Republican leaders are challenging extended mail ballot deadlines in at least two states in a legal maneuver that could have widespread implications for mail voting ahead of this year’s presidential election.
Republican voters have expressed serious concerns that mail-in voting could be vulnerable to outside interference. Polls show that large numbers of conservative voters believe the 2020 election was influenced to some level of election fraud.
A lawsuit filed to limit mail ballots last week in Mississippi follows a similar one last year in North Dakota, both brought in heavily Republican states before conservative federal courts.
Democratic groups say they are concerned about the potential impact on the whole nation if a judge rules that deadlines for receiving mailed ballots that stretch past Election Day violate federal law.
Mississippi and North Dakota are among 19 states that accept late-arriving mailed ballots as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That includes political swing states such as Nevada and North Carolina. Some, including Colorado, Oregon and Utah, rely heavily on mail voting.
Former President Donald Trump has long railed against the use of mail voting, in particular when many states expanded its use during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden. In the past few years, Trump has repeatedly claimed that changing vote tallies after Election Day were an indication of widespread fraud.
And in the wake of these concerns, several Republican-controlled states moved to tighten rules around mail voting.
The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, a member of the state Republican Executive Committee and an election commissioner in one county filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against Secretary of State Michael Watson and six local election officials.
The suit challenges a Mississippi law that says absentee ballots in presidential elections will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five days. It argues that Mississippi improperly extends the federal election beyond the election date set by Congress and that, as a result, “timely, valid ballots are diluted by untimely, invalid ballots.”
“Federal law is very clear – Election Day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “However, some states accept and count ballots days and days after Election Day, and we believe that practice is wrong.”
RNC spokesperson Gates McGavick said the group hopes to obtain a judicial precedent before November’s presidential election that state deadlines allowing ballots to be received after Election Day violate federal law.
“This case could have major ramifications in future elections — not just in Mississippi but across the country,” he said.
Democratic state Rep. Bryant Clark called the Mississippi lawsuit “another effort to try to stifle votes and stop the votes of a certain segment of the population.” He said the suit may also lead to similar efforts across the country.
Thessalia Merivaki, a political science professor at Mississippi State University, said the state’s mail voting process is already difficult to navigate and that eliminating the five-day window would be unfair.
In North Dakota, a similar federal lawsuit against the state election director was filed by the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation on behalf of a county auditor, Mark Splonskowski, who cited what he said is a conflict between state and federal law. A court is expected to decide soon whether he has standing to bring the lawsuit.
Foundation spokesperson Lauren Bowman said while the lawsuit deals with North Dakota’s law, a ruling that finds extended ballot deadlines violate federal law could directly impact other states with similar policies.
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article