Former president Donald Trump and his allies have filed hundreds of lawsuits, with more to come, seeking to tighten voting rules or disqualify voters. Security experts have gamed out how to restore order quickly if unrest at polling locations shuts down voting for hours on end. Election administrators in several states have purchased panic buttons for their poll workers to use in the event of violence.
Despite all of that, Vice President Kamala Harris’s legal team claims they are sure that this year’s presidential election will be secure, fair and free — if not entirely without problems.
Over multiple interviews with the campaign’s top legal advisers, the Harris campaign projected confidence that the 2024 presidential election will ultimately succeed in delivering a clear winner, with eligible voters able to cast ballots, the ballots being properly tabulated and Congress certifying the electoral college count on Jan. 6, 2025.
“There’s not an awful lot that does keep me up at night,” said Eric Holder, the former U.S. attorney general, who helped oversee the vetting process for Harris’s running mate. “We found that the 2020 election was the most secure election in American history. And I think there’s a reason to expect that this will be the same.”…
The real test, they said, will come after Nov. 5, when, if Harris wins, they say Trump and his allieswill launch more litigation, sow mistrust and perhaps even plant the seeds for civil unrest.
“No matter what level of the election, whether presidential or Senate or House, Republicans are going to say, if they lose, that they were cheated,” said Marc Elias, a longtime Democratic election attorney who is the campaign’s lead recount lawyer. “Donald Trump will never concede.”
“Against that,” he added, “I will tell you we have been preparing for every eventuality.”
Elias said the Harris legal team has prepared for lawsuits seeking to halt voting on Election Day, block the counting of provisional ballots or discard mail ballots arriving after Nov. 5, among other scenarios.
Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt did not directly answer a request for a response to the Harris team’s claims. “President Trump has been very clear,” she said in an email. “We must have free and fair elections.”