A Republican who unsuccessfully ran for a South Shore and Cape Cod Senate seat turned to a Boston court this month in an effort to overturn the results of her Republican primary election this fall, a lawsuit state lawyers said could undermine public confidence in local contests.

In a legal challenge filed Nov. 1 that names Gov. Maura Healey and Secretary of State William Galvin, Kari MacRae of Bourne asked a Boston judge to block the results of the general election for the Plymouth and Barnstable Senate seat to allow for a review to move forward of primary election early voting ballots she argued could be considered “invalid.”

MacRae, who also serves on the Bourne School Committee, lost to Rep. Matt Muraotre, a Plymouth Republican, in the Sept. 3 Republican primary by 39 votes. Muratore was later defeated in the Nov. 5 general election by Rep. Dylan Fernandes, a Falmouth Democrat.

The lawsuit in Boston includes an emergency motion attempting to bar Healey from certifying in December “any” election results related to the Senate seat. It comes after two other judges in Barnstable and Plymouth Counties denied requests to force a review of early voting ballots.

MacRae asked the Boston judge to declare the results of the primary election “conjectural” and the general election outcome “null and void” until officials can parse through the early voting ballots, according to court documents reviewed by the Herald.

MacRae contends town clerks in several cities and towns in the Senate district broke state law when they did not compare voter signatures on the inner part of early voting ballot envelopes for the primary election with signatures on their corresponding applications.

She also alleged in court documents that multiple town clerks and local election officials admitted to not following the statute, which she argued “calls into question the integrity of each early voting ballot.”

“If the … review reveals that more than 39 inner secrecy envelopes of the early voting ballots do not satisfy the signature comparison requirement or are otherwise invalid, the results of the primary election must be invalidated,” attorneys for MacRae said in a court filing.

The towns involved in the lawsuits in Plymouth and Barnstable Counties have told the judges overseeing the legal challenges that they plan to file motions to dismiss. Attorneys representing some of those municipalities — Plymouth, Plympton, Mashpee, and Sandwich — declined to comment.

Attorneys for MacRae and the state met in court Wednesday to argue over her emergency motion filed in Boston to prohibit Healey from certifying the election results. A local judge could issue a decision in the coming week, MacRae told the Herald.

A spokesperson for Galvin referred questions to Attorney General Andrea Campbell’s Office while Healey’s office did not respond to an inquiry. Campbell’s office also declined to comment and referred the Herald to court documents outlining opposition to MacRae’s case.

In those documents, Assistant Attorney General Anne Sterman said MacRae’s emergency motion should be rejected because MacRae had “ample” opportunity to raise ballot concerns with local election officials during multiple recounts she requested in the Senate district.

Declaring the primary election “conjectural” and the general election “null and void” would disenfranchise more than 110,000 voters on the South Shore and Cape Cod who have already chosen their next lawmaker, Sterman wrote in court documents.

The decision would also “greatly undermine public confidence in the election and cause widespread voter confusion,” the assistant attorney general argued.

“Invalidating the primary and state election results for this district would require that all of these voters vote again, solely because of MacRae’s unjustified and inexcusable failure to raise the ‘irregularities’ she alleges in this case at any point before (Galvin) declared the final results and the state election was conducted,” Sterman said.

Emergency motions filed in Barnstable and Plymouth County courts by MacRae have already faced pushback from judges.

In the Barnstable case, Superior Court Justice Mark Gildea was clear on what he thought of the timing of the challenges.

“The plaintiff waited 26 days after the secretary of the commonwealth declared the final recount results before filing an action. The plaintiff was aware of the action, or inaction, of which she now takes issue with even earlier,” Gildea wrote in a court filing. “It is significant to the court that the issue she now raises was brought to the attention of the registrar of voters during the recounts.”

Fernandes, the senator-elect for the district, did not respond to multiple Herald inquiries.

MacRae said town clerks and local election officials told her and others “they don’t have the capacity to check every signature” on early voting ballots to determine whether the vote should have been cast.

“If that makes me a conspiracy theorist, Trump crazy person, whatever,” she told the Herald in an interview. “We need to have safe and secure elections. I think it’s important.”

The challenge from MacRae — who was fired from Hanover High School after controversial social media videos surfaced in 2021 — has gained steam among some South Shore and Cape Cod residents.

A legal fund MacRae set up to bankroll the various lawsuits raised $13,400 in October largely because of a $10,000 donation from Thomas Wallace of Plymouth and $1,000 from Deborah Dugan of Plymouth, according to state campaign finance filings.

James McMahon, who unsuccessfully ran for attorney general in 2022 against Campbell, donated $500 to MacRae’s legal fund, state records show.

MacRae was also helped by former MassGOP Chair Jim Lyons and failed gubernatorial candidate Geoff Diehl, according to court documents.

Muratore, the state lawmaker who beat MacRae in the September Republican primary, said local election officials’ ability to match signatures on early voting ballots to their respective applications “is a problem.”

“There is some legitimacy to the signatures and the way the law was written. I do think there needs to be something done on that,” he told the Herald. “I don’t think overturning the election results is … necessarily the way to do it. But if it gets attention to Beacon Hill to maybe look at this, talk to the Town Clerks Association, and see what we can do to help support the town clerks in these elections, I think that’s something worth talking about.”