You know, we forget so many times, we forget so often that elections are run at the local level, and that's both the official who is running elections, but also the poll workers, those people in the polling place who are your neighbors, who are people from your community who are taking time out of their lives to serve that day, to serve their community, serve our democracy.
And so, well, they'll help you through the process and give you the I voted sticker and thank you for coming out.
You know, it's also great to thank them and to know that while this election is here, if you're interested in being a part of that, what other profession, what other thing can you just step into for a day?
And so we created a website at the Election Assistance Commission, helpamericavote.gov.
It's got information about being a poll worker.
And for anyone who wants to be a part of the process, they should reach out to their local election official.
That website, helpamericavote.gov, can get them there and sign up.
Be a part of it.
Help administer our elections.
See those safeguards and safety measures that I've been talking about.
It's really a great experience.
I've done it a number of times.
And so I encourage people to do that.
But I also encourage people to thank their poll worker if they're out tomorrow.
Well, thanks for ending on a positive note.
That's Benjamin Hoveland, chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.
You can find out more about their work at eac.gov.
Thanks so much for coming in.
Thanks for having me.
Welcome back to Washington Journal.
We're joined now by Dan Takaji.
He is Dean and Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
We're talking about campaign 2024 litigation.
Professor, welcome to the program.
Thank you for having me.
Can you talk about the scale of litigation we're seeing already for this campaign cycle?
Sure.
We've seen a lot of litigation this campaign cycle.
We always see a lot of litigation in a year divisible by four, but there do seem to be more cases this time around than has been typically the case in cases that are brought by both sides.
In general, the Republican Party and their allies have been focusing more on election integrity and the Democratic Party and their allies more on voting access.
But, you know, I was doing some searching over the weekend and found dozens of cases that have been brought just in the past few weeks, really by both sides on all sorts of issues, from absentee ballots to voting by military and overseas personnel to voter registration and list maintenance and voting purges and election certification.
Certainly a lot of litigation this cycle.
So give us an example of what we're seeing.
You know, for instance, voting from military people overseas.
That has always been the case.
What kind of litigation would there be around that?
Yeah, I can give an example.
There was a lawsuit that was brought in Michigan over this issue by the Michigan Republican Party against that state's Democratic Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson,
a former election law professor, having to do with the spouses and dependent, or at least some of the spouses and dependents of military and overseas personnel and whether they were entitled to vote through the means that are provided ordinarily for military and overseas voters, even if they had never lived in the state of Michigan before.
That's an example.
We've certainly seen a lot of litigation over absentee ballots.
For example, in Georgia, the Fulton County Republican Party brought a case challenging the use of election offices as return sites for absentee ballots.
On the Democratic side, as I mentioned a moment ago, most of the cases tend to have to do with access.
For example, cases regarding the ability to return ballots or have them counted, even if they're not dated or otherwise fully compliant in the law.
We've seen this naked ballots issue, which arose back a few years ago, which is not nearly as exciting as it sounds.
It has to do with ballots that are returned without the security envelope.