Litigating the 2024 Presidential Election

The presidential election of 2020 was as notable for its legal as for its political fighting. 2024 promises to be similar. In this seminar, we will follow and critique the major cases arising out of the 2024 election in order to answer questions like the following: why was the case brought, is it structured to achieve its stated (or unstated) goals, what are its likely legal (and nonlegal) problems, how much does its success depend on moving the law, what are its implications for elections more generally, and are the lawyers advancing their claims in and out of court appropriately. The class will not aim to address every single case involving the election but rather focus on the most important and the most interesting. No background in election law is necessary and this class does not aim to cover the election law field. Instead we will focus on the law of election administration, under which most of these kinds of claims arise. We are unlikely to spend much time, if any, on areas like campaign finance regulation, the Voting Rights Act, political gerrymandering, and apportionment and redistricting. These are important and covered in a class on election law generally, but they are not central to what we’ll be doing. The class will start with a doctrinal “boot camp” in which we’ll learn the basic law of election administration. We’ll then break into our teams to focus on particular cases as they arise. Each week we’ll meet together to discuss how the cases are proceeding.