October 2/Sacramento: The Voting Wars - From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown - #MCLE

Richard L. Hasen

In 2000, just a few hundred votes out of millions cast in the state of Florida separated Republican presidential candidate Governor George W. Bush from his Democratic opponent, Vice President Al Gore. The outcome of the election rested on Florida's twenty-five electoral votes, and legal wrangling continued for thirty-six days. Then, abruptly, one of the most controversial Supreme Court decisions in history, Bush v. Gore, cut short the battle. Since the Florida debacle we have witnessed a partisan war over election rules. Election litigation has skyrocketed, and election time brings out inevitable accusations by political partisans of voter fraud and voter suppression. These allegations have shaken public confidence, as campaigns deploy “armies of lawyers” and the partisan press mobilizes when elections are expected to be close and the stakes are high.
Richard L. Hasen, a respected authority on election law, chronicles and analyzes the battles over election rules from 2000 to the present. From a nonpartisan standpoint he explores the rising number of election-related lawsuits and charges of voter fraud as well as the decline of public confidence in fair results. He explains why future election disputes will be worse than previous ones—more acrimonious, more distorted by unsubstantiated allegations, and amplified by social media.
Title:
The Voting Wars - From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown

When/Where:
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
12:00 p.m.
Nossamon LLP
621 Capitol Mall
25th Floor
Sacramento, CA
Preregistration:
http://www.acslaw.org/SacramentoTheVotingWarsBookEventRSVP
Speaker:
Richard L. Hasen, Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science, University of California, Irvine School of Law
By:
American Constitution Society
Credit:
This event has been approved for 1.0 hours of MCLE credit.
More:
http://www.acslaw.org/SacramentoTheVotingWarsBookEvent