Watchdog Exposes Hidden Academic Pipeline Behind Left-Wing Election Litigation

• September 17, 2026

People stand outside in sunlight holding a sign that reads, Voter suppression is un-American, with part of the sign in red, black, and blue letters. A government building is visible in the background.

Voting rights activists protest outside the U.S. Supreme Court as the court prepares to hear arguments in a case challenging Louisiana’s congressional map in Washington on Oct. 15. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

Left-leaning law schools are directly affecting elections, according to a new study by a legal watchdog group.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation released a new report Thursday titled “Dangerous Imbalance: Why Law Schools Graduate an Army of Activist Election Lawyers.”

The report focuses on the disparity in election law course offerings and the overwhelming number of left-leaning professors teaching these courses compared with right-leaning professors.

Left-leaning and liberal election law professors outnumber right-of-center and conservative professors by 76 to 12, according to the report.

The report said the imbalance is evident in election litigation because there is a much larger pool of left-leaning election lawyers. The report says future election lawyers are trained in courses taught by far-left law school faculty.

“Scores of election-focused nonprofit organizations on the left are stocked with crusading lawyers, many as you will learn from elite law schools,” the report says. “Big law firms offer pro bono services to attack voter ID, citizenship verification, sensible redistricting maps, and more. There is no shortage of legal talent to advance the left’s cause in the courtroom. The same is not true on the other side.”

Further, the report asserts that 81 of the 196 accredited law schools in the United States offer no election law courses. Law schools in 12 states don’t offer any election law courses.

“What happens in law schools affects real elections. Professors are teaching how to destroy election safeguards,” said J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, in a public statement.

“Almost all election law professors are Democrats or on the left,” Adams continued. “This dangerous imbalance is why many states have no voter ID, no citizenship verification, and mail ballots rolling in weeks after an election.”

The report contends the shrinking pipeline compounds the problem. It says experienced conservative election lawyers are aging, and not enough new lawyers are being trained to replace them.

The report argues this influences public opinion as well through media coverage.

“Election law professors commonly engage outside of the classroom and have litigation practice and even influence in the media,” the report says. “Nearly all professors highlight their media appearances in their biographies. They are often called upon to act as experts in election law debates on legacy media outlets and nonprofit newsrooms.”

The report took a specific look at 15 universities, including elite schools such as Harvard, Columbia, and Georgetown, as well as state schools such as the University of Kentucky, the University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan.

The report says it quantified where a professor falls on the ideological spectrum with the “academic lexicon surrounding election law.”

“Terms such as ‘voter suppression,’ ‘structural racism,’ and ‘historically disadvantaged groups’ are common indicators of where the course falls on the ideological spectrum,” the report says. “Similarly, terms like ‘reimagining justice’ and people of color being prominent themes in a professor’s academic work provided a window into their political affiliation.”

Fred Lucas | Senior Investigative Reporter

Fred Lucas is senior investigative reporter for the Daily Signal. He is the author of “The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections.”

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