They’re getting started nice and early, folks. The Trump campaign has just filed a lawsuit to discard all mail-in ballots in Nevada that arrive after Election Day, even if they are postmarked before or on the day and are legitimate in every other respect. As the inestimably valuable Marc Elias explains in this Democracy Docket video, the campaign clearly knows Trump will lose the popular vote again (as he did in 2016 and 2020) and, rather than try to increase their candidate’s appeal or run on issues, they are preemptively doing everything they can to toss good votes to improve his odds of eking out another win.
Elias does not believe this effort will succeed in the courts, but even losing such a lawsuit is fuel for conspiracy theories and propaganda. And of course if they do win, that helps to set up a new doctrine the R’s are eager to put in place: that only votes cast in person on that one day should count. Never mind that this will disenfranchise military voters overseas, or the elderly and disabled, or people with limited access to transportation, or anyone who’s working two jobs to make ends meet and cannot be in a voting booth on the exact day. And, of course, if all votes must be cast in person on one day, that makes it much easier for voter suppression tactics like closing or relocating polling places, insufficient or opportunely broken voting machines and shortages of paper ballots, and vigilantes who can menacingly watch voters lined up in the “wrong” (urban, minority, Democratic) areas and do their best to peer over poll workers’ shoulders--or even sign up as poll workers themselves to throw sand in the works.
It’s a good video if you have thirteen minutes or thereabouts. Regardless, if you only want to donate to one place or a small handful of helpful organizations this year, Democracy Docket would be a fine bang for your buck.