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• False or Misleading Campaign Ads

• 2 Part test: The false statement — reasonable reader find it to be false? and Actual Malice based on knowingly printing the
information

• Strict Scrutiny should apply (Rickert)

• Any attempt to regulate speech based upon its content should be subject to strict scrutiny
• More speech is the best weapon against false speech
• Last minute and harassing campaign tactics; Election crimes
• Stopping Polling within a certain area around a polling place
• Here the state argues a compelling interest in protecting voters from undue influence, argument can be made in the tailoring
prog of the analysis that the law is over inclusive and under inclusive

• “Voting more than once” (Salisbury)issue lies with the definition of voting. The 7th circuit uses the common meaning of the
word vote —> the expression of one’s will, preference, or choice or to express the will or a preference in a matter by ballot,
voice, etc.

• Early voting question about having a witness — (Ray v. Texas) Better have come concrete evidence to make the claim. State
interest in stopping fraud is a good one.

• Campaign Finance
• Contributions: money that goes directly to the candidate to spend as he or she wishes
• Expenditure: independent financing of a candidate
• Coordinated Expenditure: spending own money, but working with the campaign (In re Cao: fear that there would be
circumvention of the limits placed on contributions)

• Candidate spending own money is an expenditure

• Political Speech is Money
• Buckley v. Valeo is foundational campaign finance case
• Contribution limitations — exacting scrutiny in that limits cannot be set so low that they prevent a candidate from running an
effective campaign

• Independent Expenditures — push for the idea of issue ads with no magic words. Cannot regulate these and any attempt to will
be reviewed with strict scrutiny

• Soft Money — McConnell v. FEC

• Hard Money is money for a candidate, Soft money is for other activities not expressly for the candidate
• Here the court takes a narrower view of corruption (vs Buckley) access is the potential underpinning of corruption
• There was an issue of how soft money was being used to run issue ads after the hard money cap had been met. There was also
the issue of donating to the state party and the money would be funneled to the federal party. BCRA was ultimately an anti-
circumvention law

• Dissent poses a test (Kennedy) that inquires whether the conduct now prohibited inherently poses a real or substantive quid pro
quo danger.
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• Coordinated Expenditure 2 Prong Test from the dissent that does not turn on the degree of coordination: An advertisement is
functionally identical to a contribution only if it is susceptible of no other reasonable interpretation than as a general expression of
support for the candidate, and the ad was not generated by the candidate. (Cao Dissent)

• Citizens United
• Government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but may not suppress the
speech altogether. (Citizens United)

• Citizens United also states that access is not corruption, back to the Buckley definition of quid pro quo corruption
• Contribution Limitations
• 5 Factors to consider (Randall v. Sorrell)
• So low that it hurts challengers to incumbents
• Equal amounts to parties hurt the individual right to associate
• Volunteer can’t give time
• No inflation
• State did not offer proof as to why it was so low
• Public Financing
• Arizona matching dollar for dollar funds of privately funded candidates is struck down
• There is no furthering of the anticorruption interest of the state by instilling this matching funds provision and is thus stuck down.
• Disclosure laws
• Exacting scrutiny: substantial relation between the interest and the information required
• State interests:
• Educating voters
• Deter Corruption
• Basic detecting violations
• Super PACs only engage in independent expenditures, there is a trend of hiding donors behind 501(c)(4) nonprofits

• Election Administration
• Harper v. Virginia State Board of Education basically lead to the creation of a right to vote with no Constitutional Foundation.
• Voter ID is hit with Strict Scrutiny (Harper), then a lower level is applied in Crawford
• Anderson/Burdick Balancing Test: if the burdens a law imposes on voters is severe, then the law is subject to strict scrutiny
review, but if the burdens are less than severe, then the court balances the character and magnitude of the asserted injury to the
right protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments that the plaintiff seeks to vindicate against the precise interests put
forward by the state as justifications for the burden imposed by its rule, taking into consideration the extent to which those
interests make it necessary to burden the plaintiffs’ rights.

• Structural Approach (Scalia) vs. Individualist Approach (Stevens)

• Absentee ballots receive rational basis review

• Minority Vote Dilution

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• §2 of the Voting Right Act — Discriminatory Effect (Effect is Totality of the Circumstances — lack of electoral success is
evidence of vote dilution along with extent of opportunities minority voters enjoy to participate in the political process; Footnote
9 p. 70)

• Gingles Test Conjunctive — Help to figure out if there is minority vote dilution — Redistricting Only — Precondition then we
look at totality of the circumstances

• Sufficiently compact to constitute a majority

• Politically cohesive
• Majority white tends to block minority

• Felon Disenfranchisement
• Argument that Section 2 of the VRA does not extend to Felon Disenfranchisement, relies heavily on the history behind felon
disenfranchisement. Supreme Court has not ruled on this issue technically.

• Other arguments include cruel and unusual punishment, international laws, and push Section 2 beyond history
• Federal v. State Power Over Elections
• National Voter Registration Act preempts the state forms for voter registration (Arizona Inter Tribal)
• Purpose of the universal form is to contribute to uniformity across the country

• Ballot Counting Disputes

• Remedies from the courts include voiding an election, removing the portion of ballots found to be corrupted (ex. absentee ballots
only), proportionate reduction (precent by precent, Grounds rule)

• Redistricting
• One person, one vote rule — basically made up in the case of Reynolds v. Sims
• What can be considered when gerrymandering?
• Population
• Integrity of the political subdivision
• compact districts of contiguous territory, basically referring to shape
• Cannot consider
• History
• Economics
• Area interest (geography)
• De minimus variation in population of districts for state level elections
• No true level of de minimus for federal congressional districts
• Plaintiff must prove the variance and offer alternatives
• Burden then shifts and state must justify each variance
Exacting: important interest, closely drawn