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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
DNC requests judges throw out RNC lawsuits in Michigan and Nevada, | |
arguing they are aimed at sowing distrust in 2024 election | |
By MJ Lee and Fredreka Schouten, CNN | |
Updated: | |
11:22 AM EDT, Mon May 6, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
The Democratic National Committee is requesting that judges in Michigan | |
and Nevada throw out “dangerous” and “flawed” lawsuits, related | |
to voter rolls and to mail-in ballots, that were launched by the | |
Republican National Committee earlier this year. The DNC is warning | |
that the lawsuits represent former President Donald Trump’s attempts | |
to undermine the American public’s confidence in the upcoming | |
November elections. | |
The DNC on Monday filed three amicus briefs on behalf of the Biden | |
reelection campaign in the two battleground states. The briefs, viewed | |
by CNN, attack the RNC’s lawsuits as meritless and nothing short of | |
political theater. They offer an early window into how the Biden | |
campaign plans to try to push back on what Democrats expect to be an | |
onslaught of Republican election integrity challenges this year. | |
Two RNC lawsuits — one each in Michigan and Nevada — contend that | |
the numbers of active voters in key counties in those states are | |
“suspiciously high” and seek to have election officials cancel | |
voter registrations. The DNC is also asking the court to dismiss a | |
challenge from Republicans to the guidance that Michigan’s secretary | |
of state has given to local election clerks to verify signatures on | |
ballots. | |
“Donald Trump and Republicans know they can’t win this election | |
fair and square, so they’re doubling down on their losing 2020 | |
playbook and taking aim at our voting rights and democracy. They will | |
fail again,” Biden campaign spokesman Charles Lutvak said in a | |
statement to CNN. “Our team is prepared and continuing the fight for | |
democracy, we are defending the right to free and fair elections | |
against Republicans’ junk lawsuits, and we will defeat Donald Trump | |
once and for all in November.” | |
In Michigan, the DNC’s amicus brief responding to the voter roll | |
lawsuit states that after losing the 2020 presidential election,� | |
Republicans filed dozens of lawsuits seeking to invalidate election | |
results — including several in the Wolverine State — and lost. | |
“This case fits that dangerous pattern of unsubstantiated | |
election-related claims, which serve only to undermine public | |
confidence in the electoral process,” the brief says of the RNC’s | |
lawsuit. “In reality, the greatest threat to public confidence in the | |
integrity of our elections is not fraud or voter-roll maintenance, but | |
unfounded attacks on our elections themselves.” | |
Similarly in Nevada, the DNC’s brief says that the Republican lawsuit | |
there is “designed less to address any real (much less substantial) | |
issue with Nevada’s voter registration lists, than to sow public | |
distrust in the security and integrity of our electoral systems.” | |
“This lawsuit is not meant to protect the integrity of upcoming | |
elections, but instead to provide the RNC with ammunition to undermine | |
the general election’s results,” the brief says. “Indeed, former | |
President Trump is already asserting interference with the 2024 general | |
election, months before a single vote has been cast or counted.” | |
The Biden reelection campaign has since last year been building out a | |
legal team and infrastructure aimed at taking on Republican efforts to | |
question election integrity. | |
Biden campaign officials told CNN that they see Republicans this year | |
as trying to re-use a playbook from 2020 of casting doubt on and sowing | |
distrust about election results — and doing so well before the first | |
ballots have even been cast. And this time, the campaign argues, | |
Republicans are acting even earlier in the election cycle and with more | |
force. | |
The RNC, too, has pursued an aggressive legal strategy, and officials | |
say they have engaged in more 80 election-related lawsuits, including | |
the litigation in Nevada and Michigan that seek to cancel voter | |
registrations ahead of November’s elections. | |
The top election officials in Nevada and Michigan – both Democrats | |
– have argued that those lawsuits are groundless. | |
Critics say that Republicans are relying on a faulty formula to arrive | |
at the claim that the states’ voter rolls are bloated. Their lawsuits | |
compare current day voter roll numbers to population estimates from a | |
rolling survey conducted by the Census — a survey that looks at a | |
five-year period that started several years ago. In to the RNC’s | |
lawyers last year, an official in the Nevada Attorney General’s | |
office defended the state’s maintenance of its voter registration | |
records and called the party’s methodology akin to “comparing | |
apples to orangutans.” | |
In Michigan, a lawsuit brought by the RNC and other Republican groups | |
accuses Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson of issuing guidance | |
“covertly” that instructed election clerks to apply a | |
“presumption of validity” when checking voters’ signatures on | |
returned absentee ballots against the signatures on file with local | |
election offices. | |
In its Monday filing, the DNC argues that Benson’s guidance is | |
consistent with Michigan law and makes clear that clerks must review | |
all signatures. | |
Some of the RNC’s recent litigation has taken particular aim at | |
mail-in and absentee voting – which Trump has baselessly argued | |
corrupts elections. | |
In addition to the Michigan signature verification challenge, for | |
instance, a separate lawsuit brought last week by the RNC and the Trump | |
campaign targets Nevada’s mail-in voting law and aims to block the | |
counting of any ballots received after Election Day. | |
That lawsuit focuses on the state’s mail voting law, enacted in 2021. | |
Nevada permits the tallying of ballots received up to four days after | |
the election if they are postmarked by Election Day or received up to | |
three days later if the postmarked date cannot be determined. | |
The Republican lawsuit claims that counting those ballots “dilutes” | |
what it says are “honest votes” and “disproportionately harms” | |
GOP candidates and voters because Democrats are more likely than | |
Republicans in the state to vote by mail. | |
The RNC also has sued to overturn a Mississippi law that permits | |
tallying ballots received after the election. In all, 19 states permit | |
counting mailed ballots received after Election Day, . | |
Trump, as his party’ presumptive presidential nominee, engineered a | |
takeover of the RNC in March, installing a new chairman, Michael | |
Whatley, and his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as the party’s | |
co-chair. Over the weekend, another recent hire, Charlie Spies, — | |
just two months after taking the position. | |
Spies and the RNC cited potential time conflicts with Spies’ | |
commitments to his law firm clients as the reason he left. | |
Sources told CNN that Trump grew displeased with Spies, a veteran GOP | |
election lawyer, after Trump’s allies pointed to clips of Spies | |
criticizing false claims of a stolen 2020 election. | |
In an interview Sunday on Fox News, Lara Trump cast the recent | |
litigation in Nevada over mail-in ballots as “one of the many | |
lawsuits we have out across this country to ensure that … we have a | |
free, fair and transparent election.” | |
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