Judges Race to Resolve Last-Minute 2024 Election Legal Fights

Judges are rushing to clear a final wave of time-sensitive fights over how Americans will vote in the November election, with US courts fielding one new lawsuit per day on average this month.

At least 29 cases have been filed since Oct. 1, according to Bloomberg News’ analysis of court records. Some disputes required immediate turn-around, such as whether to extend voter registration deadlines in states hit by hurricanes. Other cases dealt with voter roll purges, absentee ballot drop box locations and how local officials will count and certify results in the days after Nov. 5.

More than half of cases filed in October were brought in the seven states where polls show the race for the White House is especially close between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. This tracks the larger universe of lawsuits — close to 200, according to Bloomberg’s analysis — filed since 2023 related to voting and counting procedures in the upcoming general election, which also features races for Congress and state and local offices.

Natural Disasters

Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated parts of the southeastern US in late September and early October, just as voter registration periods were set to expire in several affected states. Voting rights groups and Democrats went to court to argue to extend those deadlines, with mixed results.

In South Carolina, state election officials didn’t oppose a request by the state Democratic Party to extend the registration deadline. A judge granted the request the day after the lawsuit was filed.

“The Legislature did not intend voters to be barred from exercising their constitutional right to vote because a natural disaster has struck the state,” the judge wrote.

But judges in Georgia and Florida — where state officials opposed extending registration deadlines — denied requests from advocacy groups to intervene. In Georgia, a battleground state in the presidential race, the Republican National Committee joined the case to oppose changing the date.

Voter Eligibility

The RNC brought cases in North Carolina and Michigan accusing officials in the swing states of wrongly allowing overseas voters who hadn’t been residents in the past to register to vote there. Republicans lost the first round in both cases. The judge in Michigan slammed the lawsuit as an “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise.” The RNC is appealing both decisions.

In Virginia, the US Justice Department and advocacy groups sued over the state’s efforts to remove people suspected of being foreign nationals from voter rolls in the last weeks of the campaign. Virginia has asked the US Supreme Court to intervene after lower courts blocked the purge.

Voting Locations

In Pennsylvania, voters backed by the American Civil Liberties Union sued an official in Luzerne County after she announced in mid-September that there wouldn’t be drop boxes this year for absentee ballots, citing safety concerns. Several days after the lawsuit was filed, the official agreed to deploy the boxes, which ended the need for immediate judicial action. But the official maintained her stance that she wasn’t legally required to do so, leaving open the possibility of future legal wrangling.

Elsewhere in the swing state, officials in Montgomery County faced a lawsuit for deploying a van to offer mobile election services, including registering people to vote. The Pennsylvania man who sued argued the county wasn’t providing enough notice of where and when the van would be used in violation of state law. A judge has yet to rule.

Ballot Counting

Georgia’s Republican-majority election board faced multiple lawsuits over new rules it adopted in August and September changing how local officials would count ballots and certify the results. Several of those cases were filed in early October, including one that led to an order blocking a requirement to hand-count ballots before they run through electronic tabulator machines.

In Virginia, there are dueling lawsuits in Waynesboro County over whether ballots must be hand-counted. Local election officials sued the state at the start of the month arguing in favor of a hand-count and announcing they would refuse to certify the results. Voters, backed by a voting rights organization, sued a few weeks later, asking a judge to declare that the elections board must certify. A judge hasn’t ruled yet.

Video and Records

The final category of litigation this month involves requests for information and records related to how this election is being administered. Records requests typically don’t move on a fast track, but Republican-led attorney general offices in Florida, Ohio and Texas announced lawsuits against the US Department of Homeland Security seeking records that state officials say they need to check if foreign nationals are registered to vote. Republicans have raised the possibility of noncitizens voting as a major issue this cycle, but research has found that it’s rare. None of the cases are set to resolve before Election Day.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Zoe Tillman in Washington at ztillman2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net