Election security efforts kicked into high gear after the 2016 election — fueled by Russian interference in that year’s presidential contest. Then 2020 happened. The baseless claims of hacking and fraud that former president Donald Trump and his allies spread after his 2020 loss have polluted conversations about election security ever since, making it far harder to talk about legitimate dangers to the voting process. Trump allies have routinely misrepresented legitimate security concerns to serve their own ends. They’ve also co-opted the language of election security to promote wild conspiracy theories and degrade public faith in the democratic process. They’ve claimed to have found digital vulnerabilities and back doors in voting machines that make no sense to experts who’ve studied those machines. They’ve conducted vote audits that violate all audit protocols and render election machines too insecure to be used again. The result: Talking about genuine election security concerns has become a tortuous process as experts try — usually in vain — to ensure nothing they say will be mischaracterized.
Editorial: It’s Hard to Overstate the Danger of the Voting Case the Supreme Court Just Agreed to Hear | Richard L. Hasen/Slate
The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, an “independent state legislature” theory case from North Carolina. This case has the potential to fundamentally rework the relationship between state legislatures and state courts in protecting voting rights in federal elections. It also could provide the path for election subversion in congressional and presidential elections. The issue presented in this case has been a recurring one in recent years. Two parts of the Constitution—Article I, Section 4 as to congressional elections and Article II as to presidential elections—give state “legislatures” the power to set certain rules (in the Article I, Section 4 context, subject to congressional override). In cases such as Smiley v. Holm, the Supreme Court has long understood the use of the term legislature here to broadly encompass a state’s legislative process, such as the need for a governor’s signature on legislative action (or veto override) about congressional elections. As recently as 2015, in Arizona Independent Redistricting Commission v. Arizona Legislature, the Supreme Court held that the voters in Arizona could use the initiative process to create an independent redistricting commission to draw congressional districts even when the state legislature objected. The majority saw voters passing legislation via initiative as part of that legislative process.
Full Article: The extreme danger of the Supreme Court’s latest voting case.
