The real battle of the 2024 election may not take place on the debate stage but in the court systems and state legislatures.

As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris prepare to face off for the first time Tuesday night in the second 2024 presidential debate, some of the most consequential decisions regarding how elections will be conducted in the battleground states have already been made with several still hanging in the balance.

The Washington Examiner has compiled the top changes to election law and ongoing legal challenges to be aware of in each swing state below.

Arizona

Arizona, the epicenter of election integrity lawsuits and lingering scrutiny from Republicans, has made some key changes since the 2020 election, most notably in Maricopa County.

Maricopa County faced extreme scrutiny in the 2022 midterm elections after a problem with vote tabulators at about 20% of its polling locations. The county was already under a microscope and the subject of election integrity following the 2020 election, in which several Republicans made since-debunked claims it was stolen.

Adrian Borunda, public information officer for Maricopa County Elections, told the Washington Examiner that the county’s printers were operating at such a high level in 2022 that they were not printing the timing marks needed on the ballots to be tabulated. To prevent this from happening in 2024, the county got new printers and held a “mock election” to conduct a “stress test” of the printers. 

Voters and county employees traveled to a vote center built into the elections division’s building, where the machines were tested to see how many print jobs could be done and ensure that ink was printing properly on the ballots. Ballots are also expected to be two pages, which is something Maricopa County hasn’t done for several elections.

The state also has several legal cases over the state’s voting system currently playing out that could have ramifications in races up and down the ballot for this November and beyond.

In a partial win for a Republican-led lawsuit under a 2022 Arizona voting law, the Supreme Court in August said the state can enforce proof of U.S. citizenship registration requirements for state and local races while an appeals process plays out. But the justices ruled the ID requirement would be redundant for federal races, such as for Congress and the presidency.

The ruling was a small loss for the GOP effort, as it meant around 41,000 Arizonans will still be allowed to cast ballots in the presidential race but not local and state contests, which has the potential to sway the election outcome in a state where President Joe Biden beat Trump by less than 11,000 votes.

Two other GOP-led election lawsuits also take aim at the state.

Arizona Republican Party Chairwoman Gina Swoboda has asked the state Supreme Court to overturn executive orders from Gov. Katie Hobbs (D-AZ) over allegations that she overstepped her authorities. Hobbs’ office has called the lawsuit “frivolous.” 

Hobbs made state buildings available as voting sites or ballot drop-off locations, including the Department of Juvenile Corrections and the Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry.

In a separate Republican-led case, Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, wants the suit that seeks to purge at least 500,000 voters from its rolls to be dismissed. The Arizona Free Enterprise Club and Swoboda allege the state’s voter rolls are rife with deceased and former Arizona residents, thereby violating the National Voter Registration Act.

Click here to read the full story from Rachel Schilke and Ramsey Touchberry.

North Carolina

Absentee ballots in North Carolina were supposed to hit mailboxes starting Friday, Sept. 6, but an ongoing legal dispute over whether Robert F. Kennedy Jr. should be on the ballot has delayed voting. The independent candidate initially fought to be included on the ballot in the critical swing state, but he suspended his campaign last month and backed former President Donald Trump.

The North Carolina Supreme Court Monday ordered that ballots be reprinted without Kennedy’s name in a further delay to the early voting process but a win for Kennedy and Trump.

In addition to the candidates on the ballot, legal challenges to the Tar Heel State’s voter registration and ID laws could prove to have a significant impact on whether the state swings red or blue in November.

Trump carried North Carolina in both the 2016 and 2020 general elections. It was notably the only battleground where Trump defeated President Joe Biden, by just over 1 percentage point.

The thin margin by which the state was decided in 2020 makes the legal challenges in the state, including a nearly six-year-old lawsuit filed by the NAACP protesting North Carolina’s voter ID law, even more consequential to the 2024 election.

As voters await the court’s decisions on the state’s voter ID law, North Carolina has instituted the requirement.

In-person voters must present an acceptable form of photo identification to cast ballots, including a state driver’s license, a U.S. passport, a North Carolina voter photo ID card, an approved college or university student ID, a state or local government or charter school employee ID card, a military or veterans ID card, a tribal enrollment ID card, or a state or federal public assistance program ID card with photo.

Voters can still choose to vote without providing an approved form of identification by filling out a provisional ballot, but they must then fill out an ID exception form or later return to the county board of elections office and show proof of ID prior to votes being counted. North Carolina has also tightened rules around the acceptance of mail-in ballots and vote counting.

Another lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee and the state Republican Party seeks to purge more than 200,000 voters from voter rolls ahead of the election, citing a failure from the state elections board to require identification to prove citizenship.

Click here to read the full story from Christian Datoc.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania is poised to face many of the same challenges in 2024 that it experienced in the 2020 election which led to the state not being called for President Joe Biden until days after Election Day.

Some changes have been made in the state since 2020, such as a lower court ruling last week that would require counties to notify voters if their ballots are at risk of being rejected.

One of the key changes was handed down in August when the Commonwealth Court ruled that it was unconstitutional to enforce a state law requiring accurate, handwritten dates on mail-in ballots in order to be tallied. The ruling will allow the state to count “undated or incorrectly dated” ballots that were submitted before the deadline.

“The refusal to count undated or incorrectly dated but timely mail ballots submitted by otherwise eligible voters because of meaningless and inconsequential paperwork errors violates the fundamental right to vote,” wrote Judge Ellen Ceisler in the majority opinion. 

The ruling, if left standing, is likely to salvage thousands of ballots that would have otherwise been thrown out. Tom King, who represents the state and national Republican Party groups involved in the case, said he “absolutely will appeal.” 

Judges in Washington County also approved a lawsuit on Friday that would require county officials to notify voters if their mail-in ballots are at risk of being rejected, giving them the opportunity to either challenge the decision or cast a provisional ballot instead.

Pennsylvania lawmakers sought to make other procedural changes by introducing legislation to establish same-day voter registration, expand early voting, impose new voter ID requirements, and more. However, due to political gridlock in the state legislature, no new bills have been passed. 

One administrative hurdle that emerged as a key contention in the 2020 election was the state’s lack of preprocessing and precanvassing for absentee ballots — something that has still not been resolved ahead of November. 

Pennsylvania law prohibits election workers from opening mail-in ballots until 7 a.m. on Election Day. As a result, poll workers cannot begin sorting through the thousands of ballots received in the weeks leading up to Election Day. 

That obstacle is what caused the state to experience a backlog during the 2020 election and prompted widespread accusations of voter fraud that led to Biden’s victory.

State lawmakers sought to change that rule earlier this year, with the state House passing a bill along party lines that would have allowed officials to begin canvassing mail-in ballots one week before Election Day. However, that bill was blocked by the Republican-controlled Senate, which never brought it to the floor for a vote. 

Because that bill didn’t pass the state legislature, it’s likely to be days before ballots are counted and results are certified in Pennsylvania. 

Click here to read the full story from Cami Mondeaux.

Michigan

The legal framework governing how Michigan residents vote has been drastically overhauled since 2020, with November’s election representing a pressure test for the new system.

Since 2020, Michigan has introduced a raft of new voting laws after the state passed a ballot proposal in 2022 amending its constitution, according to Erica Peresman, a senior adviser to Promote the Vote, a coalition of Michigan organizations focused on voting.

Chief among the changes is that every municipality in Michigan is now required to offer early voting for at least nine consecutive days starting on the second Saturday before Election Day and ending on the Sunday before Nov. 5 for at least eight hours each day. That is in addition to no-reason absentee voting, which Michigan has had statewide since 2019.

It will be the first time the state utilizes early voting in a general election. Another significant change is the implementation of a permanent absentee ballot list. Starting in May 2023, registered voters have been able to apply to automatically receive an absentee ballot by mail before every election.

Under a new law implemented this year, Michigan municipalities with populations of more than 5,000 people can start tabulating absentee ballots eight days before Election Day, although results cannot be generated, printed, or reported before 8 p.m. on Nov. 5, according to Peresman. All municipalities can then start processing absentee ballots on the Monday before Election Day.

Every Michigan municipality is also required to have at least one secure drop box for voters to return their absentee ballot applications and absentee ballots, which must be accessible 24 hours a day during the 40 days before Election Day and until 8 p.m. on Nov. 5. Larger municipalities are required to have one drop box for every 15,000 registered voters.

It is hard to predict what election-related problems may be encountered in Michigan before, on, or after Election Day, particularly in the crucial population centers of Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and Kent counties, according to Peresman. Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties are near Detroit in the state’s southeast, while Kent County includes Grand Rapids to the northeast.

But Peresman, who was the Michigan Democratic Party’s former voter protection director, contended that the new early voting and tabulation laws could mean results are reported earlier than they were in 2020, “diminishing the disinformation and conspiracy theories that proliferated” four years ago.

“But there is no guarantee of that,” she said. “Early voting is new, and we don’t know what percentage of voters will choose to use it. Clerks are not required to tabulate absentee ballots before Election Day, and many who were eligible to do it before the August primary did not. Moreover, disinformation about the 2020 election persists in Michigan, and efforts to sow doubts about the 2024 election continue to grow.”

Click here to read the full story from Naomi Lim.

Nevada

After COVID-19 upended election norms, Nevada became one of the few battleground states that moved to enshrine pandemic-era laws that expanded voting access, including making universal access to mail-in voting permanent. 

During the 2024 cycle, Nevada voters will automatically receive a ballot in the mail unless they have chosen to opt-out. 

But leaders of former President Donald Trump’s campaign, the Republican National Committee, and the Nevada GOP are actively working to protect the integrity of the election and have filed lawsuits challenging the ways Nevada processes mail ballots.

Republican leaders stressed that only active voters should receive ballots and that they will monitor the elections to ensure Nevada doesn’t mail ballots to inactive voters. Nationwide, the GOP has filed 98 election integrity lawsuits during the 2023-2024 cycle in 25 states and counts over 50 wins to date this cycle.

The Trump campaign, RNC, and state GOP filed a lawsuit against Nevada officials in May for allowing mail ballots four days after Election Day.

“Nevada’s ballot receipt deadline clearly violates federal law and undermines election integrity in the state,” RNC Chairman Michael Whatley said at the time. “Ballots received days after Election Day should not be counted — the RNC and our partners are suing to secure an honest election, support Nevada voters, and oppose unlawful schemes.”

But a federal court threw out the lawsuit in July claiming the legal challenge lacked standing. Judge Miranda Du wrote that Trump and allies “have failed to establish that the Nevada mail ballot receipt deadline gives their Democratic opponents some ‘unfair advantage in the election process.’”

According to an RNC spokesperson, the party has appealed both Du’s dismissal and Carson City District Judge James Russell’s denial of a preliminary injunction the Trump campaign and Nevada state GOP brought to prevent the counting of mail-in ballots that lack a clear postmark and are received three days after the election.

Click here to read the full story from Mabinty Quarshie.

Wisconsin

Election laws have barely changed in Wisconsin since 2020 thanks to divided government. The GOP-controlled statehouse has passed a wave of voting changes, including new audit and nursing home requirements, but almost all have been vetoed by Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat.

There have been rare spots of bipartisanship, including a law that makes assaulting an election official a felony. Meanwhile, a referendum voters approved in April bans the use of private grants, derided by conservatives as “Zuckerbucks,” in the administration of elections.

But the biggest changes in Wisconsin this November have come from the Supreme Court, newly controlled by a 4-3 liberal majority.

For 15 years, conservatives ran the high court, issuing rulings that preserved Republican priorities including a 2011 voter ID law.

But a blockbuster race for control of the Supreme Court has begun to reverse that trend. Last year, conservatives lost their 4-3 majority in a judicial contest that cost upward of $50 million, the most expensive in U.S. history.

For 2024, the biggest impact will be an expansion in absentee ballot drop boxes. The high court ruled in July that the boxes would be legal in November, reversing a near-total ban by the same court’s conservatives in 2022.

Not every municipality will take advantage of the change. But Democrats viewed the 2022 ruling, issued amid the rise of absentee voting during the pandemic, as an attempt to suppress turnout in blue strongholds like Milwaukee and Madison.

Republicans accused the court of opening up the state to voter fraud with its subsequent reversal.

The court could flip back to conservative control in 2025, when voters will decide on a replacement for a retiring liberal justice. But until then, Democrats’ Supreme Court victory will have a profound impact on the balance of power in Wisconsin.

Click here to read the full story from David Sivak.

Georgia

Three Trump allies on Georgia’s State Elections Board helped pass new election regulations in August, prompting a lawsuit from Democrats. The changes call for more stringent treatment of ballot counting and election certification, but Democrats claim that an ethics complaint against the trio from Fulton County’s former elections board chief should have been looked into before new measures were passed.

They also say the board members should be removed.

“These novel requirements introduce substantial uncertainty in the post-election process and, if interpreted as their drafters have suggested, invite chaos by establishing new processes at odds with existing statutory duties,” the lawsuit says about the proposed electoral changes.

The lawsuit was filed by the Democratic National Committee, the Georgia Democratic Party, local officials, and political candidates, with the support of Vice President Kamala Harris’s election campaign.

The move to change the electoral rules shortly before the 2024 election was even met with criticism from some Republicans, including Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who said, “Activists seeking to impose last-minute changes in election procedures outside of the legislative process undermine voter confidence and burden election workers.”

Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) says he is looking into whether he has the authority to remove the three board members.

Still, while Kemp and Trump have butted heads about the results of the 2020 election, Kemp hasn’t been wholly antagonistic toward Trump’s claims of irregularities in the 2020 election. Notably, in 2021, the Georgia governor signed a set of what Republicans described as “election integrity” measures that were fiercely criticized by Democrats, leading to the MLB moving the All-Star Game out of Atlanta.

The governor signed another set of overhauls into law in May of this year, which clarifies under what circumstances a voter can be removed from eligibility rolls and makes other tweaks to voting laws. Opponents dubbed the new rules a “voter suppression bill” and a “gift to MAGA election deniers.”

The bill requires counties to report absentee ballot results within an hour after polls close in hopes of getting races called much faster than they were four years ago.

Click here to read the full story from Haisten Willis.