Perhaps never before in U.S. history have so many controversies surrounded so many aspects of our voting systems. Herewith, three different ways various people wrongly complain. (Links to full stories embedded in each headline.)
HILLYER EXCLUSIVE: Pennsylvania GOP legislators make false allegation (Oct. 27):
It’s bad enough to cry wrongly a warning about a nonexistent wolf, but when you wrongly warn that 240,000 wolves are on the loose, that’s a real howler.
Experienced conservative and Republican elections officials refuted a letter sent by 15 Republican state representatives in Pennsylvania on Thursday claiming that “counties have already mailed over 240,000 unverified ballots.”
The letter stemmed from “faulty assumptions, made by misinterpreting government data,” Linda Kerns, an elections lawyer who represents Republican candidates, voters, and parties, told me this afternoon….
Los Angeles Council’s racism stems from voting-district fights (Oct. 10): Several Democratic Los Angeles City Council members and a union leader are pushing the limits of the assumption that politicians of the Left can get away with flagrantly racist behavior that would immediately torpedo conservatives…. [The comments came in a discussion about how Council districts should be divided according to race]…. this is exactly what happens when people look at the world through a racial lens and try slicing and dicing political power according to racial identity…..
Trump’s extreme “independent legislature” theory is election-stealing nonsense (Oct. 26):
The radical Right’s “Independent State Legislature” theory about federal elections, primarily expressed by Donald Trump’s supporters, is, in its starkest form, a fantasy. Almost equally wrongheaded, though, are those who entirely dismiss even milder versions of the theory.
The extreme form of ISL theory is pushed by radicals who argue state legislatures enjoy completely independent powers over federal elections in their states. In turn, say Trump’s radicals, state legislatures had plenary powers to choose new slates of electors for Trump even after voters’ ballots had been counted.
Three distinguished, non-leftist constitutional scholars, one of them co-chairman of the conservative Federalist Society, filed a brief Monday rightly opposing those radicals. They join conservative luminary J. Michael Luttig, a former federal appeals court judge, in dismissing the ISL theory…..
