Tuesday, Sept. 3

Hope everyone had a nice Labor Day!

The RNC is on a litigation tear, filing a number of election-related lawsuits in key states in recent weeks. Is it concerning? Yes. But no need to freak out about it. Meanwhile, the right-wing group True the Vote is, once again, saying they’re recruiting sheriffs to monitor drop boxes (spoiler: it’s just another grift!) and Republicans in Utah pulled a very dirty trick in their recent special legislative session.

I’ll be back in your inboxes in a couple of weeks with more updates and analysis on the right-wing assault on voting rights. As always, thanks for reading.

—Matt Cohen, Senior Staff Writer

A Fresh Barrage of RNC Lawsuits

Earlier this year, I wrote about a Republican National Committee (RNC) memo that Democracy Docket obtained that touted — and inflated — its legal efforts to disenfranchise voters. Since then, the RNC has escalated its attack on voting rights — highlighting it as a priority in its 2024 platform and filing new “election integrity” lawsuits around the country. In just the past couple weeks, the RNC filed two lawsuits in North Carolina targeting the state’s voter rolls and voter registration procedures, and one in Michigan challenging Detroit’s election inspector apportionment practices.

The legal barrage from the RNC might seem like a lot, but it’s wholly unsurprising. Since Michael Whatley — an attorney with a rich history of election denialism — took over as co-chair, the RNC has made it clear that it’s pivoting to anti-voting litigation as a priority. A recent Washington Examiner report notes the organization is currently involved in more than 100 lawsuits and “has enlisted tens of thousands of volunteers, including a swath of attorneys, to participate in what it describes as ‘protecting the vote.’”

This might seem concerning … until you look at the numbers. Specifically, Democracy Docket’s litigation tracker, which keeps tabs on every voting-related case since 2020. According to our database, in the 2023-2024 election cycle, 283 voting-related decisions so far. Of those, 30 had rulings with a neutral outcome, 75 were losses for voting rights and 178 were victories, protecting the right to vote and expanding voting access. So, keep that in mind when you see news of all of these right-wing lawsuits.  

How a Right-Wing Group is Recruiting Sheriffs to Suppress Votes

In her latest piece, Democracy Docket contributor Jessica Pishko dives into the nascent effort by the right-wing election conspiracy organization True the Vote to recruit sheriffs to monitor drop boxes in the upcoming election. In a recent interview, True the Vote co-founder Catherine Engelbrecht said her organization is “working with sheriffs to identify areas that sheriffs would be willing to allow us to grant them camera equipment that then they can monitor and we can livestream” overnight drop boxes, particularly in swing states like Michigan and Wisconsin.

It’s not the first time Engelbrecht said True the Vote was working with sheriffs in key swing counties to monitor drop boxes. In the 2022 midterms, Engelbrecht held a “secret” meeting with Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb and claimed sheriffs in the county would be monitoring drop boxes. That never happened.

So what’s going on here? It’s all a part of the right-wing grift machine to spread conspiracy theories and sow discord in the lead-up to the election. Sheriffs, as Pishko writes, do not play a role in elections. “The right-wing efforts to recruit sheriffs is a ploy by multiple groups to intimidate people based on a foundation of self-interest and grift,” she writes.

You might recognize the name True the Vote — they are one of the right-wing groups trying to have millions of voters removed from voter rolls that I wrote about in my last feature. With ties to prominent right-wing figures like Cleta Mitchell, True the Vote is one of the bigger groups on the right working tirelessly to spread disinformation and conspiracy theories in the upcoming election.

Utah Republicans’ Dirty Trick to Undermine Democracy

The Republican majority in the Utah Legislature pulled a dirty trick a couple weeks ago to try and undermine democracy and the will of the voters in the Beehive State. The Legislature called itself into a special session on Aug. 21 and voted to put a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would give them power to veto or alter voter-approved ballot measures.

What that means, essentially, is that any voter-approved ballot initiative could be altered or outright vetoed, as Utah lawmakers see fit. Don’t panic just yet — it’s not a done deal. Lawmakers merely voted to put it on the November ballot, which means — ironically — Utah voters will vote on whether or not they want a constitutional amendment to weaken their ability to pass ballot initiatives.

Why did this happen? Well, the special session was rushed onto the Legislature’s schedule in response to a recent Utah Supreme Court opinion on a lawsuit filed by pro-voting groups challenging the state’s new congressional map drawn with 2020 census data. In 2022, the League of Women Voters of Utah, Mormon Women for Ethical Government and a group of voters sued the state Legislature alleging that the state’s new congressional map is a partisan gerrymander.

The lawsuit also challenged the Legislature’s repeal of Proposition 4 — a ballot initiative passed in 2018 that created an independent redistricting commission composed of citizens. In the process of choosing a new map to implement, state lawmakers shunned the one drawn by the independent commission in favor of a gerrymandered map created by the Legislative Redistricting Committee, which consisted of 15 Republicans and only five Democrats.

The lawsuit argued this move “violated the people’s constitutionally guaranteed lawmaking power and right to alter and reform their government.” But a trial court dismissed the Proposition 4 claims, while allowing the partisan gerrymander claim to move forward. The plaintiffs appealed the trial court’s dismissal to the Utah Supreme Court and, last month, the state’s highest court reversed the dismissal of the plaintiff’s Proposition 4 claims, sending the lawsuit back to trial court for further litigation.

Republicans weren’t happy about that. So now they’re trying to push through a constitutional amendment to, essentially, make the Utah Supreme Court’s ruling moot. “This ruling represents an existential threat to the values, culture, and way of life that define our state,” the Utah Republican Party said in a letter to state leadership, asking them to call the special session. They’re trying to spin the constitutional amendment not as a power grab but rather a move to protect their values, whatever that means.