Election Law
Last-minute election lawsuits may serve political goals, law prof says
Last-minute lawsuits challenging election rules and voter-registration procedures are being filed in battleground states in the run-up to the Nov. 5 presidential election. (Photo by Rebekah Zemansky/Shutterstock)
Last-minute lawsuits challenging election rules and voter-registration procedures are being filed in battleground states in the run-up to the Nov. 5 presidential election.
Democrats and Republicans are filing suits, the Wall Street Journal reports. Democrats are challenging a new Georgia rule for certifying results, while Republicans are challenging voter-registration procedures in North Carolina and Arizona.
Prior suits have already produced rulings in other states regarding the rules for absentee ballots, regulations for voter registration and the cleanup of voter rolls, according to the article.
The suits are unlikely to result in big changes in how voters cast their ballots, but they can serve political goals, according to Justin Levitt, a professor at the Loyola Law School in California, who spoke with the Wall Street Journal.
Partisan suits can help with fundraising and motivate voters, Levitt said.
“It fosters discontent with a system that works pretty well,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
The Wall Street Journal has details on these recent suits:
• The Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party have filed two suits against the North Carolina State Board of Elections. One suit claims that the elections board failed to remove noncitizens from voter rolls, despite their assertion that they weren’t citizens on jury questionnaires. The other contends that the board improperly registered voters without proper identification to verify citizenship. The cases are North Carolina Republican Party v. North Carolina State Board of Elections and Republican National Committee v. North Carolina State Board of Elections.
• The chair of the Arizona Republican Party has sued Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs over executive orders expanding locations for voter-registration locations and ballot drop-offs. The case is Swoboda v. Hobbs.
• Democratic officials in Georgia have sued the state election board to challenge new rules governing the certification of votes. The new rules require election officials to conduct a “reasonable inquiry” before vote certification and to allow county board members to examine election-related documentation. The suit contends that the rule change turns confirmation of vote totals “into a broad license” for board members to hunt for purported election irregularities, potentially delaying certification and displacing court-supervised processes for addressing fraud. The case is Abhiraman v. State Election Board.
Hat tip to How Appealing, which noted the story and provided a link.
See also:
SCOTUS allows Arizona voter-registration law requiring proof of citizenship
