role of the court system in resolving very live disputes concerning voting and… Continue reading

“Fighting Trump, Dems launch plan to elect thousands of local election supervisors”

April 18, 2022, 6:55 amelection subversion risk, The Voting WarsRick Hasen

Politico: A Democratic candidate recruiting group is pitching donors on an ambitious three-year program to find, train and support 5,000 candidates for local offices in charge of election administration, a sprawling national effort intended to fight subversion of future… Continue reading

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The law of politics and the politics of law