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Analysis

What North Carolina Can Teach us About the 2026 Elections

From federal courts, the message is clear: as the district court in North Carolina put it last week, you can’t “change the rules of the game after it had been played.”

June 12, 2025
North Carolina Supreme Court
Dennis MacDonald/Alamy Stock Photo

This excerpt is from an op-ed originally published in TIME.

For over a decade, federal courts have steadily retreated from protecting voting rights. However, there is one line they appear unwilling to cross: intervening after an election is over to change the rules about which votes should count. The latest rejection of post-election subversion—or attempting to flip the result of an election after the fact—came in a ruling last week upholding the results of a North Carolina Supreme Court race.

Outside of North Carolina, the ruling reverberates, sending a clear message to those who might try to subvert the 2026 elections: your efforts won’t succeed.