Columns, Politics

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Both Parties Deploy Legions of Lawyers For Election Challenges
Below is my Hill column on the current litigation controversies around the country. We are still watching litigation playing out just a day before the election. At the same time, we have some figures like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) reserving any recognition of a victory unless they are satisfied with the integrity of the election. While I remain hopeful that the courts have gotten a head start on addressing many issues, there is a virtual army of lawyers in place from both major parties waiting for a green light to deploy. We just had a new filing in Georgia over handing in mail ballots and the Supreme Court has ruled against a RNC challenge with a statement that essentially said “don’t sweat the small stuff” when only a tiny number of ballots are impacted.
Here is this column:

 

“Something wicked this way comes.” Those words from William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” capture a certain dread that takes hold of some of us tasked with covering the legal elements of the presidential election.

Just as Halloween ended, things in the days leading into Election Day have begun to get…well, spooky. Call it election jitters, but some of us have been here before.

More than 200 cases have been filed around the country before the election this year. In the last week, worrisome elements have begun to pop up in various swing states.

Over the last couple of decades, I have covered presidential elections for three networks (as I will do for Fox News in this election). The lead-up to elections always includes a flurry of lawsuits. As the voting margin shrinks between the parties, the number of lawyers increases.

Some lawsuits are important efforts to make changes to remove barriers for voters or the counting of early balloting. For example, on Friday an emergency lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union secured an order for election officials in Cobb County, Ga., to overnight mail ballots to roughly 3,000 citizens and to guarantee that they be counted after a snafu by election officials. Other lawsuits are what I call “placeholders,” where campaigns establish areas of concern to be able to reference later in any specific challenges on or after Election Day.

The Supreme Court has already intervened to stop an effort by the Biden-Harris administration to force Virginia to put people back on the voting rolls who had identified themselves as non-citizens. It is a crime for non-citizens to vote. Although Virginia allows any mistaken information to be corrected (and also allows for challenged voters to file provisional ballots), lower courts ordered Virginia to enable people to vote who had said they were not citizens.

Critics charge that the case is the continuation of the administration’s unrelenting attacks on voter identification and proof of citizenship laws, even though 84 percent of Americans support such laws. In California, Governor Gavin Newsom and Democratic legislators actually made it a crime for any poll worker to ask voters for identification.

Some of these early challenges are welcomed, in the sense that we still have time to work out problems. Courts are notoriously reluctant to intervene after an election with the limited time before the certification of votes. They often refuse challengers access to vital election board information or bar cases as speculative or litigants as lacking in standing. This fuels the public’s distrust of the integrity of the election.

Some challenges potentially involve a high number of votes in swing states. For example, in North Carolina, the Republican National Committee is suing the North Carolina State Board of Elections over 225,000 people who may not have been appropriately registered because that state failed to require a driver’s license or partial Social Security number.

In Arizona, a judge had to order Democratic Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes to release the names of roughly 218,000 voters who may have been allowed to register without the proof of citizenship required by state law.

There is also a growing concern over possible systemic voting registration violations in multiple districts in Pennsylvania. Initially, 2,500 forms were marked as suspicious for possible false names, duplicative handwriting or unverifiable or incorrect identifying information. Lancaster County District Attorney Heather Adams and her team found that about 60 percent of the 2,500 forms were potentially illegitimate. Monroe County District Attorney Mike Mancuso linked the registrations to “Field and Media Corps,” a subsidiary of Fieldcorps, an Arizona-based organization.

Field and Media Corps appears to have taken down its website, but it previously identified itself as a subsidiary of FieldCorps. It described itself as “connecting campaigns and projects with communities of color across the state. Our clients benefit from our social activism and coalition leadership experience gained through decades of leading campaigns, highlighting social inequalities, and developing BIPOC coalition building.”

FieldCorps has reportedly been working for the Harris-Walz campaign, the Mark Kelly campaign in Arizona and other Democratic campaigns. Efforts to reach FieldCorps for comment have been unsuccessful.

The concern is that companies like FieldCorps could be replicating errors across districts and states in the rush to register new voters. If these are knowing falsifications, it could constitute a federal crime.

We also have the same controversies arising in this election about changes to voting laws just before the election. In 2020, many voters were opposed to courts in states like Pennsylvania issuing last-minute changes. Many assumed that these laws had been finally worked out to guarantee the criteria for consideration of mail-in ballots and other forms of voting.

However, with less than two weeks to go, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court voted 4-3 to order a significant change in election rules. The Election Code in the state is a model of clarity — it says that a provisional ballot “shall not be counted if the elector’s [mail] ballot is received in a timely manner by a county board of elections.” However, the court ruled that provisional ballots must be counted even if an individual has already sent in a mail ballot rejected for violating a mandatory rule, such as failure to place the ballot in a secrecy envelope or to date or sign the envelope. Late Friday night, the Supreme Court declined to block the counting of the provisional ballots.

However, on Friday, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court did hold the line on another major change of the state election laws ordered by a lower court. The court stayed a decision that it is unconstitutional to reject mail ballots without handwritten dates on the return envelopes. The stay means that the law will remain in effect for the election. Justice Kevin Doughtery (joined by Chief Justice Debra Todd) wrote a reassuring concurrence for many of us having to follow these cases: “‘This Court will neither impose nor countenance substantial alterations to existing laws and procedures during the pendency of an ongoing election.’  We said those carefully chosen words only weeks ago. Yet they apparently were not heard in the Commonwealth Court, the very court where the bulk of election litigation unfolds.”

In what may be the closest election in history, late changes to election laws are inflammatory for an already suspicious electorate. According to the Gallup polling, only 63 percent are “very (34 percent) or somewhat confident (29 percent) that votes in the upcoming midterm elections will be accurately cast and counted.” That is near a record low, and there is a 45 percentage point gap separating Republicans (40 percent) and Democrats (85 percent) in their confidence in election integrity.

To my astonishment, voting officials are still committing basic errors. In Bucks County, Pa., voters were turned away in their attempt to apply in person for mail-in ballots. Some were told that there were computer or staffing problems. A court then ordered additional days to request ballots, so that matter at least is resolved. Yet such glitches are concerning. This is not rocket science. Rocket science is Elon Musk catching a massive booster rocket on what looked like a giant barbeque fork. Getting the staff and computers in place in a historic election should not be a great challenge.

Given the emotions and closeness of this election, any such irregularities will only confirm the worst expectations of some voters. They are often neither sinister nor particularly suspicious. With tens of millions voting, there are going to be problems. Election officials can help reduce the suspicions by being more forthcoming in sharing information. In past years, officials have acted reflectively to oppose any disclosures while seeking the dismissal of cases. That largely succeeded legally but proved costly politically. It left many allegations (including ill-supported theories) unresolved in the minds of many citizens.

It would be far better for the nation to resolve questions before the elections and strive for greater transparency in post-election challenges. That is why, if something wicked this way comes, we can more easily send it along its way.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

 

330 thoughts on “Something Wicked This Way Comes: Both Parties Deploy Legions of Lawyers For Election Challenges”

  1. Turley,
    The need for lawyers shocks you?
    Its important because of what happened in 2020 where GOP poll watchers were denied access, and the count went on. Laws were clearly broken and ignored.

    Now w lawyers present, they can react and fight right away.
    All of the tricks pulled in 2020 will be harder to pull off.

    There’s a fix though… just clean up the voter rolls and enforce IDs. to start.

    -G

  2. After today, I foresee 4 years of Trump, followed by 8 years of vance/gabbard and then Tulsi becomes our first woman President.

    A woman President we can be proud of.

  3. Excerpt:

    In response, Harris made two major changes to her campaign strategy that may ultimately have only helped sink her candidacy.

    The first was to begin declaring that she had suddenly changed her most controversial policy positions from when she ran in 2019. After opposing fracking and border security while supporting Medicare for All, defunding the police, abolishing ICE, EV mandates, gun grabs, the Green New Deal, and every other item on the progressive agenda, Harris now claims to hold the opposite view on all of those issues.

    Then Harris launched an ill-fated media tour that has led to a cascade of negative headlines leading up to Election Day. Despite appearing on seemingly “safe” shows like The View, 60 Minutes, and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Harris couldn’t help but loft up prime material for Republican attack ads.

    https://amac.us/newsline/elections/kamala-harriss-media-doom-spiral/

  5. Trump wants to declare victory before all the votes are counted. He tried that last time and he certainly will try again this time. Talk about cheating.

    1. Wait, declaring victory is cheating? You need to look up the definition of cheating in a dictionary.

      1. Creating fake electors and pressuring your vice president to not certify the election is cheating.

      2. “Trump lacks morals and ethics, just like his supporters”

        Is that you Joe “I fvcked my daughter in the shower” Biden?

    3. So ?
      Those of you on the left have been declaring victory every chance you get.

      Trump can declare victory whenever he wants.

      Cheating would be mass ballot harvesting.
      It would be voting multiple times.
      It would be stuffing ballot boxes.
      It would be paying people for their votes.
      It would be using the power of govenrment – such as massive lawfare to interfere in the election.
      Or to censor people.

      Declaring victory early is not cheating.
      It MIGHT be unwise, but it is not cheating.

      The question that will be answered tomorow is how many republicans and democrats will show up at the polls.

      The last thing either candidate should be doing is sending a message that the race is over and their voters do not need to show up.

      The deciding factor tomorrow will be whether democrats or republicans are more fired up.

      The press has been telling us democrats are more fired up.
      But the data thus far seems to be showing the opposite.

      Regardless, very shortly we find out.

    4. Trump wants to declare victory before all the votes are counted.

      George wants to declare Trump cheated – after Trump crushed all his prior claims and predictions.

        1. Me to, the Jets are going to be a powerhouse this season with Aaron Rodgers at the helm…

        2. Anonymous proclaimed: I know what will happen. The Republican party will be crushed into oblivion

          How does that claim look to you 24 hours later, you mental midget communist Useful Idiot?

  7. When the penalty for performing an abortion for a rape victim is greater than the penalty for rape, that’s when you know there is a war on women.

    Women have risen up in huge numbers and MAGA is going down in a historically massive defeat.

    1. Six weeks following homicide statutes in all 50 states. #NoJudgment #NoLabels

      Self-defense thereafter through reconciliation.

      The wicked solution, the final solution is a product of a progressive religion exercised through liberal license. A human rite performed for social, clinical, criminal, political, and climate progress.

      Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable? And the sequestration of the carbon-based “burden” of evidence in sanctuary states?

      #HateLovesAbortion

    3. The fetus displays its desire to live by continuing to develop.

      Abortion is homicide.

      The murder victim is the very young child that God and nature required the mother to protect.

      The mother has failed in her duty to God and nature, and is an abject and malicious criminal.

      The clear and decent alternative to abortion is adoption.

      Mothers who murder their babies are indecent, immoral, and illicit.

      1. * There were actually women in Nazi concentration camps during WWII who became pregnant. They had abortions rather than have the child murdered in the camp as she would also be murdered. Do you think she was indecent, immoral and illicit?

        Be careful what you condemn.

        1. In all but the most left leaning cultures, in progressive sects, a woman is compelled to save her child past the age of viability. Reproductive rights is a strawman apology.

          That said, aborting and sequestering the “burden” of evidence provides an incentive to men and males who identify as the feminine gender to rape… rape-rape women in darkness, under liberal law, in progressive sects.

          Keep women affordable, available, reusable, and taxable? Human rites are transhumane.

        2. Please provide evidence of this claim ?
          The people in Nazi Concentration camps had life expecancies less than 9 months – even if they were not deliberately killed.
          They were simultaneously worked to death and starved.
          It is unlikely many could even get pregnant.
          It is highly likely that under the condictions they had to endure that the body would spontaneously abort because it was not capable of sustaining itself much less a baby.

        3. * Dr. Beverley Chalmers documents in her books, Life and Death in Nazi Concentration Camps. She did this Holocaust documentation at a time when such was not spoken and from testimony.

      2. Gotta love Christian hypocrites, the most evil people I’ve ever met. They make the Taliban look normal.

        2. You just blessed every Christian without even knowing it.

          Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

        3. “Gotta love Christian hypocrites, the most evil people I’ve ever met.”

          Stalinist communists whose state religion is atheism always make that claim!

        4. Do you live in the real world ?

          If you had a choice between living for 9 months with the Dugger family or 9 Months with Hezbolla – you would likely pick Hezbolla.

          Your an idiot.

    5. “When the penalty for performing an abortion for a rape victim is greater than the penalty for rape, that’s when you know there is a war on women.”

      You live in a state where the 50%+ of voters who are women have approved that? Which state? And when the majority of voters are women, why can’t you convince them you need taxpayer funded abortions right up to the point of birth for every single pregnancy that’s even inconvenient?

      And why do you believe Harris and Walz can fix that supposed problem by promising you they can get around SCOTUS and the Dobbs decision, and pass a nationwide federal law that allows women and their doctor to look at a newborn baby and say “Want it, or should we put it down because it’s a female?”

      1. Ask yourself who changed the penalty for rape? Then lobby for your State to adopt the abortive policy the people of that State wish to adopt. States rights you blithering idiot.

      1. Because it’s their lies and distortion to feed their masters the souls of the untouched innocent.

      2. “I WOULD FURTHER NOTE” that John Say simply makes stuff up when he comments beyond his only known area of expertise, that being whether squirrels can transmit rabies.

        The following states have no exception for rape or incest:
        Alabama
        Arkansas
        Kentucky
        Louisiana
        Missouri
        Oklahoma
        South Dakota
        Tennessee
        Texas

        1. So the people of those States set what is to be considered. It’s called democracy and what the people of those States consider acceptable. Where’s your basic understanding of legislative process? Save our Democracy pusscake!

          1. My point is that John Say simply makes stuff up.
            He is delusional.
            Secondly, I thought it was MAGA dogma that we are in fact NOT a democracy, but rather a republic

    1. Get a grip fella.

      All that happened was that the judge declined to issue an emergency restraining order to block the final giveaway scheduled for today.

      The case still continues and goes to trial.

      1. The case continues, but it is not likely to go to trial – for the same reason the judge did not grant a TRO – this case is going to hinge on the law.
        And is the law was on Krasner’s side he would have gotten the TRO

  11. Update from Pennsylvania:

    For background, in 2020, with early voting the Democrats beat Republicans by 1,040,000. Biden ended up carrying the state by a much smaller margin, namely, 81,000 votes. This means the day-of voting vastly favored Republicans.

    Today, the early-voting tallies still have Dems up, but not by nearly as much: they are up by 373,000, a margin which is 667,000 lower than in 2020. If day-of voting is similar to 2020, Trump will easily carry PA.

    Every vote counts. Pennsylvania: no matter who you favor, get out there and vote.

    1. And 7 million more women have voted than men. Trump says they’re all voting for him. Picturing him with skin mag models, forcing his fingers on women’s vaginas, routinely calling accomplished women “dumb” is turning America’s women on.

      2. One of his chief surrogates in this campaign has been Tulsi Gabbard, whom no one has ever described as dumb or weak.

          1. She’s a lot more intelligent than you, and she would beat your sorry ass at arm wrestling any day of the week.

      4. “Picturing him with skin mag models, forcing his fingers on women’s vaginas,”

        You’re describing how then Senator Joe Biden raped his young aid, Tara Reide. Screwing his teenage daughter in the shower didn’t satisfy him.

        “routinely calling accomplished women “dumb” is turning America’s women on.”

        Now you’re describing Mark Cuban, why got his scrawny ass kicked by strong accomplished women supporting Trump:

        Mark Cuban halfheartedly apologizes after saying women around Trump are weak, dumb: ‘Can’t nail every interview’
        “Billionaire Mark Cuban halfheartedly apologized on Friday to those who “felt slighted” at him suggesting that women around former President Donald Trump are weak and dumb, saying he has “no excuses” — while trying to offer a bunch.”

        https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/mark-cuban-half-heartedly-apologizes-after-saying-women-around-trump-are-weak-dumb-can-t-nail-every-interview/ar-AA1tkF5N

        Got anything else, Beta Male Boy?

      5. Women have historically been more likely to vote by mail or early. – the male/female imbalance in 2024 Early voting is NOT unusual.

        As to the rest of your claims – most people do not beleive you – including an awful lot of women.

  12. The Founders designed a simple, uncomplicated restricted-vote republic, providing dominion ultimately, not to the vote of parasites and leeches in search of antithetical and unconstitutional “free stuff” and “free status,” but to the Constitution that assigns maximal freedom to individuals and severely limits and restricts government to merely assuring that maximal freedom of individuals. 

    The communists have subjugated America by making an absurd, “moral” argument that every person must vote and by nullifying the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. 

    The singular American failure is the judicial branch, with emphasis on the Supreme Court.  

    Government may tax for only debt, defense, and general Welfare (i.e. security and basic infrastructure), and government may regulate only money, commerce, and land and naval Forces per Article 1, Section 8.   

    The Founders required times and places for elections by certified citizen-voters who were present and well-qualified by State legislatures, keeping turnout rational by denying the vote to “such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own,” “persons of indigent fortunes, or are under the immediate dominion of others,” and “some who are suspected to have no will of their own.” 

    The post office is neither a time nor a place. 

    Voters must be fully vested and independent. 
    _____________________________________________

    “the people are nothing but a great beast…

    I have learned to hold popular opinion of no value.”

    – Alexander Hamilton
    _________________________

    “The true reason (says Blackstone) of requiring any qualification, with regard to property in voters, is to exclude such persons, as are in so mean a situation, that they are esteemed to have no will of their own.”

    “If it were probable that every man would give his vote freely, and without influence of any kind, then, upon the true theory and genuine principles of liberty, every member of the community, however poor, should have a vote… But since that can hardly be expected, in persons of indigent fortunes, or such as are under the immediate dominion of others, all popular states have been obliged to establish certain qualifications, whereby, some who are suspected to have no will of their own, are excluded from voting; in order to set other individuals, whose wills may be supposed independent, more thoroughly upon a level with each other.”

    – Alexander Hamilton, The Farmer Refuted, 1775
    _____________________________________________________

    “[We gave you] a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it.”

    – Ben Franklin, 1787
    _______________________

    You couldn’t.

  13. Interesting, the new story out today how Trump has failed to pay for the last several venues his rallies have been held in. Still hasn’t paid Madison Square Garden. He’s a deadbeat.

        2. Trump is not the one jumping up and down screeching Nazi, Nazi, Nazi.
          Trump is not the one claiming they are going to unify the country while calling half the country garbage.

    2. He may be waiting for million dollar interest on a given date before taking the cash. Do you have the contract?

      1. Trump doesn’t personally pay the bills, the RNC Presidential campaign pays the bills.
        Reportedly, Gov. Tim (Chicom) Walz is behind on his Tampon payments. How desperate and sad.

    1. OldManFromKS,

      The elephant is cool, but elephants don’t live in America

      Squirrels do!

      Let’s immortalize Peanut the Squirrel

      Let’s make him the official mascot of the GOP
      🥜 🐿️ #ForPeanut https://t.co/FiX35kt5nN pic.twitter.com/fZoeZ7NmmJ

      — Mike Lee (@BasedMikeLee) November 2, 2024

    2. I check WTOP on occasion because of the DC coverage. I noticed this article, where 15 black “people” beat a Latino gay man to a pulp in the Howard University neighborhood, a black neighborhood. That no race was provided of the 15 attackers confirms they were black. This is why they did not report the victim’s race, Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, ostensibly Latino. The demographic group that displays the most animus towards gays/lesbians are blacks, but the MSM doesn’t discuss it because that would go against their cherished voting black. This is why in part Latinos hate the MSM. Latinos are the largest minority group in America (18%) but blacks (12%) get more mentions by significant margins by the MSM, corporations, advertising, public health messaging, and Hollywood movies. Democrats pander to blacks for their votes – and then they’re done with them after the elections.

      Let’s see how Latinos vote for Kamala vs Trump this election. I suspect Latinos will vote in significant numbers for Trump precisely because they are against the Kamala open US border policy

      DC police investigate possible hate crime after group attacks a gay man outside a McDonald’s

      D.C. police say the assault of a gay man by a group of as many as 15 people as he was leaving a McDonald’s on 14th and U streets on Sunday is being investigated as a possible hate crime. The man, 22-year-old model Sebastian Thomas Robles Lascarro, had stopped by the fast food restaurant to get a quick bite after a night out at bars nearby, but decided to leave because of the long lines.

      https://wtop.com/dc/2024/11/dc-police-investigate-possible-hate-crime-after-group-attack-on-a-gay-man-outside-a-mcdonalds/

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