Election Law Commons^™

Capitalism Stakeholderism, Christina Parajon Skinner

Seattle University Law Review

Today’s corporate governance debates are replete with discussion of how best to operationalize so-called stakeholder capitalism—that is, a version of capitalism that considers the interests of employees, communities, suppliers, and the environment alongside (if not before) a company’s shareholders. So much focus has been dedicated to the question of capitalism’s reform that few have questioned a key underlying premise of stakeholder capitalism: that is, that competitive capitalism does not serve these various constituencies and groups. This Essay presents a different view and argues that capitalism is, in fact, the ultimate form of stakeholderism. As such, the Essay urges that the …

Voting Under The Federal Constitution, Travis Crum

Scholarship@WashULaw

There is no explicit, affirmative right to vote in the federal Constitution. At the Founding, States had total discretion to choose their electorate. Although that electorate was the most democratic in history, the franchise was largely limited to property-owning White men. Over the course of two centuries, the United States democratized, albeit in fits and starts. The right to vote was often expanded in response to wartime service and mobilization.

A series of constitutional amendments prohibited discrimination in voting on account of race (Fifteenth), sex (Nineteenth), inability to pay a poll tax (Twenty-Fourth), and age (Twenty-Sixth). These amendments were worded …

Democracy's Bureaucracy: The Complicated Case Of Voter Registration Lists, Michael Morse

Articles

This Article calls attention to the development and derailment of a novel cross-governmental bureaucracy for voter registration. It focuses specifically on voter registration lists as the vulnerable backbone of election administration. In short, the constitutional allocation of election authority has left a mobile electorate scattered across fifty different state registration lists. The result is more than a tenth of the electorate likely registered in their former jurisdiction and more than a third not registered at all. The solution, in the vocabulary of election officials, has become “list maintenance”—or, identifying when voters, previously registered at one address, subsequently move or die, …

Written Testimony Of Philip Hackney For The Hearing On Growth Of The Tax-Exempt Sector And The Impact On The American Political Landscape (U.S. House Ways & Means Subcommittee On Oversight, December 13, 2023), Philip Hackney

Testimony

In written testimony before the House Ways & Means Subcommittee on Oversight on December 13, 2023, Professor Hackney emphasized three points about tax-exempt organizations and politics: (1) a diverse nonprofit sector that fosters civic participation and engagement is a gem of the United States -- we should maintain that; (2) the IRS budget for Exempt Organizations continues to NOT be sufficient to ensure the laws are equally and fairly enforced; and (3) there are simple things the IRS could do to enforce the law that it is not doing.

Co-Managers? The Need For Clarification Regarding State And Federal Powers In Federal Elections, Amber Mccomas

Journal of the National Association of Administrative Law Judiciary

This article argues that the Court needs to clarify the distinction between the state and federal government’s roles in federal elections to avoid chaos and unconstitutional overreach. As a part of this clarification, the Court should also clarify how information is deemed “necessary.” This article looks specifically at one potential consideration: public fears regarding election security. Data and logic indicate that such fears should not be a consideration in the necessity determination as they are unreliable. Section II examines the background of the Election Assistance Commission, the applicable law, as well as criticism and support the agency has received since …

Election Administration As A Licensed Profession, Ganesh Sitaraman, Kevin M. Stack

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Essay argues that election administrators should be subject to a professional licensing regime, much like licensing in medicine and law. Making election administration a licensed profession would not only expand requirements for training, but also enhance the professional identification of these officials, reinforcing norms of integrity and impartiality. By raising barriers to entry, licensing would make it more costly for partisans to obtain these offices. Licensing could also improve public confidence in the professionalism of election administration. Such a reform meets our moment. While many states have increased training requirements for election administrators, significant gaps remain. Moreover, existing reforms …

Dividing The Body Politic, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

It has long been assumed in large, modern, democratic states that the successful practice of democratic politics requires some kind of internal division of the polity into subunits. In the United States, the appropriate methods and justifications for doing so have long been deeply and inconclusively contested. One reason for the intractability of these disputes is that American practices of political self-division are rooted in, and have been largely carried forward from, premodern practices that rested originally on overtly illiberal assumptions and justifications that are difficult or impossible to square with contemporary commitments to philosophical liberalism.

The possibility of sorting …

Is There Anything Left In The Fight Against Partisan Gerrymandering? Congressional Redistricting Commissions And The “Independent State Legislature Theory”, Derek A. Zeigler, Jose Urteaga

Michigan Law Review

Partisan gerrymandering is a scourge on our democracy. Instead of voters choosing their representatives, representatives choose their voters. Historically, individuals and states could pursue multiple paths to challenge partisan gerrymandering. One way was to bring claims in federal court. The Supreme Court shut this door in Rucho v. Common Cause. States can also resist partisan gerrymandering by establishing congressional redistricting commissions. However, the power of these commissions to draw congressional districts is at risk. In Moore v. Harper, a case decided in the Supreme Court’s 2022-2023 Term, the petitioners asked the Court to embrace the “Independent State Legislature …

Pengembalian Fungsi Pengawasan Pemilu Kepada Masyarakat Sebagai Wujud Penyelenggaraan Pemilu Yang Demokratis, Burhan Robith Dinaka, Fitra Arsil

Jurnal Konstitusi & Demokrasi

Elections as a means of implementing people's sovereignty which are held directly, publicly, freely, confidentially, honestly and fairly within the territory of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia which are based on Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution of the Republic of Indonesia also mandate a model of election supervision through Bawaslu as the election organizing institution whose task is to observe, review, inspect and assess the election implementation process so that it runs in accordance with the provisions of applicable laws and regulations. The ongoing strengthening of positions, duties, functions and authority within Bawaslu has left a number …

Electoral Sandbagging, Lisa Manheim

UC Irvine Law Review

An insidious tactic threatens elections across the United States. Some refer to it as a “bait and switch.” Others recognize a form of “election sabotage.” While the labels vary, the pattern is the same. First, an election official or other figure of authority consents to an error at an early stage of the election process. The actor then waits to see how the election unfolds. If the election results are favorable, the error slides into irrelevance. If not, that same actor refers back to the earlier error, now with indignity, and insists that it requires a late-stage disruption of the …

"Solo En Inglés": Using Section 208 Of The Voting Rights Act To Combat Modern Literacy Tests, Katie Kitchen

William & Mary Law Review

This Note asserts that section 208 of the VRA [Voting Rights Act] plays a vital role in protecting equitable access for limited English proficient (LEP) voters to cast their ballot. It does so by (1) providing background on protections in the VRA for LEP voters, (2) proposing that section 208 fills the gap left by other provisions of the VRA, and (3) offering recommendations for using section 208 effectively. These recommendations will include (1) amending section 208, (2) furthering education, and (3) increasing individual state actions. Lastly, this Note will argue that section 208 should serve as a model for …

Electoral Sandbagging, Lisa Marshall Manheim

Articles

An insidious tactic threatens elections across the United States. Some refer to it as a “bait and switch.” Others recognize a form of “election sabotage.” While the labels vary, the pattern is the same. First, an election official or other figure of authority consents to an error at an early stage of the election process. The actor then waits to see how the election unfolds. If the election results are favorable, the error slides into irrelevance. If not, that same actor refers back to the earlier error, now with indignity, and insists that it requires a late-stage disruption of the …

Election Subversion And The Writ Of Mandamus, Derek T. Muller

William & Mary Law Review

Election subversion threatens democratic self-governance. Recently, we have seen election officials try to manipulate the rules after an election, defy accepted legal procedures for dispute resolution, and try to delay results or hand an election to a losing candidate. Such actions, if successful, would render the right to vote illusory. These threats call for a response. But rather than recommend the development of novel tools to address the problem, this Article argues that a readily available mechanism is at hand for courts to address election subversion: the writ of mandamus. This Article is the first comprehensive piece to situate the …

Americans For Prosperity Foundation V. Bonta: Protecting Free Speech And Its Implications For Campaign Finance Disclosures, Sara Lindsay Neier

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

In 2021, the United States Supreme Court in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Bonta considered the anonymous speech rights of charitable donors against the California Attorney General’s interest in preventing wrongdoing by charitable organizations. The Court applied exacting scrutiny, a standard traditionally applied to campaign finance disclosure laws, determining that California’s requirement was facially invalid as a violation of associational rights. Bonta did not concern campaign finance, making this application of exacting scrutiny novel. This Article considers the open questions raised by Bonta regarding how exacting scrutiny should be applied and what it means for the future of campaign finance …

The Case For Federal Deference To State Court Redistricting Rulings: Lessons From Ohio’S Districting Disaster, John Sullivan Baker

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

In a watershed 2015 referendum, Ohioans decisively approved a state constitutional amendment that prohibited partisan gerrymandering of General Assembly districts and created the Ohio Redistricting Commission. Though the amendment mandated that the Commission draw proportional maps not primarily designed to favor or disfavor a political party, the Commission—composed of partisan elected officials—repeatedly enacted unconstitutional, heavily gerrymandered districting plans in blatant defiance of the Ohio Supreme Court.

After the Ohio Supreme Court struck down four of the Commission’s plans, leaving Ohio without state House and Senate maps just months before the 2022 general election, a group of voters sued in the …

Why We Can’T Have Nice Things: Equality, Proportionality, And Our Abridged Voting Rights Regime, Michael Latner

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

What constraints should the protection of political equality place on the design of electoral systems? With the exception of requiring approximate population equality across a jurisdiction’s districts, the U.S. voting rights regime accepts substantial disproportionality in voting strength. This Article addresses the current Supreme Court’s abandonment of the Second Reconstruction’s “one person, one vote” standard with regard to both racial and partisan gerrymandering, and assesses the role that Congress and political science have played in this transition. This Article argues that an unabridged voting rights regime must recognize a standard of proportional representation derived from the protection of individual political …

Discriminatory Intent Claims Under Section 2 Of The Voting Rights Act, Amandeep S. Grewal

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

This Article addresses a new controversy over whether Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act prohibits laws that exhibit “only” discriminatory intent, in the absence of discriminatory results. Lower courts have long embraced an intent approach for Section 2. And the Department of Justice has rested its entire ongoing case against Georgia’s controversial voting bill on an intent approach.

However, this Article shows that the Supreme Court’s decision in Brnovich v. DNC effectively rejects the intent approach to Section 2. In April 2023, the Eleventh Circuit reversed its prior cases and now rejects an intent theory. This puts in peril …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Disaster Districts: Mid-Decade Redistricting In The Face Of Climate Change, J. Gray Whitsett

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

This Note argues that judicial and legislative efforts to constrain redistricting should incorporate legal stopgaps to allow for mid-decade redistricting in the wake of disasters that result in significant population displacement. Part I reviews how climate change is exacerbating natural and manmade disasters and the potential for these disasters to cause population displacement, particularly in the context of urbanization. Part II provides an overview of the typical redistricting process and requirements for electoral districts. It also details the debate over mid-decade redistricting, including efforts to prevent it. Part III proposes preconditions for “emergency redistricting” that judges and legislators should consider …

“Better Luck Next Election”: Late-Jailed Voters’ Constitutional Right To Vote After Mays V. Larose., Grace Thomas

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.