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Election lawsuits are flooding America’s courts

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AMID TEETERING uncertainty over who will win next week’s presidential election, little suspense looms about one thing: if Donald Trump loses, he will not concede to Kamala Harris. Instead, as he has been doing throughout his campaign, Mr Trump will repeat false claims of fraud from the 2020 election and apply them to 2024 with a fresh emphasis on a supposed scourge of non-citizen voting. And he will take those claims to court. Mr Trump’s team and supporters filed more than five dozen post-election lawsuits in 2020, resulting in one inconsequential win and 64 losses. Might he have a better shot at litigating a loss this time around?

Probably not. The courts are already busy considering hundreds of legal claims—regarding voter identification, registered-voter rolls and early voting, among other issues—from Republicans and Democrats alike. Few significant cases are going Mr Trump’s way. The chances of a lawsuit after November 5th turning an electoral loss into a win are low. But Mr Trump’s legal strategy could cultivate a destabilising post-election landscape in America for the second time in two cycles.

One minor win for Republicans came in a decision barring University of North Carolina students from using digital college IDs to vote. A second involves late-arriving ballots. In a stunning decision on October 25th, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the Republican National Committee in a challenge to Mississippi’s law permitting ballots postmarked by election day to arrive up to five business days later—a practice used in some 17 states and the District of Columbia. A three-judge panel said this arrangement, despite being widespread and long-standing, violates the principle of a uniform “election day” in federal law. For technical reasons, the ruling will probably not amount to much for the 2024 election. But it could inspire a national reckoning in the lead-up to 2026.

Otherwise, pre-election legal bouts are mainly being won by the Democrats. In an apparent plan to stack the deck in a battleground state, three pro-Trump Republican members of Georgia’s board of elections instituted eleventh-hour changes to vote-counting and certification rules in August. On October 16th a state judge declared those changes “unlawful and void” and a higher court, on October 22nd, refused to take up an appeal before the election. This ensures that local officials in Georgia will not be empowered to “find” votes for losing candidates, as Mr Trump infamously requested of the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, during a phone call on January 2nd 2021.

Most attempts to remove voters from the rolls have faltered, too: one such lawsuit in Nevada was dismissed on October 18th while another from the Republican National Committee accusing Michigan of poorly managing its rolls went nowhere in a district-court ruling four days later. On October 28th, a similar lawsuit fizzled in Illinois.

But another effort to cull voter lists has survived a trip to the Supreme Court. On October 30th the justices ruled 6-3 (with all three Democratic appointees in dissent) that Virginia can move ahead with its purge of 1,600 voters who are, purportedly, non-citizens. On October 25th a federal judge had sided with the Biden administration, finding the purge to violate the National Voter Registration Act. This law, passed in 1993, requires a 90-day quiet period during which states may not “systematically” remove ineligible voters from the rolls due to the risk that eligible voters’ registrations could be mistakenly cancelled. On October 27th the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals refused a request from Virginia’s governor, Glenn Youngkin, to keep the purge in place. But in an unexplained order three days later the Supreme Court sided with Mr Youngkin. The ruling is not likely to shift outcomes in Virginia’s races but could portend similar decisions—potentially, again, along party lines—if more voter purges reach the Supreme Court.

A case involving the all-important battleground state of Pennsylvania also arrived at the Supreme Court this week. Republican National Committee v Genser asks whether voters who mistakenly invalidate their ballots by posting them without the required “secrecy envelope” can vote at their polling place instead. A 4-3 majority of the Pennsylvania supreme court decided that such voters enjoy this opportunity under state law. But in its brief to the Supreme Court, the RNC is relying on the opinion of a dissenting Pennsylvania judge that the majority “exceeded the bounds of statutory interpretation” and “supplanted the power vested in our General Assembly to regulate elections”.

Genser seeks to exploit a small opening in Moore v Harper, a Supreme Court decision from 2023. Moore deflated but did not entirely discard the “independent state legislature theory”, the idea that nobody, including judges, can override a state legislature’s election rules.

Could such cases affect the outcome of the election? The number of votes at stake would make a difference only in the event of a near tie in a battleground state along with a close split in the electoral college. Rick Hasen, an election-law expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, says that if the Supreme Court were to adjudicate a razor-thin margin in a decisive state—as it did in Bush v Gore in 2000—”motivated reasoning can take over and partisanship may matter”. But otherwise, he reckons, “it is hard to see Mr Trump litigating his way from an election loser to an election winner”.

A separate concern centres on Trump loyalists on county election boards who may refuse to certify vote totals. At least seventeen local officials in swing states demonstrated this intransigence in 2020, delaying but not upending the counting. More followed in 2022. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a watchdog, has counted 35 established obstructors currently on election boards across the country.  But Wendy Weiser of the Brennan Centre, a think-tank, says courts have stepped in quickly and decisively to enforce these officials’ purely ministerial obligations. An official’s role is like that of a principal at graduation, Ms Weiser explains: their job is to “hand out the diplomas”, not investigate “whether a student really deserved an A on the calculus exam”. In sum, Ms Weiser says, “it will be theatre”, but with the clarity of state law and the speed of state courts, holdouts pose no “threat to the finality of the election”.

For all the weaknesses of Mr Trump’s lawsuits, the volume of litigation may have an aim other than success in court. The litigation fuels Mr Trump’s persistent efforts to discredit the process, to accuse Democrats of cheating and to raise fears that illegal immigrants are corrupting the election. Courts may remain unpersuaded by claims that are unsupported by evidence. But Mr Trump’s flock, not judges, could be their ultimate audience.  

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Economics

ECB members say inflation job nearly done but tariff risks loom

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Guests and attendeess mingle and walk through the atrium during the IMF/World Bank Group Spring Meetings at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Jim Watson | Afp | Getty Images

After years dominated by the pandemic, supply chains, energy and inflation, there was a new topic topping the agenda at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund’s Spring Meetings this year: tariffs.

The IMF set the tone by kicking off the week with the release of its latest economic forecasts, which cut growth outlooks for the U.S., U.K. and many Asian countries. While economists, central bankers and politicians have been engaged in panels and behind-the-scenes talks, many are attempting to work out whether trade tensions between China and the U.S. are — or perhaps are not — cooling.

Policymakers from the European Central Bank that CNBC spoke to this week broadly stuck a dovish-leaning tone, indicating they saw interest rates continuing to fall and few upside risks to euro zone inflation. However, all stressed the current high levels of uncertainty, the need to keep monitoring data, and the high risks to the growth outlook — sentiments also echoed by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in his interview with CNBC on Thursday.

These were some of the main messages from ECB members this week.

Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president

On inflation and monetary policy:

“We’re heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion. But we have the shocks, you know, and the shocks will be a dampen on GDP. It’s a negative shock to demand.”

“The net impact on inflation will depend on what countermeasures are eventually taken by Europe. Then we have to take into account the [German] fiscal push by the defense investments, by the infrastructure fund.”

“We have seen successive movements, you know, announcement [of U.S. tariffs], and then a pause, and then some exemptions. So we have to be very attentive… Either we cut, either we pause, but we will be data dependent to the extreme.”

Watch CNBC's full interview with ECB president Christine Lagarde

On market moves:

“When we had done our projections, we anticipated that… the dollar would appreciate, the euro would depreciate. It’s not what we saw. And there have been some counter-intuitive movements in various categories.”

“The German market has obviously been shocked in a positive way by the program soon to be put in place by the German government, with a commitment to defense, with a commitment to a big fund for infrastructure development.”

Klaas Knot, The Netherlands Bank president

On tariff uncertainty:

“If I look back over the last 14 years, in the initial days of the pandemic I think that was comparable uncertainty to what we have now.”

“In the short run, it’s crystal clear that the uncertainty that is created by the unpredictability of the tariff actions by the U.S. government works as a strong negative factor for growth. Basically, uncertainty is like a tax without revenue.”

On the inflation impact:

“In the short run, we will have lower growth. We will probably also have lower inflation. As we also see, the euro is appreciating as energy prices have also come down. So together with the sort of negative factor uncertainty in the short run, it’s crystal clear that it will accelerate the disinflation.”

It's 'crystal clear' that tariffs could hit growth in the short term, ECB's Knot says

“But in the medium term, the inflation outlook is not all that clear. I think there are still these negative factors. But in the medium term, you might get retaliation. You might get the disruption of global value chains, which might also be inflationary in other parts of the world than the U.S. only. And then, of course, we have the fiscal policy coming in in Europe. So this is actually a time in which you need projections.”

On a June rate cut and market pricing for two more ECB rate cuts in 2025:

“I’m fully open minded. I think it’s way too early to already take a position on June, whether it would be another cut. It will fully depend on these projections.”

“I would need to see a more structured analysis of the impact on the inflation profile ahead of us, and only then can I say whether the market is pricing fair or whether I don’t.”

Robert Holzmann, Austrian National Bank governor

On the need to wait for more data and news on tariffs:

“We have not seen this uncertainty now for years… unless the uncertainty subsides, by the right decisions, we will have to hold back a number of our decisions, and hence, we don’t know yet in what direction monetary policy should be best moved.”

“Before looking at data in detail, the question is, what kind of political decisions will be taken? Is it that we will have some tariff increases? Is it that we will have strong tariff increases? Is it that we will have retribution by high counter tariffs?”

We have not seen this much uncertainty for years, Austrian central bank governor says

On the ECB’s April rate cut:

“I think there’s a broad consensus [on rates]. But of course, at the margin, people differ.”

“My assessment is that at this time, it wasn’t clear yet to what extent [tariff] countermeasures were being taken. Because with countermeasures in Europe, prices may have increased. Without countermeasures, quite likely the price pressure is downward. And for the time being, we don’t know yet the direction.”

On the direction of interest rates:

“I think if the recent noises about an arrangement [on trade] were to be true, in this case, quite likely it is more towards the downside than the upside with regard to prices. But this can be changed with different decisions and the result of which, we may even imagine in [the] other direction. For the time being, no, it will be down.”

“There may be further cuts this year, but the number is still outstanding.”

Mārtiņš Kazāks, Bank of Latvia governor

On opportunity from tariffs:

“With all this uncertainty and vulnerability, this is also the time of opportunities for Europe.”

“It’s a time for Europe to grasp all the aspects of being an economic superpower and becoming a really fully-fledged political and geopolitical superpower, and this requires doing all the decisions that in the past, were not carried out fully.”

“This requires political will, political guts to make those decisions, and to strengthen the European economy and assert its place in a global world.”

Global vulnerability an opportunity for Europe, says ECB's Kazāks

On market reaction to tariffs:

“So far it seems to be relatively orderly … but if one looks at the spillovers to Europe, the financial markets are working more or less fine, we haven’t seen spreads exploding or anything like that.”

“But in terms, however, of the macro scenarios, this uncertainty is extremely elevated in the sense that, given the possible outcomes, the multiple scenarios and their probabilities are very similar with the baseline [tariff] scenario.”

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Economics

Trump insists bond market tumult didn’t influence tariff pause: ‘I wasn’t worried’

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US President Donald Trump speaks during a bilateral meeting with Prime Minister of Norway Jonas Gahr Store in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 24, 2025.

Saul Loeb | Afp | Getty Images

President Donald Trump denied that an aggressive bond market sell-off influenced his decision earlier this month to hold off on aggressive “reciprocal” tariffs against U.S. trading partners.

“I wasn’t worried,” Trump said in a Time magazine interview during which he was asked about financial market tumult after his April 2 “liberation day” announcement.

In the decree, Trump slapped 10% across-the-board duties against all U.S. imports and released list of tariffs against dozens of other nations. The extra levies were based on trade deficits the U.S. had against the respective countries and raised fears about inflation, a potential recession and disruption of long-held trade agreements.

Markets recoiled following the release. Treasury yields initially headed lower but quickly snapped higher. The 10-year yield rose half a percentage point in just a few days, one of its quickest moves ever, as investors also ditched stocks and the U.S. dollar.

Ultimately, Trump issued a 90-day stay on the reciprocal tariffs to allow time for negotiation. But he said it wasn’t because of the market tumult.

Pres. Trump to TIME: Would consider it a total victory if U.S. still has 50% tariffs in a year

“No, it wasn’t for that reason,” Trump told Time in the interview from Tuesday that was published Friday. “I’m doing that until we come up with the numbers that I want to come up with. I’ve met with a lot of countries. I’ve talked on the telephone. I don’t even want them to come in.”

Yields have since moved lower, with the 10-year most recently around 4.28%, about a quarter percentage point higher than its recent low. Trump had said when he made the decision to hold off that the bond market had gotten the “yips.”

“The bond market was getting the yips, but I wasn’t. Because I know what we have,” he said. “I know what we have, but I also know we won’t have it for long if we allowed four more years of the gross incompetence. This thing was just running — it was running as a free spirit. This was — this was the most incompetent president in history.”

Though negotiations over tariffs are ongoing, Trump added that he would consider it a “total victory” even if the U.S. has levies as high as 50% still in place a year from now.

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Economics

Bank of England chief focused on tariff ‘growth shock’

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Bank of England governor: We're seeing the uncertainty effect of tariffs

The Bank of England is focused on the potential impact of U.S. tariffs on U.K. economic growth if there is a slowdown in global trade, the central bank’s governor Andrew Bailey said Thursday.

“We’re certainly quite focused on the growth shock,” Bailey told CNBC’s Sara Eisen in an interview at the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings.

Going into its May 8 monetary policy meeting, the central bank will consider “arguments on both sides” around the impact of tariffs on growth and domestic supply constraints on inflation, Bailey said.

“There is clearly a growth issue we start with, with weak growth … but a big question mark is how much of that is caused by the weak demand, how much of it is caused by a weak supply side,” he continued.

“Because the weak supply side, of course, unfortunately, has the sort of the upside effect on inflation. So we’ve got to balance those two. But I think the trade issue is now the new part of that story.”

Inflation could be pulled in either direction by wider forces, with a redirection of trade exports into other markets being disinflationary, but a retaliation on U.S. tariffs by the U.K. government — which he stressed did not appear likely — pushing up inflation.

Bailey added that he did not see the U.K. as being close to a recession at present, but that it was clear economic uncertainty was weighing on business and consumer confidence.

IMF downgrade

The IMF earlier this week downgraded its 2025 growth forecast for the U.K. to 1.1% from 1.6%, citing the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade tariffs, higher borrowing costs and increased energy prices.

However, economic forecasting remains mired in uncertainty as countries engage in negotiations with U.S. officials over Trump’s swingeing universal tariff policy, currently on pause. The U.S. has imposed 25% tariffs on steel, aluminum and autos and a 10% levy on other British exports.

U.K. policymakers have expressed hopes of reaching a trade deal with the White House, with U.S. Vice President J. D. Vance saying there is a “good chance” of an agreement.

Bailey told CNBC on Thursday that he would be “very encouraged if the U.K. does make a deal,” but that its economy was very open and services-oriented, so it would still be impacted by a wider slowdown in growth or trade.

He also noted that inflation would increase from the current 2.6% in the coming readings due to effects from markets such as energy prices and water bills, but that the bump up would be “nothing like what we saw a few years ago.”

The Bank of England held interest rates at 4.5% at its March meeting, before Trump shocked the world with the scale of his tariff announcement.

Markets now see the BOE slashing rates to 4% by its August meeting.

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