RNC Chair: Election Lawsuit Blitz Could Reshape Voting Rules for Years

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Republican National Committee has about 179 active lawsuits across 37 states, a legal broadside RNC Chairman Joe Gruters anticipates will set rules beyond just the 2026 midterm election cycle.

“When the president asked me to do this job a year ago, he said election integrity is a priority. The top priority is winning the election, but we also consider it a win to protect the vote,” Gruters told the Daily Signal in an exclusive interview.

“We want to secure our elections far beyond Election Day,” said Gruters, also a Florida state senator.

Gruters also said he recently talked to President Donald Trump about the fate of the SAVE America Act, a voter ID proposal that passed the House. Gruters says the bill “probably” wouldn’t get past the Democrat filibuster in the Senate before the November election.

The RNC established its election integrity program for the 2024 election, which included a presidential race, and surpassed its all-time litigation record for a single year.

The number of lawsuits is up from the 2024 cycle, when the RNC filed 175 election security lawsuits at the federal, state, and local level. For the 2026 election cycle, the RNC filed a total of 200 cases.

The most significant is likely the case of Republican National Committee v. Mi Familia Vota, which is going to the Supreme Court in December. The question in the case is whether Arizona can require proof of citizenship for voter registration. The high court will also decide whether the state can remove the names of noncitizens, dead people, and other ineligible people from the voter registration rolls.

Lawsuits include pending litigation in eight states where overseas residents who never lived in the state are allowed to vote there, as well as major wins regarding election procedures in Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, and Virginia. The RNC has had 34 courtroom victories and most cases are pending.

Beyond from the courtroom, the RNC signed up 16,971 volunteers to work at polling sites nationally. That’s up from 11,917 at the same point in the 2024 presidential cycle, a 42% increase.

Gruters cited the three election integrity priorities for the RNC as voter ID, securing mail-in ballots, and requiring proof of citizenship.

The SAVE America Act would require photo ID to vote and proof of citizenship to register to vote.

“I spoke with the president two nights ago about the specific senators that were keeping this from happening. Democrats are united in their efforts to prevent this from moving forward because they are united in their efforts to lie, steal, and cheat for victory,” Gruters said.

“It’s probably not going to happen now,” he said of passing the legislation. “We probably won’t see it happen until after November, when we have new senators.”

For their part, Democrats insist they are ready on the legal front.

“Democrats are fighting in courtrooms around the country, and federal elections will be free and fair this November because Democrats have defeated President Trump and Republicans’ attacks on the sacred right to vote,” DNC Litigation Director Dan Freeman told the Daily Signal in a statement.

“While Republicans continue to file lawsuits destined for dismissal and issue empty threats about poll watchers and election monitors, Democrats are ensuring Americans can make their voices heard and hold President Trump accountable at the polls this November,” Freeman continued.

Gruters said the GOP merely wants to prevent illegal votes from being cast that will cancel legal votes, and that Republicans have long been reactive instead of proactive on election integrity.

The RNC expanded recruitment into Maryland, Colorado, New Mexico, Kentucky, Alaska, and Ohio as part of a multimillion-dollar election integrity program, with directors deployed in 22 states.

Before coming to the RNC, Gruters had been the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, and prior to that, the chairman of the Republican Party of Sarasota County.

“Being a chairman is about blocking and tackling, but also about protecting the vote,” he said. “We are being aggressive. We are going to use the hammer whenever we can.”

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