Legal Battles May Determine Election

Pending decisions in state and federal courts may prove critical to the outcome of the 2012 election as judges rule on balloting procedures. In some states, experts said, uncertainty over whether all ballots were properly counted may lead to a slew of post-election lawsuits that could delay a final result. “In any of these states there is the potential for disaster,” said Lawrence Norden of New York University School of Law’s Brennan Center for Justice. In Wisconsin, for example, the state attorney general recently appealed two voter-ID cases to the state Supreme Court. “You have close elections and the real possibility that people will say their votes were not counted when they should have been,” Norden said.