'Subvert the election': Inside the GOP strategy to 'launder conspiracy theories' through the courts

16 October 2024

Republican election officials are currently being sued in multiple states for purging eligible voters just before Americans go to the polls in November. Now, one watchdog group fighting back argues the purges are part of a larger GOP strategy.

According to the Independent, voters in both Alabama and Tennessee are suing their respective secretaries of state after finding out they had been removed from voter rolls for being "non-citizens." One of the plaintiffs, 49 year-old Alabama resident James Cozzad, is a registered Republican who voted in the 2016 and 2020 elections without incident. In a lawsuit filed in federal court, Cozzad said he had been "racking my brain to try to figure out how I ended up on the list of purged voters, but I have no clue."

"It feels like they are trying to make me think I’ve broken the law — just for trying to exercise my right to vote. While I hope it was just a mistake, I think if they were just trying to verify something, they would have done so long before the election," he continued. "Now I can understand why some people feel as though their vote isn’t worth casting."

The Independent further reported that thousands more voters have been purged from the rolls in states with Republican election chiefs — including Virginia, where the Department of Justice alleges Republican Secretary of the Commonwealth Kelly Gee has also removed thousands of voters. Even though there is no evidence that non-citizens have tried to vote in the Old Dominion State, Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin bragged about kicking approximately 6,000 voters from the rolls for allegedly being illegal immigrants.

These voter purges are notably taking place during the so-called "quiet period," in which states are barred from making drastic changes to their election systems and voter rolls within 90 days of an election. Watchdog group Protect Democracy attorney Anna Dorman is arguing that Republican secretaries of state — along with GOP groups filing frivolous lawsuits in the courts — are acting in "bad faith" and that their arguments are "not strong on the merits."

"Their sole purpose is to use the legitimacy of the court system to launder conspiracy theories and make them feel more legitimate, so that if the election results don’t go the way these people want in November, they have some additional conspiracies to put forward to try to undermine peaceful transfer of power," Dorman told the Independent.

The outlet reported that GOP-aligned groups have filed nearly 100 election-related lawsuits in 2024 alone, which are largely what Protect Democracy calls "zombie lawsuits." The group uses that term to describe litigation that will almost certainly get thrown out at first glance due to there being no factual basis to plaintiffs' claims of fraudulent activity.

“They’re part of a messaging strategy, not a legal strategy,” a Protect Democracy report read. “Regardless of whether this legal strategy will get anywhere, in any courtroom, it telegraphs a clear intent to subvert the election if Donald Trump loses.”

Earlier this year, both former President Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) held a press conference at Mar-a-Lago to announce an initiative aimed at curbing non-citizen voting. Johnson unsuccessfully tried to include legislation that would require voters show proof of citizenship (like a birth certificate or a U.S. passport) upon registering to vote in the latest must-pass government funding bill. The Brennan Center for Justice estimated there are several million U.S. citizens who would not be able to meet that burden of proof due to difficulty locating or obtaining citizenship documents, meaning they would be disenfranchised.

Click here to read the Independent's report in its entirety.

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