The statistics in this report are based on the lawsuits in our case database as of Nov. 5, 2024. We excluded all of the redistricting, criminal cases, 14th Amendment cases and all post-election related to the November 2024 general election. Accordingly, our analysis focuses just on civil cases pertaining to voting laws and elections.
How we defined pro vs. anti-voting lawsuits
We categorize a lawsuit as “pro-voting” if it seeks to protect or expand the right to vote and “anti-voting” if it aims to suppress voting through tactics such as tightening the rules around voter registration, adding more obstacles to mail-in or in-person voting processes, and more.
Pro-voting lawsuits are most often filed by organizations or officials affiliated with the Democratic Party or nonpartisan groups focused on voting rights and access. Anti-voting lawsuits are commonly filed by organizations or officials affiliated with the Republican Party or right-wing legal groups.
How we categorized Republican vs. Democratic lawsuits
Democracy Docket considers proactive Republican and Democratic lawsuits to be anything filed by party-affiliated national committees, state and local parties, or elected officials/candidates who run in partisan races.
How we define and categorize consequential court orders
For the purpose of this analysis, we defined a consequential order as any order that had an impact on voters and/or changed the course of a lawsuit. This is an umbrella term that has two subcategories: interim orders issued during an ongoing lawsuit that impacted voters and final decisions that ended litigation or fully resolved certain claims within a case.
Interim orders include any rulings granting or denying requests for preliminary injunctions or temporary restraining orders.
Final orders include rulings, such as an opinion on the merits of a lawsuit or a settlement agreement, that signal the end of a lawsuit. Final orders also include summary judgment orders that fully resolve certain claims in a lawsuit even if the lawsuit itself may be ongoing with regards to other claims. We delve into each of these subcategories later in this report.
We categorized each consequential order as either a victory, loss or neutral outcome. A victory is any court order that made it easier for people to vote or rejected anti-voting litigants’ attempts to curtail the democratic process. A neutral ruling is an order that maintains or minimally changes the status quo (for example, if a lawsuit was voluntarily dismissed by the plaintiffs and no voting laws were changed). A ruling is considered a loss if anti-voting litigants were given their requested relief or if pro-voting litigants were not granted their requested relief.