Interesting LAT story on the role of the media in reporting on — and shaping — the debate about American democracy.

Top American journalism leaders have publicly argued that the continued existence of democracy in the U.S. is no longer something that can be taken for granted. Efforts to undermine voters’ choices across the U.S. have given way to new “democracy” beats, where newsroom editors and reporters no longer simply cover candidates and elections but voter registration laws, ballot access and election integrity. . . .

There are signs that some of those attitudes have also reached the newsroom rank-and-file. While 76% of American adults polled in a recent Pew Research Center study said that journalists should always strive to give every side equal coverage, a majority of journalists surveyed disagreed.

Andy Donohue, executive editor of projects for the publication Reveal at the Center for Investigative Reporting, who predicted the rise of the democracy beat in 2020, said in the journalism industry that there is “very broad recognition from everyone from newsroom leaders to reporters that we very much are in a red-alert threat for a real demise to our democratic system.” . . .

But in newsrooms, in books and on the air, journalists and experts are openly pondering how American democracy can win the argument for its own survival when the battle of persuasion is with a public skeptical of their authority. Americans’ trust in newspapers and TV news is at an all-time low. Many Republican politicians have simply stopped talking to mainstream reporters, preferring the company of friendlier conservative outlets and personalities.

Politico on the DOJ focusing on the involvement of the RNC’s director for “election integrity,” Joshua Findlay, in fake electors schemes in Arizona and Georgia.

In addition to a group of former President Donald Trump’s top lawyers, the Justice Department’s Jan. 6 probe is also seeking communications to and from a Republican National Committee staffer in a sensitive role.

At least three witnesses in DOJ’s investigation of so-called alternate electors in the 2020 election — two in Arizona and another in Georgia — have received subpoenas demanding communications to and from Joshua Findlay, who is now the RNC’s national director for election integrity. . . .

Findlay’s visibility into plans regarding alternate electors didn’t end on Election Day. POLITICO reviewed an email sent to him on December 12, 2020, showing David Shafer — head of the Georgia Republican Party, and himself an alternate elector — directing one of his subordinates to contact Findlay about the alternate elector plans.

San Francisco Chronicle:

A San Francisco law allowing noncitizen parents to vote in local school board elections was overturned Friday by a judge who said the California Constitution permits only citizens to vote.

The ordinance, the first of its kind in the state, was approved by city voters as Proposition N in 2016, took effect in 2018 and was extended indefinitely by the Board of Supervisors in 2021. It allows noncitizens, including undocumented immigrants and legal residents, to vote for school board candidates if they are a parent or guardian of a school-age child and are not in prison or on parole for a felony conviction.

A lawsuit by conservative organizations cited a provision of the state Constitution that declares, “A United States citizen 18 years of age and resident in this State may vote.” Lawyers for the city contended the “may vote” language did not prohibit a local government from authorizing others to vote, but San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Ulmer disagreed.

WaPo.

Federal authorities charged a Russian man Friday with a years-long malign influence campaign targeting American politics — alleging that he used American groups in Florida, Georgia and California to sow discord and push pro-Russia propaganda.

Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, who lives in Moscow, worked for nearly eight years with Russian officials to fund and direct the U.S. groups, according to the indictment filed in Florida. The 24-page indictment does not name the groups but charges that Ionov also advised the campaigns of two unidentified political candidates in Florida.

Ionov “allegedly orchestrated a brazen influence campaign, turning U.S. political groups and U.S. citizens into instruments of the Russian government,” Matthew Olsen, head of the Justice Department’s national security division, said in a written statement.

Barton Gellman in The Atlantic on the potential implications of Moore v. Harper for presidential elections (if, a big if, any independent state legislature holding in the congressional election context extends to presidential elections, too).

To understand the stakes, and the motives of Republicans who brought the case, you need only one strategic fact of political arithmetic. Six swing states—Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina—are trending blue in presidential elections but ruled by gerrymandered Republican state legislatures. No comparable red-trending states are locked into Democratic legislatures. . . .

If you give the legislature a blank check on the manner of appointing presidential electors, then a Republican majority could—in the most muscular version of ISL—simply disregard a Biden victory in the state’s popular vote and appoint Trump electors instead. . . .

But if the Supreme Court adopts the ISL doctrine in Moore, the argument that Texas made will become a model in 2024. The conditions that Texas cited in its argument are almost always present in contemporary elections. Legislatures pass laws on the conduct of the vote, but election administrators have to interpret those laws and set implementing rules such as precinct locations, polling times, and counting procedures. State courts sometimes mandate changes in the rules to comply with their state constitutions. It’s all but impossible to conduct an election without making rules or choices that the legislature did not specifically authorize.

The pernicious threat of ISL, wrote Richard L. Hasen, an election-law expert at UCLA, is that “a state legislature dominated by Republicans in a state won by Democrats could simply meet and declare that local administrators or courts have deviated from the legislature’s own rules, and therefore the legislature will take matters into its own hands and choose its own slate of electors.”

AP on a Nevada county commission that decided to recommend hand-counting all ballots for the odd reason that this would supposedly improve the security and accuracy of vote counts.

For months, conspiracy theories fueled on social media by those repeating lies about former President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020 inflamed public suspicions about whether election results could be trusted. In response, the commission put a remarkable item on its agenda: Ditch the county’s voting machines and instead count every vote on every ballot — more than 20,000 in a typical general election — entirely by hand.

Commissioners called a parade of witnesses, including three from out of state who insisted voting machines could be hacked and votes flipped without leaving a trace. They said no county could be certain their machines weren’t accessible via the internet and open to tampering by nefarious actors. . . .

Merlino’s departure and Nye County’s plans to scrap voting machines and hand-count every ballot open a window into the real-world consequences of unfounded conspiracy theories that have spread across the country since Trump’s defeat. The moves also raise questions about how local elections will be run when overseen by people who are skeptical of the process.

NPR on how Republican candidates for secretary of state who lie about the 2020 election being stolen are faring. Across the country, numerous Republican candidates for these positions — and others with some role in election administration, like governor and… Continue reading

My article, part of the AALS conference on Rebuilding Democracy and the Rule of Law, is now published. Here’s the abstract: Congress should enact a law requiring a candidate for a seat in Congress to receive a majority… Continue reading

WaPo. Only this activist’s point isn’t the one he thought he was making, since there’s no evidence of widespread absentee voting fraud in Wisconsin. A Wisconsin man this week ordered absentee ballots for himself in the names of a mayor… Continue reading

This Lawfare essay by Irina Manta and Cassandra Burke Robertson discusses a pending cert petition that raises the issue of who exactly is entitled to birthright citizenship and offers the Court an opportunity to overrule the Insular Cases. In the… Continue reading

Happy to have been a guest on this episode of 1A with Miles Parks and Carly Koppes. Listen.

This New York Times article describes a criminal complaint filed in federal district court.  It alleged that a Manhattan resident, Louis Koch, requested absentee ballots in over one hundred people’s names.  They included notable lawyers, politicians, and journalists.  The New… Continue reading

This CNN report notes that the Justice Department procured a warrant to search the contents of John Eastman’s cell phone.  The Department does so as part of its criminal probe into the efforts of Eastman and others to convince former… Continue reading

This Wall Street Journal op-ed by Karl Rove discusses former President Trump’s four PACs.  As of June 30, they held $121 million.  In contrast, the combined chests of the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and the National… Continue reading