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The Biden campaign has brought in an army of lawyers, including former President Barack ObamasAttorney General Eric Holder, in anticipation of a brawl in the courts with the Trump campaign over the unique challenges that voting in 2020 entails.

The New York Times reported on Monday that hundreds of lawyersincluding Holder, two U.S. solicitors general from the Clinton and Obama presidencies, the former general counsel for Obamas campaigns and the DNC law firm Perkins Coie that has been on the front lines of various voting-related caseshave joined Joe Bidens so-called special litigation unit.

Its unclear what truly lies ahead in the debut season of Law & Order: Special Litigation Unit, but based on what we have seen so far we can surmise that Trump campaign challenges to vote-by-mail expansion and vote counting methodology will be a feature rather than a bug. The Trump campaign has filed suit in multiple states over vote-by-mail expansion, which, it says,invites fraud to benefit the Biden campaign. But vote-by-mail itself is far from the only issue that may arise in the coming weeks and months.

A federal judge in Georgia recently gave voters extra time to return absentee ballots amid the coronavirus pandemic, reasoning that the risk of disenfranchisement is great. Expect this, and any other extensions of time like it, to be challenged in court.

Then there is the issue of the election itself and the rhetoric surrounding its legitimacy.

The Trump campaign and Attorney General Bill Barr have argued against universal mail-in voting, saying that logic suggests the vote could be manipulated both domestically and by foreign bad actors. Barr even cited a false example of ballot fraud on CNN to make his case. The Biden campaign may argue, on the other hand, that the Trump campaign is sowing distrust in the legitimacy and accuracy of the eventual 2020 election both in order to suppress the vote and as a pretext to any potential challenge over which votes should and should not be counted. Will we see a 2020 version of the Brooks Brothers Riot?

The DOJ has stepped in, in at least one instance, to support Alabamas witness requirements for absentee ballots. On the other side, there have been multiple lawsuits over the changes made at the Post Office in the lead-up to the election.

We have even seen Kanye West booted from state ballots after challenges led by Perkins Coie and Mark Elias, one of the lawyers working for the Biden campaign.

It is against this bizarre backdrop that Bidens campaign has ramped up its legal operation, which Dana Remus is heading. Remus is a Yale-educated lawyer, law professor and general counsel at the Obama foundation. Obama was actually the officiant at Remuss wedding.

Remus told the Times that the goal for 2020 is to have a free and fair election with results that can be trusted. Former Obama White House counsel Bob Bauer, a senior adviser on the campaign,said that the Biden legal team, due to the unique challenges of this year, will be far more sophisticated and resourced than other campaigns.

To the end, the campaign has added Obama-era U.S. Solicitor General Donald B. Verrilli Jr. and Bill Clinton-era acting U.S. Solicitor General Walter Dellinger, along with hundreds of other lawyers,to the fold. The Times described Eric Holders involvement as something of a liaison between the campaign and the many independent groups involved in the legal fight over the election, which is already raging in the courts.

[Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

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Biden Brings in Hundreds of LawyersBig Names Among Themin Anticipation of Unique Election Legal Battles - Law & Crime

WASHINGTON (AP) Democrat Joe Biden is assembling a team of top lawyers in anticipation of court challenges to the election process that could ultimately determine who wins the race for the White House.

Bidens presidential campaign says the legal war room will work to ensure that elections are properly administered and votes correctly counted. It will also seek to combat voter suppression at the polls, identify foreign interference and misinformation, and educate voters on the different methods available for casting ballots.

The effort, which the Biden campaign described as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history, reflects the extent of the preparation underway for an already divisive presidential contest in November that could produce significant, perhaps even decisive, court cases over voter access and the legitimacy of mail ballots.

Democrats and Republicans are locked in legal fights on election rules that could help shape the outcome of the vote, and President Donald Trumps campaign has its own attorneys handling cases on a variety of issues.

Trump in recent months has sought to preemptively cast doubt on the election, warning that the expected surge in mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic will lead to massive fraud and could open the door to foreign countries to print their own fraudulent ballots.

Notwithstanding Donald Trump and his Republican allies hollow threats and constant misinformation, election officials around the country are working tirelessly to hold a free and fair and election, and we have an extraordinary national team in place to ensure that every eligible voter is able to exercise their right to vote and have their vote counted, Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign and former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, said in a statement.

Bauer, who served as general counsel to the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012, will work with campaign general counsel Dana Remus on voter protection an issue that thousands of Democratic lawyers around the country are also engaged in, according to the Biden campaign.

The campaign is also creating a special national litigation team involving hundreds of lawyers that will include as leaders Walter Dellinger, a solicitor general in the Clinton administration, and Donald Verrilli, a solicitor general under Obama.

Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and a team of lawyers from his firm, Perkins Coie, will focus on protecting voter access and ensuring a fair and accurate vote count.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder will also play an outreach role on the question of voting rights, according to the campaign.

We can and will be able to hold a free and fair election this November and were putting in place an unprecedented voter protection effort with thousands of lawyers and volunteers around the country to ensure that voting goes smoothly, Remus said in a statement.

The Trump campaign issued a statement from deputy manager Justin Clark saying that as Democrats continue their push to weaken reasonable rules preventing fraud like voter ID and signature matching President Trump and his campaign will continue to protect the integrity of the vote.

Our team will continue to fight every day in the courtroom and on the ground to make sure that every eligible voter has the right to vote and that their vote is counted once, Clark said.

The New York Times reported on the legal war room initiative earlier Monday.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP

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Biden assembles legal team ahead of divisive 2020 election - The Associated Press

A scene from "All In: The Fight for Democracy"

A scene from "All In: The Fight for Democracy"

A scene from "All In: The Fight for Democracy"

You may think youve had enough of political documentaries for one pandemic year. But All In: The Fight for Democracy is the John Lewis: Good Trouble of films about the history of voter suppression in the United States.

We live in an era of the weaponization of voter suppression tactics, according to the film, which was directed by Lisa Cortes and twice-Oscar nominated Liz Garbus (The Farm: Angola USA). The title says it all. The right to vote is the basis of our democracy. When you withhold it, you are doing something profoundly and quintessentially un-American. In the beginning of our Republic, we learn, only property-owning white men were allowed to vote, and therefore only about 6% of the population elected our officials and voted on the laws of the land.

Stacey Abrams, who lost a close, hotly contested and some say tainted gubernatorial election in Georgia in 2018 to its former secretary of state, tells us of her childhood when her parents, both college graduates, would take her and her five siblings to the polls to see them cast their votes. We hear about the time she and her parents were turned away at the gate of the governors residence where she was supposed to attend an event honoring Georgia valedictorians.

The film also features civil rights icon Andrew Young, former Attorney General Eric Holder, and historians such as Carol Anderson and Frances Fox Piven and provides an insightful history of voting rights in this country. The 15th Amendment gave the vote to the freed slaves, resulting in a spate of African American senators. But the Jim Crow laws of the late 19th and early 20th centuries placed limitations on African American voters, using poll taxes, literacy tests, gerrymandering, threats of lynching and outright murder to discourage voting among Black communities.

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'All In: The Fight for Democracy' is required viewing in these times - STLtoday.com

WASHINGTON (AP) Democrat Joe Biden is assembling a team of top lawyers in anticipation of court challenges to the election process that could ultimately determine who wins the race for the White House.

Biden's presidential campaign says the legal war room will work to ensure that elections are properly administered and votes correctly counted. It will also seek to combat voter suppression at the polls, identify foreign interference and misinformation, and educate voters on the different methods available for casting ballots.

The effort, which the Biden campaign described as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history, reflects the extent of the preparation underway for an already divisive presidential contest in November that could produce significant, perhaps even decisive, court cases over voter access and the legitimacy of mail ballots.

Democrats and Republicans are locked in legal fights on election rules that could help shape the outcome of the vote, and President Donald Trump's campaign has its own attorneys handling cases on a variety of issues.

Trump in recent months has sought to preemptively cast doubt on the election, warning that the expected surge in mail ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic will lead to massive fraud and could open the door to foreign countries to print their own fraudulent ballots.

"Notwithstanding Donald Trump and his Republican allies' hollow threats and constant misinformation, election officials around the country are working tirelessly to hold a free and fair and election, and we have an extraordinary national team in place to ensure that every eligible voter is able to exercise their right to vote and have their vote counted," Bob Bauer, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign and former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, said in a statement.

Bauer, who served as general counsel to the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2012, will work with campaign general counsel Dana Remus on voter protection an issue that thousands of Democratic lawyers around the country are also engaged in, according to the Biden campaign.

The campaign is also creating a special national litigation team involving hundreds of lawyers that will include as leaders Walter Dellinger, a solicitor general in the Clinton administration, and Donald Verrilli, a solicitor general under Obama.

Democratic lawyer Marc Elias and a team of lawyers from his firm, Perkins Coie, will focus on protecting voter access and ensuring a fair and accurate vote count.

Former Attorney General Eric Holder will also play an outreach role on the question of voting rights, according to the campaign.

"We can and will be able to hold a free and fair election this November and we're putting in place an unprecedented voter protection effort with thousands of lawyers and volunteers around the country to ensure that voting goes smoothly," Remus said in a statement.

The Trump campaign issued a statement from deputy manager Justin Clark saying that as "Democrats continue their push to weaken reasonable rules preventing fraud like voter ID and signature matching President Trump and his campaign will continue to protect the integrity of the vote.

"Our team will continue to fight every day in the courtroom and on the ground to make sure that every eligible voter has the right to vote and that their vote is counted once," Clark said.

The New York Times reported on the legal war room initiative earlier Monday.

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Joe Biden assembles legal team ahead of divisive 2020 election - The Oakland Press

The full schedule for Cap Times Idea Fest is now available on captimesideafest.com, so take a look there and start planning sessions you want to see.

This years festival, which will run Sept. 26-Oct. 10, is virtual and most of the over two dozen sessions will be taped, so while you will see dates and times listed, keep in mind that most of those are times when session videos will first become available. You'll be able to watch those anytime afterward on the website even if you're busy when they first go live.

Cap Times editor and publisher Paul Fanlund recently wrote about some of the best-known speakers at this years festival including UW-Madison Chancellor Rebecca Blank, Gov. Tony Evers, former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar and star Washington Post journalists Carol Leonnig, David Maraniss, Ruth Marcus, Philip Rucker and Bob Woodward but we've added a few sessions since that column ran. One is a one-on-one session with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ayad Akhtar and a Cap Times members-only session featuring U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore and state Assembly candidate Francesca Hong speaking with Cap Times associate editor John Nichols.

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See the full Cap Times Idea Fest 2020 schedule - Madison.com