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.”