Courts Wrestle With Legality of Changes to Election Procedures Close to Voting Day

In the run-up to Election Day, court battles have emerged over various policies related to ballots, election integrity, and vote-processing procedures.
Each case raises a typical judicial question of whether the policies align with state or federal law. A common issue in many of these cases is whether judges should exercise their discretion to uphold or invalidate policies so close to Nov. 5.
Cases in Georgia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Mississippi have each seen attorneys discussing something known as the Purcell principle, which is generally understood to caution against last-minute changes to election procedures. The exact contours of when and how that principle applies have been subject to debate.
In 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Purcell v. Gonzalez vacated an appeals court’s decision to halt Arizona’s voter identification law. The high court, in its October 2006 opinion, emphasized that it expressed no position on the outcome of the case.
Instead, it suggested the timing of the election took precedence.
“Purcell can go both ways, and people will argue it both ways,” J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told The Epoch Times.
In the week before the 2024 elections, Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt a state court decision allowing voters to cast provisional ballots after improperly submitting mail-in ballots.
Pennsylvania officials told the Supreme Court that the RNC had the Purcell principle backward and that “it is the entry of a stay, on the eve of the election, that would cause maximum disruption and confusion.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court sided with the Republicans but didn’t offer any reasoning surrounding Purcell in its per curiam opinion.
Both the DOJ and Judge Patricia Giles suggested that the NVRA and Purcell shared common goals. After Giles issued an injunction and an appeals court affirmed that decision, Virginia asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene.
It’s unclear whether they ever will offer additional clarification. Adams said it is unlikely that the top court would further clarify the principle and denied that it would ever set a specific timeline.
He also doubted that the high court would take up cases after Election Day to review how courts applied Purcell before the election. Adams said he suspected the court’s brief order on Virginia’s law was based on Purcell.
Three Supreme Court justices—Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Elena Kagan—would have rejected Virginia’s request, according to the court’s order.
“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” she said.
Jackson also cited Kagan’s dissent in Merrill v. Milligan, a 2022 case that came up in the challenge to Virginia’s voter roll program.
He nonetheless outlined four factors that might bear on whether courts should halt state election changes, including whether the plaintiff waited too long in bringing the lawsuit. Virginia argued that plaintiffs in their lawsuit waited too long, although Giles disagreed.
Giles also stated that Kavanaugh’s concurrence wasn’t binding on her court, indicating a majority opinion was needed to resolve lingering questions around Purcell.