This story originally appeared in Newsweek June 10, 2025
https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-lawsuit-advances-2083391

2024 Election Results Under Scrutiny as Lawsuit Advances

Pubished Jun 10, 2025 at 10:39 AM EDT | Updated Jun 13, 2025 at 10:52 AM EDT

By Kahleda Rahman
National Correspondent
Newsweek Is A Trust Project Member

A legal case questioning the accuracy of the 2024 election is moving forward.

SMART Legislation, the action arm of SMART Elections, a nonpartisan watchdog group, filed the lawsuit over voting discrepancies in Rockland County, New York.

Judge Rachel Tanguay of the New York Supreme Court ruled in open court in May that the allegations were serious enough for discovery to proceed.

Newsweek has contacted SMART Elections for comment via email.

Why It Matters

The lawsuit could renew debate about the 2024 election, though it won't change the outcome since Congress has certified the results declaring President Donald Trump the winner.

It comes amid unconfirmed reports that voting machines were secretly altered before ballots were cast in November's election. The federally accredited testing lab, Pro V&V, that signed off on "significant" changes to ES&S voting machines—which are used in over 40 percent of U.S. counties—"vanished from public view" after the election, according to the Dissent in Bloom Substack.

Jack Cobb, the director of Pro V&V, told Newsweek via email that the changes approved by the lab relate to ballot boxes, ballot bins, changing printers to newer models, adding mounting brackets and moving the location of files. "There really is no change of any significance," he said. Cobb also said the lab's website was taken down and replaced with a new one in February and has been "running ever since."

What To Know

According to the complaint, more voters have sworn in legal affidavits that they voted for independent U.S. Senate candidate Diane Sare than the Rockland County Board of Elections counted and certified, contradicting those results. The complaint also cited numerous statistical anomalies in the presidential election results.

NEW UPDATE: Judge in 2024 election results lawsuit sets timeline

They include multiple districts where hundreds of voters chose the Democratic candidate Kirsten Gillibrand for Senate, but none voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate for president.

Max Bonamente, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and the author of the Statistics and Analysis of Scientific Data, said in a paper that the 2024 presidential election results were statistically highly unlikely in four of the five towns in Rockland County when compared with 2020 results.

What People Are Saying

Lulu Friesdat, the founder and executive director of SMART Legislation, said in a statement: "There is clear evidence that the Senate results are incorrect, and there are statistical indications that the presidential results are highly unlikely.

"If the results are incorrect, it is a violation of the constitutional rights of each person who voted in the 2024 Rockland County general election. The best way to determine if the results are correct is to examine the paper ballots in a full public, transparent hand recount of all presidential and Senate ballots in Rockland County. We believe it's vitally important, especially in the current environment, to be absolutely confident about the results of the election."

Max Bonamente said in a paper on the voting data from Rockland County: "These data would require extreme sociological or political causes for their explanation, and would benefit from further assurances as to their fidelity."

Costas Panagopoulos, a professor of political science at Northeastern University, told Newsweek: "Statistical irregularities in elections should always be investigated, but the sources of such inconsistencies, which can include error or miscalculation, are not always nefarious. Still, scrutinizing election results can strengthen confidence in elections. Mistakes can happen.

"In this case, the drop-off inconsistencies could reflect the idiosyncratic nature of the 2024 presidential election cycle. Alone, statistical comparisons to previous cycles cannot provide definitive proof of wrongdoing.

"In any case, it does not appear that any of these inconsistencies would be sufficient to change the outcomes of any of the elections in question in New York state. That does not mean they should not be scrutinized, and any errors, if verified, should be corrected for the historical record. But there is not necessarily any need to invalidate any of these elections in these jurisdictions."

What's Next

The lawsuit is seeking a full, hand recount of ballots cast in the presidential and U.S. Senate races in Rockland County. A hearing has been scheduled for September 22.

Update 6/11/25, 6 a.m. ET: This article has been updated to add comment from Jack Cobb.

About the writer: Khaleda Rahman is Newsweek's National Correspondent based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on education and national news. Khaleda joined Newsweek in 2019 and had previously worked at the MailOnline in London, New York and Sydney. She is a graduate of University College London. Languages: English. You can get in touch with Khaleda by emailing k.rahman@newsweek.com