Walter Olson
Number eight in our series of occasional roundups on election law and policy:
I had a few things to say last week about President Donald Trump’s executive order purporting to overhaul election law by decree, something an American president doesn’t have the power to do. Our friend Stephen Richer supports some substantive elements of the scheme, including a firm Election Day cutoff on ballot receipt, but gives the order a failing grade on governance: “The president pretends as if we don’t have a Congress, and he rides roughshod over the states.” Trump’s demand that states turn voter files over to his agencies replays a similar data demand in his first administration with which 44 states refused to comply. [Rick Hasen] The funding cudgel won’t be very menacing if limited to election funding since the federal government doesn’t dispense much of that to the states [VoteBeat] Expect to see backflips on federalism as some Democrats who promoted H.R. 1’s trampling of state election authority now find merit in state autonomy after all, even as some Republicans accomplish the reverse [Dan Balz, Washington Post] For those who want to get into the finer details, I recommend this resource from the Institute for Responsive Government, which discusses transformation of the independent, bipartisan Election Assistance Commission into an instrument of the president’s will, big new unfunded mandates for some states, hassles on proof of citizenship for military/overseas voters, loss of jobs by noncitizens who’ve long worked uneventfully at election vendors, and hyped-up fraud claims once DOGE and DHS publicize data entry errors or simple misunderstandings of the voter file. Also: “Why Trump wants to ban barcodes on ballots, and what it means for voters and election officials.” [VoteBeat] Having pulled a similar stunt in Pennsylvania last year, which I wrote about at the time, Elon Musk is now promising money to registered voters in Wisconsin. Will the law catch up with him at some point? [Associated Press, Rick Hasen, Alexander Shur/VoteBeat] You can watch my recent appearance before the Montgomery County, Maryland Board of Elections on a panel discussing ranked choice voting, especially implementation. The conversation starts at about the 0:37 minute mark and—be warned!—goes on for well over two hours. And I discussed proposals to use RCV presidential primaries in Maryland presidential primaries on WBAL’s Torrey Snow show; I agree with the authors’ take here: even though there are now roughly balanced amounts of pro‑R and pro‑D gerrymandering in races for the US House of Representatives, that’s no reason to stop working for redistricting reform. Each of the individual biased maps undermines political fairness and voter choice in its state. [Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Eric McGhee and Christopher Warshaw, Washington Post] New York high court rules that under the state constitution, New York City can’t authorize noncitizens to vote in its municipal elections (they’re already barred by law from voting in elections at the state and federal level) [Derek Muller] A bad enforcement action, withdrawal was the proper course: feds will withdraw Biden administration suit over Georgia election enactments [AP; earlier here, here, etc.]
