2024 Election Court Ruling: Nevada Allows Late Ballots to Be Submitted

Topline

The Nevada Supreme Court on Monday rejected the GOP’s challenge to counting unpostmarked ballots if they arrive after Election Day, as courts across the country issue a last-minute flurry of rulings on ballots and how elections are conducted as parties. seek to expand or restrict voter access.

A polling station in Hawthorne, California, on March 5.

AFP via Getty Images

Chronology

October 28The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision allowing the state to count unpostmarked ballots that arrived three days before Election Day after the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign sued to block the counting of ballots because, they argue it would be illegal to dilute ballots while following proper procedures.

October 25A federal appeals court has ruled that it is illegal for Mississippi to accept ballots that arrive after Election Day, but sent the case back to the lower district court to “determine the appropriate decision,” so it’s still unclear whether ballots that arrive will be accepted in this election late. .

October 25A federal judge has ordered Virginia to reinstate more than 1,600 voters to its voter rolls after the state removed them for allegedly not being citizens (with lawyers citing evidence showing many of the removed voters are U.S. citizens and were removed in error ) after the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares for allegedly violating federal law by purging voter rolls too close to an election.

October 23The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has ruled that voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected due to defects (such as problems with their signatures or the date) can submit provisional ballots to ensure they can vote, after the RNC defended the decision districts to prevent these voters from voting. ballots if their mail-in votes were rejected.

October 22The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld a lower court ruling blocking new voting rules from going into effect – such as requiring ballots to be counted by hand and other provisions that Democrats have warned could delay certification of election results – meaning that even though legal challenges will continue, the rules will continue. will not be in effect during the general election.

October 22A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee in Michigan that challenged the state’s voter rolls, arguing that the number of voters was “incredibly large” and the state was not removing voters from its rolls as required by law. The judge ruled that the plaintiffs had not provided sufficient evidence of any wrongdoing.

October 21Judges in Michigan and North Carolina have rejected lawsuits brought by the RNC challenging foreign voters who voted in those states even if they never actually lived there (for example, if their parents or spouses lived there), and a judge in Michigan called it “The “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise” these voters.

October 18A federal judge in Nevada dismissed the RNC’s lawsuit challenging the state’s voter rolls (saying, as in Michigan, that the number of voters was “incredibly large”), dismissing the lawsuit a second time and ruling that the plaintiffs had provided no “unreported data.” specific features” of the offense.

October 17A Trump-appointed judge in North Carolina rejected a Republican lawsuit seeking to remove 225,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls, alleging fraud, with the judge ruling that removing those voters would distract the state “from its democratic form of government.”

October 16The Nebraska Supreme Court has ruled that convicted felons can vote in the state after serving their sentences, overturning the state’s attempt to prevent them from voting because Nebraska could play a decisive role in determining which presidential candidate wins the Electoral College.

October 16A federal judge blocked Alabama’s voter removal program (saying it would help prevent noncitizens from voting) after the Justice Department sued to stop the program because it was too close to the election.

October 16A downstate Georgia judge has blocked new Georgia election rules that could potentially delay the certification of vote results after Democrats said new state election board rules could cause “chaos” in November.

October 15The Ohio Supreme Court has upheld restrictions on ballot drop boxes after the state imposed new restrictions requiring people dropping off ballots for voters with disabilities to go to an elections office rather than leaving the ballots in a drop box.

October 15A Georgia judge has issued a ruling saying state election officials must certify their county’s election results – regardless of whether they believe any ballots were fraudulent – after an official who refused to certify the results in the past, asked more than a dozen local officials for clarification. have voted against certification in recent years.

October 12A federal judge has rejected a conservative attempt to require Arizona to verify voters’ citizenship before the election.

October 7The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to hear two voting cases after Democrats challenged counties throwing out ballots with incorrect or missing dates and Republicans objected to some county officials allowing voters to correct problems with their mail-in ballots that should not be permitted by state law.

What to pay attention to

There are many pending cases that have yet to be decided by Election Day: Marc Elias, a voting rights lawyer working with the Democratic Party, said Sunday that 199 cases are pending in 40 states. The RNC has filed numerous lawsuits targeting voting practices, including alleging that Fulton County, Georgia, did not hire enough Republican poll workers, and Virginia appealed the decision on its voter rolls to the Supreme Court. In the week leading up to Election Day, more lawsuits are likely to be filed and quickly decided on.

What we don’t know

What happens after Election Day? Close election results in any battleground state can spark a flurry of lawsuits over how ballots and election results are counted, as happened in 2020 when the Trump campaign launched a wide-ranging legal campaign challenging the vote count. Battleground states are already bracing for an expected onslaught of post-election lawsuits, as Arizona’s court system directs judges to prioritize election lawsuits to avoid delaying certification, according to Reuters. The Republican and Democratic campaigns are also preparing for a tense legal situation: An RNC official told ABC News the party has 5,000 volunteer attorneys ready to work on Election Day, and ABC cited an internal memo from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign claiming as much . is “the most prepared campaign in history for what we face” in terms of litigation.

Chief critic

Democrats have sharply criticized Republicans for a series of lawsuits they filed ahead of Election Day and are likely to continue to file, arguing that the GOP is trying to sow doubt about the election results before they are even known. “We’re seeing a record number of lawsuits being filed before the election – almost every day – in what appears to be a coordinated effort to use the legitimacy of the courts to lay the groundwork to discredit an unfavorable outcome,” Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told ABC News : “The lawsuits are not aimed at obtaining legal assistance, but at spreading conspiracy theories.” although evidence shows that voter fraud is extremely rare and there is no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Key background

Since the 2020 election, Republicans have stepped up legal challenges and tightened voting rules. Trump and his allies have filed at least 60 lawsuits challenging the 2020 vote count as the then-president made baseless claims of fraud and Republicans used Trump’s fraud allegations as the basis for their lawsuits challenging voting rules. GOP-led states also pointed to Trump’s baseless claims to justify imposing his own tighter voting restrictions ahead of the 2024 election, which Democrats have since challenged in court. In April, the RNC announced it intended to make litigation a key part of its general election strategy, launching a major election integrity effort involving 100,000 staff and volunteers. General Counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement that the RNC’s “legal team will work tirelessly to ensure that election officials follow the rules” and “will aggressively take them to court if they fail to do so.”