Consider This from NPR - Election battles are being waged at the ballot box and in the courtroom.

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Election day is almost here, and we could soon find out who will become our next president. But winning doesn't only happen at the ballot box, and the results of this election are already being litigated in court.Trump and his allies filed a slew of lawsuits alleging widespread fraud. These efforts failed. But four years later, they are already trying to employ the same strategies again.For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org. Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

The presidential race is cracking like a hickory fire here. Couldn't be much closer. 121 for George Bush, 119 for Al Gore. NPR projects that Barack Obama will win the White House. Quite an historic moment here. 50 years ago, blacks could not exercise their right to vote in many parts of the country. Now an African American is headed for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Election day is almost here and we could soon find out who will become our next president. But winning doesn't

only happen at the ballot box. The results of this election are already being litigated in court, just like it was after the 2020 election, with former President Donald Trump claiming he was the real winner. We think we will win the election very easily. We think there's going to be a lot of litigation because we have so much evidence, so much proof, and it's going to end up perhaps at the highest court in the land. We'll see. But we think there'll be a lot of litigation because we can't have an election stolen like this. Trump and his allies filed a slew of lawsuits alleging widespread fraud, from the pro-Trump elector strategy in Arizona to the mailed ballots in Pennsylvania. These efforts failed. Fast forward

four years later, and the lawsuits are back. Consider this. Elections are being decided, not just at the ballot box, but in the courtroom as well. And even if we have an outcome on November 5th, Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a legal fight, just like they did in 2020, to make sure that that outcome is accurate. From NPR, I'm Juana Somers. The ocean floor is abundant with minerals needed to power electric cars and other green technologies. But mining those minerals may harm coastal communities. These metals that are going to be dug out of our ocean will not benefit anyone from it.

On the Sunday story from Up First, a look at the opportunity and dangers of mining the ocean floor. Listen now on the Up First podcast from NPR. On Shortwave, we know the human body is this amazing singular thing. Capable of facing down all kinds of infection and disease, from managing UTIs to cancer to long COVID. Our show is dedicated to destigmatizing our relationship to our bodies. Listen to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. Some of our favorite planets aren't even real. But could they be? Here on Shortwave, we journey to other planets, distant galaxies in our universe and in our favorite works of science fiction.

Listen now to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. It's Consider This from NPR. Election Day is less than two weeks away, and no matter what happens on November 5th, Republicans and Democrats are preparing for a lengthy battle over the results. Already, there have been dozens and dozens of lawsuits filed that challenge how elections are run in this country, and many Americans have already voted. Here to walk us through what could happen next month and into the new year is Jessica Marsden, Director of Impact Programs for Free and Fair Elections at Protect Democracy. Hi there.

Thanks so much for having me. Jessica, I just want to start with the fact that there are already a number of lawsuits and legal issues that have been filed, and we haven't even gotten to Election Day yet. What can you tell us about what we know about them? What kinds of themes are emerging? Yeah, these last-minute challenges hit on a few themes. One is we've seen a number of suits from the RNC and affiliated conservative organizations challenging voter eligibility, saying in essence that there are a number, thousands in some cases, of voters who are registered to vote who shouldn't be, whether that be because they are non-citizens or there's some other issue with their eligibility. Another category of cases I'd point to has to do with overseas voting. Just in the past few weeks, we've seen cases in

North Carolina, Michigan, and Pennsylvania challenging those states' procedures for allowing overseas citizens, including members of the military, to participate this fall. Help us unpack the Republican strategy here and why those types of lawsuits are coming now? One strategy that may lay behind filing these lawsuits now goes back to 2020, where many of those cases were dismissed by courts because the cases were brought too late. You can't wait until after an election to challenge a voter's eligibility to cast his or her ballot. So it seems likely that by filing some of these cases now, even though they don't stand a chance of getting relief before the election, the RNC may be readying to make some of those same arguments after the election and

hoping that the existence of these earlier suits somehow helps their cause then. So we talked about some of the lawsuits that the Republican National Committee has filed, but what about the Democrats? What kind of suits have they brought? In general, the Democrats have been bringing fewer cases than the Republicans this year, and often they are intervening in cases that were initially brought by Republicans. So you do end up, you know, with the two parties on opposite sides of a lawsuit. But one unusual thing this year is that I think we've seen more of these cases coming from Republican groups. You know, I have to imagine that most voters, they don't follow the ins and

outs of election and some of this litigation as closely as you and I do. But if they're hearing this conversation, they might be concerned if they've already cast a ballot or they're preparing to cast one. What would you know, if you've cast a mail-in ballot, was it counted? Was that ballot accepted? But in general, I just remind voters that if they are closely following the instructions from their election offices, their vote's going to count. With being as close to election day as we are and with the fact that this is a race by all projections, it's going to be quite close. What concerns you the most when you look at the landscape? I think the fact that we have seen a close to a four-year campaign to really degrade trust in our election system and that that, you know, has led some voters to lose faith in the election process is probably my biggest concern. I'd encourage folks with questions about the trustworthiness of our election process to spend some time,

you know, on the website of your local election office. There are a number of really excellent election officials who are putting out good information that will walk folks through the process of how their vote gets cast and counted. That kind of information, I hope, can start to dispel some of the fear and anxiety that voters may have about this process. That was Jessica Marsden, lawyer and director of Impact Programs for Free and Fair Elections at Protect Democracy. Jessica, thank you. Thanks so much. This episode was produced by Karen Zamora with audio engineering by Valentina Rodriguez-Sanchez and Zoe Venganoven.

It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sammy Yannigan. Thank you. messages from sponsors. Learn more at plus.npr.org. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Juana Summers. Ever look up at the stars and wonder, what's out there? On Shortwave, we ask big questions about our universe. From baby galaxies to the search for alien life, we explore the celestial science behind these questions. Listen now to the Shortwave podcast from NPR. On the TED Radio Hour, on December 24th, NASA's Parker Solar Probe will touch the sun. The spacecraft will hit the closest approach ever to the sun. Astrophysicist Nora Wafi leads the mission. We will be making history.

To this day, it's still like magic to me. Ideas about the sun. That's on the TED Radio Hour podcast from NPR.