Election Law Commons^™

Could The Best Of Tightrope Walkers Manage To Walk The Line Between Race-Consciousness And Race-Predominance? An Analysis Of Race-Based Districting In Light Of Miller V. Johnson, Sean Simpson

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Real Error In Citizens United, Joanna M. Meyer

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Enlivening Election Law, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Election law cases are often lengthy and include complex discussion of constitutional doctrines. Moreover, there is rarely a clear-cut answer to a tricky election law question. The field is full of balancing tests, competing interests to weigh, and ever-shifting standards. A challenge for Election Law teachers, then, is to ensure that the long judicial opinions and difficult constitutional doctrines undergirding the field of election law do not bury the vibrancy of the topic. One way to keep an Election Law course student-friendly is to make frequent use of electronic media. Election law is well-suited to the adoption of images, videos, …

Georgia V. Ashcroft: It's The End Of Section 5 As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) , Michael J. Pitts

Pepperdine Law Review

No abstract provided.

Election Law And Civil Discourse: The Promise Of Adr, Joshua A. Douglas

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This Article was the result of a Symposium that explored the potential promises of alternative dispute resolution (“ADR”) for resolving election law disputes. Both election law and ADR scholars opined on how ADR can help to achieve various goals for deciding contentious election law cases. My focus in this essay is narrower: I suggest that employing some features of ADR to resolve election disputes can help to improve the civil discourse of our elections and our political culture. That is, certain aspects of ADR can assist in reducing caustic language in election law judicial decisions, in the media’s reporting of …

Election Law As Applied Democratic Theory, James A. Gardner

Journal Articles

Democracy does not implement itself; a society’s commitment to govern itself democratically can be effectuated only through law. Yet as soon as law appears on the scene significant choices must be made concerning the legal structure of democratic institutions. The heart of the study of election law is thus the examination of the choices that our laws make in seeking to structure a workable system of democratic self-rule. In this essay, written for a symposium on Teaching Election Law, I describe how my Election Law course and materials focus on questions of choice in institutional design by emphasizing election law’s …

Political Gangsters: The Future Of Racketeering Law In Politics Note, Jillian Henzler

Cleveland State Law Review

Racketeering law and election restrictions are two areas of law that are not typically connected. Previous to the landmark decision in Citizens United, the chances of finding racketeering within election law were probably very slim.The corruption created by this new ruling is a fear that the government has been trying to combat for over a century. Not only will the effects of this new rule increase the appearance of corruption, this corruption may rise to a criminal level if racketeering action actually takes place. The ever-changing and expanding definition of racketeering under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act shows …

Campaign Speech Law With A Twist: When The Government Is The Speaker, Not The Regulator, Helen Norton

Publications

Although government entities frequently engage in issue-related campaign speech on a variety of contested ballot and legislative measures, this fact has been entirely overlooked in contemporary First Amendment debates over campaign speech law specifically and government speech more generally. The Supreme Court's "campaign speech" and "government speech" dockets have focused to date on claims by private parties that the government has restricted or silenced their speech in violation of the First Amendment. In contrast, disputes over what this Article calls "governmental campaign speech" involve Free Speech Clause and other challenges by private parties who seek instead to silence the government's …

Charities And Lobbying: Institutional Rights In The Wake Of Citizens United, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

One of the many aftershocks of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Citizens United v. FEC is that the decision may raise constitutional questions for the long-standing limits on speech by charities. There has been much scholarly attention both before and after that decision on the limit for election-related speech by charities, but much less attention has been paid to the relating lobbying speech limit. This article seeks to close that gap by exploring that latter limit and its continued viability in the wake of Citizens United. I conclude that while Citizens United by itself does not undermine the limit …

Outsourcing Democracy: Redefining The Public Private Partnership In Election Administration, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

“We are left with a system in which almost every state still outsources its elections to what are actually private organizations.”

Federal, state and local governments are deeply indebted to private organizations, political parties, candidates, and private individuals to assist it, inter alia, in registering voters, getting citizens to the ballot box through get out the vote campaigns (GOTV), assisting limited English proficient (LEP) citizens, and monitoring Election Day activities. In a recent Supreme Court case, Crawford v. Marion County, Justice Souter recognized that voting legislation has “two competing interests,” the fundamental right to vote and the need for governmental …

Standardizing The Principles Of International Election Observation, Jonathan Misk

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

On October 27, 2005, thirty-two international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) and intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) signed the Declaration of Principles for International Election Observation, drafted with the assistance of the United Nations. For nearly four decades before the signing of the Declaration, international election observation rapidly gained acceptance as a legitimate method of guaranteeing free and fair elections and thus promoting lasting democratic institutions. Many INGOs and IGOs conducting observation missions--including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Organization of American States, the South African Development Community, and the Carter Center-independently developed standards for their observers to follow. As international …

Disclosures About Disclosure, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

An often overlooked aspect of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Citizens United v. FEC is the sharply contrasting factual accounts regarding disclosure of independent election-related spending. For eight of the Justices, such disclosure is constitutionally defensible because it enables voters to make informed decisions. For Justice Thomas, however, such disclosure is constitutionally suspect because of its potential to result in retaliation and related chilling of First Amendment speech in the form of financial contributions. The continuing importance of these contrasting narratives can be found not only in the pending Supreme Court case of Doe v. Reed, in which the …

Comments On Expanding Civic Participation In Voting By Expanded Use Of The Internet, Candice Hoke

Law Faculty Presentations and Testimony

Hoke's comments to the FCC on expanding civic participation in voting by expanded use of the Internet. Hoke recommends that the FCC not become involved in election regulatory issues concerning the Internet, but will support a different federal regulatory agency with national security and technical-cybersecurity expertise receiving primary jurisdiction over election cybersecurity.

Voting And Registration Technology Issues: Lessons From 2008, S. Candice Hoke, David Jefferson

Law Faculty Contributions to Books

This chapter reviews the 2008 field performance and the scientific assessments of both voting systems and the statewide voter-registration databases. The federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) mandated each of these technologies. Despite definitive scientific studies that documented grave security deficiencies that can cause voting systems to produce inaccurate vote tallies and “winners” who actually had fewer votes, these systems continue to be deployed. The Chapter traces the regrettable decisions on election technologies to a poorly designed regulatory structure and staffing, which continue to underweight and misunderstand security issues in election technologies.

Breaching A Leaking Dam?: Corporate Money And Elections, Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer

Journal Articles

With a brief order issued at the end of its last term, the Supreme Court dramatically raised the stakes in Citizens United v. FEC. What many had predicted would be a case decided on narrow, technical grounds has now become a possible vehicle for overturning two key campaign finance precedents. By ordering re-argument and supplemental briefing on the issue of whether it should overrule either or both Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and the part of McConnell v. FEC which addresses the facial validity of Section 203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, the Court signaled that …

Protecting The Right To Vote: Oversight Of The Department Of Justice's Preparations For The 2008 Election - Statement Of Gilda R. Daniels Before The Senate Judiciary Committee, September 9, 2008, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

In 2000, we witnessed faulty voting machines with hanging chads and dimpled ballots. We also experienced error-filled purges and voter intimidation in minority neighborhoods. Since the 2000 Presidential election the voting rights vocabulary has expanded to include terms such as, voting irregularities and election protection and created a new debate regarding voter access versus voter integrity. Despite the debates and new legislation in the form of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the continued enforcement of other voting statutes such as the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, (NVRA), problems persist in the operation of our …

Lessons Learned From The 2004 Presidential Election: Testimony Of Gilda R. Daniels Before The House Judiciary Subcommittee On The Constitution, Civil Rights And Civil Liberties, July 24, 2008, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

Since the 2000 Presidential election the voting rights vocabulary has expanded to include terms such as, "voting irregularities" and "election protection" and created a new debate regarding voter access versus voter integrity. Despite the debates and new legislation in the form of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), and the continued enforcement of other voting statutes such as the Voting Rights Act, and the National Voter Registration Act, (NVRA), problems persist in the operation of our participatory democracy.

What we have witnessed since 2000, particularly during the 2004 election, gave us some reason to hope but also reason for concern. …

A Vote Delayed Is A Vote Denied: A Proactive Approach To Eliminating Election Administration Legislation That Disenfranchises Unwanted Voters, Gilda R. Daniels

All Faculty Scholarship

In an effort to determine voter eligibility and access to the voting booth, our democratic system has allowed political forces, to develop laws that would meet their aims of either granting or denying access to the franchise. Caught in this web of regulations, practices and procedures is the "unwanted voter" - the disabled, elderly, poor, and minority voter. New millennium models of exclusion, such as overly restrictive identification requirements, unwarranted voter purges, restrictive voter registration rules, increasing costs for underlying documents to support citizenship and eligibility for voting, are creating a caste system in the electoral process. The practice of …

Lobbying And Campaign Finance: Separate And Together, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

The relationship between lobbying and campaign finance is complex, contested, and changing. Lobbying and campaign finance are two important forms of political activity that combine money and communication in ways that have significant implications for democratic self-government. The two practices frequently interact and reinforce each other, with individuals, organizations, and interest groups deploying both lobbyists and campaign money to advance their goals. Congress, in 2007, for the first time explicitly recognized the intersection of campaign finance and lobbying when it adopted legislation specifically regulating the campaign finance activities of lobbyists. At roughly the same time, several of the leading candidates …

How To Think About Voter Fraud (And Why), Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

In recent months, debates over voter fraud have consumed state legislatures and blogs, courts and election commissions. The prevailing way of framing that debate has been in terms of numbers and statistics: how much voter fraud is there, and does the amount of voter fraud justify new measures to prevent it? In my essay, I argue for a shift away from statistical analysis and towards normative discourse. Only if we understand why (and whether) voter fraud is bad will we be able to decisively settle debates about what should be done about it, if anything.

The first part of my …

Bush V. Gore And The Uses Of 'Limiting', Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

My comment looks at the debate in the 6th Circuit case Stewart v. Blackwell in light of the history of the use of "limiting language" by the Supreme Court. I catalog the Court's past uses of limiting language, and distinguish between the Court's several uses of limiting language. Against those who defend the limiting language of Bush v. Gore as simply an example of innocuous minimalism, I report my findings that "limiting" is always used by the Court to nullify a principle that decided a previous case. Additionally, the Court has never, prior to Bush, used limiting language to limit …

Deliberative Dilemmas: A Critique Of Deliberation Day From The Perspective Of Election Law, Chad Flanders

All Faculty Scholarship

My paper deals with two subject areas - deliberative democracy theory and election law - that have had surprisingly little contact with another. My paper tries to remedy this lacuna by looking at how the two fields intersect and can contribute to the understanding of one another. In particular, I look in detail at a particularly prominent proposal by two political theorists, Bruce Ackerman and James Fishkin's Deliberation Day, and how the aims of that proposal might be frustrated by the present structure of American election law. I argue that because they fail to take into account certain structural features …

Virtuous Judges And Electoral Politics: A Contradiction?, Marie Failinger

Faculty Scholarship

Judge Thomas J. Spargo serves as a fascinating poster-child in the debate on what’s wrong (or right) with judicial elections. Judge Spargo, campaigning for re-election as Justice of the Berne Town Court in upstate New York, was accused of “failing to observe the high standards of conduct” expected as a judge because he handed out doughnuts to voters. Judge Spargo’s case and others illustrate that popular debates about the merits of judicial elections versus judicial selection commissions have probably been mis-focused on two “second-order questions rather than concentrating on “first-order” concerns in judicial selection. This article discusses these questions and …

Taxing Political Donations: The Case For Corrective Taxes In Campaign Finance, David Gamage

Articles by Maurer Faculty

Command-and-control regulations are generally thought to be inferior to incentive-based alternatives. This essay proposes an incentive-based approach for regulating campaign finance. In place of our current regime of contribution ceilings, the essay calls for a graduated system of contribution taxes. Rather than capping the size of political donations at a specified dollar level, we should tax donations based on a schedule of graduated rates - the larger the size of a contribution, the higher the level of taxation.

Contribution taxes generate two primary advantages over contribution ceilings. First, contribution taxes preserve more total surplus. This surplus can be shared by …

The Appearance Of Election Law, John Copeland Nagle

Journal Articles

The recent attention to election law implies that questions of reapportionment, voting rights, campaign finance, and the counting of votes belong to the same category of legal questions. In each instance, the evolving Supreme Court jurisprudence emphasizes appearances. The appearance of legislative districts, the appearance of corruption, and the appearance of partisanship are just some of the distinct ways in which the Court has concluded that appearance matter. As with other appearances, what looks to some observers like a gerrymandered district or a corrupting contribution is seen by others as a legitimate apportionment or an innocent expression of political support. …

Hybridizing Citizenship, Kathryn Abrams

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court's Misplaced Concern With Selective Fairness: Bush V. Gore And Three Analogies To Grading Dilemmas, William K.S. Wang

Journal of Legal Education

No abstract provided.

What Bush V. Gore Means For Elections In The 21st Century, Helen Norton

Publications

No abstract provided.

Reforms In Florida After The 2000 Presidential Election, Jon L. Mills

UF Law Faculty Publications

Much has been written concerning the Florida recount, and the final U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bush v. Gore. Moreover, the popular media has mostly focused on the negatives of the Florida recount without delving into the exact reasons why Florida became the epicenter of this controversy. Not much has been written pinpointing the actual circumstances precipitating Florida's position after the election, nor discussing the theoretical underpinning of Florida election law, which embraces a broad liberal concept of respecting the “will of the voter.”

By examining both the actual circumstances surrounding Florida in 2000 and recognizing that Florida election …

Election Disputes And The Constitutional Right To Vote, Joseph W. Little

UF Law Faculty Publications

This commentary is an enlargement of a talk delivered at the annual conference of the Socio-Legal Studies Association (United Kingdom) held in Bristol, England, in April 2001. The purpose was to raise questions about where the "right-to-vote" comes from in the Florida and U.S. Constitutions and whether the constitutional right-to-vote possesses useful legal force in the judicial resolution of a closely-contested election. The Gore-Bush Florida election controversy was the stimulus.

Among the subsidiary questions are: What should a written constitution for a democratic government say about the right to vote? And, how, if at all, should constitutional litigation play a …