Combine a tight election, millions of newly registered voters, confusion about new electoral procedures and a heavy dose of partisan passion-and you have a recipe for plenty of election-day wrangling. The Democrats claim to have 10,000 lawyers ready in the battleground states, while Republicans will be posting lawyers in 30,000 precincts. States are already mired in unprecedented numbers of legal battles over voting. At worst, this means that a second consecutive election may be decided in the courts, with potentially dire consequences for the legitimacy of the electoral system. But even if the legal battles do not affect the result, the risk is that a deluge of post-polling lawsuits will become apermanent part of America's political landscape.
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