National: 2020 Was Already Expected to Be A Record Year for Election-Related Lawsuits—Then Coronavirus Happened | Alexandra Hutzler/Newsweek
The drive to expand vote-by-mail options amid the coronavirus pandemic has caused a major spike in lawsuits in what was already expected to be a banner year for election-related litigation. “Even before the virus hit, I was predicting that 2020 would see a record level of election-related litigation,” Richard Hasen, an election law expert at the University of California, Irvine, told Newsweek. “So it is not a surprise that the virus is spurring even more litigation, both over virus-related changes to election dates and procedures and also to litigate over the meaning of existing rules in light of the pandemic,” he added. In the past two months since the COVID-19 outbreak became a global health crisis, dozens of lawsuits related to the 2020 election have popped up around the country. In the past week alone, voting rights litigation has been filed in Texas, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.