Sari Horwitz for WaPo:
The Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign will sue the state of Arizona over voter access to the polls after the state’s presidential primary last month left thousands of residents waiting as long as five hours to vote.
The lawsuit, which will be filed on Friday, focuses on Maricopa County, the state’s most populous county, where voters faced the longest lines three weeks ago during the Democratic and Republican primaries after the county cut the number of polling places by 85 percent since 2008.
Arizona’s “alarmingly inadequate number of voting centers resulted in severe, inexcusable burdens on voters county-wide, as well as the ultimate disenfranchisement of untold numbers of voters who were unable or unwilling to wait in intolerably long lines,” the lawsuit says….
The Arizona case faces the tightest deadline, especially in light of what is known as the Purcell doctrine from a Supreme Court case, which states that courts should not issue an opinion in an election case too close to Election Day if it will cause voter confusion.
“While it is April before a major election, the fact is that courts know how to expedite cases such as this to ensure that the people of Arizona receive the relief necessary to ensure that all their votes count,” Elias said.
On the Purcell Principle, see my Reining in the Purcell Principle, Florida State University Law Review (forthcoming 2016) (draft available)