Oppo and Plagiarism

Joe Rodota at Oppo File says that opposition researchers used to have a hard time detecting plagiarism.

That changed in 2000, as “plagiarism consultant” Jonathan Bailey explains:

Though plagiarism had long been against most schools' ethics codes, detecting it was a challenge. In 2000, Turnitin.com was launched. Though the technology was originally designed to detect “frat file” plagiarism, a pre-internet plagiarism technique that involves storing copies of physical essays for use in later years, it was adapted to deal with internet plagiarism, as well.

There are other “content similarity detection” programs out there, and oppo researchers use them every day.

...

In an earlier campaign cycle, oppo researchers in the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee busted a Republican for plagiarism. In 2014, GOP oppo researchers decided to return the favor. They started with a universe of “targeted races” and winnowed that list down, focusing on campaigns that shared consulting teams. The NRCC oppo researchers figured the same people in those firms might be writing copy for two or more candidates, thereby increasing the possibility some of the content might be duplicated.

With that list of campaigns in hand, it became a simple matter of taking pages from candidate websites and entering them into Google. Examples of plagiarism leapt from their laptop screens and a target was identified: Staci Appel, candidate for Congress in Iowa’s 3rd District.

Types of Primaries

 

For those tuning into the discussion of systemic election refrom, this NCSL doc lays out the sorts of primaries used in America. There are degrees of openess. https://t.co/yUP4SCzjXi#AEIElectionReform pic.twitter.com/bRrWQeqOdS

— Kevin R Kosar (@kevinrkosar) December 4, 2023

AI and Political Ads

 The new political ad machine: Policy frameworks for political ads in an age of AI Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

While there is limited empirical research on GAI in political ads, our reading of the literature considering online misinformation, political ads, and bias in AI models offers five important insights into the potential harm of GAI in political ads: 

• First, research suggests that the persuasive power of both political ads and online misinformation is often overstated. Political ads likely have more of an effect on behavior – such as voter turnout and fundraising –  than on persuasion. 
• Second, political ads likely have the greatest impact in smaller, down-ballot races where there is less advertising, oversight, or familiarity with candidates. 
• Third, GAI content has the potential to replicate bias, including racial, gender, and national biases.
•  Fourth, research on political disclaimers suggests that watermarks and disclaimers are unlikely to  significantly curb risks. 
• Fifth, significant holes in the research remain.

 These insights from the literature help to formulate recommendations for policymakers that can mitigate the potential harm of GAI without unduly constraining its potential benefits. Research suggests that policy should focus more on preventing abuse in smaller, down-ballot races and in mitigating bias than on banning deceptive GAI content or requiring disclaimers or watermarks. Although the research points in this direction, holes in the literature remain. The result is that we should approach its insights from a position of curiosity, rather than certainty, and conduct additional research into the impact of GAI on the electoral process. Building on our assessment of the academic literature, we offer ten recommendations for policymakers seeking to limit the potential risks of GAI in political ads. These recommendations fall into two categories: First, public policy should target electoral harms rather than technologies. Second, public policy should promote learning about GAI so that we can govern it more effectively over time.

AI and Politics

Emily A. Vogels at Pew:

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) are familiar with ChatGPT, though relatively few have tried it themselves, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March. Among those who have tried ChatGPT, a majority report it has been at least somewhat useful.

ChatGPT is an open-access online chatbot that allows users to ask questions and request content. The versatility and human-like quality of its responses have captured the attention of the media, the tech industry and some members of the public. ChatGPT surpassed 100 million monthly users within two months of its public launch in late November 2022, setting a world record as the fastest-growing web application. Due to these factors, the Center chose to ask Americans about ChatGPT specifically rather than chatbots or large language models (LLMs) more broadly.

Jim Saksa at Roll Call:

AI is already being used in politics. After President Joe Biden announced his reelection campaign, the Republican National Committee released an AI-generated video that envisioned a dystopian future wrought by his four more years in office. In the Chicago mayoral primary earlier this year, a Twitter account posing as a local news outlet posted a deepfake video impersonating candidate Paul Vallas on the eve of the election. And campaigns have used machine-learning models to guide their ad buys on social media platforms like Facebook for years now.

Right now, though, it’s the potential to use large language models like OpenAI’s ChatGPT to update voter files, perform data analysis and program automated functions that excite political operatives the most. While well-funded Senate or gubernatorial races can afford to hire data scientists to crunch numbers, smaller campaigns rarely have that luxury, said Colin Strother, a Democratic political consultant based in Texas. AI will change that.

“I’m excited about some of the brute work that would be really great to do, but — unless you’re on a big-time campaign, with a ton of money and a ton of staff — you can’t afford to do,” Strother said.

 

Not Enforcing the Johnson Amendment

John R. Vile at The First Amendment Encyclopedia:

.The Johnson Amendment is an addition, adopted in 1954, to the Internal Revenue Code, 501(c)(3). As a condition for maintaining exception from income taxes and other taxes, charitable organizations including churches and affiliated groups, were forbidden from participating or intervening in “any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office” (Davidson 1998, 17).

The amendment is named after then Senator (later President) Lyndon B. Johnson, who introduced the amendment out of concern about the Facts Forum and the Committee for Constitutional Government. Both were tax-exempt organizations that had imitated the tactics of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy (R., WI) in campaigning against politicians like Johnson who were more liberal in their political orientations

Jeremy Schwartz and Jessica Priest at The Texas Tribune:

At one point, churches fretted over losing their tax-exempt status for even unintentional missteps. But the IRS has largely abdicated its enforcement responsibilities as churches have become more brazen. In fact, the number of apparent violations found by ProPublica and the Tribune, and confirmed by three nonprofit tax law experts, is greater than the total number of churches the federal agency has investigated for intervening in political campaigns over the past decade, according to records obtained by the news organizations.

In response to questions, an IRS spokesperson said that the agency “cannot comment on, neither confirm nor deny, investigations in progress, completed in the past nor contemplated.” Asked about enforcement efforts over the past decade, the IRS pointed the news organizations to annual reports that do not contain such information.

...

Among the violations the newsrooms identified: In January, an Alaska pastor told his congregation that he was voting for a GOP candidate who is aiming to unseat Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, saying the challenger was the “only candidate for Senate that can flat-out preach.” During a May 15 sermon, a pastor in Rocklin, California, asked voters to get behind “a Christian conservative candidate” challenging Gov. Gavin Newsom. And in July, a New Mexico pastor called Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham “beyond evil” and “demonic” for supporting abortion access. He urged congregants to “vote her behind right out of office” and challenged the media to call him out for violating the Johnson Amendment.

Andrew Whitehead, a sociologist at the University of Indiana-Purdue, who studies Christian nationalism, said the ramping up of political activity by churches could further polarize the country. “It creates hurdles for a healthy, functioning, pluralistic democratic society,” he said. “It’s really hard to overcome.”

Campaign Finance in the 2022 Midterm

 Open Secrets:

The total cost of 2022 midterm elections is projected to exceed $9.3 billion, according to an early, conservative estimate by OpenSecrets. More than $4.8 billion has already been spent on 2022 midterms, setting federal election spending on track to surpass the inflation-adjusted 2018 midterm record of $7.1 billion.

“We’re seeing much more money, more candidates and more political division than we did in 2018,” said OpenSecrets Executive Director Sheila Krumholz. “Spending is surging across the board this midterm cycle, fueling a polarization vortex that shows no signs of slowing.”

That $4.8 billion figure includes spending disclosed to the Federal Election Commission by candidates, political parties, political action committees and other groups during the 2022 midterm election cycle as of Sept. 20, 2022. Total spending will likely jump in mid-October, as most third-quarter filings are not due to the FEC until Oct. 15, the first disclosure deadline for most federal candidates since mid-year disclosures were filed.

While OpenSecrets’ $9.3 billion estimate is slightly less than the $9.9 billion – adjusted for inflation – spent on U.S. congressional races in the 2020 election cycle, 2022 election spending is on pace to exceed the $8 billion in inflation-adjusted spending on congressional and presidential races during the 2016 election cycle.

Bequeathing Elected Office

 Term limits were supposed to bring fresh blood into California politics.

They have not worked out that way. 

Ben Christopher at CalMatters reports on what happened after Assemblyman Tom Daly announced his retirement: " But hours later, the second punch landed: Daly’s district director Avelino Valencia, an Anaheim City Council member, entered the race with the backing of his boss. A new presumptive frontrunner had entered the race, fresh from the “pipeline.”

[This] year’s bumper crop of vacancies in both the Assembly and Senate means there are an unusual number of departing legislators doing their best to bequeath their seats to chosen successors. It’s a trend that highlights just how small and insular the Legislature can be.

Where such behavior can cross an ethical line is when a lawmaker effectively “denies other candidates a fair shot…by essentially gaming the system,” said John Pelissero, a senior scholar with Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Just to name a few more examples from this year: 

• Democratic state Sen. Bob Hertzberg is termed out of his seat in the San Fernando Valley. As he runs to be a Los Angeles County supervisor, he’s throwing his considerable political weight behind Daniel Hertzberg. Connection: That last name is no coincidence. The two are father and son.

• In late January, Democrat Autumn Burke departed the Assembly early to take a job with a lobbying firm. The next day, she endorsed Robert Pullen-Miles for her Inglewood seat. Connection: Pullen-Miles is Burke’s former district director.

• Democratic U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier announced her retirement last November. A few weeks later she backed San Mateo Assemblymember Kevin Mullin to take her spot. Connection: He served as her district director, and Mullin’s father was a close political ally of Speier’s.

Estranged Republicans

 Kevin D. Williamson at National Review:

If I am not quite politically where you’ll find, e.g., my friends over at the Bulwark, I am not emotionally where they are, either, and that may be more to the point. By this, I do not mean to cast any aspersions on that school of thought and its adherents. I would be very surprised if William Kristol did not have much stronger personal feelings about the Republican Party than I do: He served in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations (as chief of staff to the vice president in the latter case), advised (and even managed) Republican campaigns, led organizations with the word “Republican” in their name, etc. — and I didn’t. Joe Scarborough held office as a Republican. If you look at the résumés of conservatives most bitterly estranged from the Republican Party, you’ll see many former advisers, campaign operatives, Hill staffers, party officials, etc. These are people who didn’t casually date the Republican Party — they were married.

Hispanic (Not Latinx) Voters

 Ruy Teixeira:

An important thing to remember about the Hispanic population is that they are heavily oriented toward upward mobility and see themselves as being able to benefit from available opportunities to attain that. Three-fifths of Latinos in the national exit poll said they believed life would be better for the next generation of Americans.

They are also patriotic. By well over 3:1, Hispanics in the VSG survey said they would rather be a citizen of the United States than any other country in the world and by 35 points said they were proud of the way American democracy works. These findings on patriotism are confirmed by results from the 2020 More in Common Identity and Belonging study, where the views of Hispanics contrasted starkly with the negative views of progressive activists.

Clearly, this constituency does not harbor particularly radical views on the nature of American society and its supposed intrinsic racism and white supremacy. They are instead a patriotic, upwardly mobile, working class group with quite practical and down to earth concerns. Democrats will either learn to focus on that or they will continue to lose ground among this vital group of voters.

Marc Caputo and Sabrina Rodriguez at Politico:

As Democrats seek to reach out to Latino voters in a more gender-neutral way, they’ve increasingly begun using the word Latinx, a term that first began to get traction among academics and activists on the left.

But that very effort could be counterproductive in courting those of Latin American descent, according to a new nationwide poll of Hispanic voters.

Only 2 percent of those polled refer to themselves as Latinx, while 68 percent call themselves “Hispanic” and 21 percent favored “Latino” or “Latina” to describe their ethnic background, according to the survey from Bendixen & Amandi International, a top Democratic firm specializing in Latino outreach.

More problematic for Democrats: 40 percent said Latinx bothers or offends them to some degree and 30 percent said they would be less likely to support a politician or organization that uses the term.

 

Women Candidates in 2020

 Stacy Montemayor and Pete Quist, National Institute on Money in Politics; Karl Evers-Hillstrom and Grace Haley, Center for Responsive Politics, | 2020-12-21

Key findings:

• Between 2016 and 2020, the percentage of women candidates in gubernatorial and state legislative races saw a massive jump, from 25 percent to 32 percent.
• At least 142 women will hold seats in the next Congress, an all-time high mark.
• In 2020 races for the U.S. House and Senate, women candidates outraised men on average, while also nearly closing the gap in state-level contests.
• In 2020 races, women accounted for 33 percent of donations to congressional candidates and 31 percent of donations to state-level candidates, both record marks.

...

Republican women also made gains in state races, though they were less pronounced. Women made up nearly 23 percent of 2020 Republican candidates, up from 18 percent in 2016. The biggest jump came from non-incumbent Republicans. In 2016, nearly 19 percent of Republican challengers were women. That figure jumped to 27 percent in this year’s elections.

Figure 2: Women candidates in 2020 state races, by party

Women candidates generally won at the same rate at which they ran at the state level. In 2020, 32 percent of all candidates for state legislative and gubernatorial seats were women, and 32 percent of the general election winners were women. In the 2016 and 2012 election cycles, women only accounted for 26 percent of general election winners.

Gender parity at the state level is still a ways off despite modest gains. Nevada remains the only state in the nation with a majority-female legislature. The vast majority of leadership positions in state legislatures are held by men. Just seven women serve as speakers of state houses, and nine women currently serve as governors.

Most Secure Election in History

  From the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA):

The members of Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC) Executive Committee... released the following statement:

“The November 3rd election was the most secure in American history. Right now, across the country, election officials are reviewing and double checking the entire election process prior to finalizing the result. 

“When states have close elections, many will recount ballots. All of the states with close results in the 2020 presidential race have paper records of each vote, allowing the ability to go back and count each ballot if necessary. This is an added benefit for security and resilience. This process allows for the identification and correction of any mistakes or errors. There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.

“Other security measures like pre-election testing, state certification of voting equipment, and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission’s (EAC) certification of voting equipment help to build additional confidence in the voting systems used in 2020.

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too. When you have questions, turn to elections officials as trusted voices as they administer elections.”

Early Voting During the Pandemic

Many posts have discussed early voting, which is reaching unprecedented levels during the pandemic.

As of this morning, 31,677,305 have already voted. In states that register by party, Democrats outnumber Republicans among early voters 53.5% to 24.6% Four years ago at this point, only 5.9 million had voted. It is possible that Democrats are cannibalizing their Election Day vote and that it will tilt heavily Republican. Then again, the third wave of COVID could tamp down Election Day turnout.

Also as of this morning: 8.2 million cases and 220,134 deaths.

Campaign Ads in Grocery Deliveries

Ben Christopher at CalMatters:

An extra item may have slipped into your weekly grocery delivery: a campaign ad. It’s a dubious bonus from Instacart, the San Francisco-based tech company that lets customers order groceries by app.

As a valued Instacart customer, we hope you’ll take a moment to learn more about how Prop. 22 supports the best possible shopper experience in California,” read the firm’s email, signed “The Instacart Team.”

California voters are used to being lobbied by corporate behemoths. In props past, the oil industry, Big Pharma, plastic producers and kidney dialysis clinics have spent millions trying to sway voters.

But the gig economy titans bankrolling Proposition 22 — which would allow them to keep treating drivers as independent contractors rather than employees — have a secret weapon: your data profile.

If you’ve ever downloaded the Uber, Lyft, Instacart, Postmates or Doordash apps or registered for their services, the companies possess your phone number, email and credit card info — not to mention your food preferences and travels.

Contact information alone is a goldmine for any election campaign, said Sean McMorris, a policy consultant for transparency watchdog Common Cause. In any other context, “a small nonprofit or the average Joe” behind a campaign would have to shell out thousands of dollars for such a list.

To date Uber, Lyft, Instacart, and Doordash report more than $4.3 million in non-monetary contributions for Prop. 22. That would include email blasts, mass text messaging and within-app campaign material. (As the Los Angeles Times reported, last week Uber customers in California were required to “confirm” a bit of Yes on 22 messaging before hailing their next ride.)

Americans Want to Abolish the Electoral College

Megan Brenan at Gallup:

Heading into the 2020 presidential election, three in five Americans favor amending the U.S. Constitution to replace the Electoral College with a popular vote system, marking a six-percentage point uptick since April 2019. This preference for electing the president based on who receives the most votes nationwide is driven by 89% of Democrats and 68% of independents. Far fewer Republicans, 23%, share this view, as 77% of them support keeping the current system in which the candidate with the most votes in the Electoral College wins the election.

Ethnic Composition of the Electorate

 From Pew:

In all 50 states, the share of non-Hispanic White eligible voters declined between 2000 and 2018, with 10 states experiencing double-digit drops in the share of White eligible voters. During that same period, Hispanic voters have come to make up increasingly larger shares of the electorate in every state. These gains are particularly large in the Southwestern U.S., where states like Nevada, California and Texas have seen rapid growth in the Hispanic share of the electorate over an 18-year period.1

These trends are also particularly notable in battleground states – such as Florida and Arizona – that are likely to be crucial in deciding the 2020 election.2 In Florida, two-in-ten eligible voters in 2018 were Hispanic, nearly double the share in 2000. And in the emerging battleground state of Arizona, Hispanic adults made up about one-quarter (24%) of all eligible voters in 2018, up 8 percentage points since 2000.

...

The ways in which these demographic shifts might shape electoral outcomes are closely linked to the distinct partisan preferences of different racial and ethnic groups. Pew Research Center survey data spanning more than two decades shows that the Democratic Party maintains a wide and long-standing advantage among Black, Hispanic and Asian American registered voters.3 Among White voters, the partisan balance has been generally stable over the past decade, with the Republican Party holding a slight advantage.

Foreign Influence on Elections

Federalist 22:

One of the weak sides of republics, among their numerous advantages, is that they afford too easy an inlet to foreign corruption. An hereditary monarch, though often disposed to sacrifice his subjects to his ambition, has so great a personal interest in the government and in the external glory of the nation, that it is not easy for a foreign power to give him an equivalent for what he would sacrifice by treachery to the state. The world has accordingly been witness to few examples of this species of royal prostitution, though there have been abundant specimens of every other kind.

In republics, persons elevated from the mass of the community, by the suffrages of their fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments.

From the FBI:

Election Day 2020 is less than two months away, and the FBI is charged with protecting the rights of all Americans, including their right to vote.

From now until November 3, every American has a role to play in protecting the election from threats against the democratic process. Across the country, the FBI has initiated public awareness messaging about election security online at fbi.gov and across our social media platforms.

The goal of this social media campaign is to increase the public’s awareness about threats to the upcoming election and to inform Americans about what they can do to help the FBI ensure that the elections are safe and secure. These threats include crimes the FBI has been charged with investigating for decades, including campaign finance crimes; voter/ballot fraud; civil rights violations, cyber threats targeting the election process; and the potential for foreign influence on the democratic process, elected officials and institutions.
...
The FBI is the primary investigative agency responsible for engaging with local and state election security counterparts to safeguard election integrity. The FBI is also the lead federal agency for identifying and combating malign foreign influence operations targeting our democratic institutions through the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF). The FITF brings together all FBI authorities and capabilities from multiple divisions to include Counterintelligence; Cyber; Criminal; and Counterterrorism assets to coordinate and work together to combat the threat.

The FITF is committed to providing accessible tools and resources to all levels of government through both in-person briefs and online tools, such as our Protected Voices campaign, found at fbi.gov/protectedvoices. Protected Voices is a public initiative which provides political campaigns, organizations, and other election security stakeholders with tools and resources to protect against malign foreign influence and cyber security threats.

In addition to protecting the November 2020 election, the FITF remains focused on persistent malign foreign influence efforts targeting our democratic institutions and processes outside of election events and works closely to address threats targeting the democratic process and American elections.

If you have information about allegations of election crime or voter fraud, please call your local FBI field office. The Washington Field Office can be reached at 202-278-2000.

Additional information on the FBI’s role in election security and access to educational resources about how to protect your voice and vote, can be found by following the FBI’s Washington Field Office at @FBIWFO.

 

Don't Overstate the Impact of Political Ads

 A release from Yale:

Every four years, U.S. presidential campaigns collectively spend billions of dollars flooding TV screens across the country with political ads. But a new study co-authored by Yale political scientist Alexander Coppock shows that, regardless of content, context, or audience, those pricey commercials do little to persuade voters.

The study, published Sept. 2 in the journal Science Advances, measured the persuasive effects of 49 high-profile advertisements from the 2016 presidential campaign on a nationally representative sample of 34,000 people through a series of 59 randomized experiments. Expanding on prior research suggesting that political ads have little impact on voters’ preferences, the study shows that those weak effects are consistent irrespective of a number of factors, including an ad’s tone, timing, and its audience’s partisanship.

“There’s an idea that a really good ad, or one delivered in just the right context to a targeted audience, can influence voters, but we found that political ads have consistently small persuasive effects across a range of characteristics,” said Coppock, an assistant professor of political science in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “Positive ads work no better than attack ads. Republicans, Democrats, and independents respond to ads similarly. Ads aired in battleground states aren’t substantially more effective than those broadcast in non-swing states.”

Coppock and his co-authors — University of California-San Diego political scientist Seth J. Hill and UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck — conducted the study throughout the 2016 presidential primaries and general election.

Hatch Act and Federal Property

An advisory from the office of Special Counsel, August 9, 2004:

The Office of Special Counsel (OSC) recently has received various complaints concerning the granting of requests from candidates and/or their campaigns to visit federal agencies. Therefore, OSC, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. §1212(f), issues this Hatch Act opinion reminding all federal agencies of the relevant provisions of the Hatch Act governing such requests. This guidance addresses activities relating to federal, state and local political campaigns of candidates in partisan elections, including Presidential candidates.

While the Hatch Act, 5 U.S.C. §§7321-7326, does not govern the actions of an individual who is running for partisan elective office, it does regulate the political activity of federal executive branch employees and District of Columbia government employees. Although the Act permits most covered employees to actively participate in partisan political management and partisan political campaigns, covered employees still are subject to certain prohibitions related to their participation in partisan activities. Two such prohibitions relevant to this opinion are that covered employees may not: 1) use their official authority or influence for the purpose of affecting the result of an election or 2) engage in political activity while on duty; in any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties by an individual employed or holding office in the government of the United States or any agency or instrumentality thereof; while wearing a uniform or other similar item that identifies the employing agency; or using a government vehicle. 5 U.S.C. §§7323(a)(1) and 7324. Political activity is defined as “an activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan political office, or partisan political group.” 5 C.F.R. §734.101.

Examples of activities prohibited by the preceding restrictions include the following: authorizing the use of a federal building or office as described above for campaign activities, such as town hall meetings, rallies, parades, speeches, fundraisers, press conferences, “photo ops” or meet and greets; attending or planning such campaign events while on duty or in a federal building or office; or distributing campaign literature or wearing campaign-related items while on duty or in a federal building or office. 

We note that OSC views candidates’ requests to visit federal facilities that are coordinated by candidates’ campaigns as presumptively for a campaign purpose and not official business. This opinion, however, should not be interpreted as prohibiting federal employees from allowing members of Congress and other elected officials from visiting federal facilities for an official purpose, to include receiving briefings, tours, or other official information. Further, nothing in this opinion is intended to impede elected Page 2 of 2 officials from appropriately representing their constituents. Federal agencies should ensure that candidates who visit their facilities to conduct official business do not engage in any political campaign or election activity during the visit.

Based upon the preceding, the Hatch Act should be considered carefully when handling a candidate’s request to visit or use a federal building. We strongly encourage all federal agencies receiving such requests to contact OSC prior to granting such a request. Further, we encourage federal agencies to review their guidelines concerning such visits to insure that they are consistent with the Hatch Act and offer our assistance in this matter. For any additional questions concerning this matter, please contact me at (202) 254-3650.

Elderly Poll Workers

Carrie Levine at The Center for Public Integrity:

Election officials across the country are facing similar staffing crises long in the making, now accelerated by the pandemic: in-person access to the ballot box rests on the vulnerable shoulders of a cohort of steadfast, but elderly, election workers at high risk of illness or death should they contract COVID-19.

More than half the country’s poll workers in 2016 were 61 or older, according to data tracked by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission. In some states, that number is far higher, a Center for Public Integrity analysis of EAC data found.

In Maine, for example, nearly two in three poll workers are in that age group. In Montana, Oklahoma and Alabama, the number of elderly poll workers is as high or higher.

Election officials nationwide are now often explicitly recruiting younger poll workers ahead of remaining 2020 primaries and November’s general election.

Nonetheless, the acute shortage of election workers is prompting reductions in the number of in-person polling sites for upcoming primaries, fueling worries that some voters may face significant obstacles to casting their ballots

Interest Groups, Top Two, and Factional Politics

From Reconstruction through the 1950s, Texas was a one-party state.  Notwithstanding small GOP pockets, the real conflict in the state was between liberal and conservative factions of the Democratic Party, with the conservatives usually having the upper hand.  California politics is becoming a doppelganger.  Republicans are largely irrelevant, and the real struggle is between moderate liberal Democrats and hardcore progressives.

Jeremy B. White at Politico:

There is no other state where Democrats wield the absolute power the party enjoys in California. Democrats occupy every statewide office and command two-thirds majorities in both houses. Former GOP strongholds like Orange County have shaded blue. Republicans don’t just lag behind Democrats — there are also fewer registered Republicans than no-party-preference voters.

Before 2011, when the state replaced party primaries with a general primary after which the top two vote-getters square off in the general election, establishment-backed Democrats running in safe seats could often sail to assured victories; now, they often findthemselves fighting for their political lives against a rival from their own party.

The liberal-versus-moderate dynamic in California presaged not only the rift that blew open in this year’s presidential primaries, it established its parameters: between unions and environmental activists; between single-payer advocates and Democrats working to expand coverage within the health care system; between educational reformers and teachers unions; between law enforcement and those who regard the legal system as hopelessly biased against communities of color.

California’s experience with top-two voting, rather than partisan primaries, also offers a lesson for other states that are dominated by a single party — like Democrats in Massachusetts or Republicans in Mississippi. In safe seats that would have allowed an earlier generation of Democrats to comfortably coast to victory, California now regularly sees battles between Democrats who differ on issues that otherwise would split along party lines.

Traditionally conservative interests like the oil industry and charter schools increasingly court friendly Democrats — often by contributing money to a constellation of innocuously named political action committees that then spend millions on advertising: In districts where a Democratic win looks inevitable, the thinking goes, better to boost the Democrat who’s likely to vote with you than a Republican who is likely to lose.

David Townsend, a Sacramento political consultant, said he used to have to work to convince business-oriented groups on the wisdom of getting behind Democrats. Now that tactic has become so ingrained that Townsend said he has “a waiting list” of interested players hoping to invest in moderate Democrats.

“Year in and year out the business community, the health care community, the insurance community can look at all the scorecards and see where mods have been on their issues and on trying to tamp down too much regulation,” Townsend said. “We don’t have to do the sell anymore. Everyone totally gets how important the mods are.”