Monthly Archives: May 2021
“Inside Mitch McConnell’s personal push to defeat Democrats’ voting reforms”
McClatchy:
Every week, a group of nearly 100 conservative leaders convene for a 30-minute strategy call on a single issue: How to combat Democrats’ sweeping legislation to change the way federal elections are conducted.Two weeks ago, the keynote briefer was… Continue reading
Must-Read: “Arizona audit ignores federal law on election records”
Veteran election hand Christopher Thomas oped in the Arizona Mirror:
Arizona’s faux audit of 2020 ballots fails to comply with the federal election records retention law, further undermining the integrity of the exercise with the possibility of illegality.This law, which… Continue reading
Watch Archived Video: The Internet, Elections and the First Amendment (With evelyn douek, Noah Feldman, and Me, Moderated by Floyd Abrams)
Watch here, via Yale’s Abrams Institute.
Election Law Journal Special Issue on Foreign Election Interference: A Global Response (Edited by Lori Ringhand and Yasmin Dawood)
Looks like a great issue to dive into with some free access:
Foreign Election Interference: Comparative Approaches to a Global Challenge
Lori A. Ringhand
Combatting Foreign Election Interference: Canada’s Electoral Ecosystem Approach to Disinformation and Cyber Threats
Yasmin Dawood
Constitutional … Continue reading
“Republicans want to expand the Arizona audit — but DOJ may shut it down”
Steven Rosenfeld:
On Wednesday, May 5, the Senate’s liaison to the audit, former Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, a Republican, confirmed that the GOP-led Senate is negotiating with a California nonprofit to conduct a new and separate audit… Continue reading
“After All-Night Session, Texas House Approves GOP-Backed Voting Restrictions Bill”
NPR:
Texas legislators approved new, more restrictive state election rules aftera session that lasted from Thursday night into the early morning hours of Friday. The GOP-backed state Senate bill passed the House at 3 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) after… Continue reading
“F.E.C. Drops Case Reviewing Trump Hush-Money Payments to Women”
NYT:
The Federal Election Commission said on Thursday that it had formally dropped a case looking into whether former President Donald J. Trump violated election law with a payment of $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to a pornographic-film actress… Continue reading
New Nate Persily: “Yes, Facebook’s Oversight Board upheld Trump’s suspension. But here’s the bigger issue.”
Nate Persily at The Monkey Cage:
The most important aspect of the board’s adjudication of the Trump takedown was its reliance on international human rights law to guide its decision. The board’s earlier decisions also referred to applicable United Nations… Continue reading
“The modern primary system makes a loser of reason”
That’s an arresting line from this Matt Bai piece on the Republican Party. I consider changing the structure of primaries one of the more important political reform agenda items. See this good report from Unite America on the topic also.… Continue reading
The 2022 Liz Cheney Primary And National Small Donors
From the Washington Post:
The contest is quickly becoming a free-for-all. Following Cheney’s impeachment vote, the state party censured her, and several Wyoming politicians filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to challenge her. The most credible among them… Continue reading
“Participation” in the Disinformation Age
This story caught my eye: “NY AG finds nearly 82% of net neutrality comments to the FCC were fake”:
“The OAG found that millions of fake comments were submitted through a secret campaign, funded by the country’s largest broadband companies,… Continue reading
“‘You can’t make a change … by sitting on the sidelines’: Recruitment of ballot counters raises concerns”
Arizona Republic:
The effort to recruit people to count ballots for the ongoing audit of Maricopa County’s presidential election results appears targeted in part at traditionally conservative groups — and some of the recruiters themselves appear to have far-right political… Continue reading
“F.E.C. Asks Congress to Ban Prechecked Recurring Donation Boxes”
NYT:
The Federal Election Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to recommend that Congress ban political campaigns from guiding donors by default into recurring contributions through prechecked boxes, a month after a New York Times investigation showed that former President Donald… Continue reading