Democrats sue three battleground states over law that GOP candidates' names be listed first on ballo
Democratic organizations filed lawsuits in Georgia, Arizona and Texas on Friday saying Republicans are given an unfair advantage by being listed first on those states’ general election ballots.
The traditionally red states Democrats hope to make competitive in 2020 have slightly different rules about ballot placement, but in each case, because Republicans control the governorships, every other race from president on down is listed with the Republican candidate first.
“We know from the social science that there is something called the ‘primacy effect,’ studied across all kinds of things that have nothing to do with politics,” said Marc Elias, a Washington-based Democratic attorney. “This is putting an invisible thumb on the scale for the Republican candidate.”
Ahead of 2020, Democrats are looking at a slew of election laws they believe could tip the scale in Republicans’ favor, filing lawsuits all over the country over matters like voting access for college students and ballot order. The Democratic National Committee, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Priorities USA and states’ Democratic parties are involved in the lawsuits filed Friday.
The DNC and other party-affliated groups filed a similar lawsuit in Florida in July decrying ballot order bias they contend would give President Trump the edge in a crucial battleground state he won in 2016 by only 1.2 percentage points.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democrats-sue-three-battleground-states-over-law-that-gop-candidates-names-be-listed-first-on-ballot/2019/11/01/b62c8f44-fcc0-11e9-8906-ab6b60de9124_story.html
