WASHINGTON — A pending case at the US Supreme Court could put an end to delayed ballot counts — like in the recent Los Angeles mayor’s race in California — that have caused voters to lose confidence in elections, according to Republicans.
The high court in March heard oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a Mississippi case that may result in a ruling stopping the practice of counting mail-in ballots that arrive up to five days after an election date.
It’s one of at least 14 states, along with California, New York and Texas, as well as the District of Columbia, with laws that allow for late ballots so long as envelopes are postmarked by Election Day. Around 30 states have some sort of grace period for absentee ballots as well, letting military or US citizens abroad cast their votes.
That grace period for mail ballots, which the RNC has argued is unconstitutional, is one of the reasons that Los Angeles residents still don’t know, nearly a week after, whether candidates Spencer Pratt or Nithya Raman will advance to a runoff contest in November against incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.
“What’s happening in California is a Democrat failure on full display,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told The Post. “Nearly a week after the primary, it is completely unacceptable ballots are still being counted. That’s why the RNC is aggressively fighting in the Supreme Court to stop ballots received after Election Day from being counted. Americans deserve timely election results they can trust.”
At issue is whether a federal statute defining Election Day as the Tuesday “after the first Monday in November” should apply to mail-in ballots that arrive later, even if the envelopes are postmarked appropriately.
Most Americans support vote-by-mail, though GOP backing for absentee ballots has declined in the last decade, according to surveys conducted by Pew Research. The RNC even launched a tracking website to record how long it will take for all ballots to be counted.
Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin has called the RNC case part of the GOP’s “relentless assault on mail-in voting.”
During oral arguments, conservative Supreme Court justices appeared inclined to side with the RNC, though some poked holes in their lawyers’ reasoning that early voting should still be considered constitutional if late-arriving ballots were not.
“There could be a process where ballots are being received earlier, but that ballot box has to close on Election Day,” said US Solicitor General John Sauer.
“Why is that permissible?” asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett. “If we’re just going to say historically it just needs to look like it always looked, how come those features fall out?”
“Maybe you’re not saying anything other than, well, that’s different,” added Chief Justice John Roberts.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch — all considered part of the court’s conservative supermajority — appeared more sympathetic to arguments in favor of restoring confidence in the electoral process.
Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared more skeptical of that reasoning, noting how the federal law for elections also provides flexibility to modify the voting period under extraordinary circumstances.
“It just seems inconceivable that on the basis of this kind of evidence, we would reject these practices that are so entrenched in 30 states,” Kagan said at one point.
The high court’s decision in the Watson case is expected this month before the justices’ summer recess. It could only apply narrowly to Mississippi law or have a broader effect on other states. Some proponents have claimed more funding for election workers and infrastructure could also speed up ballot counts.
“Not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!” erupted President Trump on his Truth Social Monday. “Now they’ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won’t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials.”
Trump and Republicans previously highlighted uncertainties about the massive mail-in ballot tallies in the 2020 presidential election as proof that the process wasn’t fair. Trump’s former attorney general Bill Barr said there wasn’t evidence of fraud widespread enough to alter the 2020 outcome.
Dozens of court cases also did not produce rulings that shifted any ballot tallies to deny Joe Biden’s victory, though the 47th president’s DOJ has been investigating some aspects of the election that took place in Georgia since Trump’s return to the White House.
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