Yard signs: $10,000.

A week-long, statewide media buy: $1-million.

An army of lawyers to challenge any election law that stands between you and a razor-thin victory: priceless.

As a political strategy, “lawyering up” for an election first went prime time in 2000, the year the country endured a month of legal challenges to find out who was president. The concept was new, and the Republicans were better at it.

But now legal backup is as integral to the Election Day ground war plan as the last-minute, get-out-the-vote phone calls and vans chauffeuring shut-ins to the polls.

And this year is no different. Story here.