Now the Electoral College votes for president – 4 essential reads

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

The voters have cast their ballots, and after those ballots have been counted, and a winner has been projected by news organizations, that’s not the conclusion of the election. The actual outcome of the 2024 presidential election will be determined by the Electoral College.

The Conversation U.S. has had several articles explaining the history and effects of the United States’ curious method of choosing a president, not with one national election but with 51 smaller elections, in each state and Washington, D.C. Here are the highlights of that coverage.

1. A safeguard for democracy

The Electoral College was the result of a compromise devised among 11 men at the Constitutional Convention in the hot Philadelphia summer of 1787. It was meant as a protective measure against rule by an uninformed mob, as Purdue University social studies education professor Phillip J. VanFossen explains. He describes how electors came to cast the decisive votes for president, writing:

“(The) founders were reassured that with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. They believed that the electors would ensure that only a qualified person became president. And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, especially by foreign governments.”

These 11 delegates to the Constitutional Convention in 1787 agreed on a compromise that created the Electoral College. The Conversation, from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-ND

2. Creating new danger

By contrast, though, Barry C. Burden, a political science scholar at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, found that rather than protecting American democracy, the Electoral College system created a new risk:

“Someone who wants to infiltrate the election system would have difficulty causing problems in a national popular vote because it is decided by thousands of disconnected local jurisdictions. In contrast, the Electoral College makes it convenient to sow mischief by only meddling in a few states widely seen as decisive.”

3. Protecting the popular vote?

A news item published Aug. 19, 1868, in South Carolina provides insight about the contemporaneous understanding of Section 2 of the 14th Amendment. The Anderson Intelligencer via newspapers.com

There may be limits to that meddling, though. The Constitution allows state legislatures to choose the electors – which Donald Trump and his supporters tried to exploit in 2020 by asking Republican state legislators to appoint fake electors to confuse matters.

However, as Eric Eisner, a history Ph.D. student at Johns Hopkins University, and David B. Froomkin, a law professor at the University of Houston Law Center, explain, that would have run afoul not only of those states’ laws but also of another provision of the Constitution: The 14th Amendment says that if a state disenfranchises any of its voters, that state loses a proportional amount of its seats in the House of Representatives.

So, Eisner and Froomkin explain:

“(I)f a state legislature were to directly choose electors, that would disenfranchise all of the state’s voters. The right to vote, after all, is the right to have one’s vote counted, not the right to have one’s preferred candidate win. If all of a state’s voters have their right to vote taken away, Section 2 requires that the state’s House representation immediately and automatically be reduced to zero.”

That, in turn, means the state would only have two electors – and would no longer be a factor in the election.

4. Why does the US still have an Electoral College?

Other nations took a lead from the U.S. creation of the Electoral College, creating their own versions. But they didn’t last, as Westminster College political scientist Joshua Holzer explained:

“None have been satisfied with the results. And except for the U.S., all have found other ways to choose their leaders.”

Many people in the U.S. also have problems with the Electoral College, and Holzer identifies one effort underway to replace it without amending the Constitution. But even that wouldn’t ensure that the person who becomes president would be supported by at least half of the people who cast ballots.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Independent voters think for themselves and stay out of politics – 3 essential reads

Jessie Harris, left, a registered independent voter in South Carolina, casts a ballot in February 2024. Joe Lamberti for The Washington Post via Getty Images

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In the 2024 election, the two major-party campaigns and many news reporters are spending a lot of time talking about independent voters – those who are neither aligned with the Republican Party nor the Democratic Party. Despite the power that political independents are anticipated to have over the election results, there’s a lot that remains unknown about this group.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles about what is known, and why it’s hard to know much more. Here are selections from some of those articles:

1. How many independent voters are there?

It’s very hard to answer that question, wrote Thom Reilly, a professor of public affairs at Arizona State University. Part of the problem is figuring out how to define who independent voters are. Surveys often ask people if they are Republicans, Democrats or independents, and if they answer that they are independents, the surveys ask how strongly they might lean toward one party or the other. But this muddies the waters of political identity, Reilly wrote:

“It’s possible that some voters identify as independent but really just have weaker political preferences than party die-hards, while still maintaining some loyalty to one party or the other. And some independent voters change their political identification from one cycle to another. That makes it hard to tell who an independent voter is and how many of them exist.”

Those changing alignments, Reilly wrote, “may require scholars, media outlets and the public to shift their traditional two-party view of American politics.”

2. Independent voters think for themselves

Independent voters exhibit a key quality that most Americans expect of their fellow citizens: They base their views on their life experiences.

Unfortunately, as politics scholars Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz at the University of Maryland and Joshua J. Dyck at UMass Lowell explained, this is an attribute almost unique to political independents:

“In contrast, Democrats’ and Republicans’ ideas of what problems deserve government attention and how to solve them are much less likely to be based on their own life experiences, and instead simply mirror the information they have gained from leading political figures on social media, on cable news networks or through other partisan information outlets.”

For instance, independents living in neighborhoods with high levels of gun violence are far more likely to report being concerned about gun violence than independents who live in safer areas. But, Pearson-Merkowitz and Dyck wrote,

“for Democrats and Republicans, there is no relationship between where they live and their level of concern about gun violence: Whether they live in a relatively dangerous community or a relatively safe one, their views on gun violence reflect their party’s messages on the issue.”

3. Independents less likely to engage in any politics

Research into independents’ political activity finds them tending to stay away from politics, wrote Julio Borquez, a political science scholar at the University of Michigan-Dearborn:

“Perhaps most importantly, pure independent voters are simply less likely to vote than those who express any degree of partisan attachment. In the 2020 presidential election, reported turnout among pure independents was about 20 percentage points lower than turnout among other voters, including independents who lean toward a party.”

Research has found members of this group “tend to be genuinely put off by partisan conflict and party labels,” Borquez wrote. Different studies have found, for instance, that they prefer photos of neighborhoods that did not show political yard signs over the same photos of the same neighborhoods with homes displaying political yard signs. And they pay less attention to campaigns and partisan social media than people with partisan affiliations.

So they are indeed independent – but the question remains whether they will be uninvolved in 2024 or motivated to cast their ballots and make their views known.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Slow vote-counting, flip-flopping leads, careful certification and the weirdness of the Electoral College – people who research elections look at what to expect on election night

What should you make of the flood of information about the election? Dilok Klaisataporn/iStock / Getty Images Plus

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

As Election Day arrives, people’s feelings of eagerness and anxiety can intensify. It’s normal to want to know the results, but it’s also important to make sure that when the results are announced, they’re accurate.

The Conversation U.S. has covered many aspects of the election, including the mechanics of tallying and reporting the votes. Here are selections from some of those articles:

1. How long did it take to count votes in 2020?

In 2020, Election Day was Nov. 3. While some results emerged that evening and over the subsequent days, it was not until four days later, Nov. 7, that The Associated Press called the race for Joe Biden over Donald Trump.

Waiting can be unsatisfying, wrote John M. Murphy, a communications scholar at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, but it’s key to getting accurate results.

Murphy warned: “People tend to see what they want to see. … Partisans want that beautiful picture of triumph, blue or red seas cascading across screens on election night.” But, he observed, that might be a mirage – and realizing it’s a mirage means one thing: “Wait. … Wait until we know it’s real.”

Election officials count ballots at the Allegheny County elections warehouse in Pittsburgh in 2020. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

2. Why do candidates’ leads change as the results emerge?

Every state counts votes slightly differently. Some, like Colorado, allow election workers to begin counting absentee ballots in advance of Election Day, while in other states, like Illinois, the count can’t even start until the polling places close at the end of Election Day.

In addition, various communities report their results in different ways. Some may release preliminary results every so often while the counting continues, while others may wait until counting is fully complete before announcing any results.

That’s why vote counts change over time: Partial results are updated, and additional results are added to statewide tallies. In a 2020 article, Kristin Kanthak, a political science professor at the University of Pittsburgh, went through the whole process, including the release of partial results:

“Importantly … this doesn’t mean the system is ‘rigged.’ Actually, it means the system is transparent to a fault,” she wrote.

3. How do we know the results are accurate?

Election officials take their jobs very seriously and work hard to count all the eligible votes accurately while under great pressure. They have specific rules and processes for how to handle ballots and vote-counting.

Derek Muller, an election-law scholar at the University of Notre Dame, explained those steps in detail, highlighting the focus on verifiable facts rather than people’s opinions about the process:

“Certifying an election is a rather mundane task. … It is little more than making sure all precincts have reported and the arithmetic is correct. But it is an important task, because it is the formal process that determines who won the most votes.”

Washoe County employees in Nevada open ballots as they begin processing mailed ballots in the 2024 primary election. AP Photo/Andy Barron

4. Who invented the Electoral College?

Of course, the candidate who gets the most votes doesn’t necessarily win the presidency. The official decision is made by the Electoral College.

Phillip VanFossen, a civics educator at Purdue University, explained that the Constitutional Convention in the summer of 1787 came up with three ideas, but couldn’t agree. Determined to find common ground, even if it was imperfect, the delegates told 11 men to come up with a solution, which was the Electoral College.

VanFossen explained that “with this compromise system, neither public ignorance nor outside influence would affect the choice of a nation’s leader. (The delegates) believed that the electors would ensure that only a qualified person became president. And they thought the Electoral College would serve as a check on a public who might be easily misled, especially by foreign governments.”

5. Why does the US still have an Electoral College?

Other nations were inspired by the U.S. Constitution, but not for long, as Westminster College political scientist Joshua Holzer explained:

“None have been satisfied with the results. And except for the U.S., all have found other ways to choose their leaders.”

Many people in the U.S. also aren’t satisfied with the Electoral College, and Holzer identifies one effort under way to replace it without amending the Constitution. But even that won’t ensure that the person who becomes president is supported by at least half of the people who cast ballots.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Supreme Court rules that Trump had partial immunity as president, but not for unofficial acts − 4 essential reads

President Donald Trump speaks at a rally on Jan. 6, 2021, before the Capitol insurrection. Mande Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Amy Lieberman, The Conversation; Jeff Inglis, The Conversation, and Naomi Schalit, The Conversation

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that a president, including former President Donald Trump, “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”

The decision is “super nuanced,” as a law scholar explained to The Conversation shortly after the decision was announced on July 1, 2024.

While a president has total immunity for exercising “core constitutional powers,” a sitting or former president also has “presumptive immunity” for all official acts. That immunity, wrote Chief Justice John Roberts in the majority opinion, “extends to the outer perimeter of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are not manifestly or palpably beyond his authority.”

“There is no immunity for unofficial acts,” the court ruled.

The vote was 6-3, as the court’s three liberal justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson – strongly disagreed with the majority opinion in a dissent.

“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion.

The federal prosecution against Trump for his actions to overturn the 2020 presidential election will now go back to lower courts to determine which of the federal charges against Trump can proceed. One outcome, though, is clear – this decision will have a major impact on presidential power and the separation of powers in government.

Until all of the decision’s nuances are parsed by constitutional law scholars, here are four stories to help readers better understand the arguments leading up to the decision and what was at stake with this case.

People protest outside the Supreme Court on July 1, 2024, ahead of the court’s anticipated decision on whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution. Drew Angerer/AFP via Getty Images

1. Laying the groundwork

Trump claimed he is immune from federal prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election because he was in office as president at the time.

“Trump’s argument centered on a claim … that a president cannot be subjected to legal action for official conduct or actions taken as part of the job,” wrote Claire B. Wofford, a political science scholar at the College of Charleston.

Since 1982, in a case dating back to Richard Nixon’s presidency, presidents have been deemed immune from civil lawsuits based on their officials acts, Wofford explained, and Trump sought to expand that immunity protection. But it was a big ask, Wofford wrote:

“Protecting the president from the hassles of civil litigation is one thing; permitting the president, charged in Article 2 of the Constitution with faithful execution of the laws, to be able to break those same laws with impunity is quite another.”

Indeed, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan wrote in December 2023 that Trump did not have the “divine right of kings to evade criminal accountability.” And a federal appeals court agreed in February 2024. That’s the ruling Trump appealed to the Supreme Court.

2. An inconsistent claim

Trump’s claim faced an uphill battle. Stefanie Lindquist, a scholar of constitutional law at Arizona State University, observed:

“In several of the lawsuits he filed challenging election results in the wake of the 2020 election, Trump himself said he was acting ‘in his personal capacity as a candidate,’ as distinct from his official capacity as president.

"Now, though, Trump claims that whether or not he was acting as a candidate on Jan. 6, his comments on ‘matters of public concern’ fall within the scope of his presidential duties.”

That inconsistency, as well as the general principle in the Constitution that no person could be above the law, made Trump’s position a difficult one to argue.

3. A decision a long time coming

Wofford, a constitutional law scholar at the College of Charleston, observed before the Supreme Court’s July ruling that there was public concern about the time it took the court to reach a decision, but she said that delay was much more likely in service of democracy than it was a partisan play:

“When the Supreme Court makes a decision, it is inevitably answering a very difficult legal question. If the answers were clear, the case never would have been the subject of high court litigation in the first place.”

And the task the justices have in deciding the case is vital to the nation, she wrote:

“(G)iven the potentially unconstitutional actions Trump has threatened to take if re-elected, the country will need a strong and well-respected Supreme Court in the very near future. Those angry with the court should actually be very glad it is working as usual here. If it weren’t, their fear that Trump will get away with it all may indeed be realized.”

Donald Trump speaks after the appeals court hearing on his claim of immunity from prosecution on Jan. 9, 2024, in Washington. Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images

4. What this means for the future

Earlier this spring, Wofford noted some disturbing portents during the oral arguments before the Supreme Court on April 25, 2024:

“Several of the justices, across the ideological spectrum, were very concerned about the practical implications of allowing a president to have immunity to some extent, or not allowing the president to have immunity.”

For instance, Wofford noted,

“Justice Samuel Alito seemed really concerned about the president being subject to political prosecution if he were not protected by immunity. … On the flip side … (Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson) said a president could enter office ‘knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes.’”

Wofford expected the justices would try to avoid granting either complete immunity or no immunity at all – and therefore allow Trump’s federal trial for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election to continue based on the fact that many of his actions were private, not official. Though that held peril, too, Wofford wrote:

“I wish there were a different vehicle through which the court could resolve this question and that it didn’t feel to so many people that the fate of our government, and the stability of our system, was on the line. … If it does not make a clear, resounding statement that the president is not above the law, then I think we have a serious problem.”

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Amy Lieberman, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation; Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation, and Naomi Schalit, Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Supreme Court says only Congress can bar a candidate, like Trump, from the presidency for insurrection − 3 essential reads

Journalists set up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building on Feb. 8, 2024. Aaron Schwartz/Xinhua via Getty Images

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, in a unanimous decision, that the state of Colorado cannot bar former President Donald Trump from appearing on Colorado’s presidential ballot under the provisions of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The text of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment states, in full:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”

The ruling said states may decide who is eligible to hold state offices, but only Congress may decide who is eligible to hold federal offices.

Writing for The Conversation U.S. as far back as 2021, several scholars have explained aspects of this part of the Constitution, how it was intended, and the legal and political considerations surrounding its function. They give context to the court’s ruling and what it means for the country now.

Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi signs an article of impeachment against then-President Donald Trump on Jan. 13, 2021. Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images

1. A relatively recent development

In early 2021, Gerard Magliocca, a law professor at Indiana University, pointed out that up until that time, “Section 3 of the 14th Amendment was an obscure part of the U.S. Constitution.”

But this provision had an important purpose, he wrote:

“It prohibits current or former military officers, along with many current and former federal and state public officials, from serving in a variety of government offices if they ‘shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion’ against the United States Constitution.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling did not decide whether Trump had or had not engaged in insurrection.

2. Justices focused on potential for national disarray

During oral arguments on Feb. 8, 2024, several members of the Supreme Court focused on the fact that this case was about a Colorado decision to bar Trump from the ballot, which suggested that other states might come to their own conclusions if the court didn’t deliver a clear message that would apply nationwide.

As Notre Dame election law scholar Derek Muller observed:

“States are the ones who have the primary responsibility of running presidential elections. And Colorado was leaning very heavily into this authority they have over which candidates to list on the ballot and how that can vary from state to state. The pushback from the Supreme Court in this case was to say, in essence, you’re not dealing with local or state interests, you’re not dealing with these state-specific procedures for how you list candidates on the ballot. You are interpreting a provision of the U.S. Constitution, and then you are applying it in your own state in a way that could affect what happens in other states.”

Police place a fence at the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 8, 2024, before justices heard arguments over whether Donald Trump is ineligible for the 2024 ballot. AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

3. The importance of consensus

The court appears to have taken pains to get to a unanimous decision. Muller anticipated such a move. He said it was likely because of the potential effect on elections:

“This is a binary choice that either empowers the Republican candidate or prevents voters from choosing him. So when you have a choice in such stark, political and partisan terms, whatever the Supreme Court is doing is often going to be viewed through that lens by many voters. … (T)here will be as much effort as possible internally on the court to reach a consensus view to avoid that appearance of partisanship on the court, that appearance of division on the court. If there’s consensus, it’s harder for the public to … point the finger at one side or another.”

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Candidates’ aging brains are factors in the presidential race − 4 essential reads

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are two of the three oldest people ever to serve as president. AP Photo

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

The leading contenders in the 2024 presidential election are two of the three oldest people ever to serve as president. President Joe Biden is 81. Former President Donald Trump is 77. Ronald Reagan took office at 69 and left it at age 77.

Both Biden and Trump have faced criticism about what can appear to be obvious signs of aging, including questions about their memory and cognitive abilities.

Scholars writing for The Conversation U.S. have discussed various aspects of how aging affects people’s brains. Here we spotlight four articles that collectively explain why there is cause for concern, why there is no clear statement to be made about any specific person’s cognitive power as they age, and ways people can preserve their brain power into their golden years.

1. Decline in thinking can come with age

Brandeis psychology professor Angela Gutchess, who studies brain activity to understand human thought, said there is a body of work documenting a cognitive decline in aging people:

“Past behavioral data largely pointed to loss in cognitive – that is, thinking – abilities with age, including poorer memory and greater distractibility.”

But her work has also found that “aging brains can reorganize and change, and not necessarily for the worse.”

2. Some people age faster than others

Aging is an individual experience, explained Aditi Gurkar, a geriatric medicine scholar at the University of Pittsburgh:

“Although age is the principal risk factor for several chronic diseases, it is an unreliable indicator of how quickly your body will decline or how susceptible you are to age-related disease. This is because there is a difference between your chronological age, or the number of years you’ve been alive, and your biological age – your physical and functional ability.”

Gurkar’s work has been focused on the latter, noting that some people with the same chronological ages can have very different cognitive and physical abilities. Key factors include the strength of a person’s social connections, as well as their sleeping habits, water consumption, exercise and diet.

As University of Pittsburgh geriatric scholar Aditi Gurkar notes in her TED Talk, aging is not just a number.

3. Even cells age differently inside the body

Ellen Quarles, who teaches cellular and molecular biology of aging at the University of Michigan, explained that aging is so individualized that it varies even at the cellular level:

“There is no single cause of aging. No two people age the same way, and indeed, neither do any two cells. There are countless ways for your basic biology to go wrong over time, and these add up to create a unique network of aging-related factors for each person that make finding a one-size-fits-all anti-aging treatment extremely challenging.”

4. There is a way to preserve abilities

Brian Ho and Ronald Cohen, University of Florida scholars who study brain health in aging people, have found that physical activity makes a real difference in cognition:

“People in the oldest stage of life who regularly engage in aerobic activities and strength training exercises perform better on cognitive tests than those who are either sedentary or participate only in aerobic exercise.”

Specifically, they found:

“(T)hose who incorporated both aerobic exercises, such as swimming and cycling, and strength exercises like weightlifting into their routines – regardless of intensity and duration – had better mental agility, quicker thinking and greater ability to shift or adapt their thinking.”

Whether it’s for Biden and Trump or anyone else, these scholars advise staying active, deepening connections with family and friends and recognizing that not everyone ages the same way.

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Are you seeing news reports of voting problems? 4 essential reads on election disinformation

Published in The Conversation

A voter emerges from a voting booth in New Hampshire in January 2024. AP Photo/David Goldman

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In certain circles, the 2020 presidential election isn’t over – and that seems to be at least a little bit true. In recent weeks, official reviews of election records and processes from the 2020 presidential election have reported findings that might be used to spread rumors about voting integrity.

For instance, election officials in Virginia’s Prince William County announced on Jan. 11, 2024, that 4,000 votes from the 2020 presidential election had been miscounted. None of them changed the results. Those miscounts gave Donald Trump 2,327 more votes than he actually got, and Joe Biden 1,648 votes fewer. Errors in counting turned up in other races, too, with both parties’ candidates for U.S. Senate being given fewer votes than they actually received, and a Republican who won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives actually won by a slightly larger margin than previously reported.

An audit of South Carolina’s 2020 voting records released in mid-January found no fraud and no indication any election results could have been different with the errors that were identified. But the report did recommend election officials cross-check lists of registered voters with other state lists more frequently than they have done in the past. Death reports and prison inmate rolls can help them determine who should remain eligible to voter and who should be removed from voting lists, the report said.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles about the systems protecting election integrity. Here are four examples from our archives.

A Trump campaign poll watcher films the counting of ballots at the Allegheny County, Penn., elections warehouse in 2020 in Pittsburgh. Jeff Swensen/Getty Images

1. Changing numbers are evidence of transparency, not fraud

The news reports of election audits came, originally, from election officials themselves, who specified they were below the small margins that would have triggered recounts. The reports also offered explanations for what had happened and how to fix it in the future – and included statements that at least some of the problems had already been fixed for upcoming elections.

That’s an example of what Kristin Kanthak, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, was talking about when she explained that election results that change over time aren’t inherently a problem:

“(T)his doesn’t mean the system is ‘rigged.’ Actually, it means the system is transparent to a fault,” she wrote.

2. Easier voting is not a threat to election integrity

Erecting obstacles to voting will not prevent the problems that do exist in the election system, for the simple reason that the flaws are not a result of easier voting methods, such as early voting and voting by mail.

Grinnell College political scientist Douglas R. Hess observed that the COVID-19 pandemic was a massive test of whether a secure election could be held with a lot of accommodations that made voting easier, and safer from the spread of disease.

As he wrote,

“(E)arly voting and voting by mail are targeted for restrictions in many states, even though both reforms are popular with the public, worked securely in 2020 and have been expanded in many states for years without increases in fraud. Likewise, the collection of absentee ballots – a necessity for some voters – can be implemented securely.”

3. It’s possible for election workers to be both partisan and fair-minded

For many years, elections have been run by people who were members of one political party or the other but behaved in good faith to run fair elections, wrote Thom Reilly, a scholar at Arizona State University’s School of Public Affairs.

But both the facts and the rhetoric have changed, he explained, noting that a significant share of the electorate is not a member of either party – so the people who supervise elections, who are typically party members, are “an increasingly partisan set of officials.”

Even so, many of them work hard to conduct fair elections. Yet, he wrote,

“(W)idespread misinformation and disinformation on election administration is hobbling the ability of election officials to do their job and has created fertile ground for mistrust.”

A poll worker helps a voter cast a ballot in the Kansas primary election at Merriam Christian Church on Aug. 2, 2022, in Merriam, Kan. Kyle Rivas/Getty Images

4. Beware those who aim to confuse or mislead

Political disinformation efforts are particularly intense around elections, warn scholars of information warfare Kate Starbird and Jevin West at the University of Washington and Renee DiResta at Stanford University.

Situations to watch out for are those in which “lack of understanding and certainty can fuel doubt, fan misinformation and provide opportunities for those seeking to delegitimize the results,” they wrote.

Specifically, look out for:

“Politically motivated individuals (who) are likely to cherry-pick and assemble these pieces of digital "evidence” to fit narratives that seek to undermine trust in the results. Much of this evidence is likely to be derived from real events, though taken out of context and exaggerated.“

They provide a reminder to keep your wits about you and be sure to double-check any claims before believing or sharing them.

This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Politics + Society Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Giuliani claims the First Amendment lets him lie – 3 essential reads

Rudy Giuliani admits to lying but says the Constitution protects him. AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

In his response to a lawsuit filed by two Georgia election workers who said Rudy Giuliani harmed them by falsely alleging they mishandled ballots in the 2020 presidential election, Giuliani has admitted lying. But he says the women suffered no harm – and claims that his lies are protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The Conversation U.S. has published several articles by scholars explaining what the First Amendment – which, broadly speaking, protects freedom of speech and the press – does and doesn’t say. That includes how it can and can’t be used to protect speech about political controversies, and whether speech that harms or threatens to harm another person is protected. Here is a selection from among those articles.

It may be upsetting to see – but that’s part of the point of burning a flag, and a key reason it’s protected by the First Amendment. Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images

1. Not all speech is protected

The First Amendment’s protections are not absolute, wrote Lynn Greenky, a communications scholar at Syracuse University.

“When the rights and liberties of others are in serious jeopardy, speakers who provoke others into violence, wrongfully and recklessly injure reputations or incite others to engage in illegal activity may be silenced or punished,” she wrote.

“People whose words cause actual harm to others can be held liable for that damage,” she noted. That’s what the Georgia election workers are claiming in their lawsuit.

Lying about people and bullying them can have consequences despite free-speech protections, Greenky explained: “Right-wing commentator Alex Jones found that out when courts ordered him to pay more than US$1 billion in damages for his statements about, and treatment of, parents of children who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.”

2. Defaming someone can be costly

Jones is not the only defamation defendant who has found lying costly. Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for spreading lies about its voting machines in the wake of the 2020 presidential election. Rather than go to trial, Fox settled for $787 million.

But communication scholar Nicole Kraft at The Ohio State University warned that if the case had gone to trial, proving defamation might have been difficult.

“To be considered defamation, information or claims must be presented as fact and disseminated so others read or see it and must identify the person or business and offer the information with a reckless disregard for the truth,” she wrote.

Another key question, she observed, is the amount of damage the statements do. “Defamation happens when someone publishes or publicly broadcasts falsehoods about a person or a corporation in a way that harms their reputation to the point of damage,” she wrote.

In his recent court filing, Giuliani appears to be saying the election workers weren’t harmed by his statements.

But they are claiming they were harmed, including that they received threats and hateful and racist messages from people in the wake of Giuliani’s allegations.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that some false statements are ‘inevitable if there is to be open and vigorous expression of views.’ AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File

3. The case could be easier

It’s not clear whether Giuliani has claimed to have been a politician at the time he made the false statements about the Georgia election workers. But he was functioning as a personal attorney and representative of Donald Trump, who is definitely a politician.

Allowing politicians to lie with impunity can be dangerous for democracy, warned Drake University constitutional scholar Miguel Schor:

“The First Amendment was written in an era when government censorship was the principal danger to self-government,” he wrote. “Today, politicians and ordinary citizens can harness new information technologies to spread misinformation and deepen polarization. A weakened news media will fail to police those assertions, or a partisan news media will amplify them.”

Schor found a potential solution in a 2012 opinion by Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, which said laws and courts should be able to penalize not just the harms caused by speech but also “false statements about easily verifiable facts.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Freelance Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Oath Keepers founder sentenced to 18 years for seditious conspiracy in lead-up to Jan. 6 insurrection – 4 essential reads

Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers, is just one member of a group that seeks to engage in violence against the U.S. government. Philip Pacheco/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Jeff Inglis, The Conversation

Stewart Rhodes, the founder of the Oath Keepers, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on May 25, 2023, in the wake of his November 2022 conviction for seditious conspiracy. Rhodes led an effort to keep former President Donald Trump in office after Trump lost the 2020 presidential election, including planning violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Several scholars of right-wing movements, white nationalism and extremism have written articles explaining what the Oath Keepers and groups like them want, and how they work – as well as the limits on their free-speech rights to talk about violent overthrow of the U.S. government. Here we spotlight four examples of those scholars’ work.

1. Oath Keepers are violently anti-government

“Oath Keepers have participated in several armed standoffs against the government,” wrote criminologists Matthew Valasik of the University of Alabama and Shannon Reid of the University of North Carolina – Charlotte.

For instance, “In 2014, the Oath Keepers joined an armed standoff between far-right patriot groups in Nevada on behalf of Cliven Bundy. In 2015, Oath Keepers showed up heavily armed in Ferguson, Missouri, during protests over the killing of Michael Brown. And in 2016, Oath Keepers were present at the armed takeover of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon.”

2. Oath Keepers are looking for a fight

At the Jan. 6 insurrection, the Oath Keepers contingent was looking to overthrow the government, wrote Sara Kamali, a scholar of systemic racism at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and the author of “Homegrown Hate: Why White Nationalists and Militant Islamists Are Waging War against the United States.”

Testifying before the congressional committee investigating the insurrection, “former Oath Keepers spokesman Jason Van Tatenhove left little doubt about the intentions of the white nationalist militia group when its members stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021,” Kamali wrote.

“Tatenhove explained that Jan. 6 ‘could have been a spark that started a new civil war,’” she continued.

Members of the Oath Keepers stand at the east front of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

3. Many Oath Keepers are former military personnel

The Oath Keepers – who “may number in the thousands” – are a threat in part “because the Oath Keepers actively recruit current and retired members of the armed forces,” wrote Mia Bloom and Sophia Moskalenko, Georgia State University scholars of violent extremism.

They reported that “[a]bout 10% of the Oath Keepers are active-duty military, and around two-thirds are retired military or law enforcement,” and that “[s]everal Oath Keepers present at the Jan. 6 attack were veterans,” some of whom used a military formation to breach the Capitol.

In addition, a growing number of military personnel are involved in domestic terrorism, and an increasing number of extremists have military ties, Bloom and Moskalenko reported.

4. The First Amendment does not protect sedition

Those former military members may have taken an oath to protect the U.S. and its Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic, but they are finding that constitutional protections go only so far.

“Far-right extremists or other hate groups can claim they are just venting or even fantasizing – both of which would be protected under the First Amendment,” wrote Amy Cooter, a scholar of extremism and militias at Middlebury’s Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism. “For this reason, seditious conspiracy charges have historically been hard to prosecute.”

Cooter noted that Rhodes did not enter the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, but his conviction “suggests that the jury believed that Rhodes’ texts and other communications incited others to violent, undemocratic action in a way that requires accountability.”

Editor’s note: This story is a roundup of articles from The Conversation’s archives.

Jeff Inglis, Freelance Editor, The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.