Trump supporters and the Republican Party, both, will be fine if these plans result in Trump stealing the election.
In critical battlegrounds, Maga allies mounting lawsuits to ‘lay the groundwork’ to challenge election if he loses
www.theguardian.com
Key rightwing legal groups with ties to
Donald Trump and his allies have banked millions of dollars from conservative foundations and filed multiple lawsuits challenging voting rules in swing states that are already sowing distrust of election processes and pushing dangerous conspiracy theories, election watchdogs warn.
They also warn that the groups appear to be laying the groundwork for a concerted challenge to the result of November’s presidential election if Trump is defeated by Kamala Harris.
America First Legal and the Public Interest Legal Foundation together reaped more than $30m dollars from the Wisconsin based Bradley Impact Fund and its parent, the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, from 2017 through 2022, according to a financial analysis from the Center for Media and Democracy.
Lawsuits filed by the groups, which overlap with some Republican party litigation, focus in part on conspiratorial charges of non-citizen voting, which is exceedingly rare, and bloated voter rolls, and pre-sage more lawsuits by Trump if his presidential run fails, in an echo of his 2020 election-denialist claims, say watchdogs.
“It seems clear that the lawsuits these rightwing groups are bringing attacking the integrity of the voting rolls, methods of voting and how the ballots are counted are an attempt to make it harder for people to vote, disenfranchise and intimidate legitimate voters, and create confusion,” said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission.
Noble added: “At the same time, they also appear to be laying the groundwork to challenge the results of the election after November 5, if Trump loses.”
In another troubling sign, Noble cited the dearth of data to support non-citizen voting claims to reject the “rationale for the non-citizen voting lawsuits”.
A study from the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, in the wake of false claims by Trump of widespread non-citizen voting in the 2016 presidential election, revealed only 30 incidents among 23.5m ballots cast.
Other voting watchdogs voice strong warnings about the Maga-allied legal blitzes.
“We’re seeing much more litigation from Trump allies this election cycle, targeted at swing states, which appears to lack evidence,” warned David Becker, who runs the nonpartisan non-profit Center for Election Innovation and Research.
Becker noted, critically, that the lawsuit plaintiffs often knew about the challenged policies, including issues relating to voting lists, non-citizen voting, mail voting and military voting, years or even decades earlier, and seem to have intentionally waited until the last minute to file their lawsuits. “While they’re very unlikely to get the relief they’re seeking, this could later fuel claims that the election was stolen,” he said.
www.msnbc.com
