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This Week: Seventh Annual W & M Election Law Symposium

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by Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson, Editors

This Thursday, February 21, the William & Mary Election Law Society and Election Law Program are proud to present the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium. The symposium features prominent election law attorneys, the Colorado Secretary of State, election law scholars, and Virginia registrars. The symposium centers upon voting delays and is titled “We Have to Fix That: Bipartisan Solutions to Election Day Delays.”

In advance of the event, State of Elections will be publishing special entries all week. We will have advance interviews with Paul Herrnson and Doug Chapin, two of Thursday’s panelists. We will take an in-depth look at the Wisconsin War Game conducted by the Election Law Program last December, which will be discussed at Thursday’s event. We will also highlight and outline the issues for Thursday’s panelists, including a look at what states around the country have been doing in the wake of election delays last year.

We hope you will join us in conversation by commenting on our coverage this week, and we hope you will participate in the Seventh Annual Election Law Symposium at William & Mary Law School this Thursday, February 21, 2013.

 

 

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News Brief: Former W&M Election Law Symposium panelists will chair commission to reduce election delays

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by Jacob Derr, Editor

President Obama took the first step yesterday to address election deficiencies by appointing two top election attorneys on opposite sides of the aisle to chair a Presidential Commission on Election Administration: Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg. Both are wise picks. Bauer served as White House Counsel during the first Obama administration, and general counsel to Obama’s reelection campaign. Ginsberg, a prominent Bush attorney during the historic 2000 election, ran Romney’s legal team in 2012.

Bauer and Ginsberg are no strangers to William & Mary Law. Both Bauer and Ginsberg sit on the Advisory Board to the Election Law Program (a joint program of William & Mary Law School and the National Center for State Courts). In 2009 the pair traveled to Williamsburg for William & Mary’s Third Annual Election Law Symposium, “Campaigning in the Courts: The Rise of Election Litigation.” The symposium examined the rising tide of litigation as a central campaign strategy. In conjunction with the symposium, Bauer and Ginsberg also filmed a web lecture entitled “A View from the Trenches: Advice for Judges Handling Election Related Lawsuits” for the Election Law Program website electionlawissues.org. Moderated by William & Mary Law School Dean Davison Douglas, the discussion focuses on trends in election litigation since Bush v. Gore. In addition, Bauer will travel again to William & Mary Law to participate in our 7th Annual Election Law Symposium on February 21st which will address Election Day delays. For more information see here.

William & Mary’s Election Law Program, a joint project of William & Mary and the National Center for State Courts, is proud of its connection to Bauer and Ginsberg, and the many other outstanding luminaries from the election law field who speak and teach at William & Mary.

See, “A View from the Trenches”:  http://www.electionlawissues.org/Video-Modules/View-from-the-Trenches.aspx

http://stateofelections.pages.wm.edu/?p=4912 [Read more…] about News Brief: Former W&M Election Law Symposium panelists will chair commission to reduce election delays

The Battleground 2012: Introduction

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by Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson

During the next two days we’ll be posting a special series of entries under the banner “The Battleground 2012.”

Over the past decade, every major presidential campaign and many state campaigns have litigated state election law as a part of their races. Candidates spend money, time, and human capital fighting in courtrooms in states across the nation, especially if the vote looks close. This is not merely a luxury, but an election strategy itself.

We’ll be taking a look at some of the fights going on in several states considered “battlegrounds” this election cycle, where either the presidential race is close or there is a state race that is strategic to the national party. We will examine a campaign finance free-for-all in Missouri, attempts to shoehorn third party candidates onto the ballot in Oklahoma, and the aftermath and continued importance of the legal wrangling in Ohio this fall.

We hope you will enjoy this series, which aims to take us inside battles that, in an election cycle as contentious as this one, will continue in the courtroom long after election day.

Jacob Derr & Tony Glosson are the editors of the State of Elections blog. [Read more…] about The Battleground 2012: Introduction

Put the Sewing Kit Away: Puerto Rican Statehood Desired, But Not Likely

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by David Noll, Associate Editor

The people of Puerto Rico have, for the first time ever, voted in favor of statehood in the United States. While all 50 states have citizen petitions to secede from the Union, Puerto Rico has chosen to enter our Union. Puerto Ricans voted against statehood twice in the Clinton administration, a time when a booming U.S. economy would have made statehood very beneficial. The vote for statehood now, in a weak U.S. economy, signals two big changes in Puerto Rico and the U.S.

The general expectation would be that Puerto Rico would want to keep its commonwealth status in weak economic times. In strong economic times Puerto Rico benefits from massive U.S. tourism and the easier it is for people to travel there, the better for tourism. In an economic slowdown, the lower tax rate that can be sustained in a protectorate (especially for the gambling industry) is more important to keep vacations to Puerto Rico cheap. But this would suggest Puerto Ricans should have voted against statehood in the November elections. [Read more…] about Put the Sewing Kit Away: Puerto Rican Statehood Desired, But Not Likely

Kansas’ Secretary of State: Protecting Voter Privacy, or Politics as Usual?

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by Katherine Paige

A U.S. District Court ruling handed down Wednesday in Kansas granted disclosure of the names of provisional ballot voters to candidates in a tightly contested state house race, thereby clarifying the scope of voter privacy protection under federal law.

The ruling was issued in response to a federal lawsuit filed by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to prevent disclosure of the names.

Kobach argued that federal election law protects voters’ identities from disclosure, citing § 302(a) of the Help America Vote Act (HAVA): “Access to information about an individual provisional ballot shall be restricted to the individual who cast the ballot.” U.S. District Court Judge Marten rejected Kobach’s argument, reading the plain text of the statute to protect only disclosure of how someone voted, not the identity of the voter. [Read more…] about Kansas’ Secretary of State: Protecting Voter Privacy, or Politics as Usual?