The Trump-aligned group is already planning lawsuits over the election results

A Trump-focused group that has filed lawsuits in several swing states voter registration lists is already planning to file a lawsuit this year’s election resultsone of the group’s founders told USA TODAY.

“We feel compelled to file in defense of this beautiful country,” said Marly Hornik, co-founder of United Sovereign Americans in 2023. “There are already signs and numbers coming in of errors in the process.”

The organization, which describes itself as impartial, regularly is represented by Bruce Castora lawyer for former President Donald Trump in his impeachment trial for the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Lawsuits from both the group and Republican organizations suggest there could be widespread voter fraud – without provide evidence that this is so.

The claims are being processed the false story of former president Donald Trump that he did not lose the 2020 election, which critics say is a precursor to claiming similar election theft if he loses again. Numerous counts and audits showed President Joe Biden won the last presidential election. Almost all more than 60 lawsuits have been resolved Trump’s allies failed in the aftermath of that election.

“The people who want to disrupt the election want to plant the fictional narrative that there is reason to panic about the process. That is not the case,” Justin Levitt, a Loyola Marymount law professor who researches election issues, told USA TODAY.

Hornik said the group would like to conduct external audits of the 2024 election. It would have to file the lawsuits before the results are certified, but likely only after a state declares the results or the media announces the results, she said. The group could file sooner, but is internally debating whether a court would say a trial before the outcome is premature.

“For some reason they keep coming out and saying they did a great job,” she said, referring to past election audits. “But every other industry in creation needs to be audited by outside auditors. That’s how you find out what really happened.”

Lawsuits have already been filed

United Sovereign Americans has already sued officials in nine different states this year over widespread errors in voter registration data that they say could indicate fraud.

For example, in a lawsuit in Pennsylvania, the group claims there are almost 3.2 million violations out of a total of almost 8.8 registrations, which “call into question” the reliability and credibility of the state’s 2022 interim results. Examples of the alleged errors include “illogical voter history” or “questionable” registrant addresses that the group says violate two federal laws: the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act.

Attorneys for the Secretary of Pennsylvania responded that the group’s questions about dates on paperwork are “both factually baseless and irrelevant” under the National Voter Registration Act, which is “intended as a shield to protect the right to vote, not a sword to pierce it.”

The lawyers also said the Help America Vote Act addresses standards for operating voting machines, not voter registration.

“Every state has simply told us these are administrative errors,” Hornik told USA TODAY.

Sowing doubt about American elections?

United Sovereign Americans’ lawsuits are part of a broader trend of legal challenges to the state’s voter rolls, which also includes several lawsuits from the Republican National Committee and state Republican parties.

The lawsuits, of which several to have been rejected, have come despite there being no evidence of actual widespread voter fraud.

A review by the AP of every potential voter fraud case in the six swing states Trump contested in 2020 — Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — fewer than 475 cases were found out of a total of 25.5 million ballots cast for president. The cases did not affect the results: Biden won every state by more than 10,000 votes, and all six by a total of 311,257 votes.

Trump’s own attorney general, bill barr, said in december 2020 that the The Justice Department had found no evidence of fraud that would change the results.

A Brennan Center for Justice study of the 2016 elections revealed only 30 referrals of suspected non-citizens who voted for further investigation or prosecution in 42 jurisdictions that accounted for 23.5 million of the votes in that election.

For some, the failed legal effort and lack of evidence of actual widespread fraud raises the question of why the lawsuits are being filed in the first place, and especially — in many cases — right before the election.

“The logical conclusion is that this sets the stage for claims that an election was stolen,” David Becker, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research, which works with Republican and Democratic election officials to boost confidence in elections, told me. to strengthen, told USA TODAY.

“There is a high risk that the continued noise will teach a significant portion of the American public — falsely, falsely lying to them and convincing them — that they should not have confidence in their elections,” Levitt said.

Hornik said if her organization’s lawsuits cast doubt on the election, it’s because of the underlying problems in the systems — even if the group has so far failed to win in court. Most lawsuits were filed in August or September. A lawsuit filed in March against Maryland officials was May fired and is on appeal.

What would the post-election lawsuits look like?

Hornik said the group’s concerns before the election prompted a desire to sue for audits not conducted by state officials.

“We know that none of these systems have been repaired. We have been turned away because of our concerns,” Hornik said. “So there is no clear reason to have more confidence in the process than before.”

Still, some of the issues it raises may look different from previous lawsuits.

United Sovereign Americans sued state officials in Texas in late August argue – as in Pennsylvania – that there are widespread errors in voter registration data.

But in her phone call with USA TODAY, Hornik raised a completely different alleged problem with the state, claiming that early votes in Texas are already being counted “on machines that have failed the certification test.” She said Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson, who was appointed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, “wrote a waiver” allowing failed machines to be used.

That’s not true, Alicia Phillips Pierce, a spokesperson for Nelson, told USA TODAY.

“All machines used in Texas meet certification requirements. No waivers have been granted,” Pierce said in an email.

Lawsuits may depend on the outcome

Hornik said she would still file lawsuits if Trump won a state.

“It’s not about one candidate. There are 435 congressional seats available for re-election or new elections in a few weeks,” Hornik said.

However, she declined to say whether the lawsuits would be filed regardless of the election outcome.

“That really depends on our resources, and we’re going to do everything we can to secure as much of the election as possible for the American people,” Hornik said.

In addition to Pennsylvania, Texas and Maryland, United Sovereign Americans also filed a lawsuit this year challenging the voter rolls in Georgia, Michigan, Colorado, North Carolina, Florida and Ohio.

‘Nobody needs to have a Maricopa Mardi Gras anymore’

After the 2020 election, Trump spread misinformation about the election results in Phoenix’s Maricopa County, including falsely claiming that an election-related database had been deleted. A Republican-backed audit that took months to complete confirmed that President Joe Biden won the province.

Still, the chaos in the aftermath of the election in that province and elsewhere in the country has led to unprecedented state election security efforts, including bulletproof glass, security cameras, panic buttonsand de-escalation training for election workers.

United Sovereign Americans has no intention of sowing chaos in the aftermath of this year’s election, Hornik said.

“Nobody needs to have another Maricopa Mardi Gras, as I like to call it,” Hornik told USA TODAY.

But it could try to have voters come in to verify their identity or correct a clerical error before their votes can be counted.

“You mark all the things that look like trash. And if those people want to vote, that’s fine. They vote provisionally. They come in, show their ID and say, ‘Yes, I’m really here, here’s… my address,” she said.