“Republicans claim a ‘coup’ attempt to delegitimize Kamala Harris’s candidacy”

The Guardian:

Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House, suggested that Republicans would file lawsuits to try and prevent Biden from being removed from the ballot. The Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, posted on X: “We have been preparing for this moment for months.”

The organization has been circulating a memo suggesting a strategy for challenging any effort by Democrats to replace Biden on the ballot.

Such litigation would likely be little more than a public relations effort – legal experts have said there is no barrier to another candidate appearing as the Democratic nominee on state ballots because Biden was never formally nominated. Whoever is eventually nominated at the Democratic national convention in August will be able to meet state deadlines for ballot access.

“Assuming the Democratic party formally chooses a presidential nominee before or during the Democratic national convention, there are no legal barriers to that candidate being on the general election ballot nationwide,” Adav Noti, the executive director of the Campaign Legal Center, a non-profit that works on election issues, said in a statement. . . . 

“It’s an old strategy to claim that the Democratic nominee is illegitimate,” said Richard Hasen, an election law scholar at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“From Obama’s birth certificate to Hillary Clinton’s emails to Joe Biden and Ukraine, and attacks on the fairness of the 2020 election, there has been a long road of seeking to cast Democratic candidates as somehow not entitled to hold office. Lawsuits saying the Democratic party process for replacing Biden is illegitimate would help feed into that narrative.”

Related:  

AP:  “Ballot access experts say Republican threats to sue over Biden’s withdrawal are ‘ridiculous’ and ‘frivolous’

PolitiFact: “Is replacing Joe Biden on the ticket ‘unlawful’? Election law experts say it’s not” 

NYT: “Trump Tries to Flip the Script on Democracy After Biden’s Withdrawal

Secure Democracy:  “Bipartisan Group of Top Election Officials Agree On Ballot Qualification Process Following Biden Announcement

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