Several states, including Pennsylvania, are making late changes to election laws

In Georgia, election workers will have to manually count the number of votes cast after the polls close. In North Carolina, some students and university staff can operate their digital IDs to vote. In Wisconsin, voting mailboxes are legal againalthough not every voting jurisdiction will operate them.

Across the country, including in some battleground states where the presidential election is crucial, fresh or recently changed state laws are changing how Americans will vote, count votes, and conduct and certify the November election.

» READ MORE: New RNC lawsuit would halt mail-in voting in Montco and force hand recount of votes already cast

It can be a challenge to keep track of these last-minute changes, especially since state election processes are already so diverse. Even bigger changes are coming to some states, with Election Day on Nov. 5 just weeks away. Several states have already begun sending out mail-in ballots, and in some states, voters have begun casting ballots personally.

“Last-minute changes to election laws — whether by a state legislature, election authority or court — can create confusion for voters and election officials,” Megan Bellamy, vice president of law and policy at the Voting Rights Lab, said in an emailed response. “The election season is here. Legislators, administrators and courts need to recognize that.”

Let’s take a look at some of the fresh and recently modified election processes.

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New requirements for manual counting

Georgia and Arizona will require election workers to hand-count votes at polling places on Election Day, a move that election officials say could delay the release of results.

The Georgia State Election Board passed fresh rules Friday that require the number of ballots — not the number of votes — to be counted by hand at each polling place by three separate election workers until all three results are the same.

Georgia voters cast their ballots on touchscreen voting machines that print paper ballots. The ballots include a list of choices so voters can check their choices and a QR code that a scanner reads to count the votes.

» READ MORE: Georgia State Election Board approves rule requiring hand counting of votes, which could delay November election results

Supporters say the fresh hand-counting rule is needed to ensure that the number of paper ballots matches the electronic counts on scanners, check-in computers and voting machines. Three workers will be required to count ballots in stacks of 50, and a poll supervisor will be required to explain and, if possible, correct any discrepancies and document them.

The rule contradicts recommendations from the state attorney general’s office, the secretary of state’s office and the county election officials’ association. Critics fear it could delay the announcement of election night results, undermining public confidence in the process.

» READ MORE: If Trump loses in November, the GOP could blame inflated concerns about out-of-state voting — such as mail-in voting in Pennsylvania in 2020.

A similar change to state law this year in Arizona will likely also delay results in the swing state this fall. It requires counties to hand-count ballot envelopes that are delivered to polling places on Election Day before the votes are counted.

After the July primary, Maricopa County elections spokeswoman Jennifer Liewer said the fresh move caused about a 30-minute delay in the county announcing results, adding that the impact could be larger in the general election “if we throw in hundreds of thousands of votes.”

Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, estimates that between 625,000 and 730,000 voters will cast ballots on November 5.

JP Martin, a spokesman for Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said in an email that ordering the vote count “will require a significant amount of time, especially since poll workers have already completed 12-15 hour shifts.”

» READ MORE: Counting mail-in votes in November could take days in Pennsylvania, even though lawmakers have addressed the issue since 2020.

Changes to early voting and postal voting

Chaos and misinformation about mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes have led to partisan divisions — and fresh rules — in several states on how to operate these available voting methods.

In Wisconsin, the then-conservative-majority Supreme Court banned drop boxes in 2022. But the court’s fresh liberal majority ruled them illegal. legal again in July. Some communities opened them for the August state primary, but more will be used in November.

Their operate is voluntary in Wisconsin, and some conservative cities have abandoned using drop boxes, citing security concerns. The state’s two most Democratic cities, Milwaukee and Madison, used them in August and will do so again in November.

Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, issued a directive to the county’s election boards in August, which said only the voter can put their personal ballot in the box. Anyone who helps someone else must return that ballot to the county council office and fill out a certification form.

» READ MORE: Court takes up ‘naked ballot’ case over mail-in voting in Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, a legal battle is underway in the state Supreme Court that could decide whether counties must count provisional ballots cast by voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected because of relatively minor errors, such as not placing the ballot in an inner secrecy envelope. Practices vary by county, and state law is still on the issue. Republicans have argued that nothing in state law allows a voter to cast a provisional ballot in place of a rejected mail-in ballot.

Separately, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court earlier this month dismissed a case on procedural grounds after a lower court ruled that throwing out mail-in ballots because of “nonsensical and irrelevant errors in the documents” — such as the lack of a handwritten date — violates the constitutional right to vote. As a result, counties are expected to continue the practice of disqualifying those votes. Some counties — mostly Democratic — are trying to facilitate voters fix those errors or cast provisional ballots instead.

» READ MORE: Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court rules counties can’t reject undated mail-in ballots

This is the first presidential election since the Republican-controlled Florida legislature series of changes to vote by mail in 2021. While these are not the last changes, their impact could be significant this year in a state that has traditionally had a mighty interest in voting by mail. One change makes a voter’s application for an absentee ballot valid only for the next general election, rather than for two general election cycles, meaning voters will have to reapply. An absentee ballot application now also requires a driver’s license number, state identification number or the last four digits of a Social Security number.

Voter Identity Verification

In North Carolina, the state board of elections voted last month to allow students and staff at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to vote show digital badges on their smartphones to vote under a recent state law requiring photo ID from voters.

It was the first such digital ID approved by the board. Republican groups sued, arguing that state law only allows physical cards.

A trial court judge last week refused to block its operate. Republicans have filed notice of appeal. Only mobile IDs issued by UNC-Chapel Hill for Apple phones have been approved for operate.

In Arkansas, a federal appeals court issued a decision last week restored the rule which bans electronic signatures for voter registration purposes. The state Board of Election Commissioners approved the measure in April, saying the state constitution allows only certain agencies, not election officials, to accept electronic signatures. Under the measure, voters would have to register by signing with a pen.

It was passed after the nonprofit group Get Loud Arkansas helped register voters using electronic signatures. The board said the rule was needed to create uniformity across the state.

The board director asked county officials to identify any registration documents filed using electronic signatures after the appeals court decision and to make every effort to contact voters as quickly as possible to give them a chance to amend their applications.

After casting votes

Election administration does not stop when the polls close. Some states will implement fresh procedures after the election.

The same Georgia election board that ordered counties to hand count paper ballots had just weeks earlier adopted fresh rules for certification voting. One change requires “reasonable inquiry” before county election officials certify results, without defining what that means. Another allows county election officials to “investigate all election-related records created in the conduct of the election.”

Democrats sue block the fresh rules, saying they could be used by local officials to deny certification if they don’t like the election results.

In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu signed a law in July establishing post-election audits. It went into effect in time for New Hampshire’s late primary on Sept. 10 and will apply to the general election.

The audits allow the secretary of state’s office to verify that electronic vote-counting equipment is working properly. Ten polling places were randomly selected.

The appointed team of auditors deemed the audit of electronic vote counting devices to be successful and all results were within expected limits.

In Nebraska, allies of former President Donald Trump pressured the state to change the way electoral votes are allocated to block Vice President Kamala Harris from potentially claiming one by winning the state’s congressional district for the Omaha area. But that attempt appears doomed to failure, as a Republican state senator has said he won’t support it, denying supporters the two-thirds majority they needed to pass it in the legislature and make it law before the Nov. 5 election.

“After much reflection, it has become clear to me that now, 43 days before Election Day, is not the time to make this change,” state Sen. Mike McDonnell of Omaha said Monday.

Maine is the only state that distributes Electoral College votes by congressional district.