In a case study of unintended consequences, the blizzard of lawsuits by the Trump campaign and related interests against various aspects of the 2020 election have undermined impending efforts by Republican legislators nationwide to restrict voting rights.

State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, have rejected more than 60 such lawsuits since the Nov. 3 election, finding that they produced no proof of fraud or even errors that could change the election result in any state.

Thus, the suits have had the opposite of the intended effect, proving that the vast expansion of voting access across the nation in 2020 could produce a record vote without risking the fairness, accuracy or security of the elections.

That was a singular achievement of 2020, a triumph of democracy attributable to legislators who authorized mail ballots and related measures to ensure a secure count, courts that upheld those changes, and state and local election officials of both parties who made their party allegiance secondary to their allegiance to democratic principle of fair elections.

In Pennsylvania, some conservative legislators — many of whom have participated in farcical lawsuits to attempt to overturn the very voting laws they earlier had passed — now say that further litigation and legislation are necessary to ensure public confidence in the electoral process.

They eagerly embraced it this year in record numbers, producing in the process some significant wins in legislative and state row offices for Republicans. The lawmakers question the process only because their presidential candidate lost.

The court cases already have disproved any rationale that lawmakers can come up with for trying to roll back expanded voting rights. They should recognize from the their own state-level results that higher turnout does not have to be their enemy.

— The Citizens’ Voice, Wilkes-Barre (TNS)