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Andrew Yang speaks during the 100 Club Dinner. (Scott Olson / Getty Images)

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Last week, the Democratic commissioners of the New York Board of Elections did something unprecedented in election law: They threw legally qualified candidates off the ballot without their assent. Yesterday, a district judge held that what the board had done was unconstitutional and ordered it to reinstate the presidential primary for June 23.Ad Policy

Judge Analisa Torress decision was a lucid, thorough 30-page destruction of the boards argument. It was an especially important decision given that Donald Trump, whose disrespect for the law and desire for power are well established, might use any precedent to justify canceling or closing down elections later this year.

The Board of Elections is planning to appeal to the Second Circuit, setting up a major court battle about just how far states can go in authoritarian ballot stripping because of the pandemic. The question of the case boils down to this: During a public health crisis, do we lose our constitutional rights? Does the state still have to justify major burdens on our rights with well-tailored responses, or can it simply say pandemic and gain arbitrary powers it would never otherwise have?

The suit that led to yesterdays decision was brought by Andrew Yang, Yang delegates, and delegates for Bernie Sanders, all of whom had qualified to appear on the ballot in the New York presidential primary, after that primaryoriginally scheduled for April 28 and then postponed to June 23was canceled. On April 3, Governor Andrew Cuomo had pushed through a law that gave the same-party members of the Board of Elections total discretion to remove from the ballot any qualified candidates who had suspended their campaigns. The Democratic commissioners of the Board of Elections then used that newfound power to get rid of 10 candidates and their delegates and cancel the primary. The reasons they gave were that the candidates were no longer in the race (something the candidates disputed), that the race was a foregone conclusion, and that we have a serious pandemic.

Sanderss campaignwhich had recently won 23 percent of the delegates in Kansas, despite his not actively campaigning in the statecalled the move outrageous and pointed out that the Vermont senator had not dropped out of the race. Yang, like Sanders, was clear that while he had suspended his campaign, he had not terminated it. In an affidavit for the case, Yang wrote that he believed and expected that [his] name would nonetheless stay on the ballot in states with upcoming elections. Yang and Sanders delegates, who had worked hard through the winter to get on the ballot (no easy feat in New York), pointed out the practical reasons they wanted to be elected even if their candidate was a long shot: Every delegate gets a voice and votes in key decisions about rules and the platform at the Democratic National Convention. If elected, they will have the power to vote on DNC rules, the DNC platform, the candidate for president, and the candidate for vice president.

In modern election law, limits on the right to voteincluding ballot access limitsare subject to a balancing test, in which the reason for the limitation is weighed against the nature of the right being burdened. If a state stops someone from voting altogether, the burden is enormous, and the decision is subject to the strictest scrutiny and highly unlikely to be found constitutional. If, on the other hand, the state moves a polling location from a post office to a school, the burden on the voter is slight, and the state can give convenience justifications for the move, which will likely be upheld.

Courts have long recognized that a states ballot access rules affect both the rights of candidates and the rights of votersand that these rights cant be easily separated. While a state has enormous leeway in crafting ballot access rules, that leeway extends only up to the time the rules are put in place; it cant create one set of expectations for how to get on the ballot and then change them after the fact. Therefore, the burdens on the right to vote in this case were extremely severe: ballot stripping. That means any justification must be stacked up against other ways the same goal could be achieved. Plaintiffs lawyers argued (and I agree) that the state decision should be subject to the strictest scrutiny, because the vote was taken away. Judge Torres didnt use that language, but she recognized the cancellation was a weighty imposition on the plaintiffs rights, one that would require a serious, carefully and closely crafted justification.Current Issue

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This test the Board of Elections failed miserably. It gave no thorough justification at the time of the decision but instead relied on generalities about how the candidates werent running and the need to protect public health. More importantly, the boards public health justification simply doesnt hold up under scrutiny. Judge Torres pointed out in her opinion that on the same date as the presidential primary, there are elections in most of the political units of the state, so it doesnt make sense to cancel one election when the voters will be at the polls (or mailing in absentee ballots) anyway. She noted that the few areas where there are no other primaries are rural: The election is going forward in the most populous areas of the stateprecisely those where the risk is highest. She noted that no other state had canceled a primary, despite the national nature of the pandemic; that the Board of Elections was offering absentee ballots to any voter who wanted one; and that it still had seven weeks to plan for safety measures in those areas where no election would otherwise have been held. Basically, she correctly concluded that the board cant use a general claim of public health to justify such a severe burden on constitutional rights when there are less burdensome ways to address the health risk.

There are two other features of New Yorks actions that are very troubling. The law put absolutely no constraints on how the decidersthe Democratic commissioners of the Board of Electionscould determine which suspended candidates stayed on the ballot and which did not. On its face, the law would allow the board to kick off Yang and keep Warren for no reason, just because it liked Warren better. The commissioners stated reasoning, while not mentioning personal dislike, came pretty closeone claimed that Sanderss desire to remain on the ballot would render the vote a beauty contest. At best, this represented the commissioners making an independent judgment on what counts as a serious election and what does not, something you never want a state official to do without guardrails.

Also, until the legislature acted on April 3, the term suspend had no meaning in election law. Terminate, on the other hand, has always been highly consequential. For just that reason, suspend has long been the word candidates used when they wanted to stay on the ballot but take time off, with the possibilitybut not certaintythat they would return. John McCain suspended his campaign for a few days in the middle of the financial crash of 2008, asking for a debate to be canceled and saying he needed to focus on the historic crisis at hand. Ross Perot suspended his campaign for three months in 1992 and then returned after his supporters demanded it. When Gary Harts Monkey Business went 80s-viral, he, too, suspended his campaign, saying, Under the present circumstances, this campaign cannot go on. Seven months later, Hart returned to the campaign trail.

If we allowed a state to change the meaning of the word suspend midstream and transform election laws in this way, it would open the door to stripping lots of states rights. Imagine if, between now and November, Trump were to encourage Republican states to cancel the presidential election for public health reasons and suggest that the Republican-controlled state legislature change the ballot access rules in order to justify it. If that would outrage you, then Cuomos move should outrage you, too. It isnt about Bernie or Yang; its about whether the state can arbitrarily strip away our rights on any pretext.

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The Board of Elections would be wise not to appeal this decision but instead spend all its time and limited resources working to make the June 23 election run smoothly. Cuomo and New York state lawmakers should acknowledge that they made a mistake and speak out opposing the appeal. We have disagreed often in the past. However, I wouldnt wish any Democratic governor to be remembered as the governor who fought for the right of states to rip names off a ballot without due process.

Judge Torress decision is a rare cause for celebrationfor the sake of our voting rights and for the future of the Democratic Party. As the lawyers for the plaintiffs said in a statement late last night, The victory here is not just a victory for candidates, it is a victory for the voters and for the political process. For Democrats to unite behind Joe Biden, for the thousands and thousands of supporters, particularly young supporters, to take up the fight against the Imperial President in the way which we need it to be taken up, the Democratic Party must be as open and democratic as possible.

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Democracy Wins in New Yorkand Bernies Back on the Ballot! - The Nation

Ann M. Ravel and Hamsini Sridharan|May 08, 2020

Image by sorbetto/Getty Images.

The following opinion piece byAnnM.Ravel and Hamsini Sridharanoriginally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle.

An 'infodemic': that is what the World Health Organization has labeled the miasma of coronavirus-related conspiracy theories, misinformation, and lies circulating on social media.

Beyond its potentially disastrous consequences for public health, disinformation about the pandemic has become a weapon for organized political actors. Through posts suggesting that Dr. Anthony Fauci (one of the nations leading experts on infectious disease) is a deep-state operative, that Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has contracted the virus, or that the pandemic has been overblown for partisan reasons, political forces have sought to manipulate public opinion, jeopardizing democracy alongside public health. With the 2020 election well underway, the situation underscores how grave a threat digital deception is to the integrity of our political system, and how urgently we need to address it.

We know from previous elections that online disinformation has been deliberately deployed to sow discord and distrust in order to suppress the vote and undermine confidence in democracy. Now at a time when voting processes have been physically disrupted, political campaigns are increasingly moving online, and a climate of fear and uncertainty has left the public more open to manipulation the situation is exacerbated exponentially.

In many ways, the manipulative practices we are seeing during the coronavirus pandemic mirror previous patterns. Political actors are using online disinformation to push a variety of agendas, often at odds with the public interest, and frequently without any transparency into where messages are coming from. Members of the alt-right, for example, have been circulating the claim that the coronavirus is part of a Democratic plot to prevent Trumps reelection. President Trump and his political allies, meanwhile, have promoted the idea that Democrats are obstructing access to hydroxychloroquine despite the lack of scientific evidence that the drug is an effective and safe treatment for coronavirus. Indeed, Trumps personal attorney Rudy Giuliani was temporarily suspended on Twitter for spreading misinformation touting the drug.

Foreign actors are similarly engaging in deceptive digital practices to spread propaganda. China is pushing a conspiracy theory that it was Americans who brought the virus to Wuhan, while Russia has deployed what one State Department official called swarms of online, false personas to plant narratives blaming the United States for the coronavirus outbreak and accusing the U.S. of using bioweapons against China.

Because of the imminent danger to public health, social media companies have responded more decisively to this crisis than they did to the rampant political disinformation surrounding previous elections. Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube released a joint industry statement saying they are working together to combat misinformation around the pandemic. Facebook has prioritized fact checking coronavirus-related posts and surfacing credible information, including offering ad credits to the WHO to promote accurate data. YouTube has been displaying CDC links below any videos on coronavirus. Twitter has said it will remove all posts that in any way encourage people to catch or transmit the virus.

However, as with their previous attempts to address political disinformation, the platforms responses have not been consistent or adequately enforced, and do not go far enough towards protecting our democracy from manipulation. Much more decisive action is still needed to combat digital deception.

One of the first steps should be to ensure that there is adequate transparency for all paid political communications online, via on-ad disclaimers and a standardized, publicly accessible database, so that the public knows who paid for a message and who that message targeted.

Platforms also need to develop a clear and consistent policy to minimize lying in political communications. They have taken a firmer stance against coronavirus misinformation from politicians and political figures, but Facebook, at least, still allows politicians to lie freely about other issues. This inconsistency needs to be fixed and policies against deliberately spreading disinformation uniformly enforced.

Lastly, in much the same way that social media companies are currently directing people towards authoritative health information during the current crisis, they should similarly promote credible election information from local press and election officials. And as Congress considers funding for the states to support offline electoral processes in the face of public health needs, it should provide support to disseminate reliable election information online.

The coronavirus pandemic highlights exactly how much of a threat digital deception is and shows how urgently we need to address this issue with clear regulations and policies. Our own health, as well as the health of our democracy, depends on it.

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Protecting Democracy During the Infodemic During the Pandemic - MAPLight.org

RTI yatra at Kusumpur Pahari in October 2018. Image - Bharat Dogra

To strengthen grassroots democracy citizens need to be much more alert to resist irregularities and corruption as well as to protect their rights and entitlements. This is all the more necessary in slums and hut colonies where poor, illiterate or less educated people are being cheated all the time by unscrupulous powerful persons who do not allow their welfare and rights-based benefits to reach them.

Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SKS Organization of Alert Citizens) is an organization which has been working for nearly 18 years in many hut-colonies of Delhi to empower some of the poorest citizens, particularly the women, to defend their rights and benefits.

More recently this organization has been active in seeking justice and relief for victims of riots as well as people very badly affected by sudden imposition of prolonged lockdown.

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Anjali Bhardwaj, the founder coordinator of SKS was closely associated with the movement for enacting of strong RTI (Right to Information) legislation in India. After this law was enacted she started going to hut-colonies to explore possibilities of using the new law for the benefits of the people living in some of the poorest settlements .

She soon realized that it is essential to find out ways of using the RTI law for resolving problems which were prioritized by the poorest people. To take this forward, she looked out for involving men and women from within slum communities. Soon several members from communities including Ashok, Pushpa, Sunita and Kusum Lata had joined the SKS team. In addition educated young women like Aditi Dwivedi provided support for youth-related activities.

Kusum Lata provides a clear example of how those who are from very difficult socio-economic conditions can also emerge as very inspiring social activists with some help and encouragement. As a single women (deserted by her husband), Kusum was bringing up her children in very difficult circumstances, but at the same time still found the time to take up some social responsibilities. When SKS helped and trained her for a wider social role, she progressed very rapidly and played an important mobilization role in several hut colonies. She was selected for the Democracy Fellowship Programme. Here guided by such senior social activists as Aruna Roy, her social work acquired a wider vision and she now speaks with confidence about not just protecting the right of slum-dwellers but also protecting and strengthening the constitution of India.

With a team combining some highly educated persons as well as activists from slum and hut communities, SKS could pick up most relevant issues with its ears to the ground ability and approach. RTI was used to obtain stock registers and sales registers of ration shops. Corruption was detected by comparing the two. Public hearings were organised to share the findings with the entire community. Culprits were also given an opportunity to provide their defense.

There was significant progress. When some corrupt dealers faced punitive actions, corruption levels started coming down. Some other cases dragged on for a longer time.

Later POS machines were introduced at ration shops and ration was given only if thumb prints matched, leading to denial of rations to many people. SKS resisted this and this practice was withdrawn in many shops.

When several highly deserving senior citizens were denied pensions, RTI was filed on the status of their applications and asking reasons why some pensions started earlier had been stopped abruptly. In several cases justice for highly deserving elderly persons, single women and disability affecting persons could be secured.

SKS believed in listening to what community members said. One day a woman from a hut colony said, Even my child gets a regular report-card from his school. Our elected representatives have much more important roles. Why dont they have report cards?

This question of an illiterate hut woman may have been ignored elsewhere, but SKS realised the importance of her question which was basically a very important issue of public accountability. Later SKS went ahead and prepared report cards of local councillors and MLA, raising issues like presence in legislature, active role such as raising relevant questions and utilisation of fund. When an MLAs report card indicated very low presence in the legislature, he seriously said to SKS activists that if they had informed him about the preparation of report card much earlier, he would have attended the legislature more regularly!

SKS has also taken a strong stand on issues like resisting communalism and ensuring social harmony in difficult times. Its activists tried their best to check the spread of communal violence . However when terrible violence actually took place they volunteered to prepare reports on the ground reality so that public and government attention could be drawn to the extent of the great damage that had been done so that a strong case could be built for extensive relief and rehabilitation effort. Following COVID outbreak again SKS became active in getting justice for those who were suffering the most after the imposition of sudden but very long lockdown. As the organisation faces up to increasing difficulties and challenges in coming days, it can call upon the strength of the strong commitment and courage of its earlier work.

Bharat Dograis a freelance journalist who has been involved with several social movements and initiatives. His recent book on survival issues and peoples response titled Planet in Peril has been published by Vitasta, Delhi.

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Activating the Strength of an Awakened Citizenry: Taking Democracy to the Grassroots - The New Leam

During a commemoration event for the victims of Nazi Germanys crimes, the President of its successor country, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, held an impressive speech. There was no end to remembrance, he told the nation.

In Berlin, May 8th, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, is an official holiday. In front of the Neue Wache, Germanys memorial dedicated to war victims, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel and other high-ranking dignitaries laid down wreaths.

The End of Nazi Tyranny

As he did earlier this year in Yad Vashem and Auschwitz, at the 75th anniversary of the Nazi death camps liberation, and at the Berlin Bundestag, Steinmeier found the right words. Because of the Corona pandemic, the event was much smaller than it would have been.

May 8th was the end of the Nazis tyranny, the end of bombing nights and the end of unprecedented German war crimes and the Shoah, Steinmeier stated. In Berlin, where the war of extermination was contrived and set in motion, we wanted to commemorate [the victims] mutually, with representatives of the Allies in West and East, with partners from all parts of Europe who suffered back then, and with survivors of the German terror and their descendants.

The German President also said Germany had originally invited adolescents from all over the world for a commemoration with those who gave this country a chance for a new beginning.

Day of Thankfulness

On May 8th, Germany was besieged militarily. It was on the ground. We had made an enemy of the entire world. Today we have to commemorate [the victims] on our own, but we are not alone. Steinmeier said now, in the 30th year after Germanys reunification, the country was a stable democracy in a united Europe.

The day of liberation was also the day of thankfulness, he stated. But the liberation had not immediately taken place in the heads and hearts of the Germans. This is how deep the country was entangled in its guilt. The reconstruction of Germany had only been possible because of the generosity of its former adversaries.

Germany had needed decades to come to terms with its past, Steinmeier said in Berlin. During those years, its democracy had matured.

Related Articles (This piece continues below.)

There is No End to Commemoration

There is no end to commemoration, the President stated. Only because we Germans are looking our history in the eye, the peoples of the world have given us new trust. Germanys history is a broken history. It includes responsibility for the murder and the sorrow of millions.

Those who want to put an end [to coming to terms with this part of German history] devalue all the good we have achieved, Steinmeier continued. By saying to, he addressed revisionists and the many right-wing radicals in Germany. Commemoration was not a burden, but not commemorating [the victims] was. Remembering was not a disgrace, but not remembering was, he said.

Steinmeier said that, after World War II, Germany had said never again. Now Europe needed to be held together. If Europe fails, the never again will fail as well, Steinmeier told the Germans today.

Liberation Challenges Us Every Day

He also stated the liberation would never be completed. It challenges us every day. But today, we need to liberate ourselves from hatred, agitation and from contempt against democracy. Those who spread the latter were yesterdays forces in new garment. Germany needed to liberate itself from those dangers.

May 8th, 2020, was taking place in a time of uncertainty, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said. He asked the Germans to commemorate the victims of national socialism in quietude. Think about what May 8th stands for in your life and deeds.

President Steinmeier concluded his speech by saying May 8th of 1945 had not been the end of the liberation. Freedom and democracy are its mission. Our mission.

Originally, a much bigger memorial event had been planned, in front of the Reichstag, with guests from the four Allied countries. Because of Corona, the big commemoration had to be cancelled. Only Steinmeier, Chancellor Angela Merkel, the presidents of the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the Federal Constitutional Court came to Berlins Neue Wache.

By the way:The publication you are reading,The Berlin Spectator, was established in January of 2019. We have worked a whole lot, as you can see. But there has hardly been any income.As of May 7th, 2020, we made an average of 74 Euro per month since starting the project, which is far from enough.Would you considercontributing? We would be very thankful. If you like what we do and you want to support us, you can do soby clicking here(Paypal).Thank you so much!

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Steinmeier on May 8th: 'Freedom and Democracy are Our Mission' - The Berlin Spectator

News comes that the environment ministry has cleared the governments project for constructing a new parliament building.

The above media report informs us that two sorts of observations have been made during the course of deliberations on the project.

One pertains to its timing and cost, and the other to the heritage value of the existing complex.

Both observations, it must be admitted, are germane, but I wish to suggest that whereas questions related to the timing and cost of the project have obvious weight, given that in times of the current pandemic moneys should be saved for rejuvenating a collapsed economy and for alleviating the unprecedented suffering of millions, the argument about heritage value is open to interrogation.

Heritage buildings do not comprise only aesthetic features but memories of bygone worlds of social and political organisation.

Often, structures of monumental cast remind us of historical practices not always acceptable in the present day. Thus much as we admire such expressions of power, it is to be doubted that we wish to see a return of the social equations or modes of governance of which they speak.

We are thrilled to visit a Red Fort or a Bastille, but hardly desire to bring back monarchy, be it benevolent or brutal.

Also read: What HT Wouldnt Publish: The Folly and Vanity of the Project to Redesign Delhi

A caveat though: not everything built by pre-republican structures of power may be said to be inhumane, exclusive or oppressive. We must continue to thank many of them for the tree-lines, the gardens, the roads, the resting places for travellers, the music, the art, the literature and often forms of social harmony they bequeathed to us. Not to speak of the cuisine.

But parliamentary buildings of colonial times remain rooted in memories of colonial oppressions as well, however the architecture may enthral us. Therefore, the moot point is not whether or not we may retain the old structure of our parliament building complex or construct a new one, but whether the new constructions will bring with them a new spirit of democracy as well.

Thus, if the colonial structures have embedded in them legislative histories that gave us a Rowlatt Act, or laws pertaining to sedition, we may not enhance the spirit of democracy much should such histories continue to inform our current-day legislative agendas. Or, if in our legislative career cesspools of feudal thought continue to find place because these persist in influencing the social lives of vast segments of our populations, from the top down, it may be added.

If the ventilator is a source of oxygen for the coronavirus patient, the oxygen of our republican democracy, incontrovertibly, is stored in our founding constitutional values.

Therefore, if the new building brings with it a new conviction in universal human rights, in the fundamental rights of free expression and informed critique, in the right of free association, a dedicated commitment to national health, with the last woman and child at the centre of policy, to providing livelihood on a sustained and dignified basis to millions of our working citizens bereft of the privileges of class, to the independence of state institutions, a willingness to learn lessons about the environment that the coronavirus phenomenon has brought to us, and , above all, to the all-important ideal of secularism, the new building may have served a purpose larger than those of a renewal of brick and mortar.

Also read: In Light of the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Central Vista Project Should Be Reviewed

Most of all, were the new building to inspire our legislators finally to evict such draconian colonial laws as sedition, UAPA, PSA, NSA and the many digital provisions of policy that function as mechanisms of surveillance, allowing the citizenry to make free and bold contributions to firming up the spirit of democracy, we may applaud the moneys spent on the new construction.

But if a new building carries with it an old heritage inimical to a republican way of life, we may feel that the moneys could have been better spent.

If a parliament building is the body of our democracy, the soul is the spirit of free enquiry and public accountability, and an impartial rule of law, none of which may be deleterious to that spirit. A mere change of vestments, it may be agreed, is a poor substitute for a transformation that may reinforce the faith of the commonweal in the ideals of the national struggle against the values of the old parliament, and in the resolve of our rulers to abide by those ideals, come what may.

Here is that magnificent plea that Macbeth makes in the play of the same title: Do not dress me in borrowed robes. Supposing the old parliament complex to have been a borrowed robe, our new building then must be our own robe that houses the covenant that we the people gave to ourselves not just in form but in a persuasive praxis that may make of the new building a heritage in turn to be truly proud of.

Badri Rainahas taught at Delhi University.

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If We Really Want a New Parliament Building, it Should Reflect the Spirit of Democracy - The Wire