Talk by Prof. Richard Hasen on Voting Wars

This is a summary of today’s UCI Forum by Prof. Richard Hasen on “Voting Wars”.  He is the Chancellor’s Professor of Law and Political Science in the UCI Law School.  He is a prominent national expert on election law and campaign finance regulation, and author of the new book “The Voting Wars:  From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown”.  There were a lot of cases and data, and I refer the reader to the book since I did not take notes.  I am just reporting on my impressions.

First of all, when it was announced at the start that Mark Petracca would speak in January on the results of the upcoming election, Richard remarked “I hope it is settled by then”.

In general, Prof. Hasen pooh-poohed the large estimate that 5 million voters would be disenfranchised by voter ID laws, pointing out that two million would be inconvenienced by absence of early voting at some times, but could still vote at other times.  Still, he did not account for the other voters estimated.  He also did not mention the many states in which voter ID laws have been held in abeyance for this election, or the numerical effects of them. He also did not speak about the states in which they were in abeyance in which there was still public confusion not being corrected by partisan election officials.

He did decry the practice of having political and in many cases highly political election officials locally and in the states.

While giving many historical instances of election fraud, almost none of them would be corrected by voter ID laws, where somebody tried to vote with the identity of another person.  He did cite some cases of non-citizens voting, partly by misinformation that they received.  He did recommend a federal ID so people could vote in any state.  In my opinion this would be unconstitutional since it interferes with States Rights and is usually opposed by the right wing.  In fact I am surprised that there are voter ID laws passed by Republicans, since I thought the right used to be opposed to any laws requiring people to carry IDs.

He strongly emphasized and recited cases of voting officials’ incompetence as a major problem.  He also pointed out that mail-in ballots might lead to more likelihood of a mail in ballot not being counted for technical reasons, as opposed to voting in person.

A major theme was the high estimates of voter fraud by the right, or of voters being denied by ID laws by the left, could be due to their desires to stir up the base and to raise campaign funds.  Since this election is very close now, he predicted an army of lawyers will descend on the results.  This also can lead to problems since judges can be partisan as well as election officials.

I assume that the aftermath of the election will show how much the voter ID laws as well as reduced voting booths and hours will have affected the election.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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