I Had Said the PA Fight Over Provisional Ballots Might Return to the Courts. It has, in the Senate Race

After the Supreme Court declined to take on issues concerning rules on provisional ballots in PA, including the independent state legislature claim, I had said this issue might return after the election. The margin in the Senate race is close enough that we are now seeing this happen. The McCormick campaign has brought two suits concerning these ballots in Philly. I have not yet reviewed the complaints to see the theories they raise, and whether the independent state legislature claim is one of them.

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AP Calls U.S. Senate Race in PA for McCormick over Casey, But Democratic Lawyer Marc Elias Suggests the Race Could Still Be Called for Casey with Some Ballots Still Outstanding

AP call.

Elias response.

MORE from Elias:

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“Arizonans Defeat Three GOP Measures That Would Have Restricted Their Voting Power”

Bolts:

Republican lawmakers in Arizona placed a slew of constitutional amendments on the ballot this fall to limit the recourse available to voters to hold politicians and courts accountable and to take matters into their own hands. Arizonans on Tuesday rejected those proposals.

They voted down Prop 137, which would have largely ended judicial elections in the state and frozen in place the state supreme court’s current conservative majority. They also rejected Prop 134 and 136, which would have severely limited direct democracy by making it far tougher to qualify a measure for the ballot. 

All three measures lost handily, with Prop 137 going down by the largest margin. With some ballots remaining to be counted, it trails 77 to 23 percent as of publication. 

Arizonans on the same day approved an initiative to protect abortion in the state, overturning a 15-week ban GOP lawmakers adopted in 2022. This measure was placed on the ballot through a citizen-led effort, precisely the sort of organizing that would have become prohibitively difficult in the future if Prop 134 and 136 had passed.

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“Ohioans Reject Redistricting Reform, Protecting GOP Gerrymanders”

Bolts:

Ohioans on Tuesday rejected Issue 1, a ballot measure that would have created a new independent redistricting commission and stripped elected politicians of their power to draw congressional and legislative districts.

The result is a blow to the democracy organizations that have been combating gerrymandering in the state. They mobilized on behalf of Issue 1 after the lengthy legal standoff with Ohio Republicans in 2022, when the GOP, in a repeat of the prior decade, drew maps that locked in comfortable majorities for their candidates.

It’s also a repeat of two prior defeats for similar ballot measures that would have created independent commissions in both 2005 and 2012

“It’s incredibly sad, and it’s not clear to me what the next steps are to improve our democracy,” said Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause, an organization that was part of the coalition that collected hundreds of thousands of signatures that qualify Issue 1 for the ballot. “Addressing gerrymandering is so much about holding elected officials accountable and creating fair districts and fair elections so that we can actually have a functional government.” 

As of publication, the measure is trailing by roughly eight percentage points, with some ballots remaining to be counted.

While several polls in October showed Issue 1 with very large leads, those surveys were simply asking voters if they wanted to create an independent redistricting commission. The official language Ohioans saw on their ballot was very different: GOP officials wrote an official summary that characterized the measure as requiring gerrymandering rather than restricting it. A rare poll that tested the official language found the race effectively tied….

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Lara Trump Wants “maybe…a blanket federal election process that every state abides by”

Newsweek:

Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) and wife of Donald Trump‘s son Eric, has said that, after her father-in-law’s inauguration, the Republican-controlled government should look into changing the U.S. election process.

Talking to Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday after her father-in-law’s historic victory about how to make the election process more secure and transparent, Lara Trump said that with Donald Trump in office, a GOP majority in the Senate and potentially in the House as well, the Republican Party finally has a chance to address the issues “99 percent plus of Americans agree on.” These include, according to Lara Trump and Hannity, proof of citizenship and voter IDs.

“We don’t have a perfect system right now,” she told Hannity. “We have to get through this system, we have to play the hand that we were dealt. You have election season now instead of election day, and a lot of nuance around the country that makes it very confusing and really concerning for a lot of people.”

“Maybe now it’s the time, once Donald Trump is inaugurated, we go forward and maybe we have something that passes so that we can have a blanket federal election process that every state abides by and we feel very good about it all across the country,” she suggested….

“Congress has broad powers to regulate congressional elections in Article I, section 4, [of the U.S. Constitution]” Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Newsweek.

“In my experience, state and local election officials strongly resist attempts to centralize any election administration powers in the federal government,” he added. “Usually it is Republicans who strongly resist federalization of elections. So this will be interesting to watch if it happens.”…

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