The GOP's Ballot Access Boondoggle
Less than twenty-four hours ago, President Biden made the world-altering decision to end his reelection campaign and endorse Vice President Harris in the 2024 race. His decision is the sort of selfless act so rarely seen in modern politics that it will seem even more heroic when we witness the depths that the Republican Party is about to sink to in response.
Even before President Biden decided to withdraw, House Speaker Mike Johnson threatened that the GOP would sue to keep any candidate other than Biden off of state ballots if the Democrats made a “last-minute change” in its nominee.
While Johnson couldn’t articulate a coherent legal principal for his proposed challenge to keep, for example, Vice President Harris off the ballot, I guess it makes sense that in such an unprecedented situation, the GOP will throw theories at the wall to see what sticks.
But make no mistake: if we see the Trump campaign or the Republican Party file lawsuits that are supposedly meant to keep the Democratic nominee off of state ballots, these lawsuits are actually about something very different.
Why will Trump and the GOP bring these cases? Two reasons:
First, to place additional burdens on already-overwhelmed election officials. Trump is incredibly invested in the idea of a “messy” election, because a messy election gives him a basis to sue to overturn the results when he loses. If he can file distracting lawsuits now to divert election officials from their day-to-day tasks of preparing for a clean and successful election, that’s a “win” for him even though actual ballot access lawsuit will be a loser.
Second, to delay the process of printing and mailing ballots. State officials can’t print ballots until they know which candidates have qualified for the ballot, and lawsuits could delay that timeline. If the Republican lawsuits can push ballot printing past the date early voting or absentee voting was scheduled to start, that’s likewise a win for Trump even though he won’t win the lawsuit to keep the Democratic candidate off the ballot.
To avoid these outcomes, we’ll need judges to kick Trump out of court as quickly as they did when he filed his 65 cases trying to overturn the 2020 election (and lost 64 of those cases). We’ll also need to media to hold Trump accountable for his true motivations for these lawsuits, rather than covering the cases as if there’s actually some sort of drama or uncertainty about the outcome.
In a time when a lot is unprecedented and a lot is uncertain, this much is sure: the Democratic nominee—whether it’s Vice President Harris or someone else—will be on the ballot in all 50 states. The only question is how much havoc we let Trump wreak on our democracy in order to get there.