A look at the legal challenges that could prolong or disrupt the election

David Becker:

Well, I think we saw a lot of litigation leading up to the election. It is very likely that this will be the most numerous pre-election litigation we have ever seen.

And we should put this into context. In 2020, there were numerous legal battles in the run-up to the election attempting to clarify the rules, particularly changes in adjustments made due to COVID. And it should be noted that Republicans won about 85 percent of these cases before the 2020 elections.

In the 2024 election, we're seeing some cases like this, we're trying to clarify the rules, but we're seeing Republicans pushing much harder for last-minute changes, and we're seeing them lose most of the cases. We see things like cases that relate to the voter rolls that they knew about for days, weeks, months, years and that they could have brought in at any point in time.

We see challenges with mail-in voting laws, some of which have been in place for decades in states like Nevada. And then we see challenges even to military and foreign election procedures that have been around in some cases for 40 years.

As a result, such cases have been dismissed by courts, even by judges appointed by former President Trump himself. And then it continues with the time after the election. Of course we have to wait and see what happens.

In a truly close election, legitimate litigation may be initiated. Think of Florida 2000, when it's that close, hundreds of votes. But if we see an election that is decided by a majority like in 2020, it is very, very unlikely that any post-election litigation will succeed.

And this is mainly because the candidate who is behind still has to prove that he can somehow catch up. And once you get to a few hundred votes, that's almost impossible.