OUR PICKSElection Theft 101: Foster Skepticism | The White House Puts New Guardrails on Government Use of AI | • John Eastman Should Lose Law License, Judge Finds, and more
· Election Theft 101: Foster Skepticism
Two legal scholars, stunned by Jan. 6 insurrection, game out half-dozen possible schemes that exploit, spotlight flaws in system
· Trump’s Social Media Company Opens New Avenue for Conflicts of Interest
Ethics experts say Trump Media, now a publicly traded company, would present a new way for foreign actors or others to influence Donald J. Trump, if he is elected president
· John Eastman Should Lose Law License, Judge Finds
The decision was only the latest effort by bar officials to seek accountability against a group of lawyers who sought to help President Donald J. Trump stay in office despite his election loss
· The White House Puts New Guardrails on Government Use of AI
Vice President Kamala Harris says new rules for government AI deployments, including a requirement that algorithms are checked for bias, will “put the public interest first”
Election Theft 101: Foster Skepticism (Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman, Harvard Gazette)
In 2020 we witnessed the most extreme rhetoric in a presidential campaign that the nation has seen in modern times. President Trump insisted again and again that the election was stolen. For a moment, before Jan. 6, the wind seemed to have gone out of those sails. And for about 48 hours after Jan. 6, the nation’s leaders seemed united in the view that the president had gone too far and that Trump had not been denied office illegally. But in a demonstration of his continued control over the party, the former president pressed his claim that the election had been stolen. And after polls confirmed that most Republican voters agreed with the president, most Republicans in Congress closed ranks behind him.
Because of these actions, much of America stands convinced that many of the states can’t count votes accurately: that our system for running our democracy is as fundamentally flawed as anything the government does — which, for many Americans, means that it is a complete and corrupt failure.
The upshot is startling: State legislatures are free to deny their people a meaningful role in selecting our president, either directly or indirectly. Directly, by canceling an election or by making the results merely advisory; indirectly, at least in solidly Red or Blue states, by adopting winner-take-all as the method for allocating electoral votes. Either way achieves the same result: removing the relevance of the vote of the people in their state on Election Day from the ultimate choice in allocating electors.
But the unique danger of a state legislature formally canceling an election is that it could happen in a critical swing state, not just a solidly Red or Blue state. If the state legislatures of Vermont and Wyoming canceled their respective state’s presidential elections and appointed electors directly, it wouldn’t make a difference in those states’ electoral votes. Vermont always votes for the Democrat, and the Democratic state legislature in Vermont would surely appoint Democratic electors if it had the power to do so. The same is true of deeply Republican Wyoming. (Cont.)
