Election Law / Voting

Abstract: Across the continent, millions of people will be going to the polls to exercise their democratic rights this year. In theory, elections will provide avenues for citizens to hold their leaders accountable through either endorsing their legitimacy or replacing them if they have performed abysmally. In this regard, you would expect citizens to be enthusiastic and excited for the opportunity to vote, but this is not always the case. For the most part, election periods in many African countries are characterized by fear and panic because electoral contests are considered a ‘do-or-die’ affair . Even when incumbents are defeated, it is uncertain whether they will leave office. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic presents manifold challenges to democracy in Africa. This paper highlights some of these challenges and identify countries at high risk of contentious elections.

Abstract: In 2020, Indonesia will hold regional head elections simultaneously in 270 regions covering 9 provinces, 224 districts and 37 cities, voting on 9 December 2020. This study aims to analyse the potential for general elections in the midst of Covid-19 pandemic in Indonesia..Descriptive qualitative research method are used in which the data is obtained through interactive discussions, interviews and document searches. The results of our analysis conclude that there are 4 potential vulnerabilities in the 2020 elections, namely the availability of the budget, the readiness of election organizers, the number of alleged violations and the level of community participation. Recommendations for this study are the efforts to collaborate, coordinate and communicate well between the government and the election organizer and increase public participation.

Abstract: Abstract COVID-19-driven post-communist states face strong authoritarian tendencies, but also their empowered political nations efficiently act against anti-democratic actors’ actions. This study explores the use of electoral laws in Poland, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria as a political tool and its influence on the sovereignty of the political nations. Embedded in the theory of neo- and quasi-militant democracy, it aims to explain to what extent the electoral laws adopted or proposed for adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic reduced the scope of the sovereignty of the political nations. The relationships between the legal changes and the sovereignty are analysed with qualitative source analysis and reflexive thematic analysis. As the analysis of themes across the attempts to shape the sovereignty of the political nations shows, changes to the electoral laws were introduced in a hurry, in the privacy of ministerial offices, and without social consultation. Such a way of proceeding stemmed from the need to change the law as soon as possible and thus avoid or reduce the resistance from the political opposition, other centres of public authority, and non-governmental organisations (Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria).

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has tremendous implications for democracy worldwide. Emergency measures undertaken to combat the pandemic tend to demonstrate a trade-off between public health and fundamental democratic principles. The Caribbean is not immune from this. This paper examines how Covid-19, and the calling of a snap election in Barbados scheduled for January 19, 2022, when combined with archaic election rules, led to serious implications for the conduct of the election, specifically regarding the ability of citizens to vote. The paper is divided into five sections, beginning with an introductory section. The second section examines the implications of Covid-19 for democratic participation. The third section explores the legal framework for the conduct of elections in Barbados and the limitations of that legal framework. The penultimate section discusses the implications of the snap election for electoral participation and electoral integrity. The paper ends on the need for electoral reform in the country.

Abstract: The digital world is one of the fastest developing sections of the technological based being observed with these ever developing sectors mainly focusing on the periods of the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 General Elections in Uganda. In this era of fast assess whether digital rights and freedoms are being respected in areas such as these, mainly focusing on the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2021 General Elections. compositions world-wide, with a recent breakthrough in the quantum computing world the digital space is still on arise thus a need to assess whether digital rights are Internet of Things, so with all this at the back of the mind there is great need to internet speeds sponsored by 5G connectivity, quantum technology, Big Data and the more so in a country like Uganda where such technology is still or yet to develop.

Abstract: At the beginning of 2020, many believed that the biggest threat to our elections was foreign interference, consistent with disinformation campaigns launched by our adversaries. But even with this lingering threat, it was expected that voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election would break records – perhaps even reaching the highest level of turnout since the nation saw more than 65% of eligible voters participate in the election of 1908, over a century ago (USEP, 2020). The onset of the pandemic brought much uncertainty, as election officials faced unprecedented challenges, unsettled law, and diminishing resources, while voters were torn between concern about our democracy and fear of contracting COVID-19. Widespread shortages of poll workers and safe polling locations, rushed transitions to mail voting, and insufficient funding could not diminish the democratic spirit, however, and we’ve seen primary turnout break records in some states. Most experts in the field believe that we should plan for the highest turnout in generations this fall, even as we expect that restrictions and fears due to the pandemic will be in full force. What’s also apparent, however, is that law, policy, and perhaps most importantly, administrative and informational practices in our highly decentralized administration of elections are not yet fully equipped to facilitate safe, secure, and convenient voting for 150 million Americans in the midst of a global health crisis. And while solutions like expanding mail voting will be necessary, no one solution will solve this problem, nor will all states find themselves able to offer the same options to all voters. We will need a multifaceted approach including easy mail voting, a massive recruitment of new poll workers to allow for safe and convenient inperson voting, and an unparalleled voter education effort to meet this challenge.

Abstract: The claim that election fraud is a major concern with mail-in ballots has become the central threat to election participation during the COVID-19 pandemic and to the legitimacy of the outcome of the election across the political spectrum. President Trump has repeatedly cited his concerns over voter fraud associated with mail-in ballots as a reason that he may not abide by an adverse electoral outcome. Polling conducted in September 2020 suggests that nearly half of Republicans agree with the president that election fraud is a major concern associated with expanded mail-in voting during the pandemic. Few Democrats share that belief. Despite the consensus among independent academic and journalistic investigations that voter fraud is rare and extremely unlikely to determine a national election, tens of millions of Americans believe the opposite. This is a study of the disinformation campaign that led to widespread acceptance of this apparently false belief and to its partisan distribution pattern. Contrary to the focus of most contemporary work on disinformation, our findings suggest that this highly effective disinformation campaign, with potentially profound effects for both participation in and the legitimacy of the 2020 election, was an elite-driven, mass-media led process. Social media played only a secondary and supportive role.Our results are based on analyzing over fifty-five thousand online media stories, five million tweets, and seventy-five thousand posts on public Facebook pages garnering millions of engagements. They are consistent with our findings about the American political media ecosystem from 2015-2018, published in Network Propaganda , in which we found that Fox News and Donald Trump’s own campaign were far more influential in spreading false beliefs than Russian trolls or Facebook clickbait artists. This dynamic appears to be even more pronounced in this election cycle, likely because Donald Trump’s position as president and his leadership of the Republican Party allow him to operate directly through political and media elites, rather than relying on online media as he did when he sought to advance his then-still-insurgent positions in 2015 and the first half of 2016.Our findings here suggest that Donald Trump has perfected the art of harnessing mass media to disseminate and at times reinforce his disinformation campaign by using three core standard practices of professional journalism. These three are: elite institutional focus (if the President says it, it’s news); headline seeking (if it bleeds, it leads); and balance , neutrality, or the avoidance of the appearance of taking a side. He uses the first two in combination to summon coverage at will, and has used them continuously to set the agenda surrounding mail-in voting through a combination of tweets, press conferences, and television interviews on Fox News. He relies on the latter professional practice to keep audiences that are not politically pre-committed and have relatively low political knowledge confused, because it limits the degree to which professional journalists in mass media organizations are willing or able to directly call the voter fraud frame disinformation. The president is, however, not acting alone. Throughout the first six months of the disinformation campaign, the Republican National Committee (RNC) and staff from the Trump campaign appear repeatedly and consistently on message at the same moments, suggesting an institutionalized rather than individual disinformation campaign. The efforts of the president and the Republican Party are supported by the right-wing media ecosystem, primarily Fox News and talk radio functioning in effect as a party press. These reinforce the message, provide the president a platform, and marginalize or attack those Republican leaders or any conservative media personalities who insist that there is no evidence of widespread voter fraud associated with mail-in voting.The primary cure for the elite-driven, mass media communicated information disorder we observe here is unlikely to be more fact checking on Facebook. Instead, it is likely to require more aggressive policing by traditional professional media, the Associated Press, the television networks, and local TV news editors of whether and how they cover Trump’s propaganda efforts, and how they educate their audiences about the disinformation campaign the president and the Republican Party have waged.

Abstract: How much is support for vote by mail (VBM) impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, partisanship, and recent efforts by partisan elites to politicize discussions about expanding the use of VBM in November 2020? Using surveys of registered voters conducted in April and May 2020 we characterize how changing concerns about COVID 19 and increased partisan messaging affects public support for VBM. We show that the bipartisan support for VBM in April 2020 falls sharply after just six weeks because: Republicans became less worried about catching COVID-19, and unconcerned Republicans also became more opposed to VBM. The pandemic originally increased public support for expanding VBM to help combat the spread of COVID-19 - creating a relative unique opportunity to examine the public’s willingness to reconsider how elections are administered - but decreasing COVID-19 concerns among Republicans and increased opposition among unconcerned Republicans (perhaps due to increased partisan messaging) has combined to increase partisan divisions in otherwise historically high levels of public support for VBM.

Abstract: As the June 2020 state primary election in Pennsylvania approached, Joseph Drenth, who is legally blind, faced an untenable choice: vote by mail and sacrifice the ability to cast a private and independent vote, or continue to vote privately and independently at a polling location and sacrifice the health and safety of himself and his family due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Fortunately, a preliminary injunction ordering the state to implement a remote accessible vote-by-mail system ultimately made such a choice unnecessary for Mr. Drenth. Unfortunately, voters with disabilities in many other jurisdictions throughout the country were not so lucky. Even as the threat of COVID-19 hopefully moves to our rearview mirrors in the coming year, Mr. Drenth’s successful lawsuit highlights a critical but underutilized legal tool for ensuring that voters with disabilities are afforded an equal voting experience—including the ability to cast a private and independent ballot—as compared to other voters.This article proceeds in three parts. Part I summarizes the history and current state of voting with a disability in the United States. In doing so, it outlines the main federal statutory provisions related to voting rights for individuals with disabilities. Part II explains how federal courts initially narrowed the guarantee of the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act to mere technical equality in voting in a way that denied equal dignity and treatment when voting with a disability. It then analyzes a more recent line of cases that backs away from this early case law to expand the reach of the ADA and Rehabilitation Act to also ensure substantive equality and a fuller, more robust right to vote with a disability. Part III then speculates about broader adherence to a mandate of substantive equality throughout the federal judiciary.

This Policy Brief makes the following key points: (a) During 2020 states the world over learned just how challenging it can be to organise full, free, and fair elections in the middle of a pandemic. For many states facing important elections during 2021 (e.g. Japan, the UK, Israel) these challenges remain a pressing concern. (b) The pandemic has spurred electoral innovations and reform worldwide. While reforms in some states garner global attention – such as attempts at wholesale reforms in the US (e.g. early voting) – greater attention should be paid to the Asia-Pacific as a region. (c) A range of positive lessons can be drawn from the conduct of elections in South Korea, New Zealand, Mongolia, and Australia concerning safety measures, effective communication, use of digital technology, advance voting, and postal voting. Innovations across the Asia-Pacific region provide lessons for the world, not only on effectively running elections during a public health emergency, but also pointing to the future of election campaigns, in which early and remote voting becomes more common and online campaigning becomes more central. (d) Experiences elsewhere raise issues to watch out for in forthcoming elections in states and territories undergoing serious ‘pandemic backsliding’ in the protection of political freedoms. Analysis of Singapore and Indonesia indicates a rise in censorship under the pretext of addressing misinformation concerning COVID-19, and (in Indonesia) concerns about ‘votebuying’ through crisis relief funds. In Hong Kong the electoral and political system has been drastically reshaped in advance of the September elections.

Abstract: Americans overwhelmingly support various safety measures at polling places for the November 2020 election. Issues like face mask requirements, social distancing, and sanitizing polling equipment after each voter have strong support, regardless of party, even if adopting them might mean longer lines or wait times to vote. For instance, 79 percent of Americans support face mask requirements at the polls, with little difference among the views between Democrats and Republicans.That surprising statistic comes from a representative, nationwide survey of Americans we conducted in August 2020 about their views of the election during a pandemic. Although beliefs about expanded vote-by-mail have significant partisan overtones, support for safety measures for in-person voting does not.As of mid-September, five states (Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Texas) will not allow concerns about COVID-19 to qualify as a valid excuse for absentee voting. These states will therefore likely have a high rate of in-person voting. But the states vary slightly on the safety measures they will employ, with only some requiring poll workers to wear masks and none imposing a mask mandate for voters. Although no voter should be turned away for not wearing a mask, the data in our survey suggests that states can do more to make voters feel more comfortable when voting in person. Given that Americans broadly support some modifications to in-person voting and also express safety concerns about polling places, the failure to adopt them could depress turnout, particularly in states that do not make absentee voting easy.This paper presents the survey data and offers policy recommendations regarding safety measures states should employ to make Americans more comfortable when voting this fall.

Abstract: The Supreme Court seeks to promote orderly and effective voting through the Purcell principle, which prohibits district courts from altering election rules via injunctions on the eve of an election. Applying this principle, a court considers only the proximity of the upcoming election. The underlying rationale of the Purcell principle is to avoid possible voter confusion and election chaos caused by lastminute changes. While these are legitimate concerns, the rigid Purcell principle has led courts to blindly reject any changes proposed shortly before the election--even when the changes are necessary for an orderly, effective election. This Note identifies the drawbacks of the Purcell principle and argues for its abolition. In other words, courts should cease applying the Purcell principle and return to the Winter preliminary injunction standard, which requires courts to weigh plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, any irreparable harm to parties, the balance of equities, and the public interest. The Purcell principle is ambiguous in three key ways: whether it is a stand-alone rule or a subfactor; how close the election has to be for the principle to apply; and whether it applies to appellate decisions in addition to district courts’ orders. The consistent failure of the judiciary to clarify the principle in the hundreds of Purcell cases generated by the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates that revising Purcell is impracticable.

Abstract: Due to the present pandemic, it seems increasingly likely that the 2020 general election in November will be held under conditions of unprecedented downward pressure on voter turnout. The possibility of severely depressed turnout for a highly consequential presidential election raises troubling questions of democratic legitimacy. Although voter turnout in the United States has historically been poor, low turnout is not usually thought to threaten the legitimacy of electoral processes when it results from voluntary abstention and is distributed unsystematically. Conversely, electoral legitimacy is often considered at risk when nonvoting is involuntary, especially when obstacles to voting fall systematically on specific populations. If turnout in November is unusually low but largely voluntary and unsystematic, then the risks to legitimacy should be low. If, however, nonvoting is both widespread and involuntary, and especially if obstacles to voting seem systematically directed at specific groups, conditions will be in place for a significant escalation of the threat. In particular, concerns of electoral legitimacy, which place in doubt only the authority of specific election winners to occupy the offices to which they have purportedly been elected, may ratchet up to much more profound concerns about regime legitimacy. Such concerns cast doubt on the continuing validity of popular consent to the entirety of the existing governmental regime.

Abstract: This Comment will show how Anderson-Burdick, while initially developed in the context of ballot initiative cases, could provide extra protections for voters in cases where state election laws are being challenged on the ground that they have a discriminatory impact due to COVID-19. These protections could be especially important as the Roberts’ Court continues to engage in what seems to be a ‘crusade’ to roll back protections for voters’ rights.

Abstract: The article focuses on 59th presidential elections in the U.S. with legislative or executive actions were undertaken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and election regulators, partisans, and not-for-profit groups, attempted to change voting procedures in response to the pandemic.

Abstract: The United States is in the midst of a crisis in confidence in elections, despite the many process protections baked into every stage of election administration. Part of the problem is that few Americans know just how rigorous the protections in place are, and most Americans have no concept of how modern elections are run. Election observation statutes are intended to provide a window for members of the public to learn about and oversee the process and to satisfy themselves that elections are fair and that outcomes are reliable. Yet in 2020, in part due to unforeseen pandemic conditions, election observation fell short. This Essay examines the shortcomings of modern election observation in the United States, looks at reform proposals on the table, and suggests several principles that should inform efforts to address the most worrisome shortfalls.

Introduction: The United States of America has had a big year in 2020, facing a global pandemic, an economic recession, and a social justice movement aimed at ending racism and police brutality. With respect to the coronavirus pandemic, the country faces the problem of reconciling the right to vote and our in-person voting system with the need to vote at a distance. Unfortunately, most states are ill prepared to handle their 2020 primary elections, let alone the 2020 presidential election through remote voting means. The expectation is that mail delays, voting delays, and slow electoral, judicial, and legislative systems will get in the way of the changes necessary to protect the health of American voters and their right to vote. It may be particularly helpful for states to look back, as we do here, to America’s prior experiences with pandemic voting from the past century, the past decade, or the primary elections that have already been conducted during this pandemic. This could allow states to explore potential pitfalls and solutions to preserving the dignity of the 2020 presidential election. What is true of all these past experiences is that action is required immediately to adequately prepare for November and an election of historic proportions.

Abstract: The COVID-19 global pandemic, which already has claimed over 150,000 lives in the United States by the end of July 2020, has revealed cracks in American economic and social infrastructure. The pandemic also has revealed the inadequacy of the American political infrastructure, in particular, the lack of systematic and uniform protection of voting rights in the United States.The pandemic has illuminated three pathologies of American voting rights that existed before the pandemic and are sure to outlast it. First, the United States election system features deep fragmentation of authority over elections. Second, protection of voting rights in the United States is marked by polarized and judicialized decision making. Third, constitutional protections for voting rights remain weak.Despite these three pathologies and the Supreme Court’s recent decision in RNC v. DNC concerning Wisconsin ballot receipt deadlines, which sided against expanded voting rights, there is room for some hope that at least some courts will provide a measure of protection for voting rights during the pandemic. In some of the early COVID-19-related election litigation, courts are putting a thumb on the scale favoring voting rights and enfranchisement in both constitutional and statutory cases. Judges have recognized that the balancing required by the Anderson-Burdick test looks radically different when voters cannot easily register and vote in person, and when candidates cannot collect signatures to get on the ballot. In the context of statutory interpretation, some courts seem to be applying without explicit articulation ‘the Democracy Canon,’ an old canon counseling courts to interpret ambiguous election statutes with a thumb on the scale favoring voting rights. But the picture is mixed, and a number of courts are not adequately accommodating voting rights during the pandemic.More significantly, court intervention can only go so far, and long-term vigorous judicial protection of voting rights is neither likely nor sufficient to cure American voting rights pathologies. Progress will require more radical change, such as a constitutional amendment protecting the right to vote, requiring national nonpartisan administration of federal elections, and setting certain minimal voter-protective standards for the conduct of state and local elections. Movement toward constitutional amendment is a generational project aimed at entrenching strong voting rights protections against political backlash.

Abstract: On May 27, 2020, the Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) handed down an opinion on mail-in voting in record time, only seven days after oral argument (held via Zoom) and only 14 days after the case arrived in its inbox. The High Court’s haste, however, was to curtail voting by mail (VBM) in times of pandemic--rather than expand it--and they did so upon an emergency mandamus petition filed by Attorney General Paxton, the state’s chief legal officer, rather than in a case brought by advocates for voters.
In a glaring disconnect, the members of the SCOTX voted remotely from their respective homes to deny all Texans the ability to vote remotely from their home under the absentee voting provisions of the Texas Election Code. In re State of Texas, No. 20-0394, _ S.W.3d __, 2020 WL 2759629 (Tex. May 27, 2020).
In construing the absentee voting provision as urged by the Attorney General, the Court held that lack of immunity to COVID-19 does not, without more, constitute a “physical condition” that entitles the voter to vote absentee to avoid the risk of infection at the polling place.
Part I and II of this article will show how the all-Republican state supreme court went out of its way to interpret the Election Code contrary to the best interest of Texas voters when there was no good reason to do so, and will dispel the notion that the state supreme court was merely giving effect to the Legislature’s will in a nonpartisan fashion.
In Part III I will argue that the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling does not have the force of binding precedent because the question of statutory construction was improperly addressed in an unsuccessful mandamus case against election clerks who had done nothing wrong. No writ of mandamus was issued against them. The Court’s interpretation of the “disability” provision to exclude a lack of immunity to COVID-19 as a valid reason to apply for a mail ballot therefore constitutes dictum because it was not essential to the disposition of the case.
In Part IV and V I will explore the partisan political dimension of the dispute over absentee voting in Texas, and describe and assess the conduct of the state supreme court and the major players in the legal wrangling over mail-in voting in Texas.
Integrating the various strands of analysis, I conclude that the Supreme Court did Texans a disservice by thwarting a remedy for the better management of health risks inherent in election administration under pandemic circumstances; - a remedy that was available within the letter and the spirit of the existing absentee voting provision in the Texas Election Code; that the Court ruled contrariwise for extra-jurisprudential reasons; and that the Court’s disposition of the case leaves voters and others at the risk of being criminally prosecuted for not “correctly” reading and heeding the Supreme Court’s ruling.
I also conclude that the proponents of easier access to mail-in voting (most notably, the Texas Democratic Party) pursued a suboptimal litigation strategy, and should not have capitulated to Attorney General Paxton after being bested by him.
AG Paxton’s successful gambit consisted of by-passing a pending state-court appeal (in the case in which he had lost at the trial court level and in the first round on appeal) so as to obtain a favorable ruling against the Democrats on an emergency basis in a separate case against different parties; a mandamus case filed directly in the all-GOP Texas Supreme Court while at the same time excluding his political nemesis from that arena.
In the wake of the Texas Supreme Court’s ruling, the Texas Democrats abandoned their state-court litigation in favor of their federal strategy centered on an age-discrimination argument under the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. That bid for a federal remedy, however, does not look promising, given the current jurisprudential climate and ideological complexion of the Fifth Circuit and the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the first salvo, a panel of the Fifth Circuit ruled against the Democrats on the Texas Solicitor General’s motion for stay, and the SCOTUS declined to get involved on an emergency basis so early in the game. Justice Sotomayor noted that the articulated concerns were weighty, and the arguments seemingly novel, but concurred in the denial of extraordinary relief. Texas Dem. Party v. Abbott, 2020, 961 F.3d 389 (5th Cir. Jun. 4, 2020) (staying preliminary injunction order) (motion to vacate stay denied by Tex. Democratic Party v. Abbott, 140 S. Ct. 2015 (Jun. 26, 2020)).

Abstract: Present times have forced entire mankind to go through what is probably the biggest transformation of society in the last decades. The changes brought about by the COVID19-outbreak include every and all aspects of life: social, economic, professional, human and legal. These changes appear at local, regional, national but especially global level, in all fields of concern for a human community, at both collective and individual level. The concept of material source of law references to all of the causal influences that explain the existence of a particular legal provision, at a certain time and place. Explaining law and understanding not only its letter but also its spirit necessarily entails the identification and explanation of what conditions the particular differences in its conceptual unity. We try to highlight, in our paper, how exactly has the current COVID19-outbreak influenced law, by analyzing the latest changes in the Romanian electoral laws and the way in which the Romanian state has managed to put into balance two fundamental rights: right to protection of health and right to vote.

Abstract: The article discusses the voter intent laws in the U.S. and their potential effects for the counting of paper ballots. Other topics include the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and its provision on voter intent determination, the ballot-counting provisions based on rules versus standards, and the historic vote-by-mail (VBM) voter participation during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Abstract: This article provides an initial assessment of the many risks posed by the COVID-19 pandemic on the conduct of genuine and transparent elections in the world. It begins with explaining why elections are a vital part of democracy, and then using the notion of the electoral cycle, constructs a risk matrix that assesses the relative impact and likelihood of risks to the cycle, as well as proposes a number of potential mitigations to these risks. The variety and number of elections, dimensions of the electoral cycle that can be disrupted, and the need for solutions raises significant questions about the future of democracy itself.

Abstract: This article poses a question on whether the remote voting by online or vote-by-mail is trustworthy under the COVID-19 pandemic situation. One of the worldwide efforts to contain the virus was to work-from-home and restriction orders. Besides, because of the human contact is critical in the dissemination of the virus, possibilities of alternative methods of voting such as online voting, blockchain voting, vote-by-mail are proposed. In light of such a situation, the article proposes a framework to evaluate the election security of remote voting methods. Further, the article provides a case of best practice for election administration from the case of the Republic of Korea. Based off of the assessment results from the proposed evaluation framework, the article provides modest suggestions and policy implications to the election administrators.

Abstract: The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic to Myanmar posed particular problems for the country, which had an elevated level of vulnerability due to the country’s weak health system, high poverty rates, low levels of development, and weak government capacities. The country struggled to address the pandemic, with public health measures enacted in the midst of a growing surge in positive Covid-19 cases that accelerated in August and September 2020. The arrival of the pandemic coincided with national elections in November 2020. The requirement for political campaigns, voting, and polling stations occurred simultaneously with the imposition of stay-at-home orders, social distancing, business shutdowns, and travel restrictions. Studying events up to January 2021, the paper reviews and compares Myanmar’s concurrent efforts to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic and the national elections, and investigates the legal issues raised by Covid-19 strategies for the state’s management of the 2020 national elections. The analysis then assesses the significance of the Covid-19 pandemic for Myanmar’s election laws and draws implications for the country’s politics. The scope of analysis addresses events up to January 2021 and so does not encompass the 1 February 2021 military coup, but the paper offers some comments for future directions in research to address events in Myanmar after the coup.

Abstract: Crisis often begets crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be no exception. With rising concerns over crowding at the polls, many states have opted to allow voters to use mail-in ballots to vote in the general election. The Trump administration, nevertheless, has been proactively enacting policy changes to hamper the U.S. Postal Service’s (‘USPS’) ability to effectively handle the rise in mail-in voting. Some states have sued the administration in response, raising a variety of claims in their lawsuits. One of the lesser discussed claims, though, is that the Executive’s actions violate Article II, § 1, cl. 2, otherwise known as the ‘Presidential Electors Clause.’ This clause confers onto the states the exclusive power to appoint their electors ‘in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.’ Thus, the Presidential Electors Clause is unique in that it provides states one of their few enumerated constitutional powers—it is a power that may not be preempted by federal action. But when the federal government uses its own powers, such as the Executive’s delegated authority over USPS, to undermine a state’s chosen manner of appointing its electors, such as popular vote by mail-in ballots, a conflict of powers arises. This Essay attempts to resolve this conflict of power, ultimately concluding that within the Presidential Electors Clause exists an implied obligation on the federal government to not deliberately undermine a state’s choice to use mail-in ballots in a Presidential election—what this Essay calls the ‘Dormant Presidential Electors Clause'.

Abstract: Richard Hasen dedicates his book ‘Election Meltdown’ to illuminating four threats that undermine the trust American voters have in their elections. These include voter suppression, administrative incompetence, dirty tricks that spread false information to voters, and the incendiary rhetoric uttered by public officials. An example of the last threat includes President Trump’s repeated statements to the public that American elections are ‘rigged’ or ‘stolen,’ when, in fact, no evidence exists to support this claim. Professor Hasen is an astute observer of the American electoral landscape, and his book deserves our attention for its elucidation of these four threats. However, these threats, important as they are, have also recently been overshadowed by an additional threat to American elections: the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 has transformed the way we work, travel, shop, socialize--and, importantly, vote. COVID-19 has changed the playbook for voting dramatically. Prior to March, most voters cast their ballots in person. In November, most voters will be casting their ballots by mail. This fact alone threatens to impede the participation of ordinary citizens in the electoral process to an extent most American voters have rarely witnessed. How states decide to register new voters, how new and existing voters will choose to cast their ballots, and which segments of the population will vote in the presidential election are all questions for which we do not have good answers. This Essay explains how several aspects of the voting process have changed as a result of the pandemic, focusing in particular on voter registration, voting by mail, and voting in person. It also explains how COVID-19 has spawned an unprecedented amount of election-related litigation. As of late-September, more than 260 COVID-19-related election cases have been filed. They seek to determine how candidates will compete and how voters will exercise their voice in November. The challenges posed by COVID-19 for our elections do not render the threats identified by Professor Hasen irrelevant. Rather, this Essay argues that COVID-19 will exacerbate the effects of any incompetence that might be displayed by our state and local election officials. Moreover, those who engage in voter suppression, dirty tricks, or incendiary rhetoric will now be able to use COVID-19 as cover for their wrongdoing. If the past few months have taught us anything, it is that the excuse of a pandemic can be used to block access to the ballot box just as much as the four threats to democracy that Hasen identifies in his book.

Abstract: Over 60 countries have postponed their elections due to COVID-19. As an election is the primary means by which government power is assumed in constitutional democracies, the postponement of elections has posed this question: what exit mechanisms do constitutional systems have to address a power vacuum caused by unforeseen circumstances like COVID-19? In other words, how can a legitimate government that adheres to the rule of law, a constitution more specifically, be ensured when elections cannot be held? While some countries held elections amid COVID-19 with precautions, others postponed them. Ethiopia is one of those countries which have postponed their elections. The postponement of Ethiopia’s general elections sparked a debate about how the power vacuum caused by the pandemic should be addressed. After deliberating on the matter, Ethiopia’s lower house approved constitutional interpretation by the upper house as the best solution. The upper house, through interpreting the Constitution, extended the term limits of the federal and regional governments. This article intends to address the question posed above by examining constitutional interpretation by the upper house as an exit strategy. It explores constitutional interpretation by this house and its implications for the rule of law and legitimacy of government. I conclude that comprehensive understanding of the Constitution offers an answer to the conundrum. The upper house has adopted a holistic interpretation approach and that is commendable. However, the ruling that allows the government to stay in power for an unknown time and the partiality inherent in the house compromise the merit of its interpretation.

Abstract: Judicial Branch of the Texas GOP Showcases Use of Judicial Power to Make Elections Hazardous to Both Liberty and Health Election Law Guru Richard Hasen recently laid out three pathologies in the American way of practicing electoral democracy. Not only is Texas afflicted by all three of them, the Lone Star State merits an in-depth clinical case study of its own to explore the etiology of how democracy itself can suffer a bad health outcome under partisan judicial leadership in times of a raging pandemic. Not only has official voter suppression been given the imprimatur of judicial approval in Texas; the highest court for all matters civil has gone so far as to criminalize voting by mail, leaving the precise definition of the contours of the crime to the prosecutorial discretion of the Republican Attorney General, along with the ability to select absentee voters for prosecution after the fact for wrongful voting. See, relatedly, Mason v. State, No. 02-18-00138-CR, 598 S.W.3d 755 (Tex.App. – Fort Worth, Mar. 19, 2020, motion for reh’g denied Aug. 27, 2020) (holding that State did not have to prove mens rea to obtain conviction for second-degree felony illegal voting involving the casting of a provisional ballot, Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 64.012(a)(1), (b)). The Supreme Court of Texas (SCOTX) -- composed solely of Republicans -- set the new low in partisan jurisprudence in an opinion handed down on May 27, 2020, only seven days after oral argument (held via Zoom) and only 14 days after the case arrived in its inbox. The High Court’s haste wasn’t motivated by the exigencies of the COVID-19 crisis. The perceived imperative was instead to curtail voting by mail (VBM) in times of pandemic. The supreme jurists did so at the behest of fellow-Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in an original proceeding brought for the purposes of securing a favorable ruling, rather than in a declaratory judgment case brought by advocates for voters that was making its way through the regular appeals process. Under the motto SAFETY FOR ME, BUT NOT FOR THEE, the nine Supreme Court Republicans voted remotely from their respective homes to deny all Texas citizens the ability to vote remotely from their homes under the absentee voting provisions of the Texas Election Code. In re State of Texas, No. 20-0394, 2020 WL 2759629, 602 S.W.3d 549 (Tex. May 27, 2020). Construing the absentee voting provision of the Texas Election Code as urged by the Attorney General, the High Court proclaimed that lack of immunity to COVID-19 does not, without more, constitute a physical condition that entitles the voter to vote absentee to avoid the risk of infection at the polling place. This paper recounts the course of the litigation, and presents a critique of the actors and the outcome.

Abstract: Over 25 African countries had planned elections for 2020. In the face of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March, states resorted to one of two courses of action: adherence to planned electoral timelines in the shadow of the outbreak, which largely led to record low voter turnouts and hastened the spread of the virus; or adjourning elections with ill-defined election programming, constitutional tensions and unrest over delayed polls. The global health crisis not only frustrated the organization of the electoral process but set severe challenges to democracy, the rule of law and human rights in the region at a time of landmark elections, notably in Ethiopia, Burundi and Malawi. This article analyses initial state responses in electoral administration in light of international electoral norms, and interrogates the role of national and regional mechanisms in securing safe, inclusive, timely, free and fair elections amid new infectious disease outbreaks.

Abstract: Over the past century, two global pandemics have struck during American elections—the Spanish Flu of 1918 and COVID-19 in 2020. The legal system’s responses to those pandemics, occurring against distinct constitutional backdrops concerning voting rights, differed dramatically from each other. These pandemics highlight the need for states to address the impact of election emergencies, including public health crises, on the electoral process. States should adopt election emergency laws that both empower election officials to modify an election’s rules as necessary to respond to such disasters and set forth ‘redlines’ to identify certain policies that, even in a disaster, are too risky and problematic to adopt. Courts, for their part, must recognize the unique challenges that election emergency litigation poses and adapt their jurisdictional, procedural, and equitable requirements to be able to effectively adjudicate challenges arising from pandemics and other disasters that threaten the electoral process.

Abstract: Federal Election Day didn’t just happen. Instead, it reflects the culmination of a series of federal laws enacted over the course of nearly a century that each set a uniform time for a different type of federal election. These laws grant states flexibility to hold federal elections at a later date if there is a ‘failure to elect’ on Election Day. Earlier commentators have argued that these ‘failure to elect’ provisions are narrow, and only authorize runoff elections in states that require candidates to receive a majority (rather than plurality) of the vote to win. Based on a detailed examination of these provisions’ text, legislative history, and history of judicial application, this Essay argues that federal Election Day laws, including their ‘failure to elect’ provisions, empower states to postpone or extend federal elections when an unexpected emergency prevents them from conducting or concluding a federal election on Election Day. A court may also order the postponement or extension of a federal election when necessary to prevent a constitutional or statutory violation. The Supreme Court has emphasized that courts generally should not grant such relief at the last minute, however, although unexpected emergencies may sometimes render it necessary. And a court may not order an election postponement or extension unless other, less extensive changes to the rules governing the electoral process are insufficient to remedy the constitutional or statutory violation. In the hierarchy of electoral remedies, a postponement or extension is a severe, disfavored remedy—particularly in the unique context of presidential elections—that should be employed only when other alternative would be ineffective.

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated that unexpected and unpredictable situations can hinder the conduct of general elections around the world. The book is a comprehensive analysis of the organization of elections during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to the theoretical perspective, it familiarizes the public with specific electoral solutions adopted during the pandemic in selected European countries (Italy, Germany, Lithuania, Serbia, Russia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Poland). The editors believe that this book will bring closer the specific solutions adopted in the considered countries during the COVID-19 pandemic and provide readers with a multi-faceted understanding of elections in emergency situations.

Abstract: The state is a social entity that consists of areas that have almost similar historical-cultural backgrounds. These areas have administrative divisions that are hierarchical in nature, where the division aims to accelerate the development and improvement of the area and the people in it. The research method used in this research is normative legal research method. The normative legal research method is a research method that looks for facts through the variables derived from the laws and regulations that are examined on their implementation and their effectiveness and shortcomings so that improvements and improvements can be made to these laws and regulations. Regional head elections are an inseparable part of a country that adheres to the principles of democracy and is even part of the characteristics of a democratic country.

Abstract: The challenge of administering free and fair elections in the midst of a pandemic where any mass event raises obvious risks of transmission of the virus has generated considerable controversy around the globe. Jurisdictions have adopted diverse strategies in their attempt to balance the need for elections and public health and safety. This article assesses the main legal issues raised by the prospect of conducting a federal election in Canada during the pandemic. In sum, I argue for new measures at polling stations to ensure public health, expanded advance voting, and, where ballots are mailed-in, accepting all that are postmarked by election day. Implementing some of these reforms would require legislative amendment. Passing amendments in a timely fashion may be a challenge, however, in a minority Parliament that is justifiably occupied with urgent matters related to the pandemic and with limited sitting hours in the midst of an experiment with virtual proceedings. Parliament should urgently turn its mind, however, to the likelihood of a pandemic election and what reforms are needed. Section II discusses the legal framework for conducting elections during an emergency. In sum, the regular rules in the Canada Elections Act largely continue to apply and are not displaced by either emergency legislation or special provisions in the Act itself. Section III summarizes and analyzes the current options for casting a ballot in federal elections, in light of the likely constraints and threats posed by the pandemic. Section IV takes a deep dive into in person voting during a pandemic. It discusses in particular changes within polling stations to adapt to the pandemic and the expansion of early voting opportunities. Section V analyzes the pressing topic of mail-in voting. I argue that the existing system for voting by mail appears likely to be inadequate if used on a much wider scale than in previous elections, when few votes were cast in that fashion. Voter education should be a priority in response to some of the features of voting by mail. Legislative reforms are also needed, however, to ensure that all votes cast by election day and received within a reasonable timeframe are properly counted.

Abstract: Elections held in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic are an excellent basis to review currently binding electoral law measures prescribed for the event of extraordinary situations. The last years in Poland, which have seen the presidential and numerous mid-term local elections, have given us enough material to review existing relevant measures and to propose changes in those areas which have turned out problematic under the pandemic circumstances. The aim of this chapter is to examine which legislative solutions caused difficulties in the pandemic-related circumstances. This study also intends to determine whether the experience from electoral practice stands a chance to translate into specific actions of the Polish legislator to ensure fair and democratic elections should similar circumstances occur in the future. The study analyses the laws in force and relevant views of legal scholars and commentators. The case study of 2020 Polish has shown that the legislator focused mainly on adopting measures for presidential elections that were particularly important from the political point of view. The question of organization and holding of mid-term local elections, which are also important form the citizens’ perspective, is left on the margin.

Abstract: Despite an aggressive disinformation campaign from the People’s Republic of China (‘PRC’), Taiwan effectively countered false information coming from the PRC and maintained the integrity of its January 2020 elections. Political warfare between the PRC and Taiwan (the Republic of China) stretches back decades. However, the digital age has catalyzed the range and effectiveness of ‘disinformation’—the dissemination of false information with the intention to deceive public opinion. During Taiwan’s 2020 elections, PRC disinformation centered on the political unrest in Hong Kong and sought to sway Taiwanese public opinion toward candidates that were sympathetic to Beijing. Taiwan mounted a robust self-defense against this disinformation through a whole-of-society approach: factchecking by civil society organizations, government-sponsored education for media literacy, and a technology sector that actively curbed inauthentic behavior online. Taiwan’s legal responses to PRC disinformation also demonstrate how specific legislation can counter the spread of rumors domestically and discourage interference from abroad. These lawfare mechanisms included Taiwan’s libel laws, ‘fake news’ regulations, and the Anti-Infiltration Act. Taiwan’s 2020 elections offer a glimpse into the frontlines of disinformation and the novel social media strategies that authoritarian regimes like the PRC use to influence public opinion in democracies. The story of Taiwan’s elections also shows the potential resiliency of democracy in the face of authoritarian disinformation and the possible legal recourse to counter foreign interference. Amid rising election interference and a U.S.-PRC propaganda war surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, the world urgently needs these lessons.

Abstract: This Essay examines whether the United States Constitution allows a governor to veto a state legislature’s bill governing presidential elections. The Constitution does not support this seemingly intuitive proposition directly, and on its face appears to vest control over presidential elections solely in the hands of state legislatures: while Article II of the Constitution explicitly provides for the ‘Legislature’ of each state to control the ‘manner’ in which electors are chosen, it makes no mention of state governors. This vagary in the Constitution’s text takes on particular import in light of political polarization over election administration in recent years. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic has prompted numerous states to make emergency modifications to their election systems, including delaying elections or attempting to cancel marginally competitive presidential primaries. Commentators have even expressed fear that a state legislature may eventually attempt to exercise its plenary authority to determine how presidential electors are appointed under Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution to choose electors without holding a popular vote. This Essay answers these concerns by arguing that a state governor can veto state legislatures’ bills governing presidential elections on the same terms as any other legislation. Although the Constitution may not explicitly provide for a state governor’s role, the Supreme Court’s precedents and longstanding practice strongly suggest that a state governor has the same powers over bills governing presidential elections as over other state legislation. This conclusion has further implications for other potential conflicts between state legislatures and governors over presidential elections, including rules for absentee balloting, awarding electors by congressional district, using ranked-choice voting, or entering the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

Abstract: This study aims to analyze the legal politics of regulating the implementation of regional head election campaigns during the Covid-19 pandemic, and the factors that influence the regulation of regional head election campaigns during the Covid-19 pandemic. The theory used in this study is the theory of the electoral administration model and the theory of legal politics. The approach used in this study is a qualitative approach with library research, which uses normative legal research methods. The results of this study, the legal politics of regulating regional head election campaigns during the Covid-19 pandemic was influenced by: First, violations of health protocols that occurred during candidate registration, involving a large number of masses, resulting in crowds. Second, the increase in the number of Covid-19 cases, which has also begun to target election organizers and regional election participants. Third, the insistence of various parties to postpone the simultaneous 2020 regional head elections. Fourth, the agreement of the DPR RI through Commission II with the Government through the Ministry of Home Affairs and Election Organizers (KPU, Bawaslu, DKPP) in a Hearing Meeting (RDP) on September 21, 2020.

Introduction: The ongoing pandemic has necessitated dramatic changes to nearly every aspect of American life. The ways we work, shop, eat, and socialize have been radically restructured to protect our own health and that of our communities. This November, that radical restructuring will extend to the way we vote. Changes to our voting systems to safeguard public health, such as by allowing mail‐in voting, are sorely needed, particularly if fears of another COVID-19 wave in the fall come true. At the same time, hastily switching from in‐person voting to more‐anonymized systems with which the states lack experience creates the potential for chaos, errors, and decreased electoral legitimacy in the eyes of voters. With little more than two months until the election, states must finalize decisions on what they are doing and communicate those plans to their citizens and the country as a whole.

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to describe the position of the state emergency law as the basis for the issuance of the Government Regulation in Lieu of Law and to examine the consistency of the position of the state emergency law in the implementation of regional elections during the pandemic. This study used normative juridical research with conceptual, statutory, philosophical, and case-study approaches. Sources of legal materials in this study consisted of primary, secondary, and tertiary legal materials. The results showed that the Covid-19 pandemic is declared a non-natural disaster to be qualified as coercive urgency, which is a requirement for enacting the state emergency law. However, there is a logical inconsistency about the Covid-19 pandemic concerning regional elections. On the one hand, the Covid-19 is used as an argument to declare the state in an emergency so that it is necessary to issue a state emergency law in the form of the Government Regulation in Lieu of Law. On the other hand, the regional head election is still be held during the pandemic. If the Covid-19 pandemic is considered a state emergency, the regional head election must be postponed until the pandemic is over.

Abstract: The 2020 elections were hard-fought, high-stakes affairs that drew intense scrutiny. The covid-19 pandemic greatly influenced campaign methods, voting, and election administration, and the government’s response to the pandemic created major political issues. It is no surprise that in this electoral tinder box, parties resorted to courts to press their concerns over voting and election issues. While the candidates’ positions and personalities dominated campaign news, reports of election litigation made plenty of headlines as well. Parties litigated voting and election procedures heavily in the presidential swing states, but most states experienced significant election litigation. Minnesota was no exception. Minnesota political parties, voter organizations, voters, and election officials fought in court over many aspects of voting and elections. The lawsuits continued after the election, contesting the results of several Minnesota races. This article will review the key Minnesota legal battles over voting and elections in 2020.

Abstract: This paper focuses on how the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures taken to fight off the pandemic influenced the political parties’ financial opportunities in Hungary. In order to provide context, relevant questions regarding the everyday life and operation of parties are also addressed. As an introduction, the first part of the paper provides a brief overview of the legal responses to the pandemic, then the second part paper summarizes the existing legislative framework of political finance in Hungary, enumerating the shortcomings of the system, as well as considering the recommendations made by international organizations and domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs). The third part is an analysis of those provisions on party finance, which were introduced by the government since April 2020 with regard to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The analysis is based on desk research and empirical data collected from representatives of the political parties by questionnaires.

Abstract: The article focuses on emergencies affecting elections, and summarizes actions states and cities have taken to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Purcell v. Gonzalez. It mentions intersection of state emergency powers and cases applying the Purcell principle that arose during the 2020 general election. It also mentions Supreme Court’s case principle is inconsistently applied by lower courts and leaves a gap in voting rights protections.

Abstract: We are facing a moment of unique reflection in American democracy. Data suggests that marginalized communities feel persistently ignored by political actors—on a bipartisan basis. The scale of wealth inequality is soaring to unprecedented heights. Domestic indifference to foreign interference in our elections has poisoned public confidence in the political process. Mass reckonings with institutionalized racism and police violence have rocked major cities, facing deep and violent resistance from the President and the federal government. A global pandemic disproportionately devastated Black and Brown communities, and the federal government’s response prioritized economic liberty over health and safety. Americans are reconsidering the nature of our relationship to the federal government, and the pressure for reform may now exceed any moment since the New Deal. In this setting, Iowa’s dramatic failure to efficiently administer the Democratic Presidential Caucus hardly seems worthy of a footnote in the history of 2020. Yet, at the time, it became a national story. Iowa’s failure to administer an efficient election was new—but election law’s marriage to economic efficiency is much older. Understanding the depth of efficiency’s roots in the law of democracy requires turning back to that same New Deal era. The conflict between the American Legal Realists and the laissez faire Lochnerism of the Supreme Court laid the groundwork for efficiency’s lasting role in law—and for the century of criticism that sprung up to contest it. Efficiency—and specifically, the conceptions of efficiency proffered by Chicago School Law and Economics and Virginia School Public Choice Theory—emerged victorious from those contests. But, we are facing a moment of unique reflection, and in such a moment, an opportunity arises. By looking back through efficiency’s rise, we can chart a course forward. This article offers a framework with which to do so: the efficiency-convergence dilemma. Part I builds the efficiency-convergence, outlining the intellectual history of efficiency’s role in election law. Part II builds the dilemma, highlighting critical legal theory and heterodox economics traditions that contour the normative concerns with the efficiency-convergence. Part III presents the framework. I develop a typology of efficiency arguments within election law, derived from novel primary source analysis of the legislative history for the Voting Rights Act and the National Voter Registration Act, along with case law and scholarship across election law. I theorize that this typology demonstrates an efficiency-convergence dilemma, functioning to institutionalize racial subordination as a neutral principle undergirding legal thought in the law of democracy. I offer a series of critiques for this efficiency-convergence, built from the critical theories discussed. Finally, Part IV offers two normative implications of the efficiency convergence. The first is to look outside the law, developing an operationalized definition of equity based on similar research in public health and public policy. The second is to highlight election law scholarship that bucks the efficiency convergence, charting a path forward. I present one such path: reimagining the right to vote as a constructive right implemented through constitutional conventions and norms and protected as an instrumental right.

Abstract: The United States’ politically charged 2020 federal election, conducted in the midst of a global pandemic, seismically shook the fault lines of state and local elections administration nationwide. Voters, candidates, parties, states, and political campaigns brought hundreds of claims to the courts, seeking judicial intervention to protect equity in their voting rights. The 2020 pandemic election cases demonstrated that Equal Protection claims relying on the Anderson-Burdick balancing test are both overly reliant on judicial discretion and highly vulnerable to invalidation under the Purcell principle. This Note examines the equal protection challenges raised in courts throughout the country in 2020 to demonstrate the need for a voter equity-based approach to equal protection claims that goes beyond the Purcell principle’s weak threshold protections. This Note proposes the Carolene test, a novel threshold test for equal protection claims in voting rights cases that determines the appropriateness of judicial intervention based on: (1) whether an election process or procedure change relates to voters’ ability to participate in the political process, (2) whether the change prejudices discrete and insular minorities, and (3) whether the change would expand or diminish the franchise.