Lawsuit Challenging 2024 Election Results Advances as Watchdog Group Requests 'Full Hand Recount'

A legal case questioning the results of a 2024 election has advanced, and the case's lead plaintiff has submitted 15 additional documents to discovery.

SMART Legislation, the action arm of nonpartisan watchdog group SMART Elections, filed a case regarding the 2024 elections earlier this year regarding irregularities in votes from Rockland County, New York. The case noted that there were more voters who submitted legal affidavits certifying that they voted for Senate candidate Diane Sare than the number of votes she actually received, as counted and certified by the Board of Elections.

"The best way to reassure the public about the accuracy of the election results in Rockland County, New York, is to conduct a full, transparent, hand recount of the 2024 Presidential and Senate elections," Lulu Friesdat, the founder and executive director of SMART Legislation, said in a statement to Newsweek. "That is why we have requested it, and so far, the judge seems to agree."

Furthermore, in multiple districts, hundreds of voters voted for Democratic candidate Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, but none of these voters voted for Vice President Kamala Harris in the presidential race, indicating some stark statistical anomalies.

Judge Rachel Tanguay of the New York Supreme Court gave credence to the allegations, ruling that the evidence was legitimate enough to allow the case to proceed.

Tanguay delivered an order just this month in which she determined that all discovery, pertaining to all evidence and information regarding the case, must be complete within the next seven months.

Though the lawsuit will not change outcomes of any certified election, including the Senate and presidential races, it could renew discourse on the accuracy of the 2024 election.

The plaintiffs, who are looking for information on how voting for the 2024 election was conducted in counties demonstrating irregularities in results, have asked for a plethora of information and data resources. This includes voting machines; voter rolls; software; software updates; hardware, including forensic-grade copies of hard drives; diagrams of all equipment, including network and Wi-Fi components; and flash drives that carry election results.

Furthermore, the Board of Elections has been asked to submit "any actual or alleged irregularities, errors, problems, or misalignment of election results or voter rolls" from both the 2020 and 2024 general elections.