Laches

Today’s topic is a strange-sounding legal term that is being discussed in a number of the election cases – laches. Think of it as the legal equivalent of “your failure to plan is not my emergency.” The purpose of the doctrine is to make sure that your claims are timely, that your can appropriately get what you are asking for, and that, when looking at how your actions affect others, serve the best interests of justice.

Consider this. There is a problem at the polling place because the machines all jammed and would not accept ballots. A judge will often order the polls to remain open. This order is issued the same day to make sure that everyone who wanted to vote may do so. If someone waited until two days later to bring this to the court’s attention, it would be too late to be of any benefit. Bringing a suit then would be dismissed because of laches.

Elections are extremely time sensitive. Therefore, any attempts to contest them, for any reason, must be done very quickly. That is why campaigns have “an army of lawyers” to watch for any irregularities. This prepares them to immediately contest the results or procedures when the error or fraud first becomes evident.

Unless you have exceptionally strong reasons for delaying the filing of the suit (such as information that could not reasonably have been discovered sooner), the court may legitimately say “too late.”

The question in some of these cases, then, is not whether your arguments may have merit, but whether your lawyer actually did his or her job and filed the complaint correctly (another issue entirely) and on time. Grievances at this late stage should not be directed at the courts but at the lawyers who filed them. [Written December 4, 2020]