October 31, 2024 2:26PM # Election Policy Roundup By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) --- SHARE Number four in our [series of occasional roundups](https://www.cato.org/search?query=%22election+policy+roundup%22) on election law and policy: - *The Dispatch* invited writers to share our worries about a new Trump or Harris administration. I did both, concentrating in both instances on [elections and governance](https://www.cato.org/commentary/trump-looks-sycophants-while-harris-floats-unserious-election-reform). Also for *The Dispatch*, I wrote a piece explaining why there’s no plausible parallel between [Elon Musk’s cash outlay](https://www.cato.org/commentary/elon-musks-raffle-far-more-dubious-zuckerbucks) to prospective registered voters and [Mark Zuckerberg’s 2020 election](https://www.cato.org/blog/zuckerbucks-didnt-throw-2020-election) philanthropy. - How prepared are the states to handle election problems? The National Conference of State Legislatures assembled views from me and eight others in a [mini-symposium](https://www.ncsl.org/state-legislatures-news/details/what-the-experts-say-9-election-authorities-tackle-common-voter-questions) on that topic. And [new from Protect Democracy](https://protectdemocracy.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Vote-Count-Expectations-2024.pdf), “The 2024 Vote Count: What to Expect—A Qualitative Analysis of How Long We Expect Vote Counting to Take for the Presidential Race, and What Could Extend It.” - Many old assumptions about the relationship between money and politics have proven shaky at best. So can we expect some of the angst over the *Citizens United* decision to recede? At *Reason*, I review the book [*Big Money Unleashed*](https://www.cato.org/commentary/book-review-look-back-panic-over-big-money-politics) by Ann Southworth. - At PolitiFact, reporter [Kwasi Gyamfi Asiedu quoted](https://www.politifact.com/article/2024/oct/21/a-maryland-city-has-let-noncitizens-vote-in-local/) me on the infrequency of noncitizen voting in the handful of localities that have legalized it for municipal elections and on why I don’t think it’s a good idea for other communities to follow the lead of Takoma Park, Maryland, in extending the franchise this way. And I was glad to be quoted in [*Bangor Daily News*](https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/10/17/politics/elections/illegal-voting-claims-maine-republicans-want-investigated-joam40zk0w/) coverage of allegations of voting fraud in Maine, as well as in [*The New York Times*](https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/10/28/business/voter-fraud-election-fact-check), [*The Washington Post*](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2024/10/09/youngkin-noncitizen-voters-virginia/), and [BBC](https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yj98grr5lo) on the infrequency of noncitizen voting generally. - Frivolous and irresponsible, if also dead on arrival: A resolution introduced by five [West Virginia lawmakers](https://www.wvnstv.com/news/west-virginia-news/west-virginia-house-resolution-on-recognizing-presidential-election-turning-heads/) wants the state to proclaim that it won’t recognize the election of a Democratic president if (among other circumstances) the Republican candidate “is the subject of legal actions that preclude their effective campaigning.” - [Minnesota has enacted](https://reason.com/2024/10/02/minnesota-acting-as-a-ministry-of-truth-with-anti-deep-fake-law-says-lawsuit/) a new law banning many uses of artificial intelligence (AI)–generated “deepfakes” in ways meant to “injure a candidate or influence the result of an election,” and as you might imagine, there are serious First Amendment problems with that. And an interesting report from [Clemson Media Forensics Hub](https://open.clemson.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=mfh_reports) exposes and analyzes an X botnet that pushed content on Senate races, election integrity, etc. Some posts slipped and included the AI prompts used to generate the content. - The misnamed Freedom to Vote Act is a kludgy, ill-thought-out power grab, part umpteen \[[Derek Muller, *Election Law Blog*](https://electionlawblog.org/?p=146219)\]. ##### Related Tags [Politics and Society](https://www.cato.org/politics-society) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).