With the Supreme Court at an ideological impasse and Senate Republicans refusing to allow hearings for President Obama’s nominee to the court, Merrick Garland, the final state rules for elections throughout the country are likely to be set in a variety of rulings by state courts and lower-level federal judges.
“We’ll be in hand-to-hand combat the rest of the way,” said Marc E. Elias, a Washington lawyer who has filed many of the suits challenging the laws and whose firm represents Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and a host of party officeholders and committees.
Outstanding issues in the lawsuits still in play include rules about the handling of absentee ballots; a question of whether proof of citizenship can be required for voter registration; challenges to purges of inactive voters; and methods for counting the votes of those who are registered and eligible but mistakenly cast their ballots in the wrong precincts.