which was violence. we saw violence on january 6th in an effort to overturn free and fair elections through violence. well, look now where we are later. we have seen election denialism first in legislatures and the laws they passed in 2021 and now in the candidates. they are continuing to badmouth democracy. and what are we seeing now? we re seeing armed people stalking dropboxs. so i fear that we re seeing all three of those pieces. and it all goes back to what you said, which was donald trump after 2020 unleashing this on the country. yeah. but you think basically the judges approaches work or there needs to be what we might call a jurisprudential adjustment to make the news more boring than it already might sound? i think we saw in 2020 the courts held. in 2020 we saw the courts. i think the jury is out whether or not that will be the case. but i don t think we can count on it. i think that there is a need for
didn t want all the votes counted. if that s not a dictatorial mindset on tape, i don t know what is. so a, respond to that if you choose. b, do you think that judges current approaches works or do you think there has to be some adjustment within the rule of law to deal with what you describe as a changed landscape for efforts to overthrow democracy? yeah. i think it is just that. it is an effort to overthrow democracy. what we saw in 2020 had three phases. the first was before the election donald trump badmouthed democracy and tried to vilify voting. then as you point out after it was clear he lost the election he went to court 65 times, lost 64 of them, in an effort to use the courts to overturn the will of the electorate. and here s the key, ari, to sow doubts and create the big lie. to create the ground that was fertile for what we saw third,
non-partisan basis for lawyers to police themselves better and not help lying junk lawsuits that are adjacent to coup efforts? correct. that s exactly what i m saying. is that it is time for the legal profession to adopt as a canon that you have to be pro democracy. it doesn t mean you have to have my version of democracy. it doesn t mean you can t be on the other side of litigation. you about the kind of junk litigation we saw in 2020 that was aimed at nothing but subverting election results really the legal profession needs to speak out more loudly. i think i singled that out only because we talked about a few things but that s a very important point. it s one i discussed with some lawyers out there. and i think there has to be of course a robust space for zealous advocacy, which means what even in supreme court litigation is sometimes called off the wall arguments for why your republican candidate should win. yes. but john eastman coup memos about why you could conjoin with vi
is it fundamentally different than, say, the old days of back to bush v. gore where there were cases and they were hard fought but they weren t like this? yeah. so you re exactly right. what we re seeing now is like nothing we ve ever seen before. and just to give you some perspective, my first post-election dispute was over a senate seat after the 1996 election in louisiana between mary landrieu and woody jenkins. and i was involved in a number of what you would think would be fairly contentious ballots after that, including harry reid s recount in 1998, al franken. but what you re seeing now is like nothing we ve seen before. democracy docket tracks all the litigation that is brought whether by democrats or republicans on either side. and there have been this year alone 158 lawsuits, this year in 34 states. 96 of them are still currently active and ongoing. and 39 of them, this is key, 39 of them are have been brought
trump. then within two years we have the midterm elections one week away. marc elias says his firm is now litigating over 50 cases in 19 states. he s expecting new litigation. this time they re working on the state by state efforts. they have extra resources. they re facing what they call extra disinformation from the right, with the republican party that is now making challenges to democracy or outright support of the january 6th insurrection and coup a part of what at least a huge chunk of its candidates are openingly running on. we are joined by marc elias, founder of the democracy docket. good day to you, sir. thanks for having me. you are a lawyer so recognized in this area that people often make you either their first call or as you may know online their first diss because some people in the republican party don t like it, although unlike, say, giuliani or others, you haven t been sanctioned or anything. you re just doing litigation. with that in mind, why don t you tell us w