GOP efforts to interfere with election mocked as 'Comic Sans on a Burger King placemat'

A former top Justice Department official had a brutal review for one of the latest Republican lawsuits seeking to throw this week’s election into doubt.

Wired reported on the extraordinary steps President Donald Trump's DOJ has taken to interfere with the Nov. 3 election, and a former official pointed to a lawsuit filed in Texas that cites unproven claims about artificial intelligence secretly hacking into voter machines as an example of why those challenges keep failing – saying the allegations were "nuts."

“That would be the technical term,” said Justin Levitt, a former deputy assistant attorney general in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division who is now a law professor at Loyola Marymount University. “I wish that they had filed the thing in Comic Sans on the back of a Burger King placemat, because I think that would help people evaluate how serious it is.”

The Texas suit is one piece of a broader push by Republicans and the Trump administration to cast doubt on the midterms.

On Sunday, a federal judge threw out a DOJ lawsuit seeking to block certification of Alaska’s Senate race if Democrat Mary Peltola wins. The judge ruled the request likely violated Alaskans’ right to a secret ballot. Within hours, DOJ asked an appeals court to revive it.

In California, a federal judge rejected DOJ’s demand to set aside the ballots of roughly 20,000 voters the department claimed were noncitizens. An appeals court quickly denied DOJ’s appeal. An immigrant rights group’s analysis found that more than 40 percent of the names on DOJ’s list aren’t even on the state’s voter rolls. DOJ responded by urging a judge to consider contempt charges against the group for publishing its findings.

Last week, DOJ claimed 400 noncitizens were registered in Washington state and called it “the tip of the iceberg.” Secretary of State Steve Hobbs replied that the timing was “profoundly disappointing,” adding,“If you had valid concerns about voter registrations, the time to raise them was a month ago.”

On Thursday, DOJ sent letters to election officials in all 50 states threatening criminal action if they fail to preserve election records.

Experts say the point may not be to win. “They’re trying to file these now knowing they have virtually no chance of winning and then after they can claim the election was fraudulent,” said Shelby Wayment of UCLA Law’s Safeguarding Democracy Project.

According to the Brennan Center, 34 federal courts have ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to take control of elections.

“They have failed at everything they’ve tried to do,” said David Becker, a former DOJ lawyer. “Our systems have held firm. Our institutions have held firm.”