Hundreds of lawsuits challenging voting have been filed nationwide before the Nov. 3 election. The cases concern the fundamentals of the American democratic process, including how ballots are cast and counted.

And Pennsylvania has seen a frenzy of election-related suits as state officials prepare for some 3 million people, about half the expected turnout, to cast mail-in ballots.

During the weekend, a federal judge threw out a lawsuit by the Trump campaign that tried to limit the use of drop boxes in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state, during next month’s presidential election.

The lawsuit is one of many partisan battles being fought in the state Legislature and the courts, primarily over mail-in voting, amid concerns that a presidential election result will hang in limbo for days on a drawn-out vote count in Pennsylvania.

In this case, Trump’s campaign wanted the court to bar counties from using drop boxes or mobile sites to collect mail-in ballots that are not “staffed, secured, and employed consistently within and across all 67 of Pennsylvania’s counties.” Trump’s campaign said it would appeal the drop-box aspect of the judge’s ruling.

More than 20 counties have told the state elections office that they plan to use drop boxes or satellite election offices to help collect the massive number of mail-in ballots they expect to receive.

In throwing out the Pennsylvania case, the judge wrote that the Trump campaign could not prove its central claim: that Trump’s fortunes in the Nov. 3 election in the state are threatened by election fraud.

Trump’s campaign said in a statement that it looked forward to a quick decision from the appeals court “that will further protect Pennsylvania voters from the Democrats’ radical voting system.”

With three weeks to go until we elect a president, it appears there is no end in sight to the chaos surrounding the election in a year of COVID-related change.

— JGG