{"id":27970,"date":"2024-06-02T21:50:37","date_gmt":"2024-06-03T02:50:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27970"},"modified":"2024-06-02T21:50:41","modified_gmt":"2024-06-03T02:50:41","slug":"the-legal-fight-over-the-2024-election-has-begun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=27970","title":{"rendered":"The legal fight over the 2024 election has begun"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/donald-trump\">Former President Trump<\/a>&#8216;s team is more focused so far on building a sprawling network of &#8220;election integrity&#8221; lawyers and poll watchers than on rounding up organizers and door knockers to reach voters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Why it matters:&nbsp;<\/strong>It&#8217;s a sign that five months before Election Day, the legal battle over the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/politics-policy\/us-presidential-house-senate-elections\">2024 race<\/a>&nbsp;is underway \u2014 and that Trump plans to cry &#8220;rigged&#8221; if he loses, just as it did after the 2020 election and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/05\/30\/trump-guilty-new-york-criminal-trial\">his felony convictions<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The Trump-controlled&nbsp;<\/strong>Republican National Committee is assembling a network of lawyers and volunteers to gather string for lawsuits challenging the results of the Nov. 5 vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The RNC plans to hire more people for the operation than for any other department it has, a committee official told Axios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The RNC has installed<\/strong>&nbsp;13 &#8220;election integrity&#8221; state directors who&#8217;ve been hosting training sessions with state and county GOP parties in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Arizona and Wisconsin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It&#8217;s also contracted with 13 in-state counsels to help identify local litigation opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Beyond that, Trump&#8217;s campaign and RNC plan to recruit and deploy 100,000 volunteers, law students and lawyers to serve as poll watchers and observers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Between the lines:&nbsp;<\/strong>The RNC, along with state Republican parties and groups including Stephen Miller&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/aflegal.org\/about\/#leadership\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">America First Legal<\/a>, already have filed dozens of election-related lawsuits in 25 states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Several of the lawsuits seek to prevent states from counting mail-in ballots that are missing a date or that are received after Election Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Others are challenging&nbsp;<\/strong>whether states have maintained accurate voter registration lists, prevented noncitizens from voting and tightened voter ID rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Republicans have won a couple of the lawsuits, including one in\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/council.nyc.gov\/joseph-borelli\/2024\/02\/23\/nycs-non-citizen-voting-law-ruled-unconstitutional-on-appeal\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">New York<\/a>\u00a0that struck down a law that allowed noncitizens to vote in local elections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The GOP also won a\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/penncapital-star.com\/justice-the-courts\/undated-pennsylvania-mail-in-ballots-should-not-be-counted-appeals-court-rules\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Pennsylvania<\/a>\u00a0case: A court ruled undated mail-in ballots shouldn&#8217;t be counted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Zoom in:&nbsp;<\/strong>The swing state of Wisconsin, which Biden won by less than 1 point in 2020, has been a hotbed of legal activity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;We are going to have deployed attorneys specifically for Milwaukee &#8230; and roaming attorneys for Racine and Kenosha,&#8221; Mike Hoffman, the RNC&#8217;s Wisconsin director for the unit, told 50 conservative activists last month on a training call, the New York Times\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/20\/us\/politics\/trump-rnc-voting-election.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Republicans have\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpr.org\/news\/gop-alleges-milwaukee-madison-elections-officials-discriminated-against-poll-workers\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">filed complaints<\/a>\u00a0against elections officials in Milwaukee and Madison \u2014 heavily Democratic cities \u2014 along with the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The complaints allege Republicans were denied poll worker positions in the state&#8217;s April primary election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The other side:<\/strong>&nbsp;Democrats are responding to the onslaught of GOP lawsuits with legal challenges of their own. Some are spearheaded by the Democratic National Committee and election lawyer&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2023\/07\/31\/biden-marc-elias-democrats-election-lawsuits\">Marc Elias&#8217; firm<\/a>, which is operating independently from the Biden campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">A federal judge\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/wisconsinexaminer.com\/briefs\/federal-judge-tosses-lawsuit-challenging-absentee-witness-signature-rule\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">dismissed a lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0from voters represented by Elias&#8217; firm that sought to block Wisconsin&#8217;s law requiring voters to secure a witness signature when casting an absentee ballot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>The DNC and the Biden campaign<\/strong>&nbsp;are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/democraticnationalcommittee.applytojob.com\/apply\/qFgUKFuw1a\/Regional-Voter-Protection-And-Access-Director\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">building out<\/a>&nbsp;their own election litigation team to respond to GOP lawsuits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">&#8220;The DNC has built a robust voter-protection operation, investing tens of millions of dollars to protect against MAGA Republicans&#8217; assault on our voting rights,&#8221; DNC spokesperson Alex Floyd told Axios.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Democrats have challenged some GOP lawsuits,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2024\/02\/20\/dnc-challenge-rnc-arizona-election-manual-00142156\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">including a pair\u00a0<\/a>in Arizona targeting the state&#8217;s election procedures. They&#8217;re also challenging North Carolina&#8217;s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/10\/10\/dems-file-lawsuit-challenging-republican-north-carolina-voting-law-00120773\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">2023 law\u00a0<\/a>that made it tougher to register to vote on Election Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2024\/06\/02\/legal-battle-2024-election-begun-biden-trump\">axios<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former President Trump&#8216;s team is more focused so far on building a sprawling network of &#8220;election integrity&#8221; lawyers and poll watchers than on rounding up organizers and door knockers to reach voters. Why it matters:&nbsp;It&#8217;s a sign that five months before Election Day, the legal battle over the&nbsp;2024 race&nbsp;is underway \u2014 and that Trump plans [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":27971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[2801,1613,28784],"class_list":["post-27970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-2801","tag-election","tag-legal-battles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27970"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27972,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27970\/revisions\/27972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}