Law Commons^™

Algorithmic Elections, Sarah M.L. Bender

Michigan Law Review

Artificial intelligence (AI) has entered election administration. Across the country, election officials are beginning to use AI systems to purge voter records, verify mail-in ballots, and draw district lines. Already, these technologies are having a profound effect on voting rights and democratic processes. However, they have received relatively little attention from AI experts, advocates, and policymakers. Scholars have sounded the alarm on a variety of “algorithmic harms” resulting from AI’s use in the criminal justice system, employment, healthcare, and other civil rights domains. Many of these same algorithmic harms manifest in elections and voting but have been underexplored and remain …

Brief Of Amicus Curiae Conference Of Chief Justices In Support Of Neither Party, Moore V. Harper, No. 21-1271 (U.S. Sept. 6, 2022), Evan Caminker, Carter G. Phillips, Virginia A. Seitz, Kathleen M. Mueller

Appellate Briefs

Founded in 1949, amicus curiae Conference of Chief Justices (the “Conference”) is comprised of the Chief Justices or Chief Judges of the courts of last resort in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealths of Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands, and the Territories of American Samoa, Guam, and the Virgin Islands. For over 70 years, the Conference has been a leading national voice on important issues concerning the administration of justice in state courts, the operation of state courts and judicial systems, and the role of state courts in our federal system.

The Conference files briefs …

“A Mystifying And Distorting Factor”: The Electoral College And American Democracy, Katherine Shaw

Michigan Law Review

A Review of Let the People Pick the President: The Case for Abolishing the Electoral College. By Jesse Wegman.

The Messy History Of Michigan’S “Purity Clause”, Joshua Perry

Michigan Law Review Online

So it’s worth asking: What does the Purity Clause actually mean? Can contemporary courts properly invoke it to justify restrictions purportedly aimed at controlling “voter fraud”? Should they?

Part I diagnoses the problem: Recently, Michigan courts have invoked the Purity Clause to legitimize voting rights restrictions without applying their usual tools of constitutional interpretation or scrutinizing the Clause’s complex history. As a result, voting restrictions have been justified by reference to a badly underexamined constitutional provision.

Part II examines the Clause with the tools that Michigan courts use to interpret the state constitution. This Part argues that neither the original …

Black Women & Women's Suffrage: Understanding The Perception Of The Nineteenth Amendment Through The Pages Of The Chicago Defender, Tamar Anna Alexanian

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

Susan B. Anthony once famously stated, “I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work for or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman.” The racism of many early suffragettes has been well documented and discussed; Black suffragettes and other suffragettes of color were, at best, relegated to the margins of the movement and, at worst, scorned and turned away by white suffragettes. Moreover, part of white suffragettes’ strategy for passage of the Nineteenth Amendment was based on racist appeals to white men; white suffragettes claimed that passage of the Nineteenth Amendment …

Textualism, Judicial Supremacy, And The Independent State Legislature Theory, Leah Litman, Katherine Shaw

Articles

This piece offers an extended critique of one aspect of the so-called “independent state legislature” theory. That theory, in brief, holds that the federal Constitution gives state legislatures, and withholds from any other state entity, the power to regulate federal elections. Proponents ground their theory in two provisions of the federal Constitution: Article I’s Elections Clause, which provides that “[t]he Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof,” and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, which provides that “[e]ach State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature …

To Participate And Elect: Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act At 40, Ellen D. Katz, Brian Remlinger, Andrew Dziedzic, Brooke Simone, Jordan Schuler

Other Publications

This paper provides an overview of cases decided under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act between September 1, 1982 and December 31, 2021. It updates our 2006 study documenting Section 2 litigation through 2005. Of note is the substantial decline in the number of Section 2 cases decided and diminished success for the plaintiffs who bring them. While recent litigation (including Brnovich and Merrill v. Milligan) suggests that Section 2 is likely to occupy, at best, a diminished role in future electoral disputes, this paper shows that Section 2’s reach had already declined significantly prior to recent disputes. …

Mary Lou Graves, Nolen Breedlove, And The Nineteenth Amendment, Ellen D. Katz

Articles

This close examination of two cases is part of a larger ongoing project to provide a distinct account of the Nineteenth Amendment. In 1921, the Alabama Supreme Court held the Nineteenth Amendment required that any poll tax be imposed equally on men and women. Sixteen years later, the Supreme Court disagreed. Juxtaposing these two cases, and telling their story in rich context, captures my larger claim that—contrary to the general understanding in the scholarly literature—the Nineteenth Amendment was deliberately crafted as a highly circumscribed measure that would eliminate only the exclusively male franchise while serving steadfastly to preserve and promote …