A former U.S. attorney has accused Republicans of having a “dastardly plot” of filing weak election lawsuits, “laying the groundwork for Donald Trump to later claim that the election was rigged against him.”
Barbara McQuade, who served as the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan after being appointed by President Barack Obama, made the comment on the #SistersInLaw podcast, which discusses legal controversy.
Trump has insisted that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, though his claims have been rejected repeatedly in court and by independent election experts. During September’s presidential debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, he raised concerns about the 2024 election, saying, “Our elections are bad, and a lot of these illegal immigrants coming in, they’re trying to get them to vote.”
It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in presidential elections, and a 2016 study by the Brennan Center for Justice, which advocates for voting rights, found 30 suspected cases of noncitizens voting out of the 23.5 million votes it analyzed.
According to data compiled by Democracy Docket, which was founded by a lawyer who supports the Democratic Party, between 2023 and the end of September 2024, the Republican National Committee or local GOP parties were involved in at least 72 legal disputes related to the 2024 presidential election.
Earlier this month, the Republican-controlled states of Texas, Florida and Ohio all launched legal action against the Department of Homeland Security, arguing that the agency’s measures to check the citizenship of voters on state rolls were insufficient.
On Saturday’s episode of the #SistersInLaw podcast, the Boston Globe columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr discussed why Republicans were mounting so many legal challenges.
“It is fealty to Donald Trump—using whatever levers these folks have, cast as much, you know, disinformation and false claims of fraud … so that it can pave the way, frankly, for when Donald Trump invariably declares, if he loses, that the election was rigged. It gives folks a little more ‘there’ there,” she said.
Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, agreed describing some of the lawsuits as “borderline frivolous.”
She said on the podcast: “I expect what we’ll hear if Donald Trump loses is this narrative that he only lost because the courts permitted people who weren’t eligible citizens to vote, and I think it’s worth reiterating that’s not true. There’s no evidence of that. That’s just the fake narrative. That’s this election cycle’s big lie.”
McQuade commented: “I heard someone say, and I think this is so true, that all of these lawsuits designed to challenge voters’ eligibility to vote in the upcoming election are press releases disguised as lawsuits.
“It really is just an effort to sensitize the public that there are a lot of fishy rules and laying the groundwork for Donald Trump to later claim that the election was rigged against him, and it’s a really dastardly plot if you think about it because it is consistent with the Russian agenda to undermine public confidence in free and fair elections and in democracy overall.”
Newsweek contacted representatives of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and the Republican National Committee for comment via email on Saturday outside regular office hours.
In April, the RNC launched what it described as “the most extensive and monumental election integrity program in the nation’s history,” saying it would have “100,000 dedicated volunteers and attorneys deployed across every battleground state” in November to ensure the elections are fair.
Trump said at the launch: “Having the right people to count the ballots is just as important as turning out voters on Election Day. Republicans are now working together to protect the vote and ensure a big win on November 5th!”
On Friday, the election website 538 released polling analysis that gave Harris a 1.4-point national lead over Trump, though it gave the Republican candidate a 53 percent chance of victory overall.
Friday also saw Harris joined on the campaign trail by megastar Beyoncé, while Trump appeared on comedian Joe Rogan’s popular podcast.
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