WASHINGTON − Former President Donald Trump has not guaranteed he will accept the results of the 2024 election. Lawsuits targeting state voter rolls may offer a strategy he could use to dispute the election’s outcome.

Recently, Trump expressed on social media that election fraud must “CEASE & DESIST,” warning of prosecutions “at unprecedented levels” in the nation.

Following his defeat in the 2020 election, Trump’s supporters launched over 60 lawsuits aimed at overturning the results, culminating in a violent attempt to disrupt the Capitol proceedings. Despite failing to affect the election outcome, the skepticism fostered continues to influence today’s legal battles, with ongoing lawsuits initiated by Republican groups and Trump supporters potentially setting the stage for similar post-election challenges.

A spokesperson for one Trump-affiliated group informed YSL News that they are already preparing to challenge the 2024 election results before the voting day.

“We are driven to file in defense of our great nation,” stated Marly Hornik, co-founder of United Sovereign Americans, which was established in 2023.

The lawsuits that have been filed assert that swing states are in violation of federal laws like the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Help America Vote Act of 2002 by allowing potentially ineligible voters to remain on the rolls. There are currently at least 19 cases, “many of which are in battleground states,” according to Leah Tulin, senior legal counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program.

The ongoing lawsuits are an extension of Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud, which he has raised since his initial campaign for the presidency.

Back in November 2016, Trump alleged, without evidence, that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of millions of illegal votes. At his “Stop the Steal” rally on January 6, 2021, he similarly claimed that noncitizens cast numerous ballots in Arizona during the 2020 election.

This election cycle, the Trump campaign has again suggested that noncitizens may influence the vote.

“While extreme Democrats have permitted non-citizen voting in places like California and D.C., states like Walz’s Minnesota lack a system to prevent non-citizens from registering,” said Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt.

Parties involved in the litigation include the Republican National Committee and Republican state parties in Nevada and Arizona, which claim that registered voters exceed the number of adult citizens.

Research conducted by both the Brennan Center for Justice and the Cato Institute indicates there’s almost no evidence of noncitizen voting.

Several voter roll lawsuits have been dismissed, with some being filed within a 90-day window before the November 5 election, a timeframe during which states typically cannot remove individuals from voter registration lists under the National Voter Registration Act.

This situation raises questions about the motivations for filing these lawsuits, especially close to an election.

“The most logical explanation is that they are laying the groundwork to assert that an election was stolen,” commented David Becker, executive director of the non-profit Center for Election Innovation & Research, which collaborates with election officials from both parties to enhance election confidence, in an interview with YSL News.

Lawsuits Concerning Voter Rolls

In Arizona, the state Republican Party chair has filed a lawsuit against the Democratic secretary of state, alleging that the voter registration figures in the state “are improbably high.”

United Sovereign Americans has initiated lawsuits in nine states, claiming that there are significant errors in registration data, such as registrations made on Sundays or questionable addresses provided by registrants, suggesting possible widespread fraud.

In one instance in Pennsylvania, the group claims there are almost 3.2 million discrepancies out of roughly 8.8 million total registrations, which they argue undermines the reliability of the 2022 midterm results.

The legal team for Pennsylvania’s secretary of state labeled the group’s concerns over document dates as “factually unfounded” in their court filings.

Hans von Spakovsky, a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and a member of a Trump administration election integrity commission, expressed to YSL News that the limited evidence of noncitizen voting is due to its rare prosecution.

Von Spakovsky pointed out that during his time on the Fairfax County election board in Virginia, about 100-150 instances were identified where legal residents voted without citizenship, but neither local prosecutors nor the Justice Department pursued these cases.

However, a study by the Brennan Center found that such prosecutions are quite rare. It examined 42 jurisdictions representing 23.5 million votes cast in the 2016 election and discovered only 30 instances referred for further investigation or prosecution regarding suspected noncitizen voting.

This month, Brad Raffensperger, the Republican secretary of state of Georgia, revealed the findings of what he described as “the most thorough citizenship verification ever undertaken in Georgia.” The check uncovered just 20 noncitizens among 8.2 million registered voters. These 20 individuals have been removed from the voter rolls and sent for possible prosecution.

“At this moment, our voter registration lists have never been as clean or accurate in the history of America,” commented Becker from the Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Election law experts suggest that the lawsuits filed are not likely to significantly affect the electoral process before November. Many lawsuits do not aim for such an outcome.

For instance, during a June hearing for the Republican lawsuit in Nevada, one attorney remarked, “We’re not trying to expedite the case simply to gain information before the November election.”

Several voter registration lawsuits have emerged within 90 days of the November elections. This timeframe is significant as, according to the National Voter Registration Act, states typically cannot remove individuals from their registration lists during this period—a fact that knowledgeable election lawyers would recognize.

Becker noted, “The increase in lawsuits filed within this 90-day stretch indicates a true lack of intention to clean up the lists.”

A number of lawsuits compare the names on voter registration lists to U.S. Census data, which sometimes indicates a higher number of registered voters than there are adults in a specific area. The Nevada lawsuit claimed that “three counties in Nevada have more registered voters than adult citizens above the age of 18. This amount is unrealistically high.”

However, there are several reasons why voter registration numbers may exceed those in Census data for a location. The Census provides an estimate that measures where individuals rest at night, whereas voter eligibility considers a person’s permanent residency—this explains why politicians and college students frequently vote in their home states.

Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Marymount and a former Biden administration advisor on democracy and voting rights, pointed out, “For any mobile or transient population, you may see a discrepancy between where they’re correctly registered to vote and where the Census counts them.”

Additionally, due to legislative regulations, voter rolls are intended to err on the side of over-inclusion rather than under-inclusion. The National Voter Registration Act mandates that states must wait between two and four years before removing someone from the voter list after they are believed to have moved away.

In a ruling dismissing a lawsuit from the Republican National Committee on October 22, Judge Jane Beckering of a Michigan federal court stated that the RNC’s data from the Census does not convincingly demonstrate that Michigan is violating the National Voter Registration Act.

The RNC itself recognized that there is “no evidence” showing that the counties in question experienced higher-than-average voter turnout compared to other areas in Michigan or the nation, Judge Beckering noted.

Repetition as a Tactic?

Even if these lawsuits do not succeed in court, they often become points of discussion for supporters on social media and are used in press releases and fundraising efforts.

For example, Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of the former president and co-chair of the Republican National Committee, claimed in an October fundraising email, “As many as 2.7 million illegal immigrants could cast their votes this November.”

Tulin from the Brennan Center described this strategy as an “age-old tactic of suggesting that where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”

He added, “The legal battles serve as talking points that align with the political narratives being pushed. The fact that they haven’t gained traction in court is irrelevant because it’s all part of the repetition. If we say it enough, people will begin to believe it.”

In the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his supporters faced approximately 60 legal setbacks after alleging widespread voter fraud. Numerous recounts and audits have confirmed that Trump did not win the election.

Despite this, many Americans still believe Trump was the victor. A CNN poll conducted in July showed that around 38% of the public thinks that Biden did not legitimately earn enough votes for the presidency, a sentiment shared by 69% of Republicans and those leaning Republican.

“The outcomes of these legal challenges do not seem to affect whether the associated rhetoric generates misinformation and disinformation that the public accepts,” said Sylvia Albert, the director of Voting and Elections for Common Cause, a watchdog organization for good governance, during an interview with YSL News.

Efforts to Prevent Election Certification

The organization United Sovereign Americans has filed requests in several courts to delay states from officially certifying the results of the 2024 elections until they address the group’s claims regarding inaccuracies in voter registrations.

These legal actions reflect ongoing attempts to obstruct election certification outside the courtroom, similar to movements seen since the 2020 election. Local authorities in key swing states have voted multiple times against certifying election results since then, but these attempts have not succeeded in changing any outcomes. In Georgia, a number of lawsuits are focused on whether local officials are obligated to certify election results within the state’s specified timeframe.

In 2020, Trump engaged in comparable actions, warning two local Michigan Republican election officials that they would seem “terrible” if they went ahead and certified their county’s election results, as captured in a recorded phone call that the Detroit News obtained.

“The worry is that these lawsuits might be used later by individuals to argue, ‘We approached the courts for help but received none, which led to widespread voter fraud and non-citizen voting. Therefore, we should dismiss the election results or delay certification,'” Tulin explained.

Von Spakovsky downplayed fears that pre-election lawsuits concerning voter registration lists could actually change election results, stating that such claims need evidence of specific disqualified votes that could have altered the outcome.

“Proving that is very challenging in lawsuits that simply address voter registration maintenance,” he commented.

A significant number of Trump supporters who incited chaos at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, were convinced that the 2020 election was illegitimate.

“We will stop the steal,” Trump declared at a rally shortly before the insurrection, emphasizing that he knew the attendees would head to the Capitol “to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”

“There is a serious risk that the persistent clamor leads a significant part of the American public to be misled and wrongfully convinced that they should not trust their electoral processes,” Levitt stated.