It is better for election results to be accurate than quick. Especially true because results may shift as more people vote by mail (and shift from Trump to Biden as Trump discourages Rs from voting by mail). See our report, Fair Elections During a Crisis: law.uci.edu/faculty/full-t…
Trump tried same playbook in 2018 in #FLSEN, saying that we "must go with election night totals" and not absentee and other ballots, including MILITARY BALLOTS, that were not yet counted. In 2018 the results were not final until ALL votes were counted. Same for 2020.
It was good to see most Republican leaders summarily rejecting Trump's trial balloon to delay the election (which he has no power to do). They should be condemning as well his attempt to delegitimize the election and cast doubt on mail in balloting.
As we argue in our "Fair Elections During a Crisis" report, it is so important for the MEDIA to explain to the public that if the election is close, it may well be days before we have final results and that this is a feature, not a bug, of a fair and accurate count.
Everyone should expect a 1-2 week period of uncertainty in election results if things are close, and election officials should promote transparency about the number of ballots yet to be counted. Counting too should be transparent and will be.
Link to our "Fair Elections During a Crisis" report, which deals specifically with question of what to do about delays in counting expected flood of absentee ballots and how to promote legitimacy: law.uci.edu/faculty/full-t…
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Making a million dollar prize contingent on registering to vote is illegal. See 52 USC 10307(c) govinfo.gov/content/pkg/US… Also, with PA registration soon closing for this election it may not accomplish what Musk wants. x.com/hugolowell/sta…
The DOJ election crimes manual specifically mentions lotteries for voters as prohibited vote buying under that statute. . See pages 44-45justice.gov/criminal/file/…
Blog post at #ELB: Elon Musk Veers Into Clearly Illegal Vote Buying, Offering $1 Million Per Day Lottery Prize Only to Registered Voters electionlawblog.org/?p=146397
Rick Hasen’s Live Blog of the Supreme Court’s Oral Argument Over Trump’s Claim of Immunity in the Federal Election Subversion Case (Refresh this page frequently for updates) electionlawblog.org/?p=142644
Today under the auspices of @UCLA_Law #SafeguardingDemocracyProject, an ad hoc cross-ideological diverse committee has issued a major report: "24 for ’24: Urgent Recommendations in Law, Media, Politics, and Tech for Fair and Legitimate 2024 Elections." /1 law.ucla.edu/sites/default/…
Back in March, the UCLA Law Safeguarding Democracy Project held a conference, Can American Democracy Survive the 2024 Elections? /2law.ucla.edu/academics/cent…
Following the conference some of the participants met as an ad hoc committee to consider recommendations in law, politics, media, and tech for fair and legitimate elections in 2024. /3
About to be done producing free content for Elon here. Might just keep up automated tweets linking to blog posts. Find me @rickhasen@mastodon.online
Gonna need a lot of help here. Thank you all
I had started posting @rickhasen@mastodon.online yesterday and the posts were automatically coming here as tweets too thanks to the mastodon-twitter cross-poster. I've turned that off. So follow me over there if you want my content.
Garland has a lot of control over who gets appointed as special counsel. He can pick someone with integrity and respect on both sides of the aisle. And someone who can act quickly. He understands how Mueller faltered.
Garland also will have ultimate control over what happens. Better to appoint the counsel quickly, as it was inevitable that Trump was going to run for office and claim a witch hunt no matter what.
I do not believe anything in the RNC consent decree prevented the RNC from pursuing litigation over election rules.
There are other reasons by election litigation has exploded, nearly tripling in the period since Bush v. Gore in 2000.
A few explanations:
1. The 2000 election taught political operatives that in close elections, it may be possible to litigate to victory. That's especially true in a system that is decentralized and partisan, where there are lots of discretionary decisions to be made over how elections are run. /2
2. As @derektmuller has shown, recent changes in federal campaign finance law allow political parties to raise special funds for litigation. They have millions to spend, so why not sue over election rules? /3