The lawsuit filed this week calls the state’s process of assigning and verifying voters’ addresses “deeply flawed” and raises examples of tribal members who have been denied absentee ballots or lack the proper documentation to vote.

Hovland wrote in his two-page ruling that the “litany of problems identified in this new lawsuit were clearly predictable and certain to occur.”

However, he added that “a further injunction on the eve of the election will create as much confusion as it will alleviate.”

A previous ruling from Hovland in a 2016 lawsuit brought by members of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa prevented North Dakota from mandating a current residential street address.

In an April order, Hovland wrote that requiring a current residential address is a clear “legal obstacle” to voting and “completely disenfranchises” anyone who does not have a current street address, which includes many people living on Native American reservations.

However, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals granted a stay on that decision on Sept. 24 while an appeal is pending. That decision was appealed to the Supreme Court, which rejected the emergency appeal on Oct. 9.