The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in a major election integrity case on Monday.
The fight is over a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots that come in up to five days late to be counted, if they are postmarked by Election Day.
There are 14 states as well as the District of Columbia that allow those late votes to be counted.
The problem, Jason Snead of the Honest Elections Project said in an interview with the Center Square, is that “Federal law clearly states that ballots must be received by Election Day.”
“Despite this, states continue to allow absentee ballots to pour in days or even weeks late,” he said.
For example, the leftist officials in Illinois now allow mail-in ballots to be two weeks late, and still count.
Lawyers have argued that the federal government sets a date for federal elections and that all ballots need to be available for counting by that date.
Lawyers defending Mississippi’s law claim that following a deadline of Election Day for ballots “would jeopardize ballots for military and overseas voters,” the report said.
A few months back, the Post Office changed its postmark policy so that “the date reflected is when mail first arrives at a processing facility, not when it is dropped off,” the report said.
“There is unfortunately a real risk of disenfranchising voters who drop their ballots off close to Election Day and assume it’s going to be postmarked as normal,” claimed Lisa Dixon, of the Center for Election Confidence. “States haven’t really begun to grapple with that and its impact on voters yet.”
Snead confirmed an expectation that the court will strike Mississippi’s plan.
And the report pointed out that when asked, nearly 80% of American voters believe ballots need to be in the hands of election officials by the end of Election Day.
“The poll was conducted by CRC Research for Honest Elections Project between March 12-17 and included 1,600 likely voters nationwide. Among those surveyed, 90% of likely Republican voters said requiring ballots to be received by election officials by the end of Election Day makes elections more secure. About 77% of Independent voters and 68% of Democrat voters agreed,” the Center Square said.
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