The Courts
Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Trump Elephant as Free Speech
By Eugene Volokh
From Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr.’s opinion in Maxwell v. School Dist. of Volusia County, handed down Oct. 23 but just posted on Westlaw; seems quite correct to me:
Plaintiff Tyler Maxwell … is … an eighteen-year-old senior at Spruce Creek High School … in Port Orange, Florida. To park in the lot adjacent to the School, Tyler paid $55 for a School parking decal. On September 14, 2020, he drove his pickup truck to School, but this time with a new passenger in the truck bed-a red, white, and blue elephant statue with “TRUMP” emblazoned on its side.
The school forbade this, arguing that:
School Board Policy 805 “reasonably regulates political activities in time, place, and manner of use while on School Board property” so the prohibition of Tyler’s elephant does not violate Tyler’s constitutional rights. Policy 805 prohibits “political posters, signs, banners, or any other writing which promotes a political issue, cause, position, or candidate” that is “permanently posted in or on school board property.” The School concluded, Tyler’s “political activity … occurred on school grounds, during school hours, and appears to give the imprimatur of public endorsement of partisan political positions or a particular candidate” in violation of Policy 805….
No, said the court…
Congress
The Hill: Officials warn delayed vote count could lead to flood of disinformation
By Rebecca Klar and Maggie Miller
Uncertainty over the winner of the presidential election and President Trump’s early victory declaration could open the floodgates for election disinformation…
Sen. Mark Warner (Va.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said foreign adversaries could take advantage of Trump’s comments prematurely declaring victory on Wednesday morning, even as votes were being counted.
“In the coming days, I am deeply concerned that foreign adversaries could seek to amplify messages, like those from the President, that are designed to undermine the legitimacy of the election,” Warner, who won reelection to the Senate on Tuesday, told The Hill in a statement.
Warner and acting Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had warned of the threat in the days and weeks leading up to the election.
“WARNING. The bulk of disinformation attacks prepared by our adversaries were designed for the days before & just after Election Day,” Rubio tweeted last week. “They may come faster than they can be spotted & called out, so word to the wise, the more outlandish the claim, the likelier it’s foreign influence.”
New York Times: America Votes by 50 Sets of Rules. We Need a Federal Elections Agency.
By Charlotte Hill and Lee Drutman
Democrats have proposed democracy reform legislation, known as H.R. 1, which would establish new standards for voting access, integrity and security. This bill could be transformative, but doesn’t go far enough when it comes to making those standards a reality.
A federal elections agency could help oversee and administer the standards for voting access, legislative decisions on redistricting and election security. It could use formal orders, fines, lawsuits and even criminal enforcement actions to make sure that political campaigns are conducted with integrity, elections are not marred by fraud or interference and lawmakers are penalized for attempting to rig the system in their favor…
The agency could also regulate the distribution of false or misleading information about federal elections – an increasingly important challenge.
The agency would not stop at setting federal standards; it would also enforce them… And that means monitoring elections to ensure they’re free and fair, including by building out an “election forensics” team that can determine whether fraud, interference, or suppression tipped the balance in a given race…
Naturally, this proposed Federal Elections Agency has no chance of happening unless Democrats manage to narrowly retake the Senate.
The Media
CounterPunch: How Trump, Hannity and Limbaugh Violated Election Law
By Ralph Nader and Bruce Fein
Conservative media celebrities Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh have flagrantly violated the federal election law prohibition of donating anything of value exceeding $2,800 to a presidential candidate…
Both Hannity and Limbaugh have collaborated with President Donald Trump to turn their invaluable radio and television programming time into soap-boxes for his 2020 re-election efforts…
Trump has violated the Federal Election Campaign Act in neglecting to report the in-kind contributions from Hannity and Limbaugh to the Federal Election Commission (FEC)…
The failure to report these election law violations is also journalistic malpractice.
Independent Groups
National Review: The Disinformationists
By Victor Davis Hanson
Big liberal donors sent cash infusions totaling some $500 million into Senate races across the country to destroy Republican incumbents and take back the Senate. In the end, they may have failed to change many of the outcomes.
But did they really fail?
Democrats dispelled the fossilized notion that “dark money” is dangerous to politics. They are now the party of the ultra-rich, at war with the middle classes, whom they write off as clingers, deplorables, dregs, and chumps.
In that context, the staggering amounts of money were a valuable marker. The liberal mega-rich are warning politicians that from now on, they will try to bury populist conservatives with so much oppositional cash that they would be wise to keep a low profile.
Winning is not the only aim of lavish liberal campaign funding. Deterring future opponents by warning them to be moderate or go bankrupt is another motivation.
Inquisitr: Lincoln Project Torched After Joe Biden Does Worse With Republican Voters Than Hillary Clinton
By Tyler MacDonald
Although the United States presidential election has yet to be called, one thing appears clear – the Lincoln Project was largely ineffective at convincing Republicans to support Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. As reported by Esquire, the political action committee – founded by former Republicans opposed to Donald Trump – failed to move 10 electoral votes in the election despite raising over $60 million…
“Lincoln project utterly failed – a higher percentage Republicans voted Trump in 2020 than 2016,” journalist Katie Halper tweeted…
Campaign finance expert Rob Pyers noted that the Lincoln Project spends a small amount of funding on direct political activity.
Bloomberg Government: Record-Breaking Race in North Carolina Was 2020’s Most Expensive
By Kenneth P. Doyle
A gusher of cash from wealthy individuals, companies, unions and secretive nonprofits poured into super PACs and other groups that intervened in key races. Total non-candidate spending in Senate races exceeded $1 billion. That’s nearly double the $548 million in outside spending in Senate races in 2018, the previous record year, according to an analysis of FEC reports by the nonprofit Campaign Finance Institute.
In House races, outside spending of $592 million was up only moderately from 2018, but the top 10 House races tell a similar story to Senate races: Outside money in each exceeded the amount spent by the candidates’ campaigns…
Outside spending surpassed $100 million in at least five Senate races, according to FEC figures through Nov. 2. Only one previous Senate race, Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R) 2016 re-election, had ever eclipsed that figure.
The four largest super PACs, aligned with party leaders in the House and Senate, led all other spending groups, with a combined total of $720 million.
Online Speech Platforms
Wall Street Journal: Fake Twitter Accounts Posing as News Organizations Prematurely Declare Election Victories
By Dustin Volz, Rob Barry, and Jenny Strasburg
Several Twitter accounts posed as U.S. news organizations on Wednesday to falsely and prematurely declare election victories for Democrat Joe Biden, in what appeared to be a coordinated campaign to inject disinformation into online conversation about the presidential contest.
Twitter quickly suspended the accounts, which mimicked the logos and account names of the Associated Press and, in at least one instance, CNN, both news organizations that independently call U.S. election results. Most of the tweets identified by The Wall Street Journal sought to prematurely announce various victories for Mr. Biden, but in at least one instance, one of the accounts declared President Trump had won re-election.
Wall Street Journal: Twitter, Facebook Fined by Turkey for Breaching Law Aimed at Curbing Dissent
By David Gauthier-Villars
Turkish authorities have fined Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc. and three other social-media platforms for failing to comply with a new law that civil-rights activists have decried as an attempt to stifle dissent.
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Periscope and TikTok have each been fined 10 million Turkish lira, equivalent to $1.2 million, for missing a Nov. 2 deadline to appoint a country representative, Turkey’s deputy minister of transportation and infrastructure, Omer Fatih Sayan, said Wednesday.
The new law, which was adopted in the summer and came into force last month, gives the government more power to police content. In addition to having permanent representatives in Turkey, the law also requires social media companies to take steps to store Turkish users’ data in the country, and execute court orders to take down content…
Those rules have alarmed opposition leaders and free-speech advocates. They say social media has become one of the last few spaces to express dissent after tycoons loyal to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acquired television channels and national newspapers following a failed coup attempt in 2016.
Buzzfeed News: Facebook Cut Traffic To Leading Liberal Pages Just Before The Election
By Craig Silverman and Ryan Mac
The operators of some of the largest US-based liberal Facebook pages said that errors and inaction by Facebook caused their engagement on the platform to drop dramatically in the critical few weeks before the 2020 presidential election.
Beginning in early October, the pages Occupy Democrats, the Other 98%, and Being Liberal – which collectively have more than 18.5 million followers – experienced significant declines in their reach, a measurement of how many people see a page’s content on the platform. This meant their content received fewer shares, reactions, and comments…
Sellers and Wojtek Wacowski, the owner of Being Liberal, said Facebook representatives told them the company had mistakenly applied old “false news” strikes against their pages. Strikes are applied when a third-party fact-checker rates content shared by a page as false and can result in a significant reduction in reach. Both page admins said their audiences have not fully recovered, though Facebook claimed the issues had been resolved.
“Obviously at this time, every day counts,” Wacowski told BuzzFeed News. “If this would be in any other time, I probably would not want to talk because of the potential fear of retaliation [from Facebook]. But it’s a bigger thing than just my page.”
Candidates and Campaigns
New York Post: Michael Bloomberg’s plan to help Joe Biden win swing states was $100M bust
By Carl Campanile
Billionaire former Big Apple Mayor Mike Bloomberg dumped about $100 million into a bid to help Joe Biden defeat President Trump in Florida, Ohio and Texas – but his candidate lost all three anyway…
Bloomberg also blew through $1 billion to finance his own brief, failed bid for the White House.
Newsweek: From Jaime Harrison to Beto O’Rourke-Democrats Dominate Most Expensive Losers in Election History
By Soo Kim
Democrats top the list of U.S. Senate candidates who spent the most money per year from 2010 to date, and many went on to lose their corresponding election, according to figures from the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Harrison from South Carolina spent the most for his campaign, reporting a total disbursement amount of $105,502,730.37 from 2019 to 2020.Harrison was defeated in this year’s election by incumbent Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who spent $59,742,955.21 from 2019 to 2020 on his campaign.
Former U.S. Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke from Texas was the second-most expensive Democratic loser since 2010, with $80,458,720.11 spent from 2017 to 2018.
O’Rourke spent nearly double that of incumbent Republican Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who spent $45,582,260 in the same time frame.
USA Today: Democrats counted on money and Hispanic voters to deliver a blue wave. They didn’t.
By Paul Brandus
There’s a lot we don’t know yet about this consequential 2020 election, but already there are lessons to be learned from it:
Spending the most money isn’t always predictive. Hillary Clinton spent twice as much as Trump four years ago. How did that work out?
This time around was similar. Joe Biden raised enormous amounts of money: nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars in August and September combined, for example. It may get him to 270 electoral votes and the presidency, but that kind of cash raised hopes for a resounding outcome that’s not in the cards.
Business Insider: Recounts, debt, and litigation: Here’s why Donald Trump keeps asking for your money even while votes are still being counted
By Dave Levinthal
[S]o long as there’s still time left in Election 2020, there’s still political money for Trump’s campaign to make by almost any means possible.
Why? Because Trump may desperately need it in the days, weeks, and even months to come.
“While campaigning is usually finished by Election Day, the costs associated with a campaign may not be,” said Nick Penniman, founder and CEO of Issue One, a bipartisan political reform organization…
By Tuesday evening, Trump’s solicitation grew increasingly shrill.
“We’re $12K SHORT! We need you, friend. Last chance to stand with me. Just 3 HOURS LEFT. Donate NOW & it will be 6X-MATCHED,” another text message read…
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, who entered the election homestretch with decidedly more stable finances, also continued to pepper supporters with fundraising solicitations Tuesday…
Don’t be surprised if congressional candidates follow the presidential candidates’ leads and also continue squeezing supporters for money this week.
“There’s always another race, and given our political environment, if you’re in the House, you’re always running for reelection,” noted Cooper Teboe, a Democratic Party fundraiser.
The States
Patch: Election Results: Question 2 Foes Overcame Big Names, Big Bucks
By Dave Copeland
Despite spending less than a penny a vote, opponents of ranked-choice voting in Massachusetts defeated a campaign that spent $7.41 per vote and gained endorsements from some of the state’s highest-ranking Democrats.
While it ended up being the closest statewide race in Massachusetts on Tuesday, supporters of ranked-choice voting conceded Question 2 around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. With 89 percent of precincts reporting at 10:30 a.m., “no” votes outnumbered “yes” votes by a margin of 54.9 percent to 45.1 percent…
Mass Fiscal Alliance spokesperson Paul Craney said supporters of the “no” campaign spent just $5,000, compared to the more than $10 million spent by the Yes on 2 campaign.
Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Court Upholds Preliminary Injunction Against Libel in Judicial Campaign
By Eugene Volokh
From Judge Joy Cossich Lobrano’s opinion Monday in Bruno v. Medley, joined by Judges Daniel L. Dysart & Dale N. Atkins; note that Judge Medley won Tuesday’s election:
In this judicial election case, … Jennifer M. Medley … appeal[s] the September 30, 2020 judgment of the district court granting a preliminary injunction in favor of … [Judge] Christopher J. Bruno …, which enjoins Medley from airing or publishing a certain campaign advertisement.
New York Times: Alaska Ballot Measure 2 Election Results: Change Election Policies
Some people and entities contributing more than $2,000 to a campaign would have to disclose the sources of their contributions, and ranked-choice voting would be established in general elections.
[Not final- but as of November 4:]
No: 105,161 56.5%
Yes: 81,048 43.5%
