(I tried all day yesterday to post this, but didn’t get it done, so here it is this morning.)
Since 2020, Democracy Docket has extensively covered and tracked important litigation related to voting rights, elections and redistricting and now has a database of over 660 cases. As in previous years, we are providing a comprehensive year-end report on all the democracy-related cases filed and decided in 2023 that directly impacted voters.
Considering it was not a federal election year, 2023 was quite busy for democracy in the courts. While there were not as many new lawsuits filed this past year relative to 2022, there was a notable influx of consequential outcomes stemming from democracy-related cases that directly impacted voters.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2023, we tracked:
- 73 new democracy-related lawsuits filed across 31 states.
- 146 court orders that impacted voters across 34 states.
- 83 victories for voters across 26 states.
The statistics in this report are based on the lawsuits in our case database as of Dec. 31, 2023. For the purposes of this report, we excluded the 57 active redistricting lawsuits and the small number of criminal cases we are tracking.
Throughout 2023, we tracked 73 new democracy-related lawsuits across 31 states.
Despite not being a federal election year, 2023 nevertheless saw over 70 democracy-related lawsuits spanning dozens of states. By comparison, in 2021 — another off-cycle year — Democracy Docket tracked 57 new democracy-related lawsuits across 18 states.
As expected, the number of new lawsuits filed in 2023 was lower than the 175 new democracy-related lawsuits filed in 2022 both before and after the midterm elections. In anticipation of the upcoming 2024 presidential election, we expect the number of new lawsuits to once again drastically increase this year.
In 2023, we tracked more pro-voting than anti-voting lawsuits and saw a nearly even split amongst lawsuits filed in federal and state courts. Lawsuits that centered around election administration — especially relating to direct democracy and the ballot initiative process — were most prominent among democracy-related litigation filed this past year. We observed how Republicans are doubling down on their anti-voting efforts in court, with GOP litigants bringing 68% of anti-voting lawsuits in 2023. Meanwhile, lawsuits filed by nonpartisan organizations — such as the NAACP or League of Women Voters — accounted for the vast majority of pro-voting litigation.
Below, we break down our comprehensive database of lawsuits that were filed in 2023 and provide analysis of the broader trends that characterized the past year’s litigation landscape.
Unlike in 2022, there were more pro-voting than anti-voting lawsuits filed in 2023.
Democracy Docket categorized the 73 new lawsuits filed in 2023 as either “pro-voting” or “anti-voting.” In total, we tracked 51 pro-voting lawsuits and 22 anti-voting lawsuits filed in 2023.
While this past year’s breakdown is a departure from the trend we saw in 2022 — in which there were more anti-voting lawsuits (93) than pro-voting lawsuits (82) — it is more in line with what we saw in 2021, when there were 49 pro-voting lawsuits and 8 anti-voting lawsuits.
Between 2022 and 2023, we noticed a distinct shift in who was behind new democracy-related litigation, with pro-voting parties bringing the bulk of all new lawsuits in 2023. While anti-voting parties brought 53% of the total lawsuits filed in 2022, they only brought 30% of new lawsuits filed in 2023. Inversely, pro-voting parties brought 47% of the total lawsuits filed in 2022, but nearly 70% of new lawsuits filed in 2023.
This is likely explained by the fact that most off-year election litigation focuses on pro-voting challenges to new voter suppression laws. In both 2021 and 2023, we saw waves of new anti-voting laws enacted by Republican-controlled legislatures. On the other hand, in even-numbered years, litigation tends to focus on how elections are administered and votes are counted — two areas where the anti-voting parties are particularly litigious. (snip-graphics and much More Info on the page)
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