Election Day shadowed by threats of legal challenges
Candidates and parties have enlisted lawyers with ties to Democratic and Republican administrations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Even before Election Day, the 2020 race was the most litigated in memory. President Donald Trump is promising more to come.
The candidates and parties have enlisted prominent lawyers with ties to Democratic and Republican administrations should that litigation take on a new urgency. A narrow margin in a battleground state could become the difference between another four years for Trump or a Joe Biden administration.
Since the 2000 presidential election, which was ultimately decided by the Supreme Court, both parties have marshaled legal teams to prepare for the unlikely event that voting doesn’t settle the contest. This year, there is a near presumption that legal fights will ensue and that only a definitive outcome is likely to forestall them.
A Pennsylvania case at the Supreme Court pits Donald Verrilli, who was President Barack Obama’s top Supreme Court lawyer, against John Gore, a onetime high-ranking Trump Justice Department official.
Trump said this weekend he was headed to court to prevent Pennsylvania from counting mailed ballots that are received in the three days after the election. An extension was ordered by Pennsylvania’s top court. The Supreme Court left that order in place in response to a Republican effort to block it.
Trump is unhappy over the decision, even though Pennsylvania will keep those ballots separate from the rest in case of renewed court interest. He spent much of his final days of campaigning railing against the decision, often employing inaccurate characterizations that it would allow “rampant and unchecked cheating” as well as undermine the law and even foster street violence. No evidence supports that view.
On Sunday, Trump said that as soon as the polls close, “We’re going in with our lawyers.”
Early voting numbers have already eclipsed 2016 figures. And Election Day lawsuits have started early. Republicans and a local voter accused county officials in suburban Philadelphia of improperly sorting deficient ballots before Tuesday to give voters a chance to fix problems. The suit comes after county Republicans noted a pile of ballots set aside, during a walk-through of operations at the county courthouse in Norristown on Sunday.
There’s already been roughly 300 lawsuits over the election filed in dozens of states across the country, many involving changes to normal procedures because of the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed more than 230,000 people in the U.S. and sickened more than 9 million. Legal battles ensued over signature matches, drop boxes and secrecy envelopes.
Like Pennsylvania, North Carolina also has seen a court fight between Democrats who support extending the deadline for absentee ballots and Republicans who oppose it. The six-day extension was approved by a state court.
In Minnesota, late-arriving ballots also will be segregated from the rest of the vote because of ongoing legal proceedings, under a federal appeals court order.
