The complaint asks the U.S. District Court in Richmond to order the state to count absentee ballots postmarked by Tuesday and received by Nov. 14. It contends that thousands of troops' ballots — many of which would go to McCain — will not be counted.

The deadline for ballots to be received is 7 p.m. Election Day, which is Tuesday.

The lawsuit is the second in a week to challenge preparations for the presidential election in Virginia, where Barack Obama hopes to become the first Democrat since 1964 to win the state's 13 electoral votes. Polls over the past week show him about even with or slightly ahead of McCain.

More than 436,000 new Virginia voters have registered since Jan. 1, and about 500,000 people — a tenth of the state's electorate_ have cast absentee ballots.

The NAACP sued the state last week, alleging it allotted too few voting machines for the enormous number of voters in majority black precincts expected to be drawn by the prospect of electing Obama as the first black president.

U.S. District Judge Richard L. Williams on Monday declined to order longer voting hours and other changes requested by the NAACP. He did order the elections board to publicize the availability of curbside voting for older or disabled voters and the fact that people in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote.

A hearing on McCain's lawsuit is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday before Williams.

That lawsuit alleges that ballots for overseas military voters were mailed too late to ensure they are returned by the deadline. Defendants are the chairwoman, vice chairman and executive secretary of the state elections board.

A 1986 federal law requires ballots to be mailed to military voters in foreign countries at least 45 days before the election, which this year would have been Sept. 20. The lawsuit alleges the state didn't have the ballots printed and sent to local officials by then, meaning they may not have been mailed overseas until October.

Ashley L. Taylor Jr., an attorney for McCain, said tens of thousands of oversees military absentee ballots could be voided unless the deadline is extended.

"The last thing you want is to have a service member in Afghanistan or Iraq who received his ballot too late not being able to vote in this election," Taylor said.

Board Chairwoman Jean Cunningham said late Monday afternoon the board had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.

"I've never had any intentions of trying to change anybody's mind," says Falco, a Barack Obama supporter. "I've heard a lot of celebrities talking about politics who, in my estimation, are not qualified to do so."

She adds, "Frankly, I'm embarrassed sometimes that they are representing my ilk, if you will."

For the seemingly endless number of celebrities who back Obama, trying to persuade people who already support the Illinois senator to volunteer for his campaign is as important as swaying undecided voters.

Four years ago, rocker Bruce Springsteen was the face of celebrity politics, making his first public endorsement of a candidate with a column in The New York Times before leading a series of swing-state concerts to urge a vote for Democratic nominee John Kerry.

While Obama has his share of celebrity concerts and endorsements — singer Dave Matthews playing a show in his home state of Virginia, legendary driver and team owner Junior Johnson sending an e-mail to NASCAR fans — he is using his support among famous faces differently.

In a television ad this week, Dole questioned the Christian credentials of Democratic challenger Kay Hagan. The state senator responded angrily, filing a lawsuit on Thursday and airing an ad of her own that says Dole is breaking the Bible's Ninth Commandment by bearing false witness.

The two candidates are locked in one of the nation's closest Senate races. An Associated Press-GfK poll released this week found Hagan has a slight edge. The pair has spent months swapping negative ads, but even some Republicans think Dole's assertions about Hagan and her faith have gone too far.

"It's pretty risky," said Republican political consultant Carter Wrenn, who worked for the late Jesse Helms, the senator Dole replaced in Washington six years ago. "Anytime you start questioning somebody's religion, you're getting on thin ice."

Dole was once considered such a sure thing that Democrats struggled to recruit a challenger for a Senate seat that has been in Republican hands for 35 years. But a surge in Democratic registrations and excitement surrounding the party's presidential nominee Barack Obama have boosted Hagan's campaign.

Dole's 30-second advertisement shows clips of some members of an atheist advocacy group — the Godless Americans Political Action Committee — talking about some of their goals, such as taking "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance and removing "In God We Trust" from U.S. currency. It goes on to question why Hagan went to a fundraiser at the home of a man who serves as an adviser to the group.

"Godless Americans and Kay Hagan. She hid from cameras. Took Godless money. What did Hagan promise in return?" the narrator says.

The ad ends with a picture of Hagan while another woman declares in the background, "There is no God!"

Hagan is a Presbyterian church elder who teaches Sunday school. On Wednesday, her attorneys demanded the ad come down within 24 hours. On Thursday, Hagan's attorneys filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court accusing Dole of defamation and libel.

"Each airing of the advertisement further injures (Hagan's) good name and reputation in the community," Hagan's attorneys wrote in court documents. Thursday's court filing does not detail Hagan's full case against Dole, but allows Hagan 20 days to file the full complaint.

Dole's campaign says the ad does not question Hagan's faith, only her agenda and associations, and attorneys for Dole said in a letter to Hagan's legal team that the ad was factual. Dan McLagan, a Dole spokesman, said the campaign had no plans to pull the ad from the air and dismissed the lawsuit as a "silly political gimmick."

"This lawsuit is frivolous and we will file a motion to dismiss," he said. "Kay Hagan knows that the Dole campaign ad is accurate and she is trying to confuse voters until Election Day."

Hagan responded Thursday with an 30-second spot of her own. Referring to the Ninth Commandment in the Old Testament, Hagan says the campaign is about creating jobs and fixing the economy, "not bearing false witness against fellow Christians."

"Elizabeth Dole's attacks on my Christian faith are offensive," Hagan says in the ad. "She even faked my voice in her TV ad to make you think I don't believe in God. Well, I believe in God. I taught Sunday School. My faith guides my life, and Sen. Dole knows it."

The editorial board of The Charlotte Observer, the state's largest newspaper, compared Dole's ad to an infamous spot run in 1990 by Helms against challenger Harvey Gantt, who is black. That ad showed a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter, while a narrator slammed "racial quotas."

Wrenn, who helped write the so-called "hands" ad, said both ads were probably put together under similar circumstances.

"When you get down into the 11th hour of a campaign, the pressure gets up pretty high, and your sleep deprivation factor gets up pretty high," Wrenn said. "Sometimes you just lose your judgment a little bit."

Five GOP state lawmakers, in a brief filed Monday, say the inquiry has exceeded its authority and is too political.

Palin is the focus of a legislative investigation into allegations she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was pressured to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister.

Investigators are scheduled to submit a report on the investigation Friday. Oral arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

Five GOP state lawmakers, in a brief filed Monday, say the inquiry has exceeded its authority and is too political.

Palin is the focus of a legislative investigation into allegations she abused her power by firing her public safety commissioner. The commissioner says he was pressured to dismiss a state trooper who was involved in a messy divorce with Palin's sister.

Investigators are scheduled to submit a report on the investigation Friday. Oral arguments are scheduled for Wednesday.

In a vote that shook the government, Wall Street and markets around the world, the House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation's financial system, leaving both parties and the Bush administration struggling to pick up the pieces. The Dow Jones industrials plunged nearly 800 points, the most ever for a single day.

"We need to put something back together that works," a grim-faced Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said after he and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke joined in an emergency strategy session at the White House. On Capitol Hill, Democratic leaders said the House would reconvene Thursday in hopes of a quick vote on a reworked version.

All sides agreed the bill could not be abandoned.

On Monday, not enough lawmakers were willing to take the political risk -- just five weeks before the elections -- of backing a deeply unpopular measure that many voters see as an undeserved bailout for Wall Street.

The bill went down, 228-205, even though Paulson and congressional leaders proclaimed a day earlier that they had worked out an acceptable compromise in marathon weekend talks.

Lawmakers were caught in the middle. On one side were the dire predictions from Bush, his economic team, and their own party leaders of an all-out financial meltdown if they failed to approve the rescue. On the other side: a flood of protest calls and e-mails from voters threatening to punish them at the ballot box.

The House Web site was overwhelmed as millions of people sought information about the measure.

The legislation the administration promoted would have allowed the government to buy bad mortgages and other sour assets held by troubled banks and other financial institutions. Getting those debts off their books should bolster those companies' balance sheets, making them more inclined to lend and easing one of the biggest choke points in a national credit crisis. If the plan worked, the thinking went, it would help lift a major weight off the national economy, which is already sputtering.

Stocks started plummeting on Wall Street even before Monday's vote was over, as traders watched the rescue measure going down on television. Meanwhile, lawmakers were watching them back.

As a digital screen in the House chamber recorded a cascade of "no" votes against the bailout, Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley of New York shouted news of the falling Dow Jones industrials. "Six hundred points!" he yelled, jabbing his thumb downward.

The final stock carnage was 777 points, far surpassing the 684-point drop on the first trading day after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.