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  • Rick Hasen
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What does a law firm that wins a pro bono voting rights lawsuit do with the legal fees it earns?

March 21, 2022, 4:31 amVoting Rights ActDerek Muller
Interesting details in this Reuters story: Latham got its $3.9 million pro bono fee award for work on a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that challenged the at-large method for electing board members of the East Ramapo Central School District in… Continue reading

“What’s next for the Iowa caucuses? ‘Odds are stacked against us,’ state’s Democratic chair says”

March 21, 2022, 4:31 amprimariesDerek Muller
Brianne Pfannenstiel in the Des Moines Register: Iowa Democrats are preparing to “fight like hell” to make their best — and possibly final — case for their first-in-the-nation caucuses as members of the national party set an aggressive schedule… Continue reading

“Where Does American Democracy Go From Here? Six experts discuss how worried we should be about its future.”

March 20, 2022, 2:41 pmUncategorizedRick Hasen
Important discussion in NYT Magazine: Early last year, Freedom House, an American organization that since World War II has warned against autocracy and repression on the march around the world, issued a special report on a country that had not… Continue reading

“Democratic gains in legislative maps might not last long”

March 20, 2022, 2:37 pmredistrictingRick Hasen
AP: The surprising advantage Democrats gained during the torturous process of rewriting the nation’s congressional maps may be short-lived, creating the potential for more frequent clashes over how political power should be distributed across the United States.As the once-a-decade… Continue reading

Improving the Supreme Court Confirmation Process

March 20, 2022, 10:19 amUncategorizedRichard Pildes
With the confirmation hearings for Judge Ketanji Jackson to begin tomorrow, the confirmation process itself will once again be in the spotlight. In light of that, I want to call attention again to one of the most detailed, practical set… Continue reading

“How This Redistricting Cycle Failed To Increase Representation For People Of Color — And Could Even Set It Back”

March 19, 2022, 10:41 amUncategorizedRick Hasen
538 reports.

John Eastman in Thursday Speech Still Claiming “Illegalities” in Conduct of Election in Wisconsin and Elsewhere Justifies Wisconsin Legislature Taking Action Even Now Against 2020 Presidential Election Results (Video)

March 18, 2022, 4:01 pmelection subversion risk, fraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen
Part I of video: https://twitter.com/clayberg/status/1504888349072441346?s=20&t=zjY4Bl67S9AinQ57tOHU3Q Part 2: pic.twitter.com/xtsLX6NHzF— Clay (@clayberg) March 18, 2022

“Mail Ballot Rejections Surge in Texas, With Signs of a Race Gap”

March 18, 2022, 1:45 pmabsentee ballots, Voting Rights ActRick Hasen
NYT: More than 18,000 voters in Texas’ most populous counties had their mail-in ballots rejected in the state’s primary election this month, according to a review of election data by The New York Times, a surge in thrown-out votes… Continue reading

“Ohio Republicans discussing impeachment of Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor after map ruling”

March 18, 2022, 11:19 amchicanery, redistrictingRick Hasen
Columbus Dispatch: House Republicans are discussing whether to impeach Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor after the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a third set of legislative maps and effectively ended all hope of a full May 3rd primary.The court struck down… Continue reading

“Jan. 6 committee faces a thorny challenge: Convincing the public to care”

March 18, 2022, 7:39 amUncategorizedRick Hasen
WaPo: The House Jan. 6 committee has tried to recruit high-profile journalists to write its report about the attack on the Capitol, hoping to build a narrative thriller that compels audiences and is a departure from government reports of… Continue reading

“N.C. investigates Mark Meadows after reports that he never lived where he registered to vote”

March 18, 2022, 7:09 amfraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen
WaPo reports.

“Under Trump, DHS directed to probe bogus claims about voter fraud”

March 18, 2022, 7:03 amfraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen
Politico: In late April of 2020, a top political appointee in the Trump administration called for Department of Homeland Security officials to scrutinize an unusual topic for a national security agency: possible voter fraud in the upcoming election. A… Continue reading

Derek Muller Primary ELB Blogger Next Week

March 18, 2022, 7:01 amUncategorizedRick Hasen
Direct your comments and questions to him. Thanks!

“GOP Dark Money Criticisms in Supreme Court Fight Mirror Democrats”

March 18, 2022, 6:55 amcampaign finance, Supreme CourtRick Hasen
Bloomberg Law: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) brought poster boards to Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s 2020 confirmation hearing highlighting the interconnections among conservative groups like the Judicial Crisis Network and the Federalist Society.Now, Republicans have a chance to turn… Continue reading

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Election Law Blogger

Rick Hasen

Gary T. Schwartz Endowed Chair in Law and Professor of Political Science
UCLA School of Law
Director, Safeguarding Democracy Project

Contributors

Tabatha Abu El-Haj

Professor of Law, Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law
@tabathaabuelhaj
View posts ›

Guy-Uriel E. Charles

Charles J. Ogletree Jr. Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
View posts ›

Travis Crum

Professor of Law, Washington University School of Law
View posts ›

Edward B. Foley

Ebersold Chair in Constitutional Law, The Ohio State University
View posts ›

Justin Levitt

Professor of Law at LMU Loyola Law School, Los Angeles
View posts ›

Derek T. Muller

Professor of Law, Notre Dame Law School
View posts ›

Spencer A. Overton

Professor of Law,
The George Washington University Law School
View posts ›

Richard H. Pildes

Sudler Family Professor of Constitutional Law, NYU School of Law
View posts ›

Nicholas Stephanopoulos

Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law, Harvard Law School
View posts ›

Dan Tokaji

Fred W. & Vi Miller Dean and Professor of Law
University of Wisconsin Law School
View posts ›

Franita Tolson

Dean and Carl Mason Franklin Chair in Law at USC Gould School of Law
View posts ›

Recent Books by Rick Hasen

A Real Right to Vote

A Real Right to Vote

A Real Right to Vote: How a Constitutional Amendment Can Safeguard American Democracy
Now available from Princeton University Press!
Read the Kirkus Review

Book tour information
Watch book discussion on Morning Joe
Order at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop

Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics–and How to Cure It

Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics–and How to Cure It

Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics--and How to Cure It (Yale University Press, 2022)
Cheap Speech book website

Named one of the best books on disinformation by the New York Times

Election Law–Cases and Materials

Election Law–Cases and Materials

Election Law–Cases and Materials (7th edition, Carolina Academic Press, 2022) (with Daniel Hays Lowenstein, Daniel P. Tokaji, and Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos)

2025 Casebook Supplement (Free)

Election Meltdown

Election Meltdown book cover

Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust, and the Threat to American Democracy
(Yale University Press, 2020)

Legislation, Statutory Interpretation, and Election Law: Examples & Explanations

Legislation, Statutory Interpretation, and Election Law: Examples & Explanations

Legislation, Statutory Interpretation, and Election Law: Examples & Explanations (2d ed. Wolters Kluwer, 2020)

Recent ELB Podcast Episodes

The ELB Podcast

The ELB Podcast

Season 6, Episode 8 Danielle Lang: Is Trump’s Executive Order on Voting a Threat to Democracy?

Season 6, Episode 7,
Combatting False Election Information: Lessons from 2024 and a Look to the Future (Marwick, Starbird, Tucker)

Season 6, Episode 6, What Do Documentary Proof of Citizenship Laws Accomplish? (Fontes, Olson, Perales)

Season 6, Episode 5, Fair Elections and Voting Rights: What's Ahead for the Next Four Years? (Gardner, Karlan, Richer)

Season 6, Episode 4, Katie Harbath: The Present and Future of Social Media, Politics, and Elections

Season 6, Episode 3, From Nov. 5 to Jan. 6: Are We Prepared for a Fair and Safe Election? (Ginsberg, Diamond, Kleinfeld, Tolson)

Season 6, Episode 2, The United States Electoral College and Fair Elections (Fishkin, Hollis-Brusky, Muller)

Season 6, Episode 1, Democracy and the Risks to the 2024 Elections (Aden, Fortier, & Roth)

More podcast episodes ›

Recent Op-Eds & Commentaries by Rick Hasen

One Person Who Should Not Be in Charge of Elections, N.Y. Times, Aug. 22, 2025 (online version August 20, 2025)

Trump Started a Redistricting War. Only Congress Can Stop It, MSNBC Opinion, August 5, 2025

The Supreme Court Just Signaled Something Deeply Disturbing About the Next Term, Slate, August 4, 2025

Two Supreme Court Justices Invited an Outright Assault on Democracy. Now It’s Here, Slate, May 14, 2025

America Needs More Judges Like Judge Myers, The Atlantic, May 7, 2025

We’re Getting Dangerously Close to a Losing North Carolina Candidate Being Declared the Winner, Slate, Apr. 14, 2025

What Elon Musk Won in Wisconsin, Slate, Apr. 3, 2025

The Ultrarich Have Reshaped Presidential Elections. Here’s Where They’re Looking Next, Slate, Mar. 27, 2025

Trump’s Executive Order on Elections is a Blatant Power Grab, MSNBC Opinion, Mar. 26, 2025

One Possible Explanation for Judge Merchan’s Last-Minute Decision to Sentence Trump, Slate, Jan. 3, 2025 (with Jeremy Stahl)

Voting in the U.S. Shouldn’t Be This Hard, MSNBC Opinion, Nov. 5, 2024

Thousands of Pennsylvania Ballots Will Be Tossed on a Technicality. Thanks SCOTUS, Slate, Nov. 4, 2024

Why the “Blue Shift” Everyone Seems to Have Forgotten About Might Be More Dangerous This Time, Slate, Oct. 24, 2024

Elon Musk Might Have Broken the Law Against Bribing Voters. Whoops!, Slate, Oct. 16, 2024

Two Big Questions Raised by Elon Musk’s Trumpian Transformation of X, MSNBC Opinion, Oct. 14, 2024

Why the Supreme Court May Not Decide the 2024 Election After All, Slate, Oct. 10, 2024

Jack Smith’s Big New Jan. 6 Brief is a Major Indictment of the Supreme Court, Slate, Oct. 2, 2024

A Last-Minute Effort to Mess with the 2024 Vote is Underway. It’s Scarier Than Expected, Slate, Sept. 20, 2024

Why It Will Be Harder for Trump to Challenge This Year’s Election, Wall Street Journal, Aug. 29, 2024

Democrats Sure Aren’t Acting as If Trump Beating Biden is an Existential Threat to Democracy, Slate, July 10, 2024

Kamala Harris Replacing Joe Biden is not Antidemocratic, Slate, July 22, 2024

Trump Immunity Ruling Will Be John Roberts’ Legacy to American Democracy, Slate, July 1, 2024

Trump Immunity Ruling Will Be John Roberts’ Legacy to American Democracy, Slate, July 1, 2024

The First Amendment Just Dodged an Enormous Bullet at the Supreme Court, Slate, July 1, 2024

That Big Jan. 6 Supreme Court Decision is Not the Big Win for Trump People Think It Is, Slate, June 28, 2024

A Democratic Super PAC’s New Trump Ad Might Be Borderline Criminal, Slate, June 26, 2024

Why It’s Hard to Muster Even a ‘Meh’ Over Trump’s New York Criminal Trial, Los Angeles Times, April 14, 2024

2016 Election Fraudster ‘Ricky Vaughn’ Might Finally Be About to Face the Music, Slate, April 1, 2024

The Supreme Court Just Delivered a Rare Self-Own for John Roberts, Slate, March 5, 2024

It’s Past Time to Quit Hoping the Courts are Going to Stop Trump, Slate, March 4, 2024 (with Dahlia Lithwick)

The Biggest Supreme Court Case Nobody Seems to Be Talking About, Slate, February 23, 2024

How to Actually Guarantee the Right to Vote: A Six-Point Checklist, The Atlantic, February 13, 2024

A Grand Bargain is Emerging in the Supreme Court’s Trump Cases, But Chaos May be Ahead, Slate, February 8, 2024

Donald Trump is Asking the Supreme Court for the Bush v. Gore Treatment, Slate, February 7, 2024

Trump’s Lawyers Made Some Very Odd Strategic Choices in the Supreme Court Ballot Case, Slate, January 29, 2024

The 2024 Election Will Be Fair. People Still Won’t Believe It, Politico, January 25, 2024

The U.S. Lacks What Every Democracy Needs, New York Times, January 16, 2024

 

More op-eds and commentaries by Rick ›

Recent Academic Articles and Working Papers by Rick Hasen

Faux Campaign Finance Regulation and the Pathway to American Oligarchy (conference paper dated Apr. 24, 2025, draft available, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5229707)

Bush v. Gore‘s Ironic Legacy, 53 Florida State University Law Review (forthcoming 2026), draft available, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5188686

Reckoning with the Undead Irreparable Injury Rule, Review of Litigation (forthcoming 2025), draft available, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4901755

The Stagnation, Retrogression, and Potential Pro-Voter Transformation of U.S. Election Law, 134 Yale Law Journal 1673 (2025)

From Bloggers in Pajamas to The Gateway Pundit: How Government Entities Do and Should Identify Professional Journalists for Access and Protection, reprinted in THE FUTURE OF PRESS FREEDOM: DEMOCRACY, LAW & THE NEWS IN CHANGING TIMES (Cambridge U. Press, RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja R. West eds., 2025)

States as Bulwarks Against, or Potential Facilitators of, Election Subversion, in Our Nation at Risk: Election Integrity as a National Security Issue (Karen Greenberg and Julian Zelizer, eds. NYU Press, 2024)

Election Reform: Past, Present, and Future in Oxford Handbook of American Election Law (Eugene Mazo, ed., 2024)

Nonprofit Law as a Tool to Kill What Remains of Campaign Finance Law: Reluctant Lessons from Ellen Aprill, 56 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1233 (2023) (festschrift symposium honoring Ellen Aprill)

Identifying and Minimizing the Risk of Election Subversion and Stolen Elections in the Contemporary United States, 135 Harvard Law Review Forum 265 (2022)

Research Note: Record Election Litigation Rates in the 2020 Election: An Aberration or a Sign of Things to Come?, Election Law Journal, https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/epdf/10.1089/elj.2021.0050 (2022)

Optimism and Despair About a 2020 “Election Meltdown” and Beyond, 100 Boston University Law Review Online 298 (2020) (part of symposium on my book, Election Meltdown)

Three Pathologies of American Voting Rights Illuminated by the COVID-19 Pandemic, and How to Treat and Cure Them, Election Law Journal (2020)

More academic articles by Rick Hasen ›

Recent Books by ELB Contributors

Tokaji & Yablon- Election Law in a Nutshell

Tokaji & Yablon- Election Law in a Nutshell

Election Law in a Nutshell (3d ed., West Academic Publishing, 2024)
by Daniel P. Tokaji & Robert Yablon

Pildes – The Law of Democracy

Pildes – The Law of Democracy

The Law of Democracy: Legal Structure of the Political Process, 6th ed.
(Foundation Press, 2022)
by Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela S. Karlan, Richard H. Pildes, Nathaniel Persily, and Franita Tolson

Persily – Social Media and Democracy

Persily – Social Media and Democracy

Social Media and Democracy
(Cambridge Press, 2020)
by Nathaniel Persily and Joshua A. Tucker

Podcasts by ELB Contributors

Tolson – Free and Fair Podcast

Tolson – Free and Fair Podcast

Free & Fair with Franita and Foley
Franita Tolson and Edward Foley

Recent Articles by ELB Contributors

Tabatha Abu El-Haj, Networking the Party: First Amendment Rights & the Pursuit of Responsive Party Government, 118 Colum. L. Rev. 1225 (2018).

Bruce E. Cain, Wendy K. Tam Cho, Yan Y. Liu & Emily R. Zhang, A Reasonable Bias Approach to Gerrymandering: Using Automated Plan Generation to Evaluate Redistricting Proposals, 59 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 1521 (2018).

Edward B. Foley, Requiring Majority Winners for Congressional Elections: Harnessing Federalism to Combat Extremism (May 10, 2021). Ohio State Legal Studies Research Paper No. 61

Anita S. Krishnakumar, Cracking the Whole Code Rule (February 19, 2020). St. John’s Legal Studies Research Paper No. 20-0002, New York University Law Review, Forthcoming

Justin Levitt, Failed Elections and the Legislative Selection of Electors, 96 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1052 (2021)

Derek T. Muller, Election Subversion and the Writ of Mandamus, William & Mary Law Review (forthcoming)

Spencer Overton, Power to Regulate Social Media Companies to Prevent Voter Suppression. GWU Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2020-23, GWU Law School Public Law Research Paper No. 2020-23, 53 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 1793 (2020)

Nicholas Stephanopoulos, The Sweep of the Electoral Power (October 20, 2020). Constitutional Commentary, Forthcoming, Harvard Public Law Working Paper No. 21-07

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