The Republican Party is focused on litigation in the 2024 election, hoping to position itself for success

The Republican Party is determined not to be defeated in court in the 2024 elections. Republican Party leaders are leaning heavily on a new litigation-focused “election integrity” initiative launched earlier this year to avoid many of the same pitfalls of 2020.

The two-pronged effort aims to improve the GOP's game across the country, both through recruiting and training poll watchers and increasing transparency in the voting process, senior Republican Party officials told Fox News Digital in an interview.

So far they have recruited about 230,000 volunteers across the country, RNC officials said, including 5,000 attorneys focused primarily on the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

On the eve of Election Day, it is the lawyers whose talents could be particularly useful in the days and weeks ahead.

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Former President Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Santander Arena in Reading, Pennsylvania, November 4, 2024. (Reuters/Andrew Kelly)

That's because the second half of the election integrity push is focused on litigation. Some of the lawsuits aim to ensure “poll worker parity” and Republican observer access to many voting sites across the country, senior party officials told Fox News Digital.

But they have also filed dozens of lawsuits aimed at challenging voter identification laws, tightening citizenship verification standards and imposing new requirements for mail-in ballots and provisional ballots accepted by various states.

The Republican Party has been particularly aggressive in filing these lawsuits in the run-up to the election, which officials describe as helping to “set the rules of the road in key swing states.”

As of this writing, party officials say they have filed more than 130 lawsuits — the vast majority of the roughly 200 election-related lawsuits in the 2024 election.

While the flood of Republican-led lawsuits dominated the headlines in the final Election Day race – particularly in the seven swing states believed to be paramount in determining the next president – Republican officials pointed out The party's court victories, which were already won this summer, were some of its biggest successes.

One example was the RNC's successful lawsuit against the city of Detroit in August.

The RNC had requested to add more Republican election inspectors to the city's more than 300 precincts, citing a ratio of Democratic to Republican inspectors of “7.5 to one.” Republicans successfully argued that the disparity contradicts state law, which requires “as equal a number as possible” of election officials from both major political parties. As a result, more Republican observers were added.

A more recent victory came last week in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where a judge sided with Republicans' request to extend early voting deadlines from Tuesday, November 5th to Friday, November 8th.

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Journalists work in front of the US Supreme Court building in Washington, DC (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Republican officials have touted success in achieving greater transparency in state elections.

“We really see this as a transparent and trustworthy process of elections in America. And that's a net benefit for everyone in this country, regardless of Republican or Democratic (party affiliation),” a senior RNC official told Fox News Digital in an interview.

Still, on the eve of Election Day, it remains to be seen whether these efforts will have achieved their stated goal of instilling greater confidence in US elections.

That's because the concept of “election security” requires not only that certain safeguards be put in place around the voter registration and voting process, but also that voters themselves trust that the results of the vote are legitimate.

A new AP-NORC poll found that Democrats are far more likely than their Republican counterparts to express confidence in the outcome of the 2024 presidential election.

The poll found that 71% of registered Democratic voters said they had “very high” confidence in the outcome of the national election, while only a third of their Republican counterparts, or 24%, said the same.

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A person walks past the Montgomery County poll service car on October 22, 2024 in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Looking ahead

While some of these lawsuits could be used by the RNC as a pretext to challenge the results of certain states after Election Day, legal experts said it is unclear what impact these legal challenges could have on contesting the results – even if the result is in some states In a head-to-head election, the situation is just as close as expected.

Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York, told Fox News in an interview that courts are unlikely to take cases after Election Day.

“We want the game to be fair, in the sense that there are clear lines before Election Day,” McCarthy said. “So everyone has their eyes open to what the rules are.”

“It's really difficult to get a court to get involved after an election has taken place and the outcome of the election may still be changed,” he added.

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This is particularly true of the country's highest court, said Trey Gowdy, a former federal prosecutor and member of Congress, in an interview with Fox News Digital.

“I think the Supreme Court is wary of getting drawn into overtly political disputes,” he said.

Get the latest updates on the 2024 election, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital Election Center.