U.S. District Judge Richard Myers dealt another blow to fair elections in the important swing state of North Carolina on Thursday, ruling that a case involving how to count absentee ballots should remain in federal prosecution and guaranteeing that it won't be resolved before the 2024 election.

Myers said in a two-page ruling that the State Board of Elections was correct to remove a lawsuit challenging the state election board's guidance to federal court, rather than return it to state court as requested by the RNC.

Republicans say the board's guidance goes against a state voting law passed last year that requires absentee ballots to be submitted in a sealed, two-envelope package to keep the ballot and required identifying information secure.

The guidance states that ballots missing the second, sealed envelope should still be counted.

The rationale

The RNC, the state's organization, and a voter filed the suit in late September in state court, but it was removed to federal court in October.

The board said if it followed the RNC's demands it would have to violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There have been multiple legal challenges to North Carolina's voter rules in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

Last week, the appeals court ruled that the RNC's challenge to 225,000 overseas voter registrations in the state would also have to be heard in federal court, effectively barring any action there.

One win

The only win the RNC has gotten is to prevent students and staff from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from using digital ID to vote.

It makes the state more of a toss-up than it would be, because there are potentially hundreds of thousands of voters on the rolls that shouldn't be.

Considering that the last election came down to three states and not more than 25,000 votes in any one of them, this is highly concerning.

RealClearPolitics polling average has Trump up 1.5% in North Carolina with just days until the election.

It's a bigger margin than he had over President Joe Biden in 2020, when he won the state by 1.34%.

Trump holds a slight lead in almost all of the seven swing states that are most at play in this year's contest, but most of his leads are within a poll's usual margin of error.