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Joe Biden’s presidential campaign says it is amassing an unprecedented army of lawyers for an expected legal fight over whether ballots will count in the weeks after the election. The effort will involve several other top Democratic voting and electoral law attorneys, as well as Eric Holder, the former attorney general.
Americans are unlikely to meet the winner of the presidential election on election night, largely due to an expected spike in mail-in votes amid the coronavirus. Key states in transition, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin prohibit election officials from starting to process mail-in ballots until Election Day, meaning there will be a wait until the final results are counted.
This would not be the first time the United States has seen a protracted legal battle after Election Day. During the 2000 presidential election, Americans became obsessed with “hanging chads” and whether punch card ballots were punched enough to count.
Chads are long gone, but this year the Biden and Trump campaigns are expected to aggressively challenge the technicalities states use to verify ballots, issues like postmarks (some states require ballots to be postmarked by the day of elections to count, but marks may be illegible or missing) and if a voter’s signature matches the one on file with election officials.
For months, Trump has been casting doubt on the legitimacy of the elections, falsely saying that they will be rigged and stolen. Election experts are deeply troubled by the chaos of a scenario in which Trump leads the vote in person on election night, claiming victory, only to see his lead evaporate as more mail-in votes are counted. Election law experts are already warning that the 19th century law that would guide how a vote is decided in a contested electoral college is incredibly vague and could lead to chaos, as well as more high-stakes legal fights in court.
“If it’s close and the courts engage in potentially decisive issues, Bush v Gore will seem like a walk in the park compared to what [this] It would be like, ”said Richard Pildes, a New York University Law School professor who studies electoral law. “Social media and cable television will inflame any problem in the process with a sinister twist, no matter how legitimate or normal those problems are; many on both sides are already prepared to believe that elections are being stolen if their candidate loses. “
Biden’s campaign says his massive voter protection effort, which he described as the largest in modern campaign history, will be led by Dana Remus, the campaign’s general counsel, and Bob Bauer, who served as counsel. general in the two presidential campaigns of Barack Obama. The effort has thousands of attorneys, the campaign said, including several who work in a special litigation unit under Donald Verrilli Jr and Walter Dellinger, two former US attorneys general. The incumbent will act as a link between the campaign and the parties interested in voting rights.
“We can and will be able to hold free and fair elections in November, and we are implementing an unprecedented voter protection effort with thousands of attorneys and volunteers across the country to ensure that voting runs smoothly,” Remus said in a statement. Details of the post-election operation of Biden’s campaign were first reported by the New York Times.
The program will respond aggressively to reports of voter suppression and will have robust programs to counter both misinformation and misinformation. He will also work closely with the Perkins Coie law firm, led by Marc Elias, a prominent Democratic voting rights attorney, who has led a number of lawsuits across the country that challenge voting issues such as extending the deadlines for receipt of ballots, requiring election officials to prepay postage, allowing third parties to collect ballots by mail, and requiring officials to give voters the opportunity to correct any defects with their mail ballot before it is rejected.
In a closed election, the initial round of litigation would likely focus on the unique procedures voters must go through to ensure their ballots are counted, Pildes said. Lawsuits could also focus on discrepancies between different counties in a state about how ballots were counted. The worst case scenario, he added, would be if states do not resolve electoral disputes by the time the electoral college meets in December and state legislatures and parties are divided over which voter lists to use.
“The courts have come to be seen in much more partisan terms. I am concerned if we got to that point where half the country would not accept the result as legitimate, “Pildes said.
The Trump campaign did not provide details on its post-Election Day plans, but pointed to a list of voting cases it is already involved in. The Republican National Committee has pledged to spend $ 20 million on lawsuits for the right to vote. The Trump campaign also has active trials across the country to block a variety of voting practices, including allowing third parties to collect ballots and preventing election officials from counting ballots that arrive after Election Day, and using the ballots. ballot boxes, among other issues.
