Data: 3x Fewer Mail-in-Voting Lawsuits in This Election Cycle Than in 2020
The majority of voting lawsuits filed during the 2024 election cycle were related to election administration and voter registration, not mail-in voting, which is a departure from 2020 election litigation.
Democracy Docket’s recently released 2023-2024 Litigation Report revealed numerous voting rights trends in the courts, here’s a breakdown of mail-in voting:
Leading up to the 2024 election, there were 306 lawsuits filed — 39% on election administration, 36% on voter registration and only 20% on vote-by-mail.
This is a sharp departure from the 2020 election cycle, in which 63% of the lawsuits were related to vote-by-mail. This trend was even apparent ahead of the 2022 midterms with 37% of the election cases litigating mail-in voting.
Mail-in voting lawsuits typically litigate issues like the eligibility of military and overseas voters (UOCAVA), ballots with minor mistakes — like an incorrect or missing date, lack of proper envelope and missing signature, post-Election Day ballot receipt deadlines, the ballot curing process and who is allowed to return a ballot on behalf of a voter.
Sophia Lin Lakin, director of the ACLU Voting Rights Project, said one key factor likely contributed to this trend.
“In 2020, we had the pandemic and there was a shift to mail voting that was unexpected at the time,” Lin Lakin said.
She explained that during the height of COVID-19, many emergency rules were passed to expand mail-in and absentee voting to ensure that “people could vote in a safe and comfortable manner” in the 2020 election.
There were numerous lawsuits filed by Republicans to challenge these last-minute changes and by Democrats and voting rights groups in states where officials were not making changes to accommodate voters during the pandemic.
Vote-by-mail has been used in many prior elections but never at such a high rate. In 2018, 23% of American voters cast mail-in ballots and in 2020, that percentage skyrocketed to 43%.
In 2022 and 2024, fewer “people were using it in the same way, and rules were normalized,” Lin Lakin explained, noting that many pandemic-era rules were either codified into law or were temporary and have now lapsed. This contributed to the lower number of new vote-by-mail lawsuits being filed.
Also, Republicans and right-wing groups, who filed most of the voting lawsuits in 2024, zeroed in on other issues this election cycle and that was reflected in the litigation they filed.
Lin Lakin mentioned that noncitizen voting and voter challenges seemed to take “center stage” over the past year for the GOP.
However, she clarified that even though mail-in voting may not have been the most prevalent topic for Republicans in court recently, there are still many ongoing vote-by-mail cases, and the issue will likely continue to be litigated in the future.
One significant mail-in lawsuit is in Georgia — challenging Senate Bill 202, a voter suppression law passed in 2021.
In a consolidated case, the U.S. Department of Justice and pro-voting groups sued to strike down numerous provisions, including ones that restrict who can assist individuals in returning their completed absentee ballots, limit the availability of drop boxes and shorten the absentee ballot application window. Litigation is ongoing in the district court and 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Also, in May 2022, Illinois Republicans challenged a state law that allows election officials to count timely postmarked mail-in ballots for up to two weeks after an election. A federal district court and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue, and a Republican congressman asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in.
Even though mail-in voting issues weren’t as prevalent in 2024 lawsuits, there still could be numerous decisions impacting vote-by-mail next year.