Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

GOP vows to spend as much as Democrats on voting rights lawsuits

RNC Chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel

The Republican National Committee, headed by chairwoman Ronna Romney McDaniel, announced Thursday that it was launching an effort to counter voting rights lawsuits filed in key swing states by Democrats.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The presidential race, the battle for dominance in Congress and contests for control of statehouses across the country will ultimately be determined in the ballot box. But a battle joined this week in another arena, the courtroom, could have a major impact on those results.

The Republican National Committee and President Trump's re-election campaign announced Thursday they will be spending at least $10 million attempting to repel a series of voting rights lawsuits the Democrats have filed in battleground states from coast to coast.

The vow suggests a pitched dollar-for-dollar legal battle that could shape the turnout, and thereby the outcome, in dozens of contests. A month ago the Democrats said they would spend at least $10 million pressing their allegations that all manner of election laws in purple states are unconstitutional or violate federal law.


The Democrats are "trying to rig the game with frivolous lawsuits," Ronna Romney McDaniel, chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, declared in announcing the counterattack. "These actions are dangerous, and we will not stand idly by while Democrats try to sue their way to victory in 2020."

The actions she is referring to are the nearly two dozen lawsuits filed in a dozen states by lawyers representing the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, state Democratic parties and other party-affiliated groups.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

An additional 12 to 16 lawsuits are expected to be filed by Democrats before Election Day, spending tens of millions of dollars more.

The most recent suit, filed last month in Minnesota, seeks to overturn a limit on the amount of help one person may give to others in casting their ballots. In 2016 Trump came within 2 percentage points of becoming the first GOP nominee to win the state since 1972.

Minnesota is also one of several states where Democrats have sued to overturn laws that dictate the order of candidates on the ballot. In Minnesota, the candidates are listed in reverse order of the previous election, which would place GOP names first on this November's ballot.

Democrats have already earned a handful of wins including in Florida, the nation's most populous purple state, where the federal court struck down the state law giving preferential ballot placement to the same party as the governor, who has been a Republican since 1999.

Another victory came in South Carolina where officials agreed last month to drop a requirement that complete Social Security numbers be provided on voter registration forms.

Several lawsuits have targeted voter ID laws that they argue discriminate against students and minority voters.

The first legal action by the GOP came this week in Michigan, where the RNC and the state Republican Party have been allowed to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Democratic-aligned super PAC Priorities USA. The suit challenges state laws that prohibit political organizers from helping voters submit absentee ballot applications and bar groups from hiring people to transport voters to the polls.

Read More

"Vote" pin.
Getty Images, William Whitehurst

Most Americans’ Votes Don’t Matter in Deciding Elections

New research from the Unite America Institute confirms a stark reality: Most ballots cast in American elections don’t matter in deciding the outcome. In 2024, just 14% of eligible voters cast a meaningful vote that actually influenced the outcome of a U.S. House race. For state house races, on average across all 50 states, just 13% cast meaningful votes.

“Too many Americans have no real say in their democracy,” said Unite America Executive Director Nick Troiano. “Every voter deserves a ballot that not only counts, but that truly matters. We should demand better than ‘elections in name only.’”

Keep ReadingShow less
Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump
text
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

Why America’s Elections Will Never Be the Same After Trump

Donald Trump wasted no time when he returned to the White House. Within hours, he signed over 200 executive orders, rapidly dismantling years of policy and consolidating control with the stroke of a pen. But the frenzy of reversals was only the surface. Beneath it lies a deeper, more troubling transformation: presidential elections have become all-or-nothing battles, where the victor rewrites the rules of government and the loser’s agenda is annihilated.

And it’s not just the orders. Trump’s second term has unleashed sweeping deportations, the purging of federal agencies, and a direct assault on the professional civil service. With the revival of Schedule F, regulatory rollbacks, and the targeting of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs, the federal bureaucracy is being rigged to serve partisan ideology. Backing him is a GOP-led Congress, too cowardly—or too complicit—to assert its constitutional authority.

Keep ReadingShow less
One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

A roll of "voted" stickers.

Pexels, Element5 Digital

One Lesson from the Elections: Looking At Universal Voting

The analysis and parsing of learned lessons from the 2024 elections will continue for a long time. What did the campaigns do right and wrong? What policies will emerge from the new arrangements of power? What do the parties need to do for the future?

An equally important question is what lessons are there for our democratic structures and processes. One positive lesson is that voting itself was almost universally smooth and effective; we should applaud the election officials who made that happen. But, many elements of the 2024 elections are deeply challenging, from the increasingly outsized role of billionaires in the process to the onslaught of misinformation and disinformation.

Keep ReadingShow less
MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

A check mark and hands.

Photo by Allison Saeng on Unsplash. Unsplash+ License obtained by the author.

MERGER: The Organization that Brought Ranked Choice Voting and Ended SuperPACs in Maine Joins California’s Nonpartisan Primary Pioneers

Originally published by Independent Voter News.

Today, I am proud to share an exciting milestone in my journey as an advocate for democracy and electoral reform.

Keep ReadingShow less