Republicans promise to fight 2024 election rules in court

“This is a very high priority for the president,” Michael Whatley, the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, said of Trump.

But the reality of what Republicans can achieve may not match President Trump’s aspirations. Democrats are raising huge sums of money to counter Republican efforts, even as Republicans remain cash-strapped.

and the legal realm Things are calmer now than they were four years ago, when the court had to ponder how to conduct the vote at the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Therefore, there is less opportunity to change the rules through the courts.

“Courts are now much less receptive to bringing cases that they could bring before,” said Justin Levitt, a Loyola Law School professor who previously advised President Biden on voting rights. “A slew of new lawsuits were filed over the summer, asking people, ‘What you’re protesting is nothing new. Where were you a few years ago?’

Legal battles over voting rules began after a narrow Supreme Court ruling in the 2000 presidential election and have escalated ever since. In 2020, election officials across the country changed election deadlines and expanded mail-in voting. In response to the pandemic, lawsuits and rulings moved forward at a rapid pace near Election Day. Mr. Trump and his allies have challenged his loss to no avail, sparking a new wave of lawsuits and at least 86 judges, including Democratic and Republican appointees, disputing or rejecting the vote. Attempts to overturn it were rejected.

This year could be just as intense. President Trump has continued to baselessly claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent and has repeatedly complained of “election interference” in 2024, where he faces numerous criminal and civil lawsuits.

Both parties are actively raising money to fund election-related litigation. Between January 2021 and June 2023, political parties and their affiliates raised three times as much election litigation funding as they did during the same period in the previous election cycle, according to data from the Federal Election Commission.

But Democrats have raised more litigation funding than Republicans, with $96 million compared to $81 million as of June 2023, records show. Much of that litigation cost was spent.Overall, the D.N.C. It had $26.5 million in cash at the end of February, more than double the RNC’s $11.3 million.

Republicans have already launched several lawsuits. Last week, after the party’s new leadership was sworn in, the RNC filed a lawsuit over Michigan’s voter rolls, accusing the state of failing to keep voter registration up to date.

But the case was assigned to a judge who filed a similar complaint three weeks ago and ruled that the state was following federal law.

Days later, Republicans filed a similar lawsuit in Nevada, and the RNC and related groups are involved in dozens of other lawsuits. Selected by President Trump for the new role, she will work with RNC leadership, including Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump, top Trump campaign adviser Chris Lacivita, and former One America News correspondent. Mr. Whatley, who is scheduled to do so, said further litigation is pending. Christina Bob.

The campaign and legal message for Republicans is delicate. President Trump has long argued, without evidence, that the early voting method is a source of fraud that allowed Democrats to steal elections. Even as the RNC and its allies try to persuade judges to allow more mail-in voting in battleground states, Whatley, like his predecessor Ronna McDaniel, has asked Republicans to vote by mail or vote early. is encouraged.

“I think this is just another piece of very blatant evidence of how they’re talking out of both sides of their mouths,” said a Democratic law firm who frequently battles Republicans in court. said Abha Khanna, partner at Tokoro Elias Law Group. .

She explained that the Republican strategy this time around is a variation on the strategy Republicans adopted in 2020. Trump and his supporters tried to overturn the results last time, and they are trying to do it now. “They should be removed before voters cast their votes,” Khanna said.

Whatley said the RNC’s legal efforts are aimed at both filing lawsuits before the election and creating a mechanism to challenge the results if necessary. He said the party plans to deploy “thousands” of lawyers in preparation for the post-election period.

“We want to be there while the votes are cast and counted,” Whatley said.

The RNC launched its litigation and vote-monitoring efforts with much fanfare in 2021, marking the expiration of a decades-old court order restricting the committee from working directly at polling places. In the run-up to the midterm elections, the party will send officials to battleground states to coordinate with local groups and help document irregularities and report them to lawyers on standby to file legal challenges. Recruited polling station staff and poll observers.

Privately, Republican officials have said the primary goal of the recruitment drive is to boost Trump supporters’ confidence in the electoral process and persuade them to vote. But some RNC members questioned what the party had to show for this initiative after 2022 interim results fell short of the “red wave” many Republicans had hoped for.

Whatley said the RNC’s lawsuit focuses on four main categories: mail-in voting, voter rolls, non-referendum votes and voter ID. Prior to his appointment as RNC Chairman, Mr. Whatley served as RNC General Counsel and Republican Party Chairman. North Carolina, So he said he had appointed 500 lawyers to monitor the 2020 vote.

“This is a model that we are trying to implement nationally,” Whatley said.

Before becoming RNC chairman, Whatley briefed Trump and his team on the North Carolina effort. Trump later praised his advisers for how they handled the election in North Carolina, according to people familiar with his comments.

“Americans deserve a free and fair election process, and under Chairman Whatley’s leadership, the Republican Party will fight to ensure that happens in 2024,” President Trump’s press secretary Stephen Chan said in a statement. said.

Whatley’s predecessor, McDaniel, acknowledged Biden’s victory but raised questions about the fairness of the 2020 election. President Trump has complained that he didn’t do enough to change the outcome or stop the 2020 law changes, which is a factor in his resignation this year. They became one.

Some RNC officials fear the committee could become a scapegoat if Trump loses again. RNC to establish polling and election litigation division in 2021 Partly to reassure Mr. Trump, and partly in response to a flood of complaints from his grassroots supporters.

Whatley is bringing in lawyers with different views on 2020. Charlie Spieth, who denies claims that voting machines flipped votes from Trump to Biden in 2020, will serve as chief adviser to the RNC. Bobb, who has promoted false claims about the 2020 election, will become the RNC’s senior adviser for election integrity.Spy did not respond to a request for comment and Bob said he was unable to speak publicly. Until she leaves for work next week.

Bob worked in front of the cameras and behind the scenes to undermine Biden’s 2020 victory. In Arizona, he helped arrange a meeting for Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who spread false claims of massive election fraud, and then pushed for a review of the state’s 1.1 million ballots. In the most populous county, election experts widely distrusted it as unreliable.

Benjamin Ginsburg, a longtime Republican election lawyer who represented George W. Bush’s campaign during the 2000 Florida recount, said the spy was experienced and rational and that Bob was an “unguided missile.” I commented.

Ginsburg said many of the election lawsuits filed by Republicans and Democrats are aimed at boosting fundraising and getting supporters to the polls, rather than winning in court. As a result, he said, people have lost confidence in elections.

“If more unsubstantiated lawsuits are filed solely based on the belief that the other party is rigging the election, it will become increasingly difficult for the winner to actually govern,” Ginsburg said. said.

Some of the lawsuits on both sides could affect only a small number of votes, if any at all, but could still have implications in states decided by close margins.

In Pennsylvania, judges are considering whether election officials must count absentee ballots with incorrect dates. Wisconsin is considering absentee voting policy and the legality of drop boxes.

In Arizona, the RNC is suing to invalidate the state’s highly technical, more than 200-page manual detailing election administration rules. The suit says people should have been given more time to consider the issue and alleges, among other things, that it violates state law by allowing out-of-precinct voting.

One of the most closely watched cases is the Deep Red Mississippi. So the RNC is trying to pass a state law that would allow mail-in ballots to be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received up to five days later. The RNC claims all ballots must be received by Election Day and may use this lawsuit as a test case. Other states are also trying to repeal similar laws.

The RNC, which is suing in Michigan, argues that the state is not doing enough to maintain its voter rolls and must quickly remove the names of dead and ineligible voters. There is. The case is being heard by U.S. District Judge Jane M. Beckering, who filed a similar case this month and said, “Michigan has consistently been one of the most aggressive states in deregistering deaths.” It is one,” he said.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) said the RNC’s lawsuit is a reminder of the relentless attacks on the 2020 results in Michigan and other battleground states. He said those who introduced the document were engaged in a “strategy to sow doubts about the election with the potential of overturning it in the future.”

“It’s a redux for 2020,” she said. “It certainly feels like this. here we go again”

Clara Ence Morse contributed to this report.