I have posted this draft on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

This is the written version of a keynote address delivered to the Southern California Law and Social Science (SOCLASS) Forum, “Elections, Law and Democracy” Conference, Whittier Law School, March 28, 2014. Using examples from ballot access cases, campaign finance cases, redistricting cases, and election administration/voter identification cases, the address makes two arguments: First, in the Supreme Court’s election law cases, talk about “facts” and “evidence” is the tail wagging the dog. The Court is imposing value judgments in these cases, but sometimes camouflaging them behind a search for evidence, or worse yet, asserting facts about the state of the evidence which are not borne out by the evidence. This is true for both liberal and conservative Justices. Second, the Court needs to take one of two paths to correct its approach. Either it needs to get serious about facts and evidence in these cases, a change which has the potential to profoundly change our laws about campaign finance, voter identification, gerrymandering, and ballot access. Or the Court needs to stop camouflaging its value judgments and admit that facts don’t matter and no amount of evidence will matter given the Justices ideological commitments. I strongly favor the first approach, but the second approach would be better than the status quo when it comes to transparency and intellectual honesty. After discussing these two points the paper turns to a final question: how should social scientists and law professors who value social science respond to the Court’s misuse and abuse of social science in the election law cases?