Election Integrity Wins: Winning in Court

Election Integrity Wins That Upset the Left (full series)
SAVE Act | 2024 vs. 2020 Elections | Noncitizen Voting
Winning in Court | Texas vs. Big Tech

---

Winning in Court

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), an election integrity watchdog group, kicked off 2024 with a settlement agreement with Ramsey County, Minnesota—which encompasses St. Paul—to eliminate duplicate names on the voter registration rolls. This marks the sixth Minnesota county from which the foundation has secured such an agreement, for a total of removing 501 duplicate registrations in the state.

The 2002 Help America Vote Act requires states to implement computerized statewide voter registration lists and eliminate duplicate voter registrations, but far too many have to be nudged into compliance.

There were significant election law cases in both battlegrounds and non-battlegrounds across the country.

In February, an appeals court in New York upheld a lower court ruling that struck down a New York City law allowing noncitizen voting. The law allowed about 800,000 foreign citizens in the Big Apple to vote before the courts determined it was illegal.

In an ongoing New York case, Democrats attempted to turn a loss into a victory in the most undemocratic way. They first attempted universal mail-in voting through a 2021 referendum. Voters in the Empire State rejected the idea for a proposed constitutional amendment to allow no-excuse absentee voting. Section 2 of the existing New York constitution limits mail voting to only people traveling, sick, or with a personal disability.

Since the will of the people and democracy were too bothersome, the Democratic trifecta in the legislature, and Gov. Kathy Hochul just passed a universal vote-by-mail law and decided to let the courts sort out the constitutional aspect.

That appears to be what will happen. New York Reps. Elise Stefanik and Claudia Tenney, both Republicans, have challenged the law in court. The Public Interest Legal Foundation is representing them in the lawsuit.

On its face, the law seems clear enough. But New York’s bench is stacked with elected Democratic judges, so it’s not a sure thing.

Other cases have been settled, with clear victories for election integrity advocates.

PILF won a case this past February when a Delaware court struck down the state’s early voting law as unconstitutional. The legislature passed a 2019 law to allow early voting 10 days before Election Day. But the Delaware Superior Court ruled that the law violated the state’s constitution. The court also voided the Delaware law to allow absentee voting in perpetuity. The Delaware constitution limits Election Day to one day and includes specific reason for eligibility for absentee voting.

That same month, a major win for election transparency came out of Maine. The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Maine’s voter registration records must be public. This is key since, as with anything else in government, it’s not possible to determine if voter registration is accurate if we just have to take a government’s word for it.

The legal foundation first asked for Maine’s voting files and histories in October 2019. The state responded that such information was limited to entities such as political parties. The legal foundation sued the following February. The court sided with PILF. The foundation previously won cases to access voter registration records in Illinois, Maryland, and Hawaii.

“The First Circuit Court decision in Maine will have the effect of keeping election officials honest,” Adams said in an interview, referring to the case.

The Republican National Committee sued Michigan in March in a challenge to Democratic Secretary Jocelyn Benson’s instructions to local election clerks to presume the validity of an absentee voter’s signature. The RNC argued the instruction violated the state’s constitution that requires verification of signatures.

The RNC won a partial victory in June, in which state Judge Christopher Yates ruled: “A presumption is a presumption is a presumption. Whether the guidance manual includes a gentle nudge instead of a hip check, it’s still a foul under Michigan law.”

“In Michigan, we stopped the Secretary of State’s illegal instructions to ignore mail ballot safeguards,” Gineen Bresso, Election Integrity Director for the Republican National Committee, and the Donald Trump campaign, told The Daily Signal.

The RNC legal team also issued several amicus briefs.

“In New York City, we stopped the Democrat plot to have nearly 1 million non-citizens vote,” Bresso continued. “In Wisconsin, we successfully fought for poll worker parity and poll watcher protections. We also successfully defended state laws that get it right — such as ballot safeguards in Pennsylvania and critical election integrity measures in Florida’s SB90. These are just a few of our wins in over 100 lawsuits in 25 states.”

Also in Michigan, the Public Interest Legal Foundation is leading a potentially precedent-setting case regarding the National Voter Registration Act. An investigation by the legal foundation found that 23,663 registered voters in Michigan have been dead for at least five years, another 17,479 registered voters have been dead for 10 years or longer, while 3,956 registrants have been dead for at least 20 years.

The foundation is trying to push Benson to make a “reasonable effort” to remove the names of dead people who are still registered to vote in the state. As of August, the case is still awaiting a decision by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

“The Michigan case in the 6th Circuit could set some clearer ground rules about what states are required to do to clear dead people from voter rolls,” Adams said during a phone interview.

In a battleground win, the Arizona Free Enterprise Club teamed with the America First Policy Institute to challenge some of the election policies pushed by Arizona’s Democratic Secretary of State Adrian Fontes.

Fontes issued the Election Procedural Manual (EPM) in 2023, which restricted the right to observe conduct near voting drop boxes and polling places. The plaintiffs alleged these restrictions violated their First Amendment rights and due process rights of Arizona residents.

A Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Jennifer Ryan-Touhill sided with the plaintiffs, when he wrote in August: “The EPM’s language has restricted what the Secretary finds acceptable regarding behavior, both speech and acts. Our state constitution guarantees a right to speak freely and is only restricted for an abuse of that right.”

Another major battleground state court ruling occurred in 2022 and might have been the most significant in recent years, said Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation.

Because of what the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation said was a programming glitch, foreign citizens were automatically registered to vote for decades, according to PILF.

PILF had unearthed this information through a public records request—which Pennsylvania initially resisted. In April 2022, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled the foundation is entitled to the documents under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The foundation further requested the voting histories of the 1,100 registered noncitizen registered voters who had self-reported.

“The Pennsylvania ruling tops the list,” Adams said in a phone interview. “Pennsylvania has stopped adding noncitizens to the voting rolls, which they have been doing for the last 20 years.”

In August, the Supreme Court gave a partial victory to opponents of noncitizen voting, siding 5-4 with the Republican National Committee to allow Arizona to enforce its proof of citizenship law for voter registration. The proof of citizenship is required if a voter registers with a state form. This will allow election officials to reject voter registration forms without proof of citizenship. RNC Chairman Michael Whatley called the ruling a “seismic win in the fight to stop non-citizens from voting.” Arizona has a law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote, but famously keeps two voter registration lists, one for state elections (requiring proof of citizenship) and another for federal elections (which doesn’t require proof of citizenship). However, the Supreme Court previously ruled that for federal elections this violates the 1993 National Voter Registration Act. In its recent victory, RNC called for reinstatement of the law that stops anyone registered without proof of citizenship from voting from voting in a presidential race or by mail.

House GOP Sets Table for Future Reforms

The Committee on House Administration, which has oversight over election policy, advanced several bills that won’t become law anytime soon–but could set the stage for enacting future federal election policy.

It’s not uncommon for reform legislation–good and bad–to be brought up for several cycles before building enough public pressure to enact it.

The most sweeping was the American Confidence in Elections (ACE) Act, which passed the committee in July 2023. House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil (R-WI), called the bill, “the most conservative, transformative election integrity bill in the House in over 20 years.”

The ACE Act was a bit of an election integrity omnibus bill that among other things:

• Gives states the tools to use photo voter ID as proof of citizenship.
• Gives states access to a federal database so they can have accurate voter lists.
• Repeals President Joe Biden’s Executive Order 14019, which orders federal agencies to partner with nonprofits to mobilize voters. The provision also prevents federal agencies from engaging in political activities.
• Blocks federal funds to states that allow ballot harvesting and noncitizen voting.
• Ends noncitizen voting in the District of Columbia.
• Stops ranked-choice voting in the District.
• Requires list maintenance and voter ID to vote in D.C. election.
• Closes loopholes that allow foreign nationals to be involved in U.S. elections.

There are ways other than enacting laws to influence and drive the conversation. Still, in January of this year, Steil and Rep. Laurel Lee (R-FL), developed model election integrity legislation for state called the Uniform State ACE Act. The model provides states with 13 suggested measures—as the Constitution gives states the primary authority over elections.

Most of the committee’s legislation might have been messaging bills that could never get through a Democratic Senate majority, much less a Democratic president. However, the messaging bills could return in a future Congress. That’s particularly likely if there is a new Senate majority and new administration.

For example, in November 2023, the committees passed eight reform bills to stop noncitizens from voting. Though not the same legislation, this clearly gave momentum for the House to pass the SAVE Act, which the committee approved in May and the House approved in July.

In June, the House committee subpoenaed 15 Biden Cabinet secretaries to find out more about Biden’s electioneering executive order.

“Elections are partisan, but our election administration should never be partisan. Allowing federal employees from the Biden Administration to flood election administration sites threatens election integrity and reduces Americans’ confidence,” Steil said. “This Executive Order is another attempt by the Biden Administration to tilt the scales ahead of 2024. I will continue working to provide transparency and accountability on this Administration’s latest scheme as Congress did not appropriate taxpayer funds for partisan activities.”

---

In the next installment, states are also getting into the act of investigating Big Tech companies.

Source: https://capitalresearch.org/article/election-integrity-wins-part-4/