For America’s two major political parties, Nov. 3 is shaping up to be an Election Day of mutual distrust. The proof is in the deluge of litigation already filed in courthouses around the country. The Trump administration is heading into the midterms fixated on the unfounded claim that voter registration by noncitizens is a widespread problem. The Democrats, noting that President Trump tried to overturn his 2020 election loss — and that he recently encouraged his followers to “cheat like hell” in the midterms — are bracing for what they say will be an onslaught of Republican tactics, from the intimidation of voters to the potential seizure of ballots.
The specific contours of these anxieties are evident in the scores of election-related lawsuits filed by the two parties and their allies. They are concerned with matters as granular as the proper way to seal a ballot envelope in North Carolina, and as sweeping as the role of the federal government in an election system that is, per the Constitution, administered by the states. Election lawyers are already bracing for the possibility.
“I say this with regret, that we’re becoming increasingly litigious,” Jeh C. Johnson, a lawyer and former Homeland Security secretary, said at a recent Georgia forum on election integrity. “There’s a whole bar out there now of election law experts that have to be on the ready on election night.”
The amount of election-related litigation filed in the United States has jumped significantly since 2000, when a U.S. Supreme Court ruling handed that year’s contested presidential election to George W. Bush. From 1996 to 1999, there was an average of 94 election lawsuits per year, according to research from Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles. From 2000 to 2024, the country averaged 283 cases. The Republican National Committee alone has said that it currently has 179 “active election integrity cases” in 37 states.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing