Democrats and their allies are gearing up for a likely lengthy legal battle after Election Day.
Republicans and their affiliates have already filed dozens of lawsuits which they say will guarantee that November’s election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris is fair and accurate. Democrats have described these lawsuits as “political theater” aimed at sowing doubts about the integrity of the 2024 election and lay the groundwork for disputing the results in another potential Trump loss. The 2020 election was marred by false allegations from Trump and his allies that the results were rigged in favor of President Joe Biden due to widespread voter fraud.
Alex Floyd, spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said the party was ready to “stand up against MAGA Republicans’ attacks on our democracy and efforts to sow chaos in our elections, from the polling place to the courthouse.
“We have assembled a robust legal and voter protection team with a proven track record of winning fights to protect voters’ ability to make their voices heard. With more than 100 voter protection staff across key states and tens of thousands of volunteers, we’re ready to stand up for all eligible voters’ access to the ballot box,” Floyd told Newsweek.
Newsweek has contacted the Republican National Committee for comment via email.
Former President Barack Obama recently even took to X to call on lawyers to volunteer with the advocacy group We The Action to safeguard voting rights.
“With early voting happening in states across the country,@WeTheAction is looking for lawyers to help safeguard voting rights. If you’re a lawyer and want to help protect the vote in your community, I hope you’ll sign up,” Obama wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on October 16. We The Action works with legal experts to “make sure the election is free, fair, and accessible for every voter, regardless of party.”
Democrats are preparing to battle Republicans in the courts regarding dozens of election-based lawsuits filed by the GOP.
Photo-illustration by Newsweek/Getty
Republican groups filed lawsuits in swing states such as Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, questioning the legitimacy of overseas ballots from U.S. citizens, including military personnel.
In response to the lawsuit in Pennsylvania filed by several GOP congressmen, five House Democrats, including representatives Pat Ryan of New York and Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin speaking out against the GOP lawmakers challenging the Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA).
The Democratic lawmakers accused their Republican colleagues of attempting to “usurp the right to vote from our men and women in uniform, as well as their families.” They also urged Austin to clarify that the voting rights of troops would be protected in the upcoming election.
According to Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, the Democrats’ legal battles will not only involve voting rights but result challenges as well.
“First, before the election, they are going on the offense and challenging any laws that make it more difficult to register or to vote, whether in person or by mail. They know that expanding ballot access generally benefits their candidates,” Neama Rahmani, former federal prosecutor and president of West Coast Trial Lawyers, told Newsweek.
“Second, after the election, Democrats will be on defense against Republican challenges to the results. Trump and others may again argue that the election was rigged or stolen, and Democrats want to have their lawyers prepared to litigate and fend off these challenges.”
The rate of election litigation has nearly tripled since 2000, according to The Associated Press. That year, the Supreme Court had ruled to effectively settle the election in favor of Republican George W. Bush over Democrat Al Gore.
Marc Elias, a longtime lawyer for the Democratic National Committee and founder of the progressive voting rights platform Democracy Docket, said that there are around 191 active voting and election cases pending in 39 states.
In a recent interview with MSNBC, Elias said that the GOP is predominantly filing these lawsuits to satisfy Trump and provide him with justification to challenge forthcoming election results.
“Donald Trump thrives off of grievance; he thrives off of feeling cheated. He is getting what he wants from his political party, which is an excuse structure before he loses to explain why he lost,” Elias said. He added that the GOP is losing the “overwhelming majority” of election cases filed this year.
“Part of it is because they don’t have meritorious claims. But part of it is actually politicians pleasing the boss by filing these lawsuits and then being able to claim, ‘look, this is why we lost the election,’ because, you know, judges follow the law,” Elias said.
Republicans are involved in around 130 lawsuits related to election processes this cycle. These lawsuits aim to challenge various aspects of the voting process, according to a report by Reuters. The same report said that so far the Democratic Party has appeared confident that courts will once again rule in their favor and dismiss the GOP’s lawsuits, as they did when numerous Trump lawsuits aimed at overturning the 2020 election results were thrown out.
“Democrats, and groups favoring or aligned with Democrats, are mostly playing defense at the moment,” Justin Levitt, a former adviser to the Biden administration on voting access and a law professor at Loyola Marymount University, told Reuters.
Last week, two judges—one in Georgia and one in Alabama—rejected Republican attempts to change election rules or the voting process ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
On October 16, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Thomas Cox struck down several rule introduced by the GOP-majority Georgia State Election Board, including one that allows the board to delay the certification of election results unless a “reasonable inquiry” into any discrepancies is fully resolved.
Charles S. Bullock, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia, had previously told Newsweek that the rule and its vague “reasonable inquiry” wording could allow board officials to refuse to certify an election if they “don’t like the results.”
Another rule from the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) requiring that all election ballots be hand-counted was also struck down.
In Alabama, Judge Anna M. Manasco ruled October 16 blocked a program launched by the Republican Secretary of State Wes Allen in August that removed thousands of legal voters from the register, marking them as “inactive.”
