Election Law Commons^™

Justice Kavanaugh’S Tee: What Is The Court Brewing?, Elijah J. Miller

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

From Bots To Ballots: Democratic Integrity In The Era Of Digital Manipulation, Dalit Ken-Dror Feldman, Yifat Nahmias

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

Preparing For Election Disruptions In 2024, Norman J. Ornstein

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

The U.S. Electoral System And Foreign Interference, Jeremi Suri

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

The Electoral Count Reform Act In 2024, Adav Noti

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

The County Certification Problem, Jenny Gimian

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

Litigating The 2024 Election, Richard Pildes

Fordham Law Voting Rights and Democracy Forum

No abstract provided.

Fusing To Combat Slavery: Third-Party Politics In The Pre-Civil War North, Corey M. Brooks, Beau C. Tremitiere

St. John's Law Review

This Article examines how antislavery third parties used electoral fusion—the practice by which a candidate can appear as the nominee of multiple political parties—to mobilize antislavery political power in the 1840s and 1850s. Highlighting several striking and consequential examples of how Liberty, Free Soil, and early Republican partisans cross-nominated candidates also supported by another party, this Article sheds light on a pivotal chapter in the long and important history of this electoral tactic. The critical role electoral fusion played at key points in American political history casts further doubt on the legitimacy of contemporary state anti-fusion restrictions, whose constitutionality is …

Interference With The Democratic Process As Public Nuisance, Richard C. Boldt, Donald G. Gifford

Faculty Scholarship

This Article argues that the tort of public nuisance provides a vehicle for holding accountable those engaged in antidemocratic conduct. Recent history suggests that neither the criminal justice system nor Constitutional checks and balances are always up to the task. Following the 2020 election, some supporters of President Trump stormed the Capitol to prevent the counting of the electoral votes, tampered with election machines, and intimidated election workers and voters. Depending on the results of the 2024 election, criminal charges against Trump and some of his followers may be dismissed. The Senate failed to convict the President on articles of …

Letters From A Fragmented Democracy, Maureen Edobor

Scholarly Articles

This piece confronts the stakes of our current trajectory by looking to the future. It presents six fictional letters to illustrate where today’s ominous currents could lead. In this imagined tomorrow, contemporary voting restrictions, judicial erosion, and administrative manipulation have gradually hollowed out the franchise, transforming formal democracy into little more than an empty spectacle. Each letter voices a different facet of democratic erosion: a voter disenfranchised by bureaucratic hurdles, a candidate’s voice hijacked by deepfake technology, a neighbor ensnared by punitive voting laws, a community erased by gerrymandering, a campaign drowned in dark money, and even a corporate memo …

Election Law, Maureen A. Edobor, John J. Martin

Scholarly Articles

This is the first year the University of Richmond Law Review has surveyed recent developments in Virginia’s campaign and election laws since 2015. Since then, Virginia’s voting and election statutes have changed significantly, making it one of the most accessible states to vote in, although the campaign finance regulatory framework remains relatively weak. This Article provides a general overview of the state of the law governing (1) campaign finance; (2) voter access and list maintenance; (3) election systems and administration; and (4) redistricting, focusing on significant updates in the past two decades.

Through A Glass Darkly: How Securities Disclosures Give A Distorted View Of The Economy, Gerald F. Davis

Seattle University Law Review

Our understanding of the American economy often relies on stylized facts derived from mandatory disclosures by listed corporations. Data vendors like Standard & Poor’s vacuum up 10Ks and proxy statements into databases, and scholars distill these into tentative maps. This may have been adequate for a postwar economy centered on asset-heavy manufacturers, but it is increasingly out of step with an information-based economy. Companies listed on the stock market are fewer in number and less representative than they were, light in tangible assets and people, and heavy on IP. Basic facts such as what industry they are in are increasingly …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Corporate Scenarios: Drawing Lessons From History, Madison Condon

Seattle University Law Review

As corporations are increasingly pressed to reveal information about their exposure to climate-related risks, they are often asked to undertake and disclose the outcome of “scenario analysis.” In this exercise, corporations, including financial institutions, examine how their business would fare under different pathways the future may take. One oft-used scenario, for example, is the International Energy Agency’s “Net-Zero by 2050: A Roadmap for the Energy Sector.” This Essay presents a history of the use of scenarios as a corporate planning tool, particularly in the oil industry, arguing that it is key for understanding our present moment and the role of …

Shareholder Expression In A Time Of Heightened Political Tension, Aaron A. Dhir

Seattle University Law Review

In this article, I provide context for my forthcoming research project on shareholder proposals and racial equity audits. Since the murder of George Floyd in May of 2020, progressive shareholder actors have increasingly used the proposal mechanism to advance diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice-related goals. These proposals have frequently gone beyond requesting the usual corporate fare of diversity trainings, intersectionality workshops, affinity groups, etc. Instead, a more ambitious type of proposal asks corporate America to conduct racial equity audits, defined as “an independent, objective and holistic analysis of a company’s policies, practices, products, services and efforts to combat systemic racism …

Corporate Governance Speech, Sarah C. Haan

Seattle University Law Review

The State has always regulated the intra-firm communications that make corporate governance possible, most commonly by mandating disclosures of information by a corporation to its shareholders. Some such laws are labeled “securities regulation,” but securities regulation is a broad category that extends to speech by actors who are outside the corporate enterprise as well. Also, the conventional securities regulation category does not capture all such laws; other examples, including informationforcing mandates, can be found in state corporate law. This Article uses the term “corporate governance speech” to describe the communications among shareholders, directors, and officers through which corporate governance is …

Dark Accounting Matter, Colleen Honigsberg

Seattle University Law Review

Physicists calculate that approximately 85% of the matter in the universe is composed of “dark matter” that “does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is therefore difficult to detect.” The S&P 500 currently trades at a price-to-book value of 4.2, suggesting that book value accounts for less than 20% of the S&P 500’s market value. The remaining 80% appears nowhere in these firms’ balance sheets—it is invisible to contemporary accounting techniques and constitutes “dark accounting matter.”

Some “dark accounting matter” is composed of factors commonly described as components of “ESG.” Human capital, for example, is an intangible asset …

The Employees’ Dilemma: Balancing Internal Reporting, Whistleblowing, And Insider Trading Risks, Geeyoung Min

Seattle University Law Review

The Essay examines how recent developments in insider trading regulations and whistleblower reward programs can lead to unintended and counterproductive results of discouraging employees from using internal reporting channels within corporate compliance programs. While the presence of a robust and well-functioning corporate compliance program is a critical factor both in mitigating the level of public enforcement actions against companies and in protecting corporate managers from liability in private litigation, these programs often provide little incentive for employees to report potential misconduct internally.

Corporate compliance programs are designed to promote the upward information flow within the company, which is essential for …

How The Antidiscrimination Law Of Commercial Transactions Really Works, Helen Norton

Seattle University Law Review

A variety of businesses now cite 303 Creative when seeking First Amendment protection for their refusal to serve certain customers based on those customers’ protected class status. How this litigation will play out remains to be seen. But future courts need not, and should not, repeat the 303 Creative Court’s misunderstanding of how the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions actually works.

Part I of this Essay explains the Court’s longstanding understanding of the antidiscrimination law of commercial transactions, and then describes the Court’s failure to engage with this precedent in 303 Creative. Part II then identifies the 303 Creative decision’s …

Regulating Artificial Elections, Courtney A. Barclay

Belmont Law Review

This Article examines the growing role of artificial intelligence in shaping modern election discourse and the resulting tensions with First Amendment doctrine. Focusing on generative AI, deepfakes, chatbots, and synthetic media, the Article evaluates whether existing campaign finance laws—particularly disclosure and disclaimer requirements—adequately address AI-driven distortions in the electoral marketplace of ideas. Surveying the Federal Election Commission’s 2024 interpretive rule on fraudulent misrepresentation, emerging state legislation regulating synthetic media, and proposed federal reforms, the Article argues that current legal frameworks are both constitutionally constrained and practically insufficient. Drawing on the AdChoices model from data privacy regulation, it proposes a hybrid …