Respect the Rules, Reject the Chaos: Why the Purcell Principle Must Hold

As we approach the final days of the 2026 midterms, legal and political maneuvering has reached a fever pitch. Across the country, we are witnessing an onslaught of eleventh-hour lawsuits designed to alter how this election is conducted.

From federal attempts to halt the tabulation of certain ballots in California to last-minute challenges attempting to rewrite mail-in voting deadlines in key battlegrounds, the strategy is clear. Partisan actors and federal agencies are attempting to use the federal judiciary to change the rules of the game while voting is already actively underway.

I have seen this movie before. Two decades ago, serving as the County Recorder for Maricopa County, Arizona, I found myself in the exact same position. Weeks before the 2006 election, a federal appeals court issued a sudden injunction attempting to block our state’s voter identification procedures. We fought back against this last-minute disruption, and the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously agreed with us.

That ruling established what election scholars and judges now call the Purcell principle.

The Purcell principle is a straightforward legal doctrine: Federal courts should ordinarily avoid changing state election rules shortly before an election. The Supreme Court rightly recognized that last-minute judicial interventions create conflicting orders, generate widespread voter confusion, and impose impossible administrative burdens on local officials.

As a former election administrator, I can tell you exactly what happens when a federal court changes the rules days before an election. It means retraining thousands of volunteer poll workers overnight. It means reprogramming machines, rewriting voter guidance, and introducing the potential for human error into a highly scrutinized process. When the rules change at the last minute, voters are disenfranchised, and public trust in the system plummets.

Today, as a member of RightCount’s Leadership Advisory Council in Arizona, I work with other conservative leaders and civil servants to rebuild public confidence in our elections. A core component of that confidence is certainty. For the integrity of the election process to hold, voters need to know that the rules won’t change in the fourth quarter.

Beyond practical administration, the Purcell principle is a fervent, necessary defense of constitutional federalism. The U.S. Constitution wisely vests the authority to administer elections with the states, not the federal government. This decentralized system is the bedrock of our election security. It ensures that elections are run by accountable local officials closest to the people, your friends and neighbors, rather than a distant, centralized federal bureaucracy in Washington, D.C. The current wave of pre-election federal litigation is an assault on this federalist structure. 

When Washington agencies or federal judges parachute in days before an election to dictate how a state must manage its voter rolls, process its absentee ballots, or certify its results, it is an unconstitutional end-run around state legislatures. This kind of federal overreach does not protect the vote; it disrupts the orderly administration of it. It sows doubt and cynicism that bad actors exploit to drive voters away from the polls. If a state’s laws require reform, the time for rigorous debate and legislative action is in the months and years before an election, not in the frenzied days leading up to it. 

Elections belong to the states and to the people, not to the federal government or bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. As we navigate the final days of these Midterms, we must demand that our federal judiciary uphold the Purcell principle. Let us respect the Constitution, reject federal overreach, and allow the dedicated state and local election workers across America to do their jobs.

Helen Purcell served as Maricopa County Recorder from 1989-2017. She is a Member of the RightCount Arizona Leadership Advisory Council.