State of Elections

William & Mary Law School | Election Law Society

Election Law Society

New York’s clock continues to count down

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by Alex Custin

New York’s redistricting attempts continue to show little progress towards developing a plan that both the legislature and the governor will approve.  The legislature continues to refuse to pass the redistricting commission bill that the governor proposed earlier this year.  The governor in turn has continued to state that he will veto any redistricting plan that is not formed through an independent process.  The governor has reminded the legislature that if they continue to insist upon using partisan methods to develop the redistricting plan, the courts will end up drawing the lines, and no one can truly predict what will happen if the courts get involved because of all of the changes that have to take place.

Another issue continues to add pressure on the government to develop a plan soon: the need to hold the primary early enough to be able to send absentee ballots to overseas servicemen.  New York managed to get an exemption from this requirement in 2010 – it did not have to worry about it this year because it only applies to federal elections – but its chances of getting another exemption in 2012 appear to be quite slim.  This issue adds even more complexity to New York’s election process because it appears that the government plans on keeping the current date for state and local primaries, which would mean New York would have presidential primaries in April, congressional primaries sometime around August, and state and local primaries in September.  There was some consideration given to changing the state and local primaries to match the date of the congressional ones, but in an unsurprising result, the parties could not agree on a date to change it to.  This is kind of interesting when you think about what it will mean for the congressional primaries. Perhaps the date will be set by the judge deciding New York’s suit requesting another exemption to the timeline for military absentee ballots. [Read more…] about New York’s clock continues to count down

Update: Nordstrom out, ELEC in, Lyon still unelected (for now)

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by Kevin Elliker

Charles Dudley Warner wrote, “Politics make strange bedfellows.” When a candidate who violated campaign finance laws is joined in a lawsuit by the agency in charge of enforcing against such violations, politics must be involved.

In November, I wrote about the debacle in the Republican primary election for freeholder in Morris County, New Jersey.  At that time, a Superior Court judge overturned 23-year-old Hank Lyon’s 6-vote victory over incumbent Margaret Nordstrom in the June primary election. Judge Weisenbeck found that Lyon violated New Jersey campaign finance laws when he failed to submit certain donations and expenditures to the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), and voided the primary election in favor of a party convention to choose the nominee. The convention selected Nordstrom, who went on to victory in the November general election before Lyon’s appeal could be heard.

Just prior to the election, the Appellate Division granted ELEC permission to intervene as a respondent to the lawsuit. (Non-lawyers: this means the court allowed ELEC to join the pre-existing lawsuit as a party that can claim an interest in the case which will not undermine the original suit). ELEC argued that Judge Weisenbeck overstepped his jurisdiction and that the agency should resolve election disputes such as this. [Read more…] about Update: Nordstrom out, ELEC in, Lyon still unelected (for now)

Who is stuffing the politicians’ pockets: Alabama and PAC-to-PAC contributions

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by John Alford 

Alabama Legislatures are trying to clean up the state’s political landscape. The problem at hand is that money is being shifted around without a clear understanding of where the funds originated. Political action committees (“PACs“) are, essentially, groups that take in funds and redistribute contributions to candidates or to advocate particular issues. Prior to 2011, a PAC in Alabama could receive money from a donor and then transfer the funds to another PAC. The second PAC can then put funds into half a dozen other PACs, which use the money to help advocate issues. The identity of the individuals who originally donated the funds is lost in the mix. This means that people trying to influence, or even corrupt, politicians, can play this “shell game” and hide the money trail. Keep in mind, there are 859 PACs in Alabama.

An attempt to hide the money trail is exactly what happened when gambling interest groups began trying to increase their odds of success. The U.S. Justice Department wiretapped a session where this statement came to light:  “We’re gonna support who supports democracy. And the (expletive deleted) who doesn’t support democracy [should] get ready to get their (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) busted.” Certainly this crass statement could be taken admirably, but chances are the gambling tycoon was not strictly supporting democracy given that statement is taken in the context of extortion, bribery, fraud, and conspiracy charges. Shifting money from PAC-to-PAC to hide the connection to gambling money, however, was perfectly legal. This confusion of contributions was an integral means of getting support for the gambling agenda since politicians did not need to fear disclosure. [Read more…] about Who is stuffing the politicians’ pockets: Alabama and PAC-to-PAC contributions

How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state

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by Colleen Nichols

Hurricane Irene was not the only thing to shake up Delaware this year. The 2010 Census has sent County and City Councils scrambling to create redistricting plans that reflect the changes in their districts’ populations and comply with regulations. According to Antonio Prado, Staff Writer for the Dover Post, the Dover Election Board sent a redistricting plan to the Dover City Council that complies with a 1988 consent decree that requires “a minority district with at least 65 percent black voters 18 years old and older.”

This consent decree settled a lawsuit between the NAACP and the city of Dover, in which “the NAACP successfully argued that Dover’s at-large system of council elections was detrimental to the equal representation of the city’s minority voters.” [Read more…] about How city and county councils are handling redistricting in the first state

Big commission for a small state

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Q&A with John Marion of Common Cause on Redistricting in Rhode Island

1. Can you describe the work the Special Commission on Reapportionment has done?

“They’ve met, six times so far. Going around the state, taking testimony from people concerning what the map should look like. But the Commission has not publicly presented any maps. Starting next week it is expected that they will present three or more sets of maps and take them around the state seeking input from the public. They are required by law to choose a plan which is a set of maps and then the legislature has to vote.”

2. What could the Commission do to improve the quality of elections for Rhode Islanders?

“They could continue to do what they seem to be doing, which is taking public input. Besides the public hearings the Commission is allowing members of the public to use the computers that will be used to do the redistricting and draw their own maps and submit them.”

“The Commission should also be publicly debating and trying to rank the criteria that they plan to use and consider when drawing the plans. There are many different legal criteria that must be satisfied but also political criteria that may be taken into account including political competiveness considerations.”

3. What about the process by which the Commission was picked? [Read more…] about Big commission for a small state