Author: bakhtawar

Among Norm’s excellent suggestions: 1. Print a huge supply of absentee ballots and return envelopes. If state and local election officials can’t afford to do so, they can establish public-private partnerships, using resources from foundations, corporations, and others to get it done. 2. Make large numbers of these absentee ballots available at every polling place on … Continue reading “A democracy cannot rely on luck:” Crucial Norm Ornstein Column in The Atlantic: “The November Election Is Going to Be a Mess Disaster is avoidable—if lawmakers act now.” Continue Reading →

In my 2012 book, The Voting Wars, I chronicled how Congress created the United States Election Assistance commission in 2002 after the debacle of 2000’s Bush v. Gore, how the agency started out with great promise as one that could rise above partisan squabbles, and how Republicans worked to sabotage the commission almost from the start. Jessica … Continue reading In Must-Read Piece on Dysfunction at the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, Jessica Huseman Reveals that Excellent Republican Commissioner Matt Masterson Was Forced Out by Von Spakovsky and EAC Commissioner McCormick for Being “Insufficiently Partisan” Continue Reading →

You can find the opinion in Greater Birmingham Industries v. Alabama at this link. This opinion is very troubling because the majority held it was appropriate to grant summary judgment to the state of Alabama despite evidence that at least some of the legislators who passed this law did so with racially discriminatory intent, despite the … Continue reading In Worrisome Decision, 11th Circuit Panel on 2-1 Vote Rejects Challenge to Alabama Voter Identification Law Without Allowing a Trial Continue Reading →

Jowei Chen and I just posted this article. It’s forthcoming in the Yale Law Journal, and its abstract is below: A critical issue in any racial vote dilution case is the proportionality (or lack thereof) of a minority group’s representation: how well (or poorly) minority voters are represented relative to their share of the population. In … Continue reading “The Race-Blind Future of Voting Rights” Continue Reading →

WaPo: President Trump’s relentless efforts to sow doubts about the legitimacy of this year’s election are forcing both parties to reckon with the possibility that he may dispute the result in November if he loses — leading to an unprecedented test of American democracy. With less than four months before the election, Trump’s escalating attacks … Continue reading “Trump’s assault on election integrity forces question: What would happen if he refused to accept a loss?” Continue Reading →

Greg Sargent WaPo column: In a recent interview, President Trump repeatedly refused to say whether he will accept the outcome of the voting this fall, while claiming vote-by-mail will “rig the election.” So it’s easy to imagine various nightmares: Trump might declare himself winner while many mail ballots remain uncounted, or refuse to concede if mail ballots … Continue reading “Refusal to concede? Vote counting delays? Lefty groups brace for the worst.” Continue Reading →

New Leah Litman: Beyond that rather glaring defect, however, the new executive order also confirms the theory behind the lawsuits challenging the administration’s earlier attempt to add a citizenship question to the census. When the administration attempted to do that, its lawyers made that preposterous claim that a citizenship question was necessary to enforce the Voting … Continue reading “Trump lied to the Supreme Court. His new census order proves it.” Continue Reading →

Wednesday, July 29, 2020  10:00 – 11:30 AM | Hacking Democracy: Elections and Beyond Sponsored by: ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security Cosponsored by: Division for Public Education Democracy is not inevitable. Right now, US democratic institutions are under tremendous stress as Americans struggle to hold them accountable to … Continue reading Two Upcoming ABA Election Programs Continue Reading →

Wednesday, July 29, 2020  10:00 – 11:30 AM | Hacking Democracy: Elections and Beyond Sponsored by: ABA Cybersecurity Legal Task Force, ABA Standing Committee on Law and National Security Cosponsored by: Division for Public Education Democracy is not inevitable. Right now, US democratic institutions are under tremendous stress as Americans struggle to hold them accountable to … Continue reading “Key GOP Senator Sketches Plan To Boost Funding For Election Officials During COVID” Continue Reading →

Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Wednesday spelled out the approach the Senate will likely take in providing additional funding for election officials in the next round of pandemic legislation. “I am very open to having that discussion about additional money to the states,” Blunt told TPM, after a Senate committee hearing on election preparations. Blunt, … Continue reading “Key GOP Senator Sketches Plan To Boost Funding For Election Officials During COVID” Continue Reading →