Friday, November 22

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ON THE DOCKET THIS WEEK

• Recounts begin, and lawsuits abound, in Pennsylvania and North Carolina
• Mississippians ask SCOTUS to hear felony disenfranchisement case
• GOP Senate candidate concedes after declining to seek recount

ELECTIONS

Recounts begin, and lawsuits abound, in Pennsylvania and North Carolina

Amid recounts in Pennsylvania's Senate race and North Carolina’s judicial match, candidates took to the courts to fight for votes to be counted or disqualified. 

In Pennsylvania since the election, incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D) has been trailing opponent Dave McCormick (R) by less than 1% of the vote. Last week, the Pennsylvania Department of State ordered a recount since the margin is less than 0.5%, which triggers an automatic recount under state law. The current results show McCormick leading with 48.8% of the vote, and Casey at 48.6%.

Now that the recount is underway, Republicans and Democrats have both filed a flurry of lawsuits in the Keystone State over which ballots should be counted. Because of small errors, certain ballots — like provisional ballots without the proper required signatures — may not be counted. Read more about those lawsuits here.

In North Carolina, a match between incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D) and opponent, appeals court judge Jefferson Griffin (R), will likely come down to just a few hundred votes. Griffin is currently trailing Riggs by roughly 625 votes, and he formally requested a recount on Tuesday.

He also filed challenges to over 60,000 ballots, and sued the North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) over voter data he said he requested but didn’t receive. At a meeting Wednesday, NCSBE members approved a plan that requires Griffin and other Republicans who submitted complaints to the board to submit briefs by Nov. 27, according to local reporting.

A review of the challenges found that Griffin targeted ballots cast by people with prior felony convictions, ballots cast by people whose voter registration may be incomplete and voters believed to have cast early-voting ballots but died before Election Day. Read more about the challenges here.

SCOTUS

Mississippians ask SCOTUS to hear felony disenfranchisement case

A group of disenfranchised Mississippians are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether the state’s lifetime ban on voting for individuals with certain felony convictions violates the U.S. Constitution.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed a cert petition with the U.S. Supreme Court last week, asking the high court to review the question of whether the state’s felony disenfranchisement policy violates the 8th Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments.”

Under Section 241 of the state Constitution, Mississippians who were convicted of a crime on the state’s list of disenfranchising offenses — and who haven’t completed the voting restoration process — are not eligible to vote. Section 241 was enshrined in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution with the express purpose of denying Black men the right to vote.

The plaintiffs have so far failed to get the provision struck down since filing a class-action suit in 2018. Last year, a three-judge panel on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Section 241 last year for violating the 8th Amendment. But the state then asked the entire 5th Circuit to rehear the case and void the three-judge panel’s opinion, which the court did in January. This year, the court upheld the provision. Read more on the case here.

WISCONSIN

GOP Senate candidate concedes after declining to seek recount

Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde (R) finally conceded to incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin after around two weeks of uncertainty on how Hovde would proceed. 

The Associated Press called the race for Baldwin the day after the election, with the two-term senator winning by less than 1% of the vote. But Hovde did not immediately concede, citing what he believed were voting irregularities in the results, due to the high volume of absentee ballots in Milwaukee County.

Baldwin has since claimed victory, and Hovde’s only options – absent any evidence of the irregularities — were to concede or request a recount. Under Wisconsin law, Hovde had the right to ask for a recount since he lost by less than 1% of the vote.

But Hovde said the recount would not have made a difference. “I’ve heard from numerous supporters urging me to challenge the election results,” Hovde said in a video posted to X. “However, without a detailed review of all the ballots and their legitimacy, which would be difficult to obtain in the courts, a request for a recount would serve no purpose because you will just be counting the same ballots regardless of their integrity.”

When reached for comment, Baldwin’s spokesman pointed to her victory speech. Read more on the Wisconsin Senate race here.

FROM OUR DESK

How to Combat the Danger of Project 2025

Ahead of the election, Trump and other Republican leaders tried to distance themselves from the controversial plan Project 2025 — The Heritage Foundation’s massive blueprint to reshape the federal government into the authoritarian arm of Trump’s administration.

But now that Trump has won the election, “the mask is fully off: Project 2025 is the agenda,” Democracy Docket Senior Staff Writer Matt Cohen writes. Read more about it here.

What We’re Doing