This is part IV in a series of posts discussing First Amendment Limits on State Laws Targeting Election Misinformation, 20 First Amend. L. Rev. 291 (2022). What follows is an excerpt from the article (minus the footnotes, which you will find in the full PDF).
Forty-eight states and the District of Columbia have statutes that regulate the content of election-related speech. The statutes take one of two general forms: (1) statutes that directly target the content of election-related speech; and (2) generally applicable statutes that indirectly implicate election-related speech by prohibiting intimidation or fraud associated with an election. We analyze each of these statutory forms in the following sections, paying particular attention to how broadly or narrowly the statutes define the speech they target and what level of fault or intent they require for liability.
[* * *]
