Election lawyers say that the volume of lawsuits is an unprecedented surge from previous contests, but that the last-minute litigation follows a familiar playbook. …

Some states will begin mailing overseas and absentee ballots as early as next week, leaving little time for the cases to work through the courts before voters start heading to the polls. The Supreme Court generally has disfavored last-minute changes to election procedures, but how it has applied that principle has varied depending on the facts of specific cases. …

North Carolina voter rolls

Twice in the past week, the Republican National Committee and the North Carolina Republican Party sued the state’s Board of Elections over its voter rolls.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said the board “has chosen to blatantly ignore the law, undermine basic election safeguards, and neglect a fundamental principle of our election integrity.” …

In a Thursday suit, the GOP claimed the election board’s process for removing noncitizens from the rolls was flawed and improperly delayed. GOP challengers allege the election board hasn’t acted to remove noncitizens from the rolls after the state alerted the people that they were excused from jury duty for not meeting citizenship requirements.

Pat Gannon, the board’s public information director, pointed out that the law requiring the comparison between the jury rolls and voting rolls was just passed in July. Since then, the state has compiled the records and found a total of nine individuals who might need to cancel their registrations, he said, and the checks of state and federal records continue. …

On Monday, the same Republican groups challenged the registration of more than 225,000 voters they allege were improperly registered under a state form, claiming the voters haven’t shown proper ID to prove their eligibility and should have to cast provisional ballots.

Gannon, from the election board, said the GOP lawsuit misunderstands the data and overstates any voter registration problems. …

Arizona registrations

A similar battle is heating up in Arizona, where the state Republican party last week sued Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs over two 2023 executive orders that together expand voter registration outreach and mail-ballot drop-off location access.

GOP opponents of the orders argue that state law doesn’t give the governor authority over those elements of election administration. …

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court allowed parts of a recent Arizona law that required heightened proof of citizenship to vote, but denied a broader request by Republicans that could have prevented thousands in the state from casting a presidential ballot. …

Georgia certification

Democrats have asked a Georgia judge to block a postelection rule put in place this month, a rare proactive lawsuit from the party in a cycle in which they have mostly played defense.

The Republican-controlled election board approved a new interpretation of the state’s election certification law that challengers say adds uncertain discretion to the election process. The law now requires local election officials to conduct an undefined “reasonable inquiry” before they sign off on the results, a shift from a process that is typically little more than simple math and checking a box.

The Democrats’ lawsuit argues that the board overstepped its authority and that the rule sows confusion at a crucial time in the countdown to Election Day and opens pathways for improper delays after votes are cast.  …

What do you think of these lawsuits? Share your prayers for our elections below.

(Excerpt from The Wall Street Journal. Photo Credit: Lorie Shaull from St Paul, United States – Vote Here sign in Minneapolis, Minnesota., CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97565551)