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Mailed Ballots Without Postmark To Be Counted Up To Three Days After Election Day, Battleground State’s Supreme Court Rules


The Nevada Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision and ruled that election officials can count mailed ballots with no postmark received up to three days after Election Day.

The Republican National Committee (RNC) and President Trump’s campaign committee filed a lawsuit attempting to block the counting of ballots without postmarks.

The Nevada Independent reports:

In a decision Monday, five of the high court’s seven justices disagreed with the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) interpretation of the law at the center of the lawsuit and determined it would not be in the public interest to change election procedures this late in the cycle. Justices Douglas Herndon and Kristina Pickering agreed with the ruling but disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of the law in question.

The ruling upholds a Carson City judge’s denial of the Republicans’ request in August to stop the counting of these ballots. It is the latest defeat in the barrage of lawsuits filed by state and local Republicans related to Nevada’s mail ballot laws and voter roll maintenance, none of which have resulted in GOP victories, though one is pending a ruling and the others are in various stages of appeal.

In a statement Monday, an RNC spokesperson accused the court of ignoring the postmark requirement in state law and said it “has undermined the integrity of Nevada’s elections.”

“Requiring ballots to be postmarked on or before election day is a critical election integrity safeguard that ensures ballots mailed after election day are not counted,” the statement said.

From The Hill:

A majority of the high court ruled the state law requiring mail-in ballots to be counted even if the postmark “cannot be determined” applied to ballots without any postmark, as well as ballots whose postmarks are illegible.

The decision served as a blow to Republicans, who argued the law should just apply to ballots whose postmarks are illegible.

“If a voter properly and timely casts their vote by mailing their ballot before or on the day of the election, and through a post office omission the ballot is not postmarked, it would go against public policy to discount that properly cast vote,” Nevada’s majority opinion read.

“Indeed, there is no principled distinction between mail ballots where the postmark is ‘illegible’ or ‘smudged’ and those with no postmark — in each instance, the date the mail ballot was received by the post office cannot be determined,” the court filing continued.

The high court upheld the district court decision that the GOP lacked standing, saying the plaintiffs did not provide sufficient evidence that the mail ballots would be subject to voter fraud or that the security measures in place were inadequate to address concerns.

Read the full ruling HERE.

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This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

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