Attorney Marc Elias Leads Democrat Effort to Overturn House Race in Iowa’s 2nd District

Attorney Marc Elias filed a request Tuesday on behalf of Democrat Rita Hart that asks the U.S. House of Representatives to overturn the election result in Iowa’s second congressional district, which was won by Republican Marianette Miller-Meeks.

Elias, a partner at the Perkins Coie law firm, was responsible for hiring Fusion GPS in 2016 to compile the “Russia dossier” that led to FBI surveillance of the Trump campaign and the subsequent investigations into supposed “Russia collusion.” He frequently represents Democrats in challenges to election results, and filed lawsuits nationwide to expand vote-by-mail in 2020, including the ongoing runoffs for U.S. Senate in Georgia.

Though he styles himself as a defender of voters’ rights, Elias is often involved in efforts to overturn the official results of elections, including Hart’s challenge to the Iowa result.

🚨UPDATE: Notice of Contest To Be Filed Today with U.S House Shows Uncounted Votes Will Affirm Rita Hart Winner in IA-2 District Racehttps://t.co/KmjAqIuu9H

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) December 22, 2020

Miller-Meeks’s victory was certified by the state’s canvassing board. Hart is hoping that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her party will use the House Administration Committee to overturn a contested House election for the first time since 1985.

In his filing, Elias claims that state election officials excluded 22 valid “curbside and absentee” ballots, 18 of which were supposedly cast for Hart. He also says that some recounts at the county level failed to “conduct a hand review of ballots that were recognized as ‘overvotes’ or write-in ballots by the [voting] machines.”

He cites the same Equal Protection Clause arguments that he has opposed elsewhere in fighting challenges by President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign.

Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His newest e-book is Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. His recent book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.