Before we get into the new news, let’s review the old news.

With the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, a number of states made changes to their voting systems to reduce the need to vote in person. Those changes triggered a backlash from Republicans, in part because it was expected to increase turnout and in part because President Donald Trump was actively engaged in trying to cast mail-in ballots as suspect — understanding that it was likely he would lose once those ballots were counted in the hours after polls closed. There was a concerted effort to push back on the changes aimed both at constraining access and at triggering a legal fight that would empower state legislatures to decide election results. Trump and his allies lost most of those debates.