Week 8: Vote Buying Regulations, Case Law Analysis, Bluebook Citations (Part 2)
Another week began, and I found myself circling through my projects for something I could make some significant progress on in a short amount of time. This led me back to the vote-buying regulation project; of the 63 countries in front of me, I had made my way through about 25. I sent a quick update requesting feedback from the IFES personnel that had pointed me toward this work. I didn’t want to get too deep into the work and discover that I was missing or forgetting some critical element. My feedback was positive, so I pushed forward and made good progress on the remaining list. The list is now roughly two-thirds complete. Throughout the process, there certainly have been several “a search function would be lovely right now” moments, but overall, I find the challenge of navigating a variety of legal systems rewarding. After using my French and German in a professional setting within a few minutes of each other (France and Germany are quite near each other in an alphabetized list of 63 countries), I made a mental note to email some of my old foreign language teachers to let them know what I was up to.
Feedback on the case law mini summaries that I wrote last week led me, as usual, to a deeper dive into the cases I’d read—digging for more information on the judicial systems at play in the countries involved, the background of the parties, and ties to disinformation.
On Friday, I met with IFES personnel based in Nigeria and was asked to synthesize my personal notes and research for the Nigerian election petitions project. I will turn this summary in next week. The elections took place in February and the winner was declared on March 1, but Nigeria is unique in that the judiciary has six months to determine the outcome of these petitions. Three of these petitions are ongoing, with parties having completed arguments in the last few days. The court is expected to release its opinion in September. Any ruling overturning the election of President Tinubu would send shockwaves across Africa, and the continent’s most populous nation is naturally a focus point for global interests.
This week I was asked again to do some citation work, this time for IFES’ VP of Global Strategy and Technical Leadership. This led me to several IFES publications that had been published over roughly the last decade. Topics ranged from the U.S. in comparative perspective to election disputes, election audits, and judicial assessments of foreign administrations. Again, this work will be great practice for my Business Law Review work—potential note topics are due on August 6th and our first cite check begins on August 7th!
Weekend: National Archives Museum