Scott Anderson on State Election Rules
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 October 2020
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We have an election in less than a month, and a lot of analysts seem to be expecting contested results. Doomsday scenarios are playing out in the pages of national magazines, the campaigns are gearing up for legal challenges and a lot of people are super worried about it. But there's something missing from a lot of these conversations: actual state law. State laws are the rules under which an election will initially be challenged, and they differ a great deal from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Benjamin Wittes sat down with Scott Anderson who led a team for Lawfare that surveyed the key battleground states' challenge regimes for contested elections. They talked about how these regimes differ, how they are similar, which ones give rise to particular concerns and what it all means for the upcoming federal election.
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Transcript
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| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | You know, on Bush v. Gore, Supreme Court said that actually individuals don't have any |
| 0:38.8 | entitlement to vote individually for a presidential candidate until the state legislature gives |
| 0:45.4 | it to them. |
| 0:46.4 | In this case, North Carolina has given it to them but has done so contingent on these |
| 0:51.1 | other dispute resolution procedures going to the general assembly and to the governor. |
| 0:54.9 | So you could see maybe an argument having more sway there to say, well, these rules are |
| 0:58.6 | a little bit in advance. |
| 1:00.5 | Other states that haven't done that though, they do have to overcome those questions |
| 1:04.4 | not only of the safe harbor requirements but also of potential constitutional questions |
| 1:08.8 | about the ability to take away the right to vote for president once it's been given |
| 1:13.8 | to the population of their states. |
| 1:17.8 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast October 7, 2020. |
| 1:25.3 | We've got an election in less than a month and lots of analysts seem to be expecting contested |
| 1:31.1 | results. |
| 1:32.1 | Doomsday scenarios are playing out in the pages of national magazines. |
| 1:37.8 | The campaigns are geared up for legal challenges and a lot of people are super worried about |
| 1:45.0 | but there's something missing from a lot of these conversations. |
... |
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