New Lawsuits Seek to Limit Absentee Voting

The cases could have nationwide impact

It’s a striking trend in elections that Republicans are now filing more voting-related lawsuits than Democrats. While Democrats and progressive organizations sue to get rid of unnecessary and discriminatory voting restrictions, Republicans now have a series of cases that would give voters less time to vote by mail. 

Here’s the issue:

• Nineteen states will count your mail-in ballot if it arrives at the elections office after Election Day, as long as you mailed the ballot on or before Election Day.

• Republicans in Mississippi, North Dakota, and Illinois have sued to stop these “late-arriving” ballots from counting.¹

• A successful ruling in one state could potentially be used to invalidate late-arriving ballots everywhere else. That would mean voters who can usually mail their ballots until Election Day might be under new rules for the Presidential Election and could need to make sure their ballots arrive by Election Day.

There are good reasons to count late-arriving ballots: In-person voters have until Election Day to vote, so giving absentee voters until Election Day to mail a ballot is only fair. A longer deadline is especially good for voters stationed overseas, who live in areas with slow mail, or whose lives took a turn and who couldn’t mail their ballots until the last minute (i.e., any of us).

The Republican counter-argument rests on a technicality: they say the law sets Election Day as one specific day (“the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November”), and any ballots arriving after that day are automatically “fraudulent.”

This doesn’t check out. Let’s say Voters A and B both mail their ballots the Friday before Election Day. A’s ballot is delivered on Monday, but B’s post office is overwhelmed and their ballot isn’t delivered until after Election Day. Under the Republican argument, B’s ballot is “fraudulent” and won’t count, even though both voters are eligible, both mailed their ballots the same day, and rejecting B’s ballot doesn’t make the election any safer or more secure.

Imagine you’re a candidate in a state that counts late-arriving ballots: you could make phone calls to voters, send texts, and go door-to-door up until the last hour of Election Day so as many people as possible can mail their ballot on time.

Or you could sue, and Americans will have less time to vote.

Republicans have made their choice.

If you want to be part of fighting back against these anti-democratic lawsuits, share this newsletter with someone you think would appreciate learning about these issues, and visit our Resources page for other ways to get involved.

1. The Illinois case was filed on behalf of three Republican Party candidates. The Mississippi case was filed by the Republican National Committee. The North Dakota case, which the lower court dismissed in February, was filed by the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation on behalf of a county election official. Follow the developments in all three cases at Democracy Docket.