Every lawyer has a dream case, the one that will allow them to place their mark on both the law and their reputation. For lawyers specializing in election law, those cases come once in a decade if you are lucky.
So here we have a challenge to the presidential election, the first to occur since Bush v. Gore. You would expect that top election law specialists, ranging from those on the state and district court levels to US Supreme Court adjudicators, would eagerly enter the fray. What is notable is that they are all absent. Why?
It is not that these lawyers are afraid of losing. Losing happens. Rather, even in this highest profile of cases, they do not want to be associated with a lawsuit that has no merit whatsoever. This is particularly notable at the US Supreme Court level where the very best litigators, David Boies and Theodore B. Olson who argued both sides of the Bush v. Gore case, have refused to become involved.
So when you see people on television, the internet or Twitter breathlessly claiming a rigged election that was rife with fraud, remember that the most elite lawyers who specialize in this field have found no factual basis to make those claims and will not sully their reputations by arguing them. [Written December 8, 2020]
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