(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) A federal appeals court ruled Friday against a Mississippi law that empowered election officials to allow late-arriving mail-in ballots.
The order set election day as the deadline for which ballots must arrive before being counted.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that federal law preempts state rules extending deadlines for federal elections.
This may effectively impact several states that currently offer so-called grace periods for counting mail-in ballots even if they arrive past the election.
“Text, precedent, and historical practice confirm this ‘day for the election’ is the day by which ballots must be both cast by voters and received by state officials,” the court wrote, as reported by leftist NPR.
“Because Mississippi’s statute allows ballot receipt up to five days after the federal election day, it is preempted by federal law,” the court added.
The case now returns to a lower court for “further proceedings to fashion appropriate relief, giving due consideration to ‘the value of preserving the status quo in a voting case on the eve of an election.’”
The case began after Republicans challenged a Mississippi law allowing ballots to arrive within five days after the election if those ballots are postmarked before the election.
According to NPR, about 20 states and Washington, D.C., have similar practices of counting late ballots. Republicans argued that these grace periods give Democrats an unfair advantage.
They cited an MIT study that found 46 percent of Democrats rely on voting-by-mail methods—a stark contrast to Republicans’ 27 percent.
Attorney Conor Woodfin, who represents he Republican Party in the lawsuit, emphasized that the election day deadline is clear-cut.
“For decades after Congress established the uniform national Election Day, those words meant the day that ballots are received by election officials,” Woodfin said. “That means the late-arriving mail-in ballots that are counted for five additional days disproportionately break for Democrats.”
