Some states prefer to print their November ballots in August, even though other states have their primaries in September and thus obviously don’t print theirs until mid-September or even late September. North Carolina is one of the states that prefers to print its November ballots in August.

However, a state court fight over whether to remove two statewide ballot measures has delayed ballot printing until September 1, at the earliest. See this story. As a result, there will also be more time to settle two other election lawsuits. One is the state court case over whether two judicial candidates should have their party labels on the ballot. The other is the federal court case over whether the three Constitution Party nominees who had run earlier in the year in major party primaries, and who had lost their primaries, can be on the November ballot as Constitution Party nominees.

In the case over party labels, the lower court had put the labels on the ballot, but state legislative leaders have filed a notice of appeal, but they haven’t taken any other action to advance their appeal yet.

In the Constitution Party case, the plaintiffs recently filed this brief.