Another elections-related lawsuit has been filed, this time by the Civitas Center for Law and Freedom.

The center, an arm of the Civitas Institute, is seeking a restraining order, preliminary injunction and a permanent injunction against the North Carolina State Board of Elections to prevent it from including ballots cast during same-day registration during the early voting period for the Nov. 8 general election, pending further investigation.

“To count ballots without verification of same-day registration information discriminates by treating one class of voters differently from another. Furthermore, this calls into question the outcome of close elections such as the one we are still in the middle of in North Carolina. Legitimate voters should never have their votes cancelled by illegitimate voters. The State Board of Elections should examine every ballot cast via same-day registration to verify that every vote cast is genuine and legitimate,” Civitas Institute President Francis De Luca said.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. De Luca is listed as the plaintiff. The state board, its members and its executive director were named as defendants. De Luca also filed an election protest with the state board Monday.

Same-day registration allows people to register to vote and mark ballots the same day. That process is used during the early voting period.

Kellie Harris Hopkins, elections director for Beaufort County, said the lawsuit was filed Monday. “So, they’ve filed a federal lawsuit saying that same-day (registration) ballots from one-stop shouldn’t be counted,” Hopkins said.

During this election cycle, Beaufort County had 410 same-day voter registrations, according to Board of Elections data.

The restraining order is being sought, according to the lawsuit, because “voter registration application submitted through the SDR process cannot be completely verified until at least nine days after the Board will certify the election results.” The lawsuit further states the board’s “certification of the elections results using ballots cast through the SDR process violates North Carolina law because ballots will be counted without the voter registration having been verified.”

The lawsuit alleges that the defendants’ conduct in allowing “votes to be counted that were cast by persons whose voter registrations have not been properly verified as required by state law violates the one person, one vote doctrine and disenfranchises and dilutes the voting rights of the Plaintiff.”

The election protest alleges the “widespread inclusion of unverified ballots calls one or more statewide elections into question.”

In a related matter, the state board on Sunday rejected a request by Gov. Pat McCrory’s re-election campaign committee to assume jurisdiction over certain protests arising out of the Nov. 8 general election, except for a protest filed with the Bladen County Board of Elections regarding alleged illegal absentee ballots. McCrory filed protests with at least 52 county boards of elections.