Election petitions run against a statutory timetable that the courts apply strictly. A petition filed outside its window is not heard, whatever its merits.
The Constitution and the Electoral Act set the period within which a petition must be presented, the period within which it must be heard, and the period within which an appeal must be determined. Those periods are jurisdictional. A tribunal cannot extend them and a court will not overlook them.
The practical consequence is that the work is front-loaded. Materials have to be assembled, the grounds settled and the petition drafted inside a window that begins the moment the result is declared. If you are considering a petition, the first conversation should happen immediately rather than after the position has been reviewed at leisure.
Acting for a petitioner challenging a return, or for a respondent defending one. The grounds are set by statute, and the petition has to plead the facts relied on with the particularity the tribunal requires rather than in general terms.
Petitions are decided on evidence. That means inspection of electoral materials where inspection is ordered, examination of the polling unit record, and where the case turns on a technical question, instructing an expert witness and preparing that evidence for cross-examination.
Representation before the election petition tribunal, then in the Court of Appeal, and in the Supreme Court where the matter carries that far. Each stage has its own procedure and its own timetable, and an appeal is argued on the record rather than reopened on the facts.
Questions of nomination, eligibility and party primaries, which are heard separately from post-election petitions and under their own limitation period. These arise before a ballot is cast and are frequently decided before one is.
If you are considering a petition, say when the result was declared in your first message. That date determines what is still open to you.