Election Law

Photographing Your Ballot: It Might Be Illegal, Y’Know

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If there’s one thing Americans are concerned about today other than voting, it’s taking pictures of themselves voting, about to vote, or having just voted. Because what’s the point of participating in democracy if you can’t photograph the experience, put ca-RAZY effects on the pictures, and then put them online?

There isn’t one, obviously.

Except for a little detail that photographing completed ballots is illegal in some parts of the country.

CHECK YOU ELECTION PRIVACY LAWS….

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The Difference Between Voter Suppression And Voter Duress

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I voted today. I hope you did too or will soon.

It wasn’t “easy.” I voted on the Upper East Side of New York, not exactly a contested district, but I still had to stand in line for an hour outside. Inside, there was more waiting and general confusion and misinformation. There was one non-partisan election lawyer at my location — I said, “It seems like a mad house in here.” He said, “You should see things downtown.”

It was the tenth or eleventh time I’ve voted at that polling place, and this was by far the hardest.

That said, if one looks at the scale of things that are difficult in life, getting into law school is a “1,” getting a job after law school is a “10,” and voting is, at most, a “4.” You can do it. It’s harder than it should be, but it’s not that hard. If you are reasonably intelligent and have a modicum of patience, you can figure it out.

Of course, if you are old or a dumb ass, things might not go so well….

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Quote of the Day: But Isn’t Voter Fraud a Myth?

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In the end, that hurts the Democrats, because we throw those votes out. I’ve begged them to stop.

– Jane Platten, director of the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections (and a Democrat herself), commenting to the New York Times about fraudulent voter registrations coming from groups associated with the Democrats.

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Morning Docket: 10.31.12.

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* Shashank Tripathi appears to be behind the fake tweets about the flooding of the New York Stock Exchange. Is that protected speech or (wait for it) DID HE JUST SAY “FIRE” IN A CROWDED THEATER??????? [Gigaom]

* But to be clear, Romney is free to lie as much as he wants. Political speech, even misleading speech, is clearly protected. [ABA Journal]

* Court is back in session. Kinda. [National Law Journal]

* Will Election Day get washed away? [CNN]

* Just to be clear, because I know “low information” voters are easily confused, “Government” are the people going around trying to help you out in the storm. “PRIVATE BUSINESS,” in this case insurance companies, are the ones looking to screw you over and profit from the disaster. [New York Times]

* If you want to help the victims of Sandy (instead of just staring at pictures of their suffering like I do), you can. [Red Cross; NY Cares; Humane Society]

* Only now, at the end, do you understand the true power of Disney. Skadden helps Disney buy Star Wars. Now Lucas’s failure is complete. [Am Law Daily]

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.29.12

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* A Hurricane Sandy survival guide. Key components? Food, water, booze, and prophylactics. Who’s ready for a hurricane Halloween party? [FindLaw]

* California’s longest serving death-row inmate just got his sentence set aside by the Ninth Circuit. [WSJ Law Blog]

* A few days before Thanksgiving, SCOTUS will decide whether to hear the Prop. 8 and DOMA cases. Happy holidays? [American Foundation for Equal Rights]

* Sometimes the most effective self-defense weapon isn’t a gun, it’s a pot of soup. [Consumerist]

* Harold Koh, former Yale Law School dean and current legal adviser to the State Department, sits down for a Legally Speaking interview at UC Hastings. [California Lawyer]

* Additional thoughts, this time from Professor Eugene Volokh, on employers urging employees to vote a certain way. [Volokh Conspiracy]

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Morning Docket: 10.26.12

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‘Help me, I’m white.’

* Gloria Allred’s “October Surprise” for Mitt Romney didn’t exactly go according to plan, but that’s probably because she never filed the appropriate motions related to the gag order in this decades old divorce case wherein Mitt Romney testified. [Bloomberg]

* This Election Day, 16 Biglaw firms in offices across the country will be manning an Election Protection hotline to field questions, because despite the bad jokes about the legal profession, “lawyers can play a really valuable civic role.” [Am Law Daily]

* “We never make decisions to eliminate positions with any discriminatory conduct.” In other news from the CYA Department, Paul Hastings really doesn’t like getting sued by former legal secretaries who were laid off by the firm. [Thomson Reuters News & Insight]

* The assistant dean of academic support at TSU’s Thurgood Marshall School of Law claims the school discriminated against her based on her skin color. Did we mention she’s white? [Courthouse News Service]

* Apparently the allegations of false reporting levied against TJSL are a “crock of crap” because the school claims the ex-employee who told on them never alerted the dean. Hmm… [Thomas Jefferson School of Law]

* A nice pipe dream: now that “the twilight of the generalist law degree is here,” perhaps law schools will move to a two-year model, with an optional third year for specialization purposes. [DealBook / New York Times]

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Non-Sequiturs: 10.18.12

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* For the first time in history, both major party presidential candidates are graduates of Harvard Law School. When reached for comment, Yale Law School said, “President, that’s one of those jobs that you don’t get for life, right?” [Harvard Law Bulletin]

* Please tell me our election technology has at least caught up with 1996 by now. [Election Law Blog]

* Uruguay legalizes abortion — subject to a panel review, a five-day waiting period, and getting the father’s opinion on the matter. Yay? [Salon]

* Twitter censors a user! But it was a Nazi group, so nobody is going to freak out too much. [Slate]

* If this freaking idiot makes it even harder for young, intelligent students to come here on student visas, then his thwarted attack will have caused real damage to American interests. [WSJ Law Blog]

* Abraham Lincoln would have gotten tort reform done. [Futility Closet]

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Morning Docket: 10.11.12

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* Everyone’s happy about the Dewey & LeBoeuf settlement except the Ad Hoc Committee and its LeBoeuf retirees, who called Judge Martin Glenn’s attempt to slap them down an “insult to injury.” [WSJ Law Blog]

* While South Carolina’s voter ID law wasn’t found to be inherently discriminatory, its enforcement was still blocked because people will be unable to get their sh*t together in time for the election. [Bloomberg]

* VP debate moderator Martha Raddatz’s 1991 wedding guest list has come under fire because Barack Obama was invited. Clearly there’s a conflict of interest worth arguing about here. [Washington Post]

* This man is nobody’s “butt boy”: Tom Keefe, the interim dean over at Saint Louis Law School, will be footing a $14,212 bill for his students in the form of ABA Law Student Division memberships. [National Law Journal]

* Strippers in California, Florida, Idaho, Kentucky, Texas, and Nevada will be making it rain, because they just scored a $12.9M class action settlement. That’s a whole lot of “college tuition”! [Courthouse News Service]

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Politics and Money: Imperfect Together?

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Let’s talk about two of our favorite topics: money and politics. And the combination of the two, which creates both problems and opportunities for our democracy.

On Saturday I attended an excellent New Yorker Festival panel about politics and money, featuring some impressive speakers:

What did these distinguished and high-powered panelists have to say about the influence of money on our political system?

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Pol Dancing: Tom ‘The Hammer’ Delay Preparing To Get Hammered

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All hail Captain Hammer!

Flash back to 2005. Tom DeLay was the Majority Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, living in a safe Republican district, and poised to chart the course of American politics forever. DeLay was nicknamed “The Hammer” for his brutal efficiency as Majority whip, crushing all dissent from backbenchers and building a solid GOP coalition — a nickname that the fundamentalist DeLay endorses because “the hammer is one of the carpenter’s favorite tools.” In other words, Tom DeLay was a tool.

So what happened?

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