This blog has a flow. I usually spend around 30 minutes in the morning or evening with my updates, punctuated with additional posts throughout the day as events warrant and as my schedule can handle it.

Things change in election years, especially presidential election years. There’s more litigation, and more interest in the election. More press interviews for me, and less time for my real writing. (I’m trying to write a book.)  In presidential election years, things usually peak in September, and by late September there is a flurry of litigation and related analysis that makes blogging almost a full time job.

Well that’s happened now, by early August. Why?  (No, not climate change.)  It has to do with the Purcell Principle, at least the idea from the Supreme Court which has percolated down to lower courts that courts should not make last minute changes to election rules. The Court just about forced the 5th Circuit to decide the TX voter id case by July 20, with an order inviting plaintiffs to renew their motion to have the Supreme Court take the case over if there were no ruling by then.  And then we had #ElectionLawFriday, with a flurry of decisions including the big NC 4th Circuit voting case. Note these cases came out in JULY rather than August, which is no accident I think.

So the phone is now ringing off the hook and the email flowing with decisions, appeals, press inquiries, and more. This has the pace I expect much later in the process, but it is happening now. This means expect the armies of election lawyers stories to start even earlier, as well as stories on what if we have another election meltdown (though if Trump continues to poll well behind Clinton, the stories will be more of the variety questioning whether there will be violence if Trump doesn’t accept the results).

I hope that this means that late September things will be quieter on the election litigation front, meaning that the rules will be more set for the election by then and meaning I could again get some real writing done. But in this election I’m not counting on anything. It is surely the strangest I’ve ever seen.