Category Archives: The Voting Wars

Historians Keyssar and Wilentz Put SAVE Act’s Proposed Disenfranchisement in Historical Perspective

Democracy Docket:

Voting-rights advocates and Democratic officials have already made clear the massive threat the SAVE Act poses to access to the ballot in the here and now, warning that it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters. But in interviews with Democracy Docket, historians and voting experts sought to put the SAVE Act in historical context — and could point to no close parallels.

“There’s never been an attack on voting rights out of Congress like this,” said Alexander Keyssar, a professor of History and Social Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, and a leading historian of voting rights. “It’s always been the federal government trying to keep states in check on voting rights, for the most part.”

Sean Wilentz, a professor of American History at Princeton University, was even blunter.

“It’s the most extraordinary attack on voting rights in American history,” Wilentz said. “This is an attempt to destroy American democracy as we know it.”

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“Democratic attorneys general sue Trump over elections executive order”

Votebeat:

Democratic attorneys general in 19 states are together suing Trump over his sweeping executive order on elections, saying that it is an illegal attempt to usurp state control of electionsthat “would cause imminent and irreparable harm” if the courts don’t intervene.

The March 25 order, which Trump wrote would protect the integrity of elections, would require people to prove their citizenship when registering to vote. It would also set a national mail ballot receipt deadline of Election Day, require the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to rewrite voting machine certification standards, withhold federal funds from states that don’t use compliant machines, and require states to share their voter rolls with federal agencies.

The order “sows confusion and sets the stage for chaos in Plaintiff States’ election systems, together with the threat of disenfranchisement,” the states wrote in the complaint, which was filed in the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts on Thursday. The attorneys general emphasized that Congress has never required proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections and that states have the authority to dictate the deadline for mail ballots.

They also say that Trump cannot force states to require proof of voter citizenship, and threatening to withhold funding for not complying with provisions in the order violates the U.S. Constitution’s principles of federalism and separation of powers, and adds requirements on the money that weren’t imposed by Congress….

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Ben Ginsberg: “Echoes of Gore’s Florida recount in Griffin’s attempt to toss ballots”

Ben Ginsberg in the Carolina Journal:

Jefferson Griffin’s attempts to invalidate 60,000 North Carolina voters bear haunting parallels to what Al Gore supporters tried to do late in the 2000 Florida recount to take away George W. Bush’s victory. I was the Bush-Cheney campaign’s national counsel, and as Republicans, we were outraged by the unprincipled attempts to disenfranchise voters to steal a win.

Imitating the Gore playbook, Griffin is trying to overturn a historically close election by changing the election’s rules after it was conducted and disenfranchising thousands of otherwise legal voters, not because they did anything wrong, but because of election officials’ instructions.

Griffin’s efforts should fail for the same reasons Al Gore’s did. In 2000, the US Supreme Court recognized that changing the rules fundamentally violates the rule of law. And not even the highly partisan Florida Supreme Court could swallow disqualifying otherwise legal voters to swing an election. 

As a Republican election lawyer for 40 years, I’m for Republicans winning judicial elections. But not like this. Not when Griffin has not identified any fraudulent voters or ballots not cast in compliance with official election guidance. And not when Griffin has to ask his fellow judges to abandon principle to achieve his own electoral success. He lost a heartbreakingly close race. It happens. But it is wrong to disqualify voters who may have voted against you because of administrators’ perceived errors. 

As in Florida 2000, it is fair game to adjudicate State Board of Elections’ procedures or overseas voters’ eligibility before the election. But Griffin did not succeed in his preelection attempts. So his lack of electoral success makes his post-election challenges nothing more than distasteful sour grapes aimed at disenfranchising voters in areas won by his opponent…,

It should be embarrassing for Judge Jefferson Griffin to make — and ask his fellow judges to buy — his arguments to disenfranchise legal voters, especially members of our military. Ambitious candidates may not always stick to principles, but judges must. As in Florida 2000, such an attack on the rule of law must be rejected.

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“Democrats sue Trump administration over elections executive order”

WaPo:

Several Democratic groups — including the Democratic National Committee — along with Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-New York) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) on Monday sued the Trump administration over President Donald Trump’s executive order that calls for changes to the election system, including a requirement that people provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote.

The lawsuit, which also lists the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Governors Association as plaintiffs, alleges that Trump’s executive order “seeks to impose radical changes on how Americans register to vote, cast a ballot, and participate in our democracy — all of which threaten to disenfranchise lawful voters and none of which is legal.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment….

The U.S. Constitution does not assign the president any specific power to regulate elections, specifically designating the power to regulate the “time, place and manner” of elections to states, with a proviso that Congress can step in and override those state laws. Election experts said that Trump, through his executive order, was claiming power he does not have and that lawsuits over the measure were all but guaranteed, The Washington Post previously reported.

In their lawsuit, the Democrats stated that the order would force Trump’s “own design preferences be implemented on congressionally mandated voter registration forms, notwithstanding Congress’s clear contrary commands.”

They also alleged that Trump’s order “forces numerous federal agencies to reveal sensitive personal information about millions of voters” to the U.S. DOGE Service, which is run by Trump ally and billionaire Elon Musk. DOGE — which stands for the Department of Government Efficiency — is listed as a defendant in the suit, along with other agencies including the Justice Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Departments of Defense, Interior, Veterans Affairs, and State.

The Democrats in the suit accused Trump and the administration of attempting to wield federal dollars “as a cudgel to force States to do the President’s bidding to the detriment of their voters, threatening to deprive them of crucial grants to fund elections and law enforcement.”…

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Michael Rosin: “In VRA1970 Congress Intended Election Day to Be a Floor, Not a Ceiling, for Receipt of Mail In Ballots”

The following is a guest post from Michael Rosin:

Rick Hasen recently criticized Trump’s March 25 Executive Order for attempting to end the counting of mail in ballots received after election day. He noted that “the EO would try to take a Fifth Circuit opinion nationwide,” an opinion he had described as “bonkers.” The opinion and the Trump EO are not simply bonkers. They are contrary to the relevant statute and to Congress’s intent when crafting the relevant statutory text.

The relevant statutory text appears in Sections 202(d) and (g) of the Voting Rights Act Amendments of 1970. Section 202(d) requires each State to provide an absentee presidential ballot to

all duly qualified residents … who may be absent from their election district … in such State on the day such election is held and who have applied therefor not later than seven days immediately prior to such election and have returned such ballots to the appropriate election official of such State not later than the time of closing of the polls in such State on the day of such election. (Emphasis added)

Critically, Section 202(g) provides

Nothing in this section shall prevent any State or political subdivision from adopting less restrictive voting practices than those that are prescribed herein. (Emphasis added)

A review of the relevant congressional hearings makes it clear that Congress intended Section 202(d) to specify a floor, not a ceiling, for receipt of mailed in absentee ballots.

Section 202 is the brainchild of Barry Goldwater who told a Senate subcommittee that he sought to “secure the right to vote for President and Vice President for every citizen of the United States without regard to lengthy residence requirements or where he may be on election day.” His testimony listed 40 states whose statutes “expressly permit absentee ballots of certain categories of their voters to be returned as late as the day of the election or even later.”

Washington and Alaska were two states whose statutes allowed mail in absentee ballots to be counted if received after election day.

In 1933 Washington enabled mail in absentee ballot for the physically disabled. This statute required absentee ballots to be received by election day. A 1955 Washington statute extended mail in ballots to those who could not vote in person because of absence or religious reasons. Hand carried ballots had to be delivered on or before election day. Mail in ballots had to be postmarked no later than that but would be counted if received by the sixth day after election day. This is the law today.

In 1960 the first Alaska legislature enacted a law allowing absentee ballots to be counted if postmarked no later than election day and received by the tenth day after the election. In 1963 the legislature trimmed that back to eight days, a setting it reaffirmed in 1968. It has since been reset back to ten days.

In 1970 Congress knew that at least two states counted mail in absentee ballots received after election day. Surely, if Congress had intended election day to be an absolute cutoff date for receipt of mail in ballots some member would have commented on these states needing to amend their election laws. No one did.

The Fifth Circuit got it wrong. Election day is the earliest cutoff date allowed for receipt of mail in ballots in presidential elections. Section 202(g) makes it clear that a state can opt for a later cutoff date and when enacted Congress knew that at least two states had so opted.

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The Yale Journal Has Just Published My New Feature Article: “The Stagnation, Retrogression, and Potential Pro-Voter Transformation of U.S. Election Law”

I am delighted that the Yale Law Journal has published my new Feature, The Stagnation, Retrogression, and Potential Pro-Voter Transformation of U.S. Election Law, 134 Yale L.J. 1673 (2025). I consider this among the most important work I’ve written. For those who may have read an earlier draft, this draft is substantially rewritten, especially Part III, which develops the pro-voter approach more deeply building on the work of Robert Dahl and international human rights law.

Here is the abstract:

This Feature describes the stagnation and retrogression of election-law doctrine, politics, and theory, explains why these trends have emerged, and explores how to transform election law in a pro-voter direction.

It begins by detailing election law’s stagnation. After a short period of strengthening voting rights, courts (and especially the Supreme Court), acting along ideological—and now partisan—lines, have pulled back on voter protections in most areas of election law. Courts have deprived other actors, including Congress, election administrators, and state courts, of the ability to protect voters’ rights more fully. Politically, pro-voter election reform has stalled in a polarized and gridlocked Congress, and the voting wars in the states mean that ease of access to the ballot depends in part on where in the United States one lives. Election-law scholarship also has stagnated, failing to generate meaningful theoretical advances about the field’s key purposes.

The Feature then considers the more recent retrogression of election-law doctrine, politics, and theory to a focus on the very basics of democracy: the requirement of fair vote counts, peaceful transitions of power, and voter access to reliable information. In the aftermath of the 2020 election, liberal and conservative judges rejected illegitimate attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s presidential-election victory. Yet courts’ ability to thwart attempted election subversion remains a question mark in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions in Trump v. Anderson and Trump v. United States. Congress came together at the end of 2022 to pass the Electoral Count Reform Act to deter future attempts to manipulate Electoral College rules in order to subvert election results, but future bipartisan action to prevent retrogression seems less likely. Further, because of the collapse of local journalism and the rise of cheap speech, voters are less able to obtain reliable information to make voting decisions consistent with their interests and preferences. Meanwhile, parties have become potential paths for subversion. Party-centered election-law theory, and the First Amendment marketplace-of-ideas thesis, have yet to incorporate these emerging challenges.

Finally, the Feature considers the potential to transform election-law doctrine, politics, and theory to favor voters. Election law alone is not up to the task of saving American democracy. But it can help counter stagnation and thwart retrogression, beginning by assuring continued free and fair elections and peaceful transitions of power. More broadly, a pro-voter approach to election law grounded in political equality engages legal doctrine, political action, and election-law scholarship to further five principles: all eligible voters should have the ability to register and vote easily in fair, periodic elections; each voter’s vote should carry equal weight; free speech, a free press, and free expression should assure voters reliable access to accurate information to enhance their capacity for reasoned voting; the winners of fair elections should be recognized and able to take office peacefully; and political power should be fairly distributed across groups in society, with particular protection for those groups who have faced historical discrimination in voting and representation.

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My New One at MSNBC Opinion: “Trump’s executive order on elections is a blatant power grab; It seems especially dangerous to take power away from the states when there are many threats to our democracy.”

I have written this piece for MSNBC Opinion. It begins:

By design, presidents have no power over the conduct of federal elections. President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on election administration aims to flip that, trying to take power from both an independent bipartisan federal agency and from the states, in an affront to principles of federalism. This dangerous power grab signals further democratic backsliding….

After the disputed 2000 election, Congress used those powers to pass the Help America Vote Act which, among other things, established the United States Election Assistance Commission: a federal agency that approves voting technologies eligible for federal subsidies and advises states and counties on best practices. The EAC is described as “independent” in the congressional statute; it has four members, no more than two from any single political party, and it takes three commissioners to approve anything. The design is meant to be bipartisan and independent of political branches, insulating the agency from some politics.

Trump’s executive order tries to turn that around. It purports to direct the EAC to do certain things such as require documentary proof of citizenship on a form that the federal government provides to allow people to register to vote anywhere in the United States for federal elections.

Requiring documentary proof of citizenship to be allowed to register to vote is currently under debate both in Congress and in the states (Arizona has such rules, though they are tied up in litigation). Whether a documentary requirement is a good idea — and I think it is a bad idea, because it could disenfranchise millions of eligible voters and prevent only a tiny amount of fraud — the issue is up to the states and Congress, not to the president.

It’s dangerous to put such power in the hands of the president, who could attempt to manipulate election rules to favor his party and his self-interest. And it seems especially dangerous to take power away from the states when there are many threats to our democracy….

Republicans seemed to understand this point in the past. When Joe Biden was president, he issued his own executive order on voting. The order was a mild one, asking federal agencies to promote voter access and voter registration. Yet Republicans were outraged. Rep. Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, the chair of the House Administration Committee, issued a press release calling the order “another attempt by the Biden Administration to tilt the scales ahead of 2024.” Then-West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner dismissed the order as “federal overreach.”

If that order was an overreach, what Trump is trying to do now risks dislocating his proverbial arm from its socket. Not only does the executive order try to direct the independent EAC to take certain action, it also directs the attorney general to sue states that accept and count ballots that are mailed before Election Day but arrive after that day. And it purports to give the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Government Efficiency the power to subpoena voter registration records from states in a silly hunt for elusive voter fraud. 

In the first Trump administration, an advisory commission on “election integrity” chaired by Vice President Mike Pence tried to go after similar voting records. Pence and the commission got pushback from both Democrats and Republicans. One GOP official who refused to hand over such records was Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann. “As all of you may remember, I fought in federal court to protect Mississippi voters’ rights for their privacy and won,” he said in 2017. “In the event I were to receive correspondence from the commission requesting (what the other state received) … My reply would be: They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from.”

 I hope Republican officials have a similar response this time around — minus the reference to the “Gulf of Mexico” of course….

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President Trump Issues Dangerous Executive Order That Would Shift to Presidency More Power Over the Conduct of Federal Elections and Potentially Disenfranchise Millions of Voters

I am still making my way through this new Trump executive order on election administration (helpfully posted by Chris Geidner). There is a lot in here, but let me make four initial points as I still digest this.

  1. An executive power grab.This executive order, if it could survive the inevitable judicial challenge, would severely shift power over federal elections into the hands of the Presidency. We’ve talked many times in the past about how limited the President’s power is over federal elections: power is mostly in the hands of states (and substate units like counties), with Congress setting certain rules for the conduct of elections (such as through the National Voter Registration Act of 1993). After the disputed 2000 election, when Congress passed HAVA, it set up an independent bipartisan agency called the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to do certain things like certifying voting equipment and doling out funds to states for voting tech upgrades. Trump’s order in a number of places purports to direct the EAC to do certain things. He doesn’t have that power, unless the courts accept some aggressive version of the unitary executive theory that’s been percolating in other cases. If a President can control the EAC, it could direct the agency to do all kinds of things that could benefit the President’s party. It would flout the bipartisan, balanced approached of the EAC.
  2. Disenfranchising millions of voters. Right now, under the NVRA, any eligible voter can register to vote in any state using a “federal form,” sometimes called a postcard form, that requires the information Congress deemed sufficient to establish eligibility, including citizenship, for voting. The EO would direct the EAC to change the federal form to require documentary proof of citizenship for voting. This would prevent only a tiny amount of noncitizen voter registration but stop millions of eligible voters, who do not have easy access to documents such as passports from registering to vote. Just look at the studies that have been done about the effects of the SAVE Act, currently being considered by Congress, that would do similar things. The aim here is voter suppression pure and simple. Even if the EAC has the power to change this form, the question is whether the President would have the power to order it.
  3. Ending the receipt of ballot after election day. The EO would direct the DOJ to take action such as suing states like California to prevent them from accepting ballots received after election day in federal elections. It would also prevent the EAC from giving states that accept later arriving (but timely mailed) ballots any federal money for voting upgrades. It is based upon a bonkers theory about how to understand federal law involving a uniform election day (a bonkers theory that unfortunately has been accepted by the Fifth Circuit). The EO would try to take the Fifth Circuit opinion nationwide, and have the President order the EAC to do it.
  4. The order would let DOGE/DHS subpoena voting records, in an effort to prove supposed voter registration fraud. DOGE certainly has no power to kick people off rolls. But they could make a lot of noise trying to claim they’ve found fraud when they find that voter registration rolls are not being kept up to date. There was tremendous pushback during the first Trump administration when the Pence-Kobach commission tried to get such records, including pushback from conservative Republican election administrators in the states. We will see what happens this time. (I write about this in my 2020 book, Election Meltdown.)
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Election Litigation Hits Record, Increasing More than 14 Percent in the 2024 Election Cycle Compared to the 2020 Election Cycle, Despite End of Covid Pandemic

As described in my forthcoming Essay, the results of updating my data on the rates of election litigation to include 2023 and 2024:

The voting wars also brought a significant increase in litigation. The rate of election administration has tripled since Bush v. Gore compared to before it and remains consistently high, including through the 2023-2024 election season.

Figure 1. Sample of Election Litigation Cases Per Year, Before and After Bush v. Gore

The 2020 election, conducted in the midst of the Covid pandemic and with Donald Trump (unsuccessfully) challenging his presidential loss to Joe Biden in multiple lawsuits, led to a record amount of election litigation in a single year (2020), but the 2023-2024 election season overall saw a 14.3 percent increase over the 2019-2020 election season overall: There were 661 cases in the 2019 and 2020 election years in my sample (which does not cover all election litigation brought in those years), compared to 756 cases in the 2023 and 2024 election years. See Figure 2. It is remarkable that election litigation is even higher in the election after the pandemic than in the period before. My suspicion is that ongoing conflict surrounding the 2020 election created political incentives for Trump and his allies to file suits alleging the potential for fraud an irregularities in connection to the 2024 elections. 

Figure 2. Sample of Election Litigation Cases Per Two-Year Presidential Election Cycle, 2000 Election Season-2024 Election Season


Source: Hasen Election Litigation Database, 1996-2024, https://electionlawblog.org/wp-content/uploads/Hasen-Election-Litigation-1996-2024.xlsx

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“‘Election integrity’ still top of mind for some House Republicans”

Roll Call:

After a cycle that delivered them full power in Washington, Republicans are still pushing to change federal election law — and some Democrats are sounding a renewed alarm.

A proposal that aims to bar noncitizens from voting could disenfranchise millions of American women and serve a larger strategy, Rep. Delia Ramirez argued Tuesday.

“The SAVE act is not an election security bill,” said the Illinois Democrat at a House Administration Committee member day hearing. “It’s part of an authoritarian playbook, including the funding freeze and the persecution of diverse cities, and it takes courage and moral clarity to stand against it.”

The legislation — known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act — was marked up by the committee last Congress and passed the House, before fizzling in the Senate. It would require American voters to provide proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections.

It is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections, and Democrats have lambasted the bill’s limitations on acceptable forms of identification, which they say would make it difficult for married women who have changed their last names to register to vote.

But House Republicans have identified the proposal as a priority this Congress, making it one of 12 bills they teed up for faster consideration as they adopted their new rules package in January.  

In Ramirez’s eyes, it amounts to an attempt “to suppress the votes of anyone who threatens an extremist, unconstitutional, authoritarian agenda,” she told the panel. “And that includes women.”

House Administration Chair Bryan Steil pushed back, describing it as “common sense” that voters should have to prove their citizenship. …

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9th Circuit affirms limits on AZ proof of citizenship laws

Justin here. A 9th Circuit panel is out with 156 pages’ worth of opinion in Mi Familia Vota v. Fontes, the latest in the battles revolving around Arizona’s laws requiring documentary proof of citizenship to vote.  There’s (obviously) quite a lot going on in an opinion this size, but it’s a pretty clear win for plaintiffs across the board, affirming most of the trial court’s May 2024 decision.  To distill:

  • Voters using the federal voter registration form have to be registered for federal elections when they swear to their citizenship even without additional documentary proof (that’s Arizona v. Inter-Tribal Council of Arizona).  The panel here held that’s true for voters voting by mail and voters voting for President as well.
  • Voters using the state voter registration form have a legal right, subject for the moment to a SCOTUS stay, to be registered for federal elections when they swear to their citizenship even without additional documentary proof (that’s a consent decree in LULAC v. Reagan, which today’s panel held valid – but on this point the decision is still subject to a SCOTUS stay).  If voters (using the state or federal forms) submit documentary proof or have their citizenship confirmed through a check of DMV systems, those voters have to be registered for state elections too.
  • Voters using the state voter registration form have to be registered for federal elections when they swear to their residency even without additional documentary proof.
  • Naturalized citizens can’t be singled out (distinct from natural-born citizens) for citizenship checks using the SAVE database, because such a screen would not be uniform.
  • Arizona can’t conduct systematic list maintenance to remove records of alleged noncitizens within the NVRA’s “pencils-down period” 90 days before an election (but can conduct such maintenance outside of the 90-day period).
  • Voters who provide documentary proof of their citizenship can’t be disenfranchised if they don’t check a box on the state form affirming their citizenship (this is due to the Civil Rights Act’s materiality provision, and full disclosure – I submitted an amicus brief on this point)
  • Voters can’t be disenfranchised based on their birthplace or their failure to list a birthplace (also under the materiality provision, with the same amicus brief caveat)

And the court remanded for the district court to reconsider the issue of whether the proof-of-citizenship laws were passed with discriminatory intent.

UPDATE: Foolishly forgot the obvious tie-in: the opinion should make for an even more interesting discussion at Rick’s March 4 SDP conversation w/ Adrian Fontes, Walter Olson, and Nina Perales…

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“Georgia Republicans advance a plan to leave a bipartisan voter data group, despite warnings”

AP:

For years, Republicans echoing President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was ridden with voter fraud have pushed for states to leave a bipartisan group that lets officials share data to keep voter rolls accurate. Nine have, but none since October 2023.

A new bill advanced Tuesday by House Republicans in a Georgia committee could make Georgia the 10th.

Twenty-four states and Washington, D.C., are currently members of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which Republicans have questioned over its funding and motives. Officials use state and federal data from the group to identify and remove from voting rolls people who have died, moved to other states or registered somewhere else.

Rep. Martin Momtahan, the Dallas Republican who introduced the bill, said states leaving the group, including many that border Georgia, have made the data and its network “totally ineffective.”

But Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has credited the system for helping him maintain accurate voter data, which officials say provides more robust information than states can gather on their own.

“ERIC is, in my opinion, the most secure and efficient mass voter list maintenance tool that is available,” Blake Evans, who works for Raffensperger and is the chair of ERIC’s executive committee, said during a Tuesday hearing on the bill.

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“Wisconsin Supreme Court dismisses Racine voting van lawsuit”

WPR:

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority has dismissed a lawsuit claiming a Racine mobile-voting van is illegal, ruling that the Republican man who filed the challenge didn’t have legal standing to do so.

The battle over the voting van dates back to 2022, when Racine City Clerk Tara McMenamin said it was a way to make voting accessible to as many people as possible during a primary. The van was purchased using money from a grant from the Center for Tech and Civic Life nonprofit, which is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife.

Former Racine County Republican Party Chair Kenneth Brown, who was represented by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission aimed at prohibiting McMenamin from using the voting van in future elections.

The elections commission dismissed Brown’s complaint, but a Racine County judge ruled in January 2024 that the voting van was illegal. The case was appealed, and the Supreme Court agreed to take it up directly, bypassing a state appeals court.

Writing for the liberal majority, Justice Jill Karofsky said Brown didn’t have legal standing to file his lawsuit because he didn’t show the elections commission’s dismissal of his complaint caused him any injury.

“Brown contends he was injured by WEC’s decision because WEC found no probable cause that the Racine City Clerk violated the law and therefore declined to take corrective action,” Karofsky said. “But Brown does not allege that WEC’s decision personally affected him.”

In her dissent, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley accused liberal justices of misinterpreting state law on legal standing and leaving Wisconsin “without a decision on fundamental issues of election law enacted to protect their sacred right to vote.”…

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