As early voting begins in several states, many Americans no doubt recall how, four years ago, irregularities in voting procedures across the country raised legitimate questions about the integrity of our elections. While there undoubtedly still remain some serious concerns, developments since 2020 should give voters ample reason to be more confident that ballots will be counted fairly and accurately in 2024.
In total, the Republican National Committee (RNC) reports having engaged in 120 election integrity-related lawsuits across 26 states in the 2024 cycle. In just the past few weeks, the RNC has reported a slate of noteworthy developments on this front.
In Georgia, the RNC was just granted intervention to defend Georgia State Election Board regulations providing that local boards of elections may conduct a “reasonable inquiry” into the truth and accuracy of election results before certification. Essentially, what this means is that the RNC is now allowed to participate in inquiries into the accuracy of election results before those results are certified.
In Michigan, the RNC has collected the location of ballot drop boxes for every key county, as well as details on what surveillance procedures are in place to ensure that bad actors do not have access to them. The RNC has also filed a pair of lawsuits against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. The first asks a judge to declare that mail-in ballots can be rejected if the voter’s signature is not verified by an election official. The second seeks to force Benson’s office to enforce a state law requiring serial numbers on absentee ballots to match the serial number on ballot envelopes.
Just to the north in Minnesota, the RNC has forced Secretary of State Steve Simon to inactivate the registrations of more than 1,000 noncitizens who are ineligible to vote. This action came following an investigation from the RNC and the Minnesota Republican Party which discovered “that a non-citizen had received a primary ballot in Minnesota, without registering to vote.” The RNC also successfully pressured Simon’s office to revise the state’s automatic voter registration process to better guard against noncitizens gaining access to the ballot box.
Across the St. Croix River in Wisconsin, the RNC has launched a slew of efforts to ensure election integrity, including suing the City of Racine for failure to hire a sufficient number of Republican poll workers, defending the rights of election observers to the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC), and pressing the WEC on preventing ballot harvesting and the abuse of drop boxes.
In Pennsylvania, the RNC recently led a successful lawsuit securing a monumental victory when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that voters must date their mail-in ballot. The threat of another lawsuit forced Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, to ban ballot drop boxes altogether. The RNC has also requested information from county election offices on drop box surveillance plans as well as access to review all drop box surveillance footage.
In North Carolina, the RNC filed a lawsuit against the North Carolina State Elections Board for allowing digital student identifications as an acceptable form of voter ID. Student IDs notably do not distinguish between citizens and noncitizens, and therefore present a major threat to election security.
In Nevada, the RNC, Trump Campaign, and Nevada Republican Party filed a lawsuit against Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar challenging the presence of noncitizens on voter rolls. The lawsuit identifies at least 6,360 noncitizens who are registered to vote in Nevada and asks a judge to order state election officials to remove them and any other ineligible voters from the rolls.
In addition to RNC initiatives, state Republican parties and officials are also taking action to defend the sanctity of the ballot box. In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration recently removed more than 6,000 non-citizens from the state’s voter rolls. Georgia has strengthened its Voter ID requirements, as well as changing the law to allow officials to more quickly and effectively update voter rolls to remove the deceased and noncitizens.
North Carolina also recently passed a law requiring a photo ID for in-person voting, a positive development in what looks to be an important swing state this year. Republican Pennsylvania Senate candidate Dave McCormick has sued Montgomery County for illegally sending out mail ballots before voting machines have been tested for accuracy. And in Georgia, the DeKalb County GOP has filed a lawsuit challenging the election board’s resolution to refuse to hear voter challenges.
Moreover, advocacy groups – including AMAC Action – have stepped up their game in empowering citizens to take charge in securing their own elections and demanding change from elected officials. In addition to helping connect members with tools like the Election Assistance Commission’s user-friendly Poll Worker Recruitment Lookup to become poll workers, AMAC members also pressed Congress and state-level officials to pass badly-needed election integrity legislation like the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act.
The one silver lining from all the chaos of 2020 may be that it finally woke up many legislators to the vulnerabilities in America’s elections system. While things will surely not be perfect this time around, voters nonetheless have reason for optimism – and reason to make their voice heard, whether early, by mail, or in-person on Election Day.
