Dechert’s Steiner Pushes Voting Rights as 2020 Glare Intensifies

Neil Steiner, a partner at Dechert LLP in New York, has been involved in voting rights lawsuits for nearly 20 years.

This year, his work is under the political spotlight with a pandemic and presidential election.

Steiner has long worked with organizations including the NAACP and various state chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union on a pro bono basis to ensure that eligible voters can cast their ballots.

He kicked off his voting rights work in 2006, suing Ohio for failing to provide voter registration applications to applicants for public assistance under the National Voter Registration Act. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that Ohio had to provide the applications.

The political debate around voting has intensified and led to many new lawsuits this year. Democrats have pushed to expand mail-in balloting, which they say is necessary to keep voters safe during the pandemic. The Trump administration has pushed back, saying such ballots raise the potential of voter fraud.

Steiner is currently spearheading voting cases in Mississippi and Pennsylvania. In Mississippi, a lawsuit in federal district court argues for no-excuse absentee voting. In Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, Dechert and Free Speech For People filed suit in June on behalf of the state’s NAACP, seeking expanded absentee voting and more in-person polling locations, he said.

Steiner said he wants to be sure states are following the law so eligible voters can cast their ballots.

“It’s difficult to say whether more political involvement in these cases will present greater challenges for us. However, it could lead to increased awareness of these cases through more media attention,” Steiner said.

Steiner spoke with Bloomberg Law about the debate over voting rights, the potential for fraud with mail-in ballots, and how he thinks his work could impact the election.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Bloomberg Law: How did you get involved with voter rights protection work?

Neil Steiner: In 2006, not long after I had become a partner at Dechert, I started looking for an interesting and important area to devote pro bono.

There was an opportunity for a case in Ohio that had to do with voter registration and, specifically, there’s a statute called the National Voter Registration Act, which was a bipartisan law passed in 1993. It’s also known as the Motor Voter Law, where you’re asked if you’d like to register to vote or do you need to update your voter registration address at the department of motor vehicles. The same law applied to agencies that offered public assistance benefits.

Ohio, like many states, complied for a while but it fell off the radar, particularly at the public assistance agencies. So we brought a case to tell the Secretary of State and the Chief Elections Officer to ensure that throughout Ohio’s counties voter registration was offered.

This case led to many other cases in states such as Georgia, Nevada, and many more. The first few cases that I did were in the registration area and then I was able to expand to other important voting rights areas and get involved.

BL: How has the political atmosphere ahead of the 2020 presidential election impacted how you and other attorneys at Dechert tackle voter protection?

NS: We obviously only do things that are not partisan. Your political viewpoint might have some impact on what you think is a good claim or a bad claim. But the claims we bring are purely nonpartisan.

We really have one goal which is that anyone who’s eligible to vote, should be able to do that safely, securely, conveniently, and with the highest confidence that their vote will count.

BL: There have many claims around intentional double voting and voter fraud from the federal government. How do you tackle that when fighting for voter rights?

NS: I think the election officials do a good job weeding out the types of things that could lead to intentional double voting.

The flip side argument to our position, which includes voter accessibility, convenience, the expansion of mail-in absentee ballots during Covid-19, and the negative aspects of voter ID laws, is usually that it will open up a greater possibility of voter fraud.

The fact of the matter is there’s virtually no evidence that there’s been any real voter fraud on a systemic level. Systemic voter fraud is being used as an excuse and we’re not seeing it and I don’t buy it. It continues to be a theme, which is unfortunate because what it does is it erodes confidence in the election and election results and that’s dangerous.

BL: How does your voter protection work, especially during this year, benefit minority communities?

NS: One of the main ways that almost every state is helping to make sure voters stay safe amid Covid-19 is, for example, having easier access to have mail-in balloting or expanded mail-in balloting.

There’s a lot of both academic evidence and empirical evidence in some of the cases that we are involved in, showing that it’s a benefit for everyone but unfortunately it’s not nearly the same benefit for minority communities, particularly low-income minority communities.

I think there’s a combination of historically poor access in service that leads to distrust. Current issues with the post office lead to distrust. Lack of convenience for certain communities leads to distrust. It’s a real issue and it’s one where we have to figure out solutions for all communities and not for just those of us who can pick up the mail in the lobby of our building at our convenience.

We have to include everybody.

BL: Given the work you’ve put in over the last decade, how are you expecting it will impact this election?

NS: It’s really unlikely that any election will be perfect.

It’s critically important that we continue to do what we’re doing, which is to do everything possible to make it so anyone who is eligible and wants to vote is able to do so safely, whether they’re happy with the outcome or unhappy or anything between.

We’re making sure that their voice is heard and we have to instill that confidence for them because that’s the foundation of the country and democracy. That’s our goal through all of this.

I think it’s really important that we’re doing what we can to make it happen and it will make a difference in terms of making voting more accessible than it otherwise would have been.

We won’t win every case or battle, but I do think it makes a difference, or I wouldn’t spend as much time as I do working on this type of work.