Election Law Society

Easy Reading? California’s 224-page Voter’s Guide

Election Law Society · March 28, 2017 ·

By: Tyler Sherman

As November 8—election day—drew closer and Californians geared up to cast their ballots, election officials mailed out the state’s Official Voter Information Guide. The guide listed and explained each of seventeen ballot propositions—the most to appear on a single ballot in sixteen years. But not only was the ballot replete with more propositions than in any election in nearly two decades, the Guide itself set the record of being the longest voter guide in California’s history, at an enormous 224-pages long.

In a Battle Between the Delaware General Assembly and a Municipality, The Legislature Won: How A New Delaware Law Prevents Municipalities from Establishing Burdensome Registration Requirements for Municipal Elections

Election Law Society · March 24, 2017 ·

By: Ecker Owen

According to a fairly recent survey conducted by the United States government, some 25.7 percent of Americans traveled to the beach over the preceding twelve-month period. Moreover, in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, the beach season typically is considered to be between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Therefore, many people from the surrounding areas and states take a week off of work in the summertime, travel to towns along the beach with their friends and families, and then go back to their normal existences after their vacations have concluded. But in all of this seasonal transiency, there are several questions that the average vacationer would never even bother think about: what happens to beach communities during the other approximately nine months out of the year, and who continues to live in those places during that non-summer time period? The fact remains that a sizeable number of individuals live in beach communities during non-peak months. Furthermore, like other, more static communities, beach communities require the existence of local governments to provide services and write ordinances that protect their constituents. Obviously, these municipal governments necessitate the presence of elected officials to execute the governing process. However, problems arise over the question of whether individuals existing within these communities for short periods of time should have the right to vote in these municipal elections.
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Campaign Finance Woes in Connecticut: State Democratic Party, Governor Again Accused of Misusing Funds in 2014 Elections

Election Law Society · March 22, 2017 ·

By: Cris DeBlaise

When seeking reelection in 2014, Connecticut incumbent Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy was neck-and-neck in one of the closest gubernatorial races in the country. In a last-minute attempt to garner more support, Malloy and his team spent over $250,000 to send out a pro-Malloy mass mailing in the weeks leading up the election. Though the effort itself does not sound controversial, the way the election mailer was financed set off alarm bells at the state—and now federal—levels.

Idealism vs. Realism: Alternative Paths to Redistricting Reform in an Anticompetitive World

Election Law Society · March 20, 2017 ·

By: Ben Williams

In my previous post for this blog, I compared the competitiveness of congressional races in various states which have enacted redistricting reform to one another—and to the nation as a whole—to discover if Iowa’s acclaimed redistricting reform lives up to the hype surrounding it. Since that post, the 2016 electoral map has changed significantly: several news outlets, such as poll aggregator RealClearPolitics, liberal news outlet Vox, and Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight are all suggested that—while unlikely—there was at least a conceivable possibility that the Republican Party could lose the House of Representatives. The fact that the House would only be in play in a Democratic wave election speaks volumes about how successful the Republicans’ REDMAP project was in 2011. But this is a blog about election law, not politics. The 2016 House races brought up several important questions: (1) Were House races truly competitive this year? (2) How did the states which have enacted redistricting reform compare to the national average? And (3) Which method of redistricting reform should reform advocates look to emulate in the non-reformed states?

A Bad Year for Kansas’s Kobach and Newby

Election Law Society · March 17, 2017 ·

By: Norma Volkmer

It has not been a good year for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and former Johnson County, Kansas Election Commissioner Brian Newby. Newby is currently the executive director of the U.S. Elections Assistance Commission, where in January he approved Kobach’s plan to alter the federal voter registration form to require proof of citizenship.