Battleground states flooded with voting lawsuits weeks out from Election Day
Republicans have led the charge on pre-election litigation, targeting rules around mail voting, ballot drop boxes and voter roll purges, despite a lack of evidence of fraud.
Political parties and groups have filed nearly 100 lawsuits across seven battleground states that could shape how votes are cast and counted ahead of Election Day and the legal battle that’s expected to follow.
The majority of suits were brought by Republicans and allied groups who are focused on rooting out alleged voter fraud, despite the lack of evidence of its occurring in a widespread way, particularly around mail ballot procedures and noncitizen voting.
Many suits have sought to purge voter rolls or bolster signature and voter identification requirements — or invalidate ballots that don’t meet them — while others have looked to revamp different aspects of election administration, including reducing the use of ballot drop boxes and instituting unusual vote-counting protocols, like requiring that ballots be counted by hand.
Lawsuits from Democrats and allied groups have focused mostly on expanding voting access by trying to extend registration deadlines or appealing for broader interpretations of laws about absentee ballots and voter identification.
According to an NBC News review, the groups have filed at least 96 suits since Jan. 1 in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, whose Electoral College voters are all but certain to determine outcome of the presidential election — possibly by as few as tens of thousands of votes.
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