Democratic Superlawyer Challenges Voting Restrictions

A recent string of appeals court rulings that struck down state voting rights restrictions have one thing in common: Democratic superlawyer Marc E. Elias. With multimillion dollar backing from George Soros, Elias has argued that laws enacted in Ohio, Arizona and other states have disproportionately impeded the rights of minorities and young people to vote. “I don’t think people should think we’re done filing lawsuits for this election cycle,” Elias told the Washington Post. Within the last few weeks, judges have rolled back restrictions in Texas, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Dakota, and Kansas. The 15 states that have put new and stricter rules in place for voting say they are combating voter fraud, but in the past month both Democratic and Republican-appointed judges have found the threat either negligible or nonexistent. North Carolina plans to appeal its laws to the Supreme Court. Elias has joined in with the civil rights groups that have worked on voting laws, and has struck out on his own in Ohio, Arizona, and Virginia, explicitly representing the interests of Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee. “The way to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act is to make Nancy Pelosi the speaker of the House and Chuck Schumer the [Senate] majority leader and put Hillary Clinton in the White House,” he said.