Washington D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center, Protect Democracy and Bipartisan Policy Center released a report outlining the timeline and procedures that will guide the presidential election process.  

The report examines the Electoral Count Reform Act (ECRA) and the role it will play in the upcoming election.

Click here to view the report.

Click here to view a two-page summary of the report.

The ECRA was passed with bipartisan support in 2022 and is a critical safeguard in ensuring that U.S. elections run smoothly. The 2024 election will be the first presidential election utilizing the ECRA’s updated rules.

The ECRA clarifies the timeline and process for casting and counting electoral votes by:

• Requiring states to appoint electors on Election Day in accordance with pre-existing law, which prevents state legislatures from subverting the will of the voters.
• Clarifying that the governor must certify their state’s slate of electors – unless another official is designated – and establishes a deadline for doing so.
• Providing an expedited process for federal courts to resolve disputes about a state’s certification of electors under the ECRA.  
• Clarifying the vice president’s role in the process when Congress meets to count each state’s electoral votes.  
• Raising the threshold for Members of Congress to object to a state’s certified election results.

RSVP NOW: On September 24 we’ll be sitting down with experts for a virtual discussion on the crucial role the ECRA will have in this year’s presidential election and dive deep into what the process will look like from 2024 forward.

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law. We safeguard the freedom to vote, defend voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and work to ensure public trust in our elected officials.  

Learn more about CLC. Don't miss out on our latest resources: Subscribe to President Trevor Potter's newsletter, tune in to the latest season of our award-winning podcast, Democracy Decoded, and join our livestreamed events.

Protect Democracy is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing American democracy from declining into a more authoritarian form of government.

The Bipartisan Policy Center is a mission-focused organization helping policymakers work across party lines to craft bipartisan solutions. By connecting Republicans and Democrats, delivering data and context, negotiating public policy, and creating space for bipartisan collaboration, BPC helps turn legislators’ best ideas into durable laws that improve lives. Since 2007, the Bipartisan Policy Center has helped shepherd countless bills across the finish line. 

Washington, D.C. — Campaign Legal Center, All Voting is Local, the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU Law, and Protect Democracy have coauthored “Election Certification Processes and Guardrails,” guides to election certification and the state laws protecting the process in seven battleground states. The guides explain how state laws can protect against threats or delays to election certification and emphasize that refusal to certify is illegal in each state.

The guides published today are written for elections officials in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Each state’s guide provides the legal mechanisms that state and local officials can deploy in response to refusals to certify elections. Across all states:

• Certification of election results is a mandatory duty
• If an official delays or refuses to certify results, state officials and courts can step in to compel certification.
• State officials can hold officials who refuse to certify accountable through civil and criminal penalties.

Since 2020, over 30 local elections officials across the country have voted against or threatened to refuse to certify an election. Earlier this year, three commissioners in Washoe County, Nevada initially refused to certify the results of two primary election recounts. Two of the three commissioners reversed course, acknowledging that they had a mandatory legal duty to certify. That effort to disrupt the mandatory certification process, like every other attempt, was unsuccessful. In some instances, the rogue officials’ actions caused delays but the election results were ultimately certified. Despite their failures, these attempts may still succeed in sowing further distrust in the elections process overall and plant the seeds for bad-faith rejection of the results in the 2024 presidential election.

Related resources:

“Can Georgia's Election Board Refuse to Certify Results? The Law Says No” Campaign Legal Center (September 2024)

“Election Deniers Continue Attempts to Meddle with Certification — But the Process Is Resilient,” Brennan Center (August 2024)

“Election Certification, Explained,” Protect Democracy (July 2024)

“Certification Is Not Optional,” Protect Democracy (March 2024) 

“How State and Local Election Certification Works,” Brennan Center (March 2024)

Washington, DC — The much-delayed financial disclosure reports of Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee became public this week, raising more questions about his financial interests. 

On September 13, 2024, more than a year after the original filing deadline, Rep. Ogles finally amended his financial disclosure for 2022. He also filed his 2023 report, which was submitted four months after the due date and a month after the final statutory deadline. 

In January 2024, CLC filed a complaint against Rep. Ogles for failing to report a $700,000 line of credit while also failing to show sufficient assets to cover a $320,000 loan he reported having made to his campaign in a Federal Election Commission filing. Rep. Ogles later called this a “pledge” that was “mistakenly included” in these filings. 

Rep. Ogles’ new disclosures continue to appear incomplete or inaccurate, raising more questions about discrepancies in his federal filings. 

Specifically, Rep. Ogles has newly reported an “investment property” worth up to $1 million that does not appear to match public records. He is now reporting a bank account worth between $50,000 and $100,000 that he failed to disclose in 2022. Rep. Ogles has also reported that he and his wife own several investment portfolios but has not disclosed what the underlying assets are. 

Kedric Payne – CLC's Vice President, General Counsel, and Senior Director for Ethics – released the following statement: 

“The public has a right to know what, if any, financial obligations to outside sources an elected official may have because it allows the public to be informed of any potential conflicts of interest. 

Rep. Ogles’s failure to be transparent in his financial disclosure reports not only risks obscuring the truth of these details for his constituents, but it can also create an environment in which more people become distrustful of their lawmakers. 

The Office of Congressional Ethics must conduct an investigation into these concerning patterns by Rep. Ogles, which may represent a violation of federal law.”

Washington D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center launched the first episode of Season 4 of the award-winning podcast, Democracy Decoded. In this season, we’re taking a deep dive into our electoral system, exploring the checks and balances that make the process safe, secure and accurate.  

Listen and Subscribe Here

Host Simone Leeper will investigate the ways in which Congress took action after the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol to update an outdated election law. She’ll also meet election workers who persevered through the thorny 2020 election, help the public understand their rights as a voter, learn how AI is impacting our democracy and so much more.

This season of Democracy Decoded will equip journalists and American voters with insights that will empower you to participate fully in our democracy. Join us in this timely journey and stay up to date on every episode: follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Washington, D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center (CLC) and — including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause, Fix the Court, Lawyers Defending American Democracy, and People for the American Way — submitted a letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States urging the entity to conclude its nearly 18-month investigation into Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas during its bi-annual meeting this week. 

CLC initially requested in April 2023 that this committee of federal judges refer Justice Thomas to the U.S. Attorney General for potentially violating the Ethics in Government Act after he failed to report gifted travel in financial disclosure forms spanning two decades. 

The Judicial Conference indicated that it had initiated an ethics review of the matter in January 2024, but it has delayed issuing a final decision on whether it will refer him to the U.S. Attorney General for a full investigation despite having the power to do so at any time. 

Trevor Potter, Founder and President of Campaign Legal Center, issued the following statement: 

“Justices serving on the Supreme Court are entrusted with having the final say over constitutional disputes in our democracy. With this power comes the expectation that they will rule evenhandedly and the responsibility to act ethically. 

CLC has long advocated for the Supreme Court to be held to the same ethics standards as all other federal judges. Public trust in this institution is at an all-time low. The Judicial Conference should not risk making the situation worse by doing anything to normalize ethics violations — especially violations that obscure who may be trying to influence impartial legal decisions made by justices.”

Washington, D.C. — Today, Campaign Legal Center, Fair Elections Center, and Southern Poverty Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of four individual Alabamians who have been unfairly targeted by the state’s illegal voter purge as well as the Alabama Coalition for Immigrant Justice, the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP, and the League of Women Voters of Alabama.

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a letter the advocacy organizations sent to notify Secretary of State Wes Allen that Alabama’s voter purge program, which purges naturalized U.S. citizens from the state’s voter rolls shortly before the 2024 election, violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).  

“No American citizen should be denied their freedom to vote, and all Americans have the same freedom to vote regardless of where they were born. Instead of protecting Americans’ freedom to vote in the November election, Alabama is shamefully intimidating naturalized citizens and illegally purging qualified Americans from voter rolls,” said Paul Smith, senior vice president of CLC. “Our local election officials work hard to make sure only American citizens can vote. In practice, voter purges like what we are seeing in Alabama target naturalized citizens and prevent qualified Americans from exercising their right to vote. Our democracy works best when every American can participate without fear, and CLC will continue to fight for Americans’ freedom to vote.” 

“Secretary Allen’s actions are not making our elections any safer; instead, they are inactivating lawfully registered voters from the rolls and unnecessarily causing fear and intimidation,” said Kathy Jones, president of the League of Women Voters of Alabama. “Alabama voters need to know that the League is here to fight for them and is committed to ensuring all voters have the opportunity and accurate information to exercise their right to vote.”

“Targeting naturalized citizens is the latest move in the playbook for voter intimidation,” said Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States. “The state of Alabama illegally took the right to vote away from eligible citizens and must be stopped. We can't allow registered voters to bear the brunt of these dangerous lies that threaten our democracy. The League will continue to protect voters against bad actors who choose to harm our democracy with misinformation for political gain.”

“It is a foundational principle of our country that every citizen, regardless of where they come from, has a voice in our democracy,” said Michelle Kanter Cohen, policy director and senior counsel at Fair Elections Center. “What’s more, this is the time for election officials to be reaching out and encouraging new voters to participate, instead of engaging in last-minute election-eve attempts to make it harder to vote for naturalized citizens who have worked so hard for their opportunity to have a say.”

“Last month, the SPLC and our partners put the Secretary of State on notice for announcing plans to systemically purge individuals on the voter rolls who are naturalized citizens within the 90-day period stipulated by the NVRA,” said Jess Unger, senior staff attorney for voting rights at Southern Poverty Law Center. “Today, we are suing to end this discriminatory program that’s in clear violation of the NVRA – and to protect the rights of thousands of eligible voters that the state of Alabama is trying to silence. No matter what barrier is put in place, we will work to ensure every voice in Alabama is heard.” 

“The Alabama NAACP is again dismayed by the Alabama Secretary of State efforts to disenfranchise voters.  We know that this is a nation wide effort to provide excuses for certain candidates to use if they lose the elections on November 5.  We are committed to doing all that we can to ensure that every voter votes and that every vote is counted despite what obstacles are put in our path,” said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP.

A copy of the complaint can be found here.

For more on CLC’s work in fighting against Alabama’s illegal voter purge, click here. 

The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center advances democracy through law. We safeguard the freedom to vote, defend voters’ right to know who is spending money to influence elections, and work to ensure public trust in our elected officials.  

Learn more about CLC. Don't miss out on our latest resources: Subscribe to President Trevor Potter's newsletter, tune in to the latest season of our award-winning podcast, Democracy Decoded, and join our livestreamed events. 

The League of Women Voters is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voting rights and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy. We empower voters and defend democracy through advocacy, education, and litigation, at the local, state, and national levels.

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of all people. For more information, visit www.splcenter.org.

Fair Elections Center is a national, nonpartisan voting rights and election reform organization based in Washington, D.C. using litigation, public education, and advocacy to remove barriers to registration and voting, particularly those disenfranchising underrepresented and marginalized communities.

The Alabama NAACP is one of the oldest civil rights organizations in the state and has been fighting for equal rights, voting rights and political power since 1913.