Election Law Commons^™

The Threat Of Gerrymandering And Voter Suppression To American Democracy And Why Grassroots Activism Is The Most Viable Solution, Sabrina Pickett

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This comment examines the threat of partisan gerrymandering, voter suppression, and election subversion in American elections. Specifically, this comment details the development of federal voting legislation and acknowledges the limits of the executive branch to implement voter equity within constitutional structure. Consequently, this comment argues that grassroots activism combined with executive enforcement of current federal law through the Department of Justice is the most viable solution to strengthen civic engagement and uphold democratic principles.

The Right To Vote Securely, Sunoo Park

University of Colorado Law Review

American elections currently run on outdated and vulnerable technology. Computer science researchers have shown that voting machines and other election equipment used in many jurisdictions are plagued by serious security flaws, or even shipped with basic safeguards disabled. Making matters worse, it is unclear whether current law requires election authorities or companies to fix even the most egregious vulnerabilities in their systems, and whether voters have any recourse if they do not.

This Article argues that election law can, does, and should ensure that the right to vote is a right to vote securely. First, it argues that constitutional voting …

You Can't Have Your Vote And Dilute It Too: Closing The Voting Rights Act Loophole In Gerrymandering Claims, Megan B. Kelly

William & Mary Law Review

The problem with creating and enforcing redistricting standards arises poignantly in racial gerrymandering cases that involve VRA section 2 compliance. In many ways, the rights that the Equal Protection Clause seeks to protect are at odds with the rights that section 2 seeks to protect. On the one hand, equal protection asserts a certain color-blindness, an interest in minimizing the focus on race and, in doing so, maximizing equality for all. On the other hand, the VRA suggests, and in fact requires, line-drawers keep at least one eye on race when drawing lines.

These opposing rights create a tension, which …

Unequal Protection: Rethinking The Standards And Safeguards For Absentee Ballot Schemes, Kira M. Simon

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Trusting The Federalism Process Under Unique Circumstances: United States Election Administration And Cybersecurity, Eric S. Lynch

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Voice In The Wilderness: John Paul Stevens, Election Law, And A Theory Of Impartial Governance, Cody S. Barnett, Joshua A. Douglas

William & Mary Law Review

Justice John Paul Stevens retired from the Supreme Court almost a decade ago and turned ninety-eight years old in April 2018. How should we remember his legacy on the Supreme Court? This Article places his legacy within his election law jurisprudence. Specifically, Justice Stevens provided a consistent theory, which we term “impartial governance,” that has had a lasting impact on the field. This theory undergirds Justice Stevens’s creation of the important Anderson-Burdick-Crawford balancing test that federal courts use to construe the constitutionality of laws that impact the right to vote, such as voter ID laws. It is part of his …

Appendix: Text And Precedent For Representational Adequacy Claims Under Fifty State Constitutions, Christopher S. Elmendorf

William & Mary Law Review Online

This Appendix supplements the Article, From Educational Adequacy to Representational Adequacy: A New Template for Legal Attacks on Partisan Gerrymanders in the print edition of the William & Mary Law Review.

Appendix: A Reasonable Bias Approach To Gerrymandering: Using Automated Plan Generation To Evaluate Redistricting Proposals, Bruce E. Cain, Wendy K. Tam Cho, Yan Y. Liu, Emily R. Zhang

William & Mary Law Review Online

Here, we present our findings, analogous to those on the efficiency gap in Part I.B of our Article published in the print edition of the William & Mary Law Review, on the other measures of partisan fairness.

Taking The States' Congressional Delegations Seriously: A Twelfth Amendment And First Amendment Approach To Identifying The Worst Gerrymanders, Jamin B. Raskin

William & Mary Law Review Online

Charming and irresistible as it is, the nineteenth-century slang term “gerrymander” cannot generate an equal protection standard to transform congressional and state legislative redistricting in the twenty-first century.

The Gerrymander And The Constitution: Two Avenues Of Analysis And The Quest For A Durable Precedent, Edward B. Foley

William & Mary Law Review

It has been notoriously difficult for the United States Supreme Court to develop a judicially manageable—and publicly comprehensible—standard for adjudicating partisan gerrymandering claims, a standard comparable in this respect to the extraordinarily successful “one person, one vote” principle articulated in the Reapportionment Revolution of the 1960s. This difficulty persists because the quest has been for a gerrymandering standard that is universalistic in the same way that “one person, one vote” is: derived from abstract ideas of political theory, like the equal right of citizens to participate in electoral politics. But other domains of constitutional law employ particularistic modes of reasoning …

The Causes And Consequences Of Gerrymandering, Nicholas O. Stephanopoulos

William & Mary Law Review

In recent years, scholars have made great strides in measuring the extent of partisan gerrymandering. By and large, though, they have not yet tried to answer the questions that logically come next: What are the causes of district plans’ partisan skews? And what consequences do these skews have for democratic values? Using a unique dataset of state house and congressional plans’ partisan tilts from 1972 to 2016, this Article addresses precisely these issues. It finds that single-party control of the redistricting process dramatically benefits the party in charge, while other mapmaking configurations have small and inconsistent effects. It also shows …

Race And Representation Revisited: The New Racial Gerrymandering Cases And Section 2 Of The Vra, Guy-Uriel E. Charles, Luis Fuentes-Rohwer

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking Virtual Representation Seriously, Joseph Fishkin

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Redistricting Transparency, Rebecca Green

William & Mary Law Review

Until recently, legislative redistricting remained a relatively obscure topic for most Americans. In the upcoming 2020 round, increased public interest in the problem of gerrymandering, combined with the rise of technologies that empower public participation, will fuel public scrutiny of state redistricting processes at levels never before experienced. Are states prepared for this oversight onslaught? Will current redistricting transparency rules frustrate or nurture growing public interest? Can states take steps in advance of 2020 to ensure meaningful and productive public participation during the redistricting process? A thoughtful approach to redistricting transparency can both improve resulting maps and stave off litigation. …

Something Old, Something New, Or Something Really Old? Second Generation Racial Gerrymandering Litigation As Intentional Racial Discrimination Cases, Dale E. Ho

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Gerrymandering And Association, Daniel P. Tokaji

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Reapportionment, Nonapportionment, And Recovering Some Lost History Of One Person, One Vote, Pamela S. Karlan

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Race Or Party, Race As Party, Or Party All The Time: Three Uneasy Approaches To Conjoined Polarization In Redistricting And Voting Cases, Richard L. Hasen

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

Intent Is Enough: Invidious Partisanship In Redistricting, Justin Levitt

William & Mary Law Review

When the Supreme Court last seriously grappled with partisan gerrymandering, all nine Justices concluded that an excessive injection of politics in the redistricting process violates the Constitution, but failed to agree on what is excessive (or who should decide). Commentators have since offered no shortage of assistance, offering various models to resolve exactly “how much is too much.” This effort is a sprint to answer the wrong question. It is perhaps the question Justices have asked, but not the one best illuminating the problem.

This Article suggests an alternative: not “how much,” but “what kind.” The Court wants to distinguish …

Prophylactic Redistricting? Congress’S Section 5 Power And The New Equal Protection Right To Vote, Michael T. Morley

William & Mary Law Review

The Voting Rights Act (VRA) has been an important mechanism for increasing participation by racial minorities in the electoral system. In recent years, however, the Supreme Court has demonstrated its willingness to reconsider the VRA’s constitutionality. Due to the broad prophylactic scope of section 2 of the VRA, two main developments pose risks to its continued validity.

First, the Supreme Court narrowed Congress’s enforcement power under Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment in City of Boerne v. Flores, and is likely to interpret Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment similarly. Section 2 of the VRA features many key characteristics of …

A Reasonable Bias Approach To Gerrymandering: Using Automated Plan Generation To Evaluate Redistricting Proposals, Bruce E. Cain, Wendy K. Tam Cho, Yan Y. Liu, Emily R. Zhang

William & Mary Law Review

No abstract provided.

From Educational Adequacy To Representational Adequacy: A New Template For Legal Attacks On Partisan Gerrymanders, Christopher S. Elmendorf

William & Mary Law Review

For decades, legal attacks on partisan gerrymanders have foundered on a manageability dilemma: doctrinal standards the Supreme Court has regarded as judicially discoverable have been rejected as unmanageable, whereas the more manageable standards on offer have been dismissed as insufficiently tethered to the Constitution—that is, as undiscoverable. This Article contends that a solution to the dilemma may be found in a seemingly unlikely place: the body of state constitutional law concerned with the adequacy of state systems of public education. The justiciability barriers to partisan gerrymandering claims have near analogues in educational adequacy cases, yet only a minority of the …

The 2016 Voting Wars: From Bad To Worse, Richard L. Hasen

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Possibility Of Using Alternative Dispute Resolution For Election Law Disputes, Jessica Becerra

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

This article looks at the positive effects that ADR can have in resolving election law disputes before, during, and after elections. First, this article will focus on the significance of implementing ADR processes in resolving election law disputes. Next, this article will explain the background and impact that election law disputes have on voters, candidates, and the election process as a whole. This article will then explore why ADR processes should be implemented as opposed to using litigation to resolve election law disputes. After, this article will explain a proposed solution to resolving election law disputes through mediation or arbitration …

Clearing The Political Thicket: Why Political Gerrymandering For Partisan Advantage Is Unconstitutional, Michael Parsons

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Beyond Citizens United, Nicholas Almendares, Catherine Hafer

Fordham Law Review

The doctrine announced in Citizens United rendered most efforts to regulate campaign financing unconstitutional. We argue, however, that the doctrine allows for a novel approach to the concerns inherent in campaign financing that does not directly infringe on political speech, because it operates later in the process, after the election. This approach allows us to address a broad range of these issues and to do so with legal tools that are readily available. We describe two applications of our approach in this Article. First, we argue that courts should use a modified rational basis review when a law implicates the …

The Intratextual Independent “Legislature” And The Elections Clause, Michael T. Morley

Northwestern University Law Review

Many states have delegated substantial authority to regulate federal elections to entities other than their institutional legislatures, such as independent redistricting commissions empowered to determine the boundaries of congressional districts. Article I’s Elections Clause and Article II’s Presidential Electors Clause, however, confer authority to regulate federal elections specifically upon State “legislatures,” rather than granting it to States as a whole. An intratextual analysis of the Constitution reveals that the term “legislature” is best understood as referring solely to the entity within each state comprised of representatives that has the general authority to pass laws. Thus, state constitutional provisions or laws …

Section 501(C)(4) Advocacy Organizations: Political Candidate-Related And Other Partisan Activities In Furtherance Of The Social Welfare, Terence Dougherty

Seattle University Law Review

In the wake of the 2012 presidential election, tax and political law lawyers are left with a number of unanswered questions concerning the political activities of tax-exempt organizations. Despite the importance of these questions, there are striking gaps in the authority of federal tax law governing the conduct of political candidate and other partisan-related activities by tax-exempt organizations. Assuming activities in furtherance of partisan interests are activities that support private interests, I consider what this authority may tell us about the permissibility of Section 501(c)(4) organizations engaging in partisan political activities and having as a constitutive purpose a partisan political …

The Election Period And Regulation Of The Democratic Process, Saul Zipkin

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Introduction: How We Vote: Electronic Voting And Other Voting Practices In The United States, Davison M. Douglas

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.