Citation
Nicholas Stephanopoulos, The New Vote Dilution, 96 N.Y.U. L. Rev. 1179 (2021).
Abstract
In a barrage of lawsuits about the 2020 election, conservative plaintiffs argued that electoral policies making it easier to vote are unconstitutionally dilutive — their logic being that such policies enable fraud through a lack of proper safeguards, and the resulting fraudulent votes dilute the ballots cast by law-abiding citizens. This Article examines this novel theory of vote dilution through fraud facilitation, tracking its progress in the courts, which mostly treated it as a viable cause of action. The Article argues that current doctrine does not actually recognize such a claim. It then tentatively contends that the law should acknowledge this form of vote dilution — noting that fraudulent votes can dilute valid ones — even though, at present, they rarely do so.