Election Law Blog

I asked this question on Twitter last night, when we only knew about Hope Hicks. Here's the best answer I've gotten so far. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116098 As I pretty much expected: the parties would quickly nominate new candidates, and then scramble to get them on ballots despite being past normal deadlines. Courts would probably have to get involved. Does not address what would happen to votes already cast.

> If a party's nominated presidential candidate is incapable of assuming the presidency, is there a mechanism for the party to nominate someone else? That's apparently an excellent question. Fortunately, there's a discussion here[0] about it. I know this because dsr12[1] helpfully submitted it here on HN[2]. It's an interesting article and I will go over to the discussion page shortly, as it already has a bunch of comments. [0] https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116098 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=dsr12 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659844

>Congressional districts are ultimately decided by the individual states, (theoretically) based upon Census data as I understand it. (A correction is welcome if I've misunderstood) Theoretically based on Census data, but ultimately at the near-unrestricted discretion of whoever holds the state legislature at the time. >Trouble is, when a party wins (and thus is in the best position to fix the issue), this isn't seen as a problem worth addressing. That change, too, needs to come from within. Yep. It's taken lawsuits in some places: http://electionlawblog.org/?p=89402. This case could end up before the Supreme Court. If the Supreme Court then votes their own partisan preferences, which they often do these days, it will be... fucked-up.

Is there anything floating out there beyond the article in New York[1] and everyone reiterating it? The stuff over at Election Law Blog[2] seems to be worth quoting here: > Without public evidence on the record to examine it is hard to really evaluate this claim other than by looking at the credibility of the people involved. Halderman is very credible, and if he says there are anomalies that deserve investigation, they should be investigated. But the fact that this group has gone to Elias and Podesta, and so far the campaign has said nothing since learning of it last Thursday, should give you pause. Time has just about run out. Claiming a hacked or rigged election is about as explosive a claim as one could make—-especially coming after Trump made unsupported allegations of vote rigging throughout the election. If there’s a realistic chance of anything here that could be proven to affect the election outcome, you have to trust Clinton’s legal team to advance it (or have advanced it already). [1] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/11/activists-urge-hillary-cl… [2] http://electionlawblog.org/?p=89454

Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, refusing to schedule the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva (as she is the last vote needed to release the Epstein files) is putting us dangerously close to a failure of democracy. Hopefully it’s resolved in a timely manner. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=152266

Are you interested in refuting anything I said, or anything the articles I linked said? If I was wrong to assume that you mistook the Biden administration's voluntary persuasion for coercion, then I apologize. Regardless, I think it was misleading to simply relay the claim that the Biden administration "pressured Meta to censor COVID-19 content", especially given the benefit of hindsight from the Murthy v. Missouri Supreme Court ruling [1]. [1] https://electionlawblog.org/?p=144036

Direct payments do seem to be illegal in a way that having a rally or concert or canvassing are not. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146397

Topic of a current HN submission: "With News That the President Has Tested Positive for Coronavirus (and He Was in Contact with Joe Biden at the Debate Earlier in the Week), What Happens If a Presidential Candidate Dies or is Incapacitated Before Election Day? A Mess" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24659844 https://electionlawblog.org/?p=116098

They only had the option to summarily affirm or take up the case on appeal. Technically I should not have used the term cert in my original post as it comes up through a different method (28 U.S.C 1253). In the old days there used to be many more mandatory appeals to the Supreme Court, but it has gotten narrower and narrower. The last change in 1988 got rid of most of the remaining paths, but there are still mandatory appeals written into a handful of statutory causes of actions. See: http://electionlawblog.org/?p=91947 for more info.

Election law is complicated. Even lawyers hedge on these things because it's not as simple as looking up the statute, you have to look up previous court cases, and if it's a case of first impression make a lot of inferences. Issues I see include whether it is legal to solicit political endorsements which will potentially become campaign materials, in exchange for pay or the prospect of pay, whether it's legal to run lotteries in multiple states (but excluding all others), whether it's legal to influence an election by running such a promotion etc. The first and second issues make for an interesting combination, because my understanding is that Musk is soliciting people to sign a petition in support of the first and second amendments. Since these are in the constitution of the whole United States, why is his 'lottery' restricted to only 7 states, to the disadvantage of people in the other 43? Incidentally, Rick Hasen, an election law prof at UCLA, says it's definitely illegal. https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146397

> Hasn't this already been true for years? No, not every law has provisions for free IDs and even when "free" IDs are offered it still costs people money https://today.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/FullReportVot… > Is there any voter ID requirement, or even a proposal for one, that doesn't accept drivers' licenses? Millions of Americans don't have a drivers license or any form of government issued ID http://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/d/download_fil… This is pretty common in elderly and disabled people who can no longer drive. They often see no reason to keep renewing a state ID. If we had a national ID card that every citizen was required to have from the time they were children until the day that they died it wouldn't as big an issue, but that's not the case. Groups that help support the elderly and disabled have been dealing with the problem for many years. see also: https://www.aarp.org/politics-society/government-elections/info-01-201… > You can get that at 16, and most people get it well before 18, the minimum voting age. Most people can get an ID, but doing that might be extremely difficult. It's getting better as local governments increasingly move services online but historically the US hasn't been so great about record keeping or making the needed documents easy to get. The first time I had to get a state ID I first had to travel across the country to the…

What if there was a remarkable amount of evidence abuse has already occurred? https://www.theroot.com/exclusive-thousands-of-black-votes-in-georgia-… Or how about a federal district court ruling? https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/georgia-dre-decision.pd…

I found the NPR coverage much clearer: https://www.npr.org/2018/11/02/663417341/judge-rules-native-americans-… Filing: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5026639-Complaint-Clc-Narf.htm… Ruling: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/5026691-Hovland-order.html Granting the previous injunction in 2016: http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/north-dakota-position.pd… I'm still missing some relevant links... Was this denied cert at some point? Please comment with links if you have others. The coverage of this seems to miss the distinction in the different phases of this litigation.

Here's a link to the actual opinion, which is pretty interesting if you're into political history and constitutional law: http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/rucho-opinion.pdf

Overall: Another FTZ with yet another disposable travesty headline floating summary elimination of traditional civil liberties to make it impossible to defend against N fronts legally or media-wise. The current environment is enabling and permitting this kind of chaos in various domains: Trad and social media: Owned by partisan shills, skewing algorithms for maximum profits, and massive merger consolidations forming monopolies that were previously illegal. Government - executive - leadership / law enforcement: "Feds want" when the Feds don't understand how 1a works is a problem beyond the obvious other ones. The problem here is when there is a lack of meaningfully-independent law enforcement and prosecution service at the highest level, causing paths of appeal to a reliable higher authority in legal and police matters seems far more closed than they've ever been. Government - legislative: Weak, corrupt Congress not pushing back effectively or getting much of anything done. The House has very little legislative power in modern times apart from a few special powers because the Senate wields the filibuster and tiny states have disproportionate power. Tiny state Senate seats are also easier to flip by buying up TV and radio stations, tailored disinformation campaigns, and advertising. Government - judiciary: Recently, Judge Jerry E. Smith on the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals launched into a tirade of antisemitic dog whistles ("George Soros" 17x) and personal attacks…

From the court decision [1]: > But, on the day after the Supreme Court issued Shelby County v. Holder, 133 S. Ct. 2612 (2013), eliminating preclearance obligations, a leader of the party that newly dominated the legislature (and the party that rarely enjoyed African American support) announced an intention to enact what he characterized as an “omnibus” election law. Before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use, by race, of a number of voting practices. Upon receipt of the race data, the General Assembly enacted legislation that restricted voting and registration in five different ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. In response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action, the State offered only meager justifications. Although the new provisions target African Americans with almost surgical precision, they constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not exist. That does seem pretty damning when you read their justification [1] http://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/nc-4th.pdf