Anika Begay
An election worker examines ballots at the Clark County Elections Department in Las Vegas on November 10, 2022.
by Gregory Bull/AP
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by Gregory Bull/AP
Ahead of this year’s election, Republicans have sought to block some states, including swing state Nevada, from counting postmarked ballots that don’t reach election officials before Election Day.
That legal effort isn’t going well. But GOP officials say they’re committed to those challenges, and in recent days they’ve appealed their case in Mississippi to a conservative district court in hopes of winning a favorable ruling.
About 20 states plus Washington, D.C., accept and count absentee ballots received after Election Day if they are postmarked on or before Election Day. These rules are designed to accommodate voters who don’t remember to turn in their ballots until Election Day and to provide some leeway in the event of a problem with the Postal Service.
So far, the Republican National Committee and others have filed challenges to the return of ballots in Nevada, Illinois, Mississippi and North Dakota.
Earlier this year, the North Dakota case was thrown out of court. And last month, judges in Mississippi and Nevada also rejected lawsuits filed by the RNC seeking to disqualify ballots that arrived after Election Day.
The RNC has argued that rules allowing ballots to be counted after Election Day violate federal law. The party argues that Congress, not the states, decides when a federal election ends.
Claire Zunk, communications director for the RNC’s election integrity unit, told NPR that “the election should be concluded on Election Day — that’s the law, and voters deserve fair and accurate results on November 5.”
He added: “The counting of ballots after Election Day in Mississippi and other states threatens the security of the election and compromises transparency for voters.”
In the Mississippi case, GOP-appointed federal judge Louis Guirola ruled that in some cases Congress took into account ballots received after Election Day, so the state’s laws did not violate the law.
“If a federal law implicitly permits post-election receipt of out-of-state ballots mailed by Election Day, the law is presumed not to violate Election Day laws,” the judge wrote, “from which it may be inferred that Mississippi’s similar post-election receipt law is equally inoffensive.”
And now the RNC has appealed the Mississippi case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, known as perhaps the most conservative appeals court in the United States.
Zunk told NPR that the RNC plans to appeal the Nevada case as well.
“Rather than let us fight in court, a liberal judge unjustifiably dismissed our case,” Zunk said. “Political parties should be allowed to fight invalid election laws that threaten the integrity of our elections.”
The stakes in Nevada’s case are especially high because the election is so close in the state. Plus, a large number of voters now cast ballots by mail thanks to Nevada’s universal vote-by-mail program.
Joe Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump in Nevada in 2020 by about 33,500 votes. In the 2022 midterm elections, in Clark County alone, the county where Las Vegas is located, state officials say about 40,000 valid ballots arrived after Election Day.
Democrats and voting rights advocates have called these types of lawsuits “fringe” and an attempt to undermine U.S. elections. They also say they are part of a broader effort to shorten the time windows during which voters can return mail-in ballots.
This summer, the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee said it was considering at least 47 bills in 18 states in the 2023 and 2024 legislative sessions that would have shortened the time windows for returning ballots.
