The Right is Doubling Down on Election Litigation, But Isn’t Winning

Thus far in the 2023-2024 election cycle, the Republican Party and its affiliates have filed, or are involved in, 72 voting rights lawsuits, according to new analysis by Democracy Docket. 

That 72 number accounts for a majority of the 99 anti-voting lawsuits filed this election cycle, according to Democracy Docket’s litigation tracker. That number is a steep rise from just two years ago, when the GOP and affiliates were involved in 41 lawsuits in September of 2022, just two months shy of the midterm elections. Among the 72 voting rights lawsuits that the GOP is involved in, 25 of them are focused on election administration and 15 challenge voter registration procedures and maintenance. The Republican National Committee (RNC), meanwhile, has filed six lawsuits targeting voting by mail and six lawsuits challenging voter registration. 

With less than 60 days until the 2024 presidential election, this analysis provides key insight into how the GOP has ramped up their voting rights and election-related litigation efforts this election cycle. According to Democracy Docket’s litigation tracker, the GOP — meaning Republican committees like the RNC, state and local parties and GOP officials and candidates — has filed 51 lawsuits this cycle, and is involved in 72 lawsuits altogether. Within that number, the RNC filed 14 lawsuits this cycle, and is involved in 31 more lawsuits.

 The rise in litigation attacking voting rights and litigation from Republicans tracks with the GOP’s latest platform, unveiled right before the Republican National Convention in early July. The GOP’s 2024 platform outlined how the party plans to disenfranchise voters ahead of the November election. “Republicans will offer a clear, precise, and USA oriented plan to stop the Radical Left Democrats’ Weaponization of Government and its Assault on American Liberty,” the GOP’s new platform said. “We will restore Government of, by, and for the People, ensuring Accountability, protecting Individual Liberties, and fixing our once very corrupt Elections.”

The GOP’s all-out legal assault on voting rights this election cycle isn’t all doom and gloom. Democracy Docket’s analysis of the consequential orders this election cycle reveal that the right-wing effort to disenfranchise voters is, so far, largely unsuccessful. In all, there have been 290 consequential voting rights orders in the ’23-’24 cycle. Of those orders, 184 were voting rights victories, 76 were losses and 30 were neutral decisions. Democracy Docket considers a consequential order as any order that had an impact on voters and/or changed the course of a lawsuit — either an interim order issued during an ongoing lawsuit that impacted voters or final decisions that ended litigation or fully resolved certain claims within a case. 

Meanwhile, Democrats — meaning the Democratic National Committee (DNC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), state and local parties and Democratic officials and candidates — have filed, or are involved in, 21 lawsuits so far this election cycle. Within that number, the DNC filed three lawsuits and is involved in 10 other lawsuits.