Dem
51
Ties
4
GOP
45
Donald Trump and his allies are already preparing lawsuits to be filed in states and districts that Republicans lose on the grounds that non-citizens voted in those elections. Do not expect lawsuits in states and districts that Republicans win. Some of the lawsuits will be based on other claims, some of them highly technical in nature. For example, if two people living at the same address put both absentee ballots in the same envelope, that could be grounds to reject the ballots.
Democrats are aware of all this and are also aware that Trump recently told his supporters to cheat like hell. They are prepared to challenge voter intimidation, attempts to seize ballots and the role of the federal government in elections.
Both sides have teams of election lawyers who will be up on election night fielding calls and preparing briefs, depending on the circumstances. From 1996 to 1999 there were an average of 94 election-related lawsuits per year. From 2000 to 2024, the average was 283 and it is growing rapidly. The RNC currently has 179 active lawsuits in 37 states. It is as though the RNC has decided it is easier to win an election by getting a judge to call it for you than by the old-fashioned way of getting more votes than the other side.
On some election cases, the Supreme Court has already ruled, such as its decision to gut what was left of the Voting Rights Act. Also the case about the XO requiring the USPS to vet ballot recipients.
One of Trump's obsessions is getting ahold of all the voter registration data from the states to build a national voter registration database that is under his control and with him having both read and write access to it. So far he hasn't succeeded, but he is certainly not giving up.
An issue that is sure to come up again is the federal database called SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements), that is used to try to ferret out non-citizens applying for federal benefits. It was not designed for election matters and is notorious for errors. Trump wants to match state voter rolls against it as a way of disenfranchising anyone with a "foreign-sounding" name—say, Juan Martínez. States are entitled to access this database and remove voters but only on an individual basis now (because it is within 90 days of an election).
Another issue where there will be litigation is U.S. citizens abroad who are the children of U.S. citizens abroad (including military families) but who have never lived in the U.S. Republicans want to disenfranchise all of them and have won court victories in Michigan, Nebraska, and North Carolina so far, with more cases pending. This is just one part of an RNC program to disenfranchise U.S. citizens living abroad.
Yet another issue that will come up is the stationing of ICE or other armed federal agents at polling places, with the ostensible task of keeping order (which is not a federal responsibility) but with the real task of intimidating voters. As these may not be flagged until Election Day, the courts will need to act with lightning speed on them.
The lawsuits will fly and it will get very messy. (V)