About Hans von Spakovsky

Hans von Spakovsky is recognized as one of the nation’s leading experts on elections and election reform. He is manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow in Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is the co-author with John Fund of the book “Who’s Counting?: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk” (Encounter Books, 2012). Before joining Heritage in 2008, Mr. von Spakovsky served two years as a member of the Federal Election Commission, the authority charged with enforcing campaign finance laws for congressional and presidential elections, including public funding. He has served on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and on the Fulton County (Ga.) Board of Registrations and Elections. He is a former vice chairman of the Fairfax County (Va.) Electoral Board and a former member of the Virginia Advisory Board to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. A 1984 graduate of Vanderbilt University School of Law, Mr. von Spakovsky received his B.S. degree in 1981 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Von Spakovsky: Georgia Voters Show Just How Wrong Biden and His Sycophants Are

Here is the question: When will President Joe Biden, failed gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, Major League Baseball Commissioner Robert Manfred, and other denizens of the Left apologize to Georgia’s legislators, governor, and other residents? The answer is probably “Never,” despite the latest evidence of just how wrong they’ve been about Georgia’s commonsense election reforms in their outrageous claims about the state.

2023-03-05T19:48:55+00:00February 7th, 2023|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED|

Von Spakovsky: Apportionment and the Census: Fundamental Fairness to U.S. Citizens and Democratic Process

Americans just voted for their representatives in the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterm election, and two years ago, they completed census forms. Both of those activities are the direct result of Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution—the census clause—which directs that an “actual Enumeration” be conducted every “ten Years” of our population “in such Manner as [Congress] shall by Law direct.”

2023-03-05T19:48:56+00:00February 7th, 2023|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED|

Hans von Spakovsky: Election Law Landscape in Constant Flux Ahead of Midterms

In 2020, we saw more lawsuits filed over election laws and rule changes than in any prior year of American history. And with the congressional midterms fast approaching, litigation and other developments just keep coming.

2023-03-05T19:48:59+00:00February 17th, 2022|ACRU Commentary, Elections, Vote Fraud|

Von Spakovsky: Media Attacks Florida’s Governor for Proposing to Go After Election Crimes

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has a good idea with his budget proposal to create an “election crimes agency” that would “investigate election crimes and irregularities and make referrals for further legal action directly to a statewide prosecutor.” Florida should implement it, and other states should follow. In fact, state legislators should make sure that a statewide prosecutor’s office has jurisdiction to prosecute all such election cases, especially when local prosecutors fail to act.

2023-03-05T19:49:00+00:00February 2nd, 2022|ACRU Commentary, OPED|

Von Spakovsky: Lost Ballots in 3 States Exceed Biden’s Victory Margins

Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative and a senior legal fellow of the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said president Joe Biden’s margins of victory in Arizona, Nevada, and Wisconsin in the 2020 presidential election were narrower than the states’ respective totals of unaccounted-for ballots.

2023-03-05T19:49:08+00:00September 7th, 2021|Elections, OPED|

Von Spakovsky: Texas Gets Election Reform Right, Mainstream Media Gets It Wrong

The Texas Legislature passed the state’s election reform package, SB 1, designed to protect voters by fixing vulnerabilities in the registration and election system. This happened only when Democrats finally returned to the state after fleeing to the nation’s capital in May to avoid the special session called by Gov. Greg Abbott.

2023-03-05T19:49:08+00:00September 3rd, 2021|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED, Vote Fraud|

Hans von Spakovsky: Texas Democrats’ outrageous claims about election reforms have no connection to reality

Texas Democrats held a press conference on Friday in Alexandria, Va., across the Potomac River from the nation’s capital, to continue their lies about the election reforms being proposed in the special session of the Texas legislature called by Gov. Greg Abbott. The session has been unable to start because they fled the state, denying a quorum in the legislature. As I have already explained in a previous op-ed for Fox News, the misleading and outrageous claims they have made and that they repeated at the press conference about the reforms have no connection whatsoever to reality.

2023-03-05T19:49:11+00:00July 19th, 2021|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

Hans von Spakovsky: Merrick Garland’s misleading voting claims – what AG gets wrong about US elections | Fox News

Partisan, political, designed to inflame. That’s what Merrick Garland’s recent speech on voting rights was. It certainly was not objective, measured and deliberate – the kind of speech you expect from an attorney general. What’s worse, his central assertion – that state efforts to improve the integrity of the election process will make it "harder" for eligible citizens to vote – is demonstrably false.

2023-03-05T19:49:38+00:00June 29th, 2021|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|

Von Spakovsky: Another Bill to Give Partisan Bureaucrats Control Over State Election Laws

One of the false narratives constantly pushed by liberals is that the efforts of states to reform and fix vulnerabilities in their election systems are somehow examples of “voter suppression.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Making sure that every eligible citizen is able to vote and that their vote is not lost or stolen through fraud or errors is not voter suppression—it is good governance.

2023-03-05T19:49:39+00:00May 29th, 2021|ACRU Commentary, Elections, OPED, Vote Fraud, Voter ID|
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