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  • Rick Hasen
    • About Rick Hasen
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“In Black-led Compton, a Latino majority fights for political power”

May 16, 2023, 9:13 amredistrictingDerek Muller
Washington Post.

Cleta Mitchell’s Fear of Democracy

May 16, 2023, 7:11 amelection subversion risk, fraudulent fraud squadRick Hasen
The New York Times reported last week on an under-the-radar effort pushed by a bunch of Republican-backed dark money groups to enact new voting restrictions in time for the 2024 elections. As the group Documented has shown, in the center… Continue reading

ELB Book Corner: Steve Vladeck: “Purcell and the Partisan Valence of the Supreme Court’s 2020 Election Cases”

May 16, 2023, 7:00 amELB Book Corner, Supreme CourtRick Hasen
I am pleased to welcome to ELB Book Corner Steve Vladeck, author of the new book, The Shadow Docket. Here is the second of three posts: Yesterday’s post introduced the discussion of election cases in my new book… Continue reading

Media roundup of the appeal in Alexander v. South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP

May 16, 2023, 4:42 amredistricting, Supreme CourtDerek Muller
Bloomberg CNN New York Times Politico SCOTUSblog Washington Post

“3 senators apparently barred from reelection as Republican boycott of Oregon Senate continues”

May 16, 2023, 4:41 amlegislation and legislaturesDerek Muller
The Oregonian: Republicans continued their boycott of the state Capitol for a 10th day Monday, leading to the apparent disqualification of two Republicans and one Independent from reelection due to a new, voter-approved law. No Republicans nor Sen. Brian… Continue reading

Supreme Court’s skepticism of balancing tests in California pork case (and what it might say for the Anderson-Burdick framework)

May 16, 2023, 4:39 amSupreme CourtDerek Muller
The Supreme Court issued a decision in National Pork Producers Council v. Ross, holding that California may regulate sale of pork products in state even if it may affect interstate commerce. Not much of an election law angle. One… Continue reading

“Atlanta DA Fights Trump’s Bid to End Election Interference Probe”

May 15, 2023, 5:27 pmelectoral collegeDerek Muller
Jan Wolfe in the Wall Street Journal: Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis defended her investigation of Donald Trump, urging a judge to reject the former president’s request to disqualify her from further probing efforts to overturn the November 2020 presidential… Continue reading

“Ohio supermajority amendment opponents sue, arguing ‘no legal basis’ for August election”

May 15, 2023, 5:26 pmvoter initiativesDerek Muller
From the Ohio Capital Journal: State lawmakers approved a measure to ask voters if Ohio should raise the threshold for approving constitutional amendments to 60%. But in an unusual move, they set the August date for that election through… Continue reading

“Representative Gerry Connolly staffers assaulted by man with bat at Virginia office”

May 15, 2023, 5:25 pmlegislation and legislaturesDerek Muller
Washington Post: A man wielding a metal baseball bat assaulted two staffers in the Fairfax City office of Rep. Gerald E. Connolly on Monday, then smashed windows and a computer in an apparent rage after learning that the lawmaker… Continue reading

“FBI Faulted for Its Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign”

May 15, 2023, 5:23 pmcampaignsDerek Muller
Wall Street Journal: A special counsel appointed in President Donald Trump’s administration issued a highly critical report on how the FBI handled allegations linking Mr. Trump to Russia in 2016, ending four years of work Monday after having lost… Continue reading

“What the Courts Would Do if the Succession Fire Played Out in Real Life”

May 15, 2023, 5:05 pmElection MeltdownRick Hasen
I have written this piece for Slate (major spoilers!). It begins: As election nightmares go, Sunday night’s episode of the HBO series Succession, “America Decides,” was a doozy. It was the most uncomfortable hour of scripted television I have ever… Continue reading

Supreme Court will hear South Carolina racial gerrymandering case

May 15, 2023, 7:25 amredistrictingDerek Muller
Appeal from a three-judge panel decision in South Carolina in Alexander v. S.C. Conference of the NAACP. Earlier ELB coverage on the panel decision is here. That panel found that South Carolina’s First Congressional District was a racial… Continue reading

ELB Book Corner: Steve Vladeck: “The Most Troubling Side of the Shadow Docket”

May 15, 2023, 7:00 amELB Book Corner, Supreme CourtRick Hasen
I am pleased to welcome to ELB Book Corner Steve Vladeck, author of the new book, The Shadow Docket. Here is the first of three posts: The subtitle of my new book on the Supreme Court’s “shadow docket,”… Continue reading

“How to Raise $89 Million in Small Donations — And Make It Disappear”

May 15, 2023, 4:39 amcampaign financeDerek Muller
Follow the money at the New York Times: A group of conservative operatives using sophisticated robocalls raised millions of dollars from donors using pro-police and pro-veteran messages. But instead of using the money to promote issues and candidates, an… 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

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, forthcoming in THE FUTURE OF PRESS FREEDOM: DEMOCRACY, LAW & THE NEWS IN CHANGING TIMES (Cambridge U. Press, RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja R. West eds. forthcoming 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

Gerkin – The Democracy Index

Gerkin – The Democracy Index

The Democracy Index: Why Our Election System Is Failing and How to Fix It
by Heather K. Gerken
(Princeton University Press 2009)

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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