Topline
A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a complaint by Republican lawmakers in Pennsylvania over out-of-state voters casting ballots in the battleground state, as courts across the country issue a series of last-minute rulings on ballots and how elections are conducted while parties try to do. expand or restrict voter access.
Voters cast their ballots during the early voting process on October 27 in Los Angeles, California.
VCG via Getty Images
Timeline
U.S. District Judge Christopher Connor rejected a challenge GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania have brought to federal rules that allow overseas voters to cast their ballots in the state with fewer verification requirements, as the judge noted that guidelines for overseas ballots have been in place for years, but the plaintiffs “does not provide a good excuse to wait until barely a month before the election to file this lawsuit.”
The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that allows the state to count unpostmarked ballots received up to three days after Election Day, following the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign. indicted to prevent ballots from being counted, claiming this would unlawfully dilute ballots that follow proper procedures.
A federal appeals court ruled it is illegal for Mississippi to accept ballots arriving after Election Day — but sent the case back to the lower district court for “appropriate relief,” so it is still unclear whether late-arriving ballots will be accepted in this election.
A federal judge ordered Virginia to recover more than 1,600 voters to the voter rolls after the state removed them for allegedly not being citizens – with attorneys citing evidence showing that many removed voters are U.S. citizens and were wrongly removed from the rolls – after the Justice Department indicted Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares for allegedly violating federal law by purging voter rolls too close to the election.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled Voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected due to flaws — such as problems with their signature or the date — can cast provisional ballots to ensure they can vote, after the RNC defended a county’s decision to allow them to prevent voters from casting their ballots if their postal votes were rejected.
The Supreme Court of Georgia maintained blocks a lower court ruling new voting rules take effect — such as a requirement to hand-count ballots and other provisions that Democrats warned could delay the certification of election results — meaning that while the lawsuits will continue, the rules won’t be in effect during the general elections.
A federal judge rejected a Republican National Committee-led lawsuit in Michigan that challenged the state’s voter rolls, claiming that the number of voters was “impossibly high” and that the state did not remove voters from their voter rolls as required by law, where the judge ruled that Plaintiffs have not provided sufficient evidence that a crime has occurred.
Judges in Michigan and North Carolina rejected lawsuits brought by the RNC against out-of-state voters who cast ballots in those states even if they never actually lived there — for example, if their parents or spouse lived there — with the Michigan judge calling it an “eleventh-hour attempt” to disenfranchise these people from voters.
A federal judge in Nevada rejected an RNC lawsuit challenging the state’s voter rolls—claiming, as in Michigan, that the number of voters was “impossibly high”—dismissing the lawsuit for a second time and ruling that the plaintiffs failed to provide “concrete details’ about misconduct.
A judge appointed by Trump in North Carolina knocked down a Republican lawsuit seeking to remove 225,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls on the grounds of fraud, with the judge ruling that removing those voters would move the state “away from a democratic form of government.”
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled convicted felons can vote in the state after serving their sentences, crushing an effort by the state to prevent them from voting, as Nebraska could become. decisive to determine which presidential candidate wins the Electoral College.
A federal judge blocked a program in Alabama that purged voters from voter rolls — claiming it would help prevent noncitizens from voting — after the Justice Department sued to halt the program because it was too close to the election.
A lower state judge in Georgia blocked the new election rules in Georgia, that could have delayed the certification of votes, after Democrats argued that the state election commission’s new rules could cause “chaos” in November.
The Supreme Court of Ohio maintained restrictions on ballot drop boxes, after the state implemented new restrictions that say people dropping off ballots for voters with disabilities must go to an election office instead of leaving the ballot in a drop box.
A state judge in Georgia has issued a ruling that names state election workers must certify their county’s election results — regardless of whether they believe the ballots were fraudulent — after an official who had refused to certify the results in the past requested clarification and more than a dozen local officials voted against the certification in recent years.
A federal judge rejected an attempt by conservatives to require Arizona to confirm voters’ citizenship ahead of the election.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected to take up two voting cases after Democrats challenged counties to throw out ballots with incorrect or missing dates, and Republicans opposed some county officials letting voters correct their problems with their mail-in ballots, which the state law should not be allowed.
What to pay attention to
There are many outstanding cases that still need to be decided before Election Day, with Marc Elias, a voting rights attorney affiliated with the Democratic Party, reporting As of Sunday, 199 cases are pending in 40 states. The RNC has filed numerous lawsuits targeting voting practices, including to claim Fulton County, Georgia, has not hired enough Republican poll workers, and Virginia has appealed the ruling on its voter rolls to the Supreme Court. More lawsuits are also likely to be filed and quickly decided in the week before Election Day.
What we don’t know
What will happen after Election Day? Close election results in any state could lead to a slew of lawsuits over how ballots are counted and the election results, as happened in 2020 when the Trump campaign launched a broad legal campaign to challenge the vote count. Battleground states are already preparing for an expected onslaught of post-election lawsuits, according to Reuters reportswith Arizona’s legal system order judges to prioritize election cases so that certification is not delayed. Republican and Democratic campaigns are also bracing for a busy legal landscape, an RNC official said ABC News the party has 5,000 volunteer lawyers ready to deploy on Election Day, and ABC cited an internal memo from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign claiming it is “the best-prepared campaign in history for what us awaits” in terms of lawsuits.
Chief critic
Democrats have heavily criticized Republicans for the plethora of lawsuits they filed before Election Day and will likely continue to file, arguing that the GOP is trying to sow doubt in the election results before they are even received. a record number of lawsuits filed before the election – almost every day – in a seemingly coordinated effort to use the legitimacy of the courts to lay the groundwork to discredit an adverse outcome,” said Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program. told ABC News: “The lawsuits are not about getting legal help, but about spreading conspiracy theories.” votes of non-citizens or ballots by maileven though evidence has shown that election fraud is extremely rare and there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Important background
Republicans have stepped up legal challenges and tightened voting rules since the 2020 election. Trump and his allies filed at least 60 lawsuits challenging the vote count in 2020, as the then-president made baseless allegations of fraud and Republicans have used Trump’s allegations of fraud to underpin their lawsuits challenging the voting rules. Republican Party-led states have also pointed to Trump’s baseless claims to justify it issue their own stricter restrictions on voting ahead of the 2024 election, which Democrats subsequently challenged in court. The RNC announced in April, it planned to make its litigation efforts a key part of its strategy in the general election, launching a comprehensive “election integrity” effort with 100,000 staffers and volunteers. Chief Counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement that RNC’s “legal team will work tirelessly to ensure election officials follow the rules” and will “aggressively take them to court if they don’t.”
Read more
Judge blocks GOP Georgia election officials – says council must certify vote count (Forbes)
Georgia judge blocks ballot counting rule, raising concerns for Republican Party election officials (Forbes)
More than 165 lawsuits are already shaping the 2024 U.S. presidential election (Bloomberg)
‘The Litigation Elections’: Trump and Harris’ teams head to court in a flurry of lawsuits ahead of the election (ABC News)