Even before the results of the presidential election are tabulated, partisan actors are busy behind the scenes filing lawsuits seeking clarification about existing election rules and, in the most extreme cases, taking aim at the processes governing which ballots are counted and even how ballots are counted.
Much of this barrage of lawsuits is coming from groups aligned with former President Donald Trump, including the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is already active in more than 130 cases — though critics say many of these lawsuits are based on “unreliable data” and “shoddy methodology.”
One RNC-litigated case has challenged the validity of ballots that are mailed before Election Day but arrive with election officials in the days after, something that is currently allowed in 18 states plus Washington, D.C. Others have challenged the validity of ballots from overseas voters who are U.S. citizens. While still others have charged that election officials haven’t taken aggressive enough actions to ensure that noncitizens do not illegally cast votes in this year’s election.
For the past decade, both the RNC and its Democratic Party counterpart — the Democratic National Committee (DNC) — have been allowed to collect large contributions from donors earmarked to support the parties’ election-related legal fights. But this year, the RNC appears to be more aggressively courting donors to support its legal battles.
A new Issue One review of federal campaign finance data shows the RNC’s legal fund has raised nearly four times as much money as the DNC’s legal fund — $54 million versus $14 million through Oct. 16, the date of the most recent campaign finance reports.
n fact, the RNC legal fund sums are up $37 million (or more than 200%) compared to 2020, and up about $51 million (or about 1,700%) compared to 2016. And while the DNC’s legal fund sums are up about $12 million (or about 600%) from 2016, they are actually roughly the same as 2020.
Who’s underwriting these efforts? Issue One’s analysis shows that ultra-wealthy Americans, including at least 50 billionaires, are among those helping fund the parties’ legal battles, including more than three dozen billionaires who have given to the RNC’s efforts and a dozen who have supported the DNC’s….