Voting Lawsuits Overwhelm 202 04/22 07:32

Voting Lawsuits Overwhelm 202 04/22 07:32

   As President Joe Biden and Donald Trump step up their campaigning in swing 
states, a quieter battle is taking place in the shadows of their White House 
rematch.

   CHICAGO (AP) -- As President Joe Biden and Donald Trump step up their 
campaigning in swing states, a quieter battle is taking place in the shadows of 
their White House rematch.

   The Republican National Committee, newly reconstituted under Trump, has 
filed election-related lawsuits in nearly half the states. Recent lawsuits over 
voter roll maintenance in Michigan and Nevada are part of a larger strategy 
targeting various aspects of voting and election administration.

   It's not a new strategy. But with recent internal changes at the RNC and 
added pressure from the former president, the legal maneuvering is expected to 
play an increasingly significant role for the party as Election Day in November 
approaches. The lawsuits are useful for campaign messaging, fundraising and 
raising doubts about the validity of the election.

   Danielle Alvarez, a senior adviser to the RNC and the Trump campaign, said 
the lawsuits were one of the organization's main priorities this year.

   "This is something that's very important to President Trump," she said. "He 
has said that this is something the RNC should do year-round."

   Democrats and legal experts are warning about how the lawsuits might 
overwhelm election officials and undermine voter confidence in the the results 
of the balloting.

   The Democratic National Committee has a legal strategy of its own, building 
"a robust voter protection operation, investing tens of millions of dollars," 
to counter the GOP's efforts that seek to restrict access to the polls, 
spokesperson Alex Floyd said.

   "The RNC is actively deploying an army of lawyers to make it harder for 
Americans' ballots to be counted," he said.

   Election litigation soared after the 2020 election as Trump and his allies 
unsuccessfully challenged his loss to Biden in dozens of lawsuits.

   Experts that year wondered whether the blitz of legal action was an 
aberration caused by false claims of a stolen election and changes to voting 
processes due to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Miriam Seifter, attorney with the 
State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

   They quickly realized that wasn't the case as the 2022 midterms also 
generated a high number of election-related lawsuits. This year is projected to 
be similar, she said.

   "Litigation seems to now be a fixture of each parties' political and 
electoral strategies," Seifter said.

   Voter ID rules, mail ballots and voter roll maintenance are among the RNC's 
litigation targets. The latest is a lawsuit this month alleging that Michigan 
has failed to keep its voter rolls up to date.

   Maintaining accurate voter rolls by updating voters' status is routine for 
election officials, who watch for death notices, changes in motor vehicle 
records or election mail being repeatedly returned. Michigan also uses ERIC, an 
interstate data-sharing pact that helps states update voter lists but has been 
targeted by conspiracy theories.

   Opponents of the lawsuit have said it relies on unsubstantiated, flawed data 
and runs the risk of purging legitimate voters.

   "They're claiming there's a problem because one piece of data doesn't match 
another piece of data," said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor. "But 
the pieces of data they're trying to match don't measure the same thing. It's 
like saying, 'I just looked at the clock and it's different from the 
temperature on my thermometer.'"

   This is not a new tactic, said Caren Short, director of legal and research 
for the League of Women Voters, which has filed to intervene in the Michigan 
lawsuit. She said most previous lawsuits have been from "more fringe groups" 
rather than directly from the RNC.

   "Now seeing a prominent political party attempting to purge people from the 
rolls, it's very concerning," she said.

   In the past four years, Michigan's voter rolls have been targeted in three 
similar unsuccessful lawsuits. Just days after the Michigan lawsuit was filed, 
the RNC filed a similar one in Nevada.

   A federal appeals court earlier sided with the RNC in a lawsuit in 
Pennsylvania questioning whether officials should count improperly dated 
absentee ballots. A Wisconsin lawsuit is targeting absentee voting procedures 
and ballot drop boxes. An RNC lawsuit in Arizona is aiming to invalidate or 
adjust the state's 200-page elections manual while another in Mississippi seeks 
to prevent mail ballots from being counted if they are postmarked by Election 
Day but received days later.

   Various other groups have filed similar litigation recently, including a 
lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Elections claiming the state's 
voting system is not in compliance with federal and state law.

   Marly Hornik, CEO of United Sovereign Americans, one of the groups behind 
the Maryland lawsuit, said more lawsuits are intended in other states this 
year. On its website, United Sovereign Americans, which Hornik said formed last 
summer, announced plans to file lawsuits in 23 states.

   The GOP and affiliated groups are involved in dozens of other cases with 
more on the way, RNC officials have said. In this election cycle, the RNC's 
legal team has been involved in more than 80 lawsuits in 23 states, said 
Alvarez, the RNC spokesperson.

   She said part of the reason for the flurry of lawsuits was the lifting of a 
federal consent decree in 2018 that had sharply limited the RNC's ability to 
challenge voter verification and other "ballot security."

   During an interview this month with Fox News, the RNC chairman, Michael 
Whatley, emphasized the party's plans to prioritize election-related 
litigation. He said the RNC is recruiting and training tens of thousands of 
poll observers and working with thousands of attorneys.

   On Friday, the RNC announced plans to train poll watchers, poll workers and 
lawyers and send out more than 100,000 attorneys and volunteers to monitor 
vote-counting across battleground states in November.

   Prioritizing election litigation also is reflected in recent changes within 
the RNC since Whatley and Lara Trump, the former president's daughter-in-law, 
took control and reshaped the organization with a renewed focus on "election 
integrity." The RNC now has "election integrity directors" in 13 states.

   Christina Bobb, who has promoted false claims of a stolen 2020 election and 
was part of a Trump-backed fake elector scheme, was tapped to lead the 
department.

   "One of our biggest changes from last cycle to this cycle was making the 
election integrity department its own department with its own dedicated budget 
and focus," Alvarez said.

   Rick Hasen, an election law expert and professor at the University of 
California, Los Angeles, said most of the lawsuits are unlikely to win in court 
but "serve as a basis for fundraising and are trying to keep this issue front 
and center as a campaign issue."

   Democracy groups and legal experts said the lawsuits could pave the way for 
false narratives challenging the validity of the 2024 election while consuming 
time and staff at election offices across the country. Post-election lawsuits 
also could delay or obstruct certification of the results.

   "I worry about these lawsuits that are not designed to clarify the rules but 
instead to lay the groundwork for false claims that an election their side lost 
was stolen or rigged," said David Becker, founder and executive director of the 
Center for Election Innovation & Research, which advises local election 
officials nationwide. "We saw this in 2020. We saw it in 2022. And we're 
beginning to see the planting of seeds of doubt in the minds of the electorate 
again in 2024."

   **

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