Illustration of Mother Jones

Last June, During the CNN debate, former President Donald Trump said something very important: he promised to accept the results of the 2024 race in November if it is a “fair, legal and good election.”

How does Trump define these terms? In 2020, he considered that the election was not legitimate because he did not win. This year it seems to have a similar calculation, adage he wants his victory to be “too big to fake.” But unlike the last presidential cycle, during which Trump’s camp filed more than 60 lawsuits alleging widespread fraud in hopes of overturning the results. After with the elections over, the strategy in 2024 is not random and reactive. Led by the Republican National Committee, it has spawned dozens of pre-election lawsuits that appear largely intended to arouse voter distrust.

“Ultimately, these lawsuits are public relations campaigns in legal wrapping paper. They do not reflect genuine legal concerns. They are designed to create chaos,” says Joanna Lydgate, CEO of the pro-democracy group States United. “After the fact, when the results come in – if they don’t like them – it’s easier for them to undermine them. »

As I reported in the September-October issue of Mother JonesThe RNC laid the groundwork this year to claim the election was not conducted properly by filing a barrage of lawsuits alleging illegal voting and illicit election schemes. Experts fear the RNC and far-right groups will present their pre-election lawsuits as proof that they warned the election was rigged before it even began, opening the door to even more lawsuits challenging the results that could possibly lead to an outcome. friendly court.

“It’s kind of like throwing spaghetti at the wall, kind of like it’s all over the place, all at once,” says Lydgate, former chief assistant attorney general of Massachusetts. Plaintiffs can file lots of equally dubious claims in court and then, Lydgate says, “see if they can get someone, any judge, to validate them after the fact.”

While both political parties have filed pre- and post-election lawsuits over procedural issues over the years, many of the new complaints filed by conservatives “really feel like they’re of a different ilk” , declares Nora Benavidez, specialist in civil rights and freedoms. lawyer of speech. Citing court cases aimed at challenging voter status, Benavidez claims this series of lawsuits is an attempt to “reduce opportunities for people to vote” while insinuating that the process “needs to be strengthened to combat corruption.” .

Lawsuits challenging voter eligibility have been repeatedly dismissed by state and federal judges. Some voter rolls cases have even been initiated after the statutory 90-day deadline before the close of an election, when states cannot change voter rolls. Some lawsuits don’t even seek immediate relief, which raises the question of why the lawsuits were filed in the first place.

Danielle Lang, senior director of voting rights at the Campaign Legal Center, says the agenda is obvious: “I have no doubt that those trying to sabotage or undermine an election could use a number of arguments to do so, including by pointing out frivolous arguments. lawsuits they filed way too late.

Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) isn’t hiding the ball here. In October interview with the New York Times, Vance boasted that the RNC has “filed nearly 100 lawsuits with the RNC” to ensure votes were counted correctly. They define “correctly” differently than the experts.

Republicans in several states have attempted to challenge procedures for processing ballots from military members and other voters living overseas. In Pennsylvania, a lawsuit filed by six Republican congressmen sought to impose additional controls on the eligibility and identity of foreign military personnel and expatriate citizens. (Since 2016, foreign citizens represent a greater share of the combined cohort as overseas service members and their families; this could lead Republicans to think that the foreign population favors Democrats.) A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit Tuesday and criticized members of Congress for filing the lawsuit so close to Election Day. The plaintiffs “provide no good excuse for waiting barely a month before the election to file this lawsuit,” the judge wrote. Other judges rejected comparable lawsuits in Michigan and North Carolina against out-of-state voters in the past month.

In Nevada and Michigan, the RNC has claimed that voter rolls are saturated with ineligible voters, who may cast ballots on Election Day, diluting the views of actual voters. Those cases were dismissed in October, but a similar case challenging the voter rolls was filed in Arizona by the Founded 1789, a right-wing group led by a lawyer known for his lawsuits against vaccination mandates. On October 30, well after the 90-day deadline to remove voters had expired, the group alleged that Arizona was allowing up to 1.2 million ineligible voters to remain on its rolls illegally. This case is in progress.

Although unlikely to work on a large scale, this legal attack can still have an impact. By filing lawsuits alleging poor voter roll maintenance or illegal election procedures, plaintiffs force already overburdened election officials to spend time proving that the lawsuits are baseless.

The lawsuits also give the systemic election fraud conspiracy a false sense of credibility. People who are not very familiar with the legal system may be inclined to believe that a legal claim has merit simply because it was filed in court, and not understand that people can claim almost anything in the context of legal action.

Nor is it implausible that plaintiffs could find a court that accepts their theories, no matter how legally flawed or politically motivated.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court suggested that it was open to questionable arguments, as it overturned rulings from two lower courts and allowed Virginia Republican leaders to continue (at least temporarily) their efforts to purge 1,600 people from the voter rolls. This is apparently at odds with the 90-day deadline before the election during which federal law prohibits states from changing these lists.

The Supreme Court did not justify its decision. decisionon which the court’s three liberal justices disagreed.

The presidential campaigns are unlikely to be completely settled by the time the election closes on Tuesday. If the legal blitz is anything like 2020 — and there is plenty of evidence to suggest it could be worse — the courts will also have the ability to vote on election issues.