By Dave Workman
The U.S. Supreme Court could be on the verge of overturning a Mississippi voting law which allows mail-in ballots to be counted days after an election, so long as they are postmarked on election day, and if it happens, it could jeopardize similar laws in other states where winners have become losers.
Among those states are Washington and Oregon, where Democrats hold a hard majority and they have been passing increasingly restrictive gun control laws as a result, and both states count ballots received after Election Day, so long as they are postmarked on that day.
Oral arguments were held Monday, and according to SCOTUSBlog, “After just over two hours of oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a majority of justices seemed to agree with the challengers – which included the Republican Party of Mississippi and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi – that the Mississippi law conflicts with federal laws that set the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the ‘election day.’”
Fox News is reporting how U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer, representing the Trump administration, said the Mississippi law and similar laws in other states “could erode voter trust in election results.”
That is certainly the case in Washington, where ever since the 2004 gubernatorial election, which was won initially by Republican Dino Rossi, and on the first recount. A second recount, however, tilted the victory to Democrat Christine Gregoire, leading to the now-long standing argument that Democrats “will demand recounts until they get the results they want.”
Indeed, the Seattle Times is reporting the outcome of the case “could end the practice of counting ballots received after Election Day, which would upend Washington state’s and several other states’ mail-in voting systems months before this fall’s midterm elections.”
The Times report explains the dilemma which could make Democrats tremble: “In Washington, much like most states, early voters tend to be older and more conservative. Late ballots tend to break left, meaning that a candidate winning in ballots counted by the end of Election Day will not always be the winning candidate when the election is finalized weeks later.”
A ruling for the plaintiffs could mean voters who procrastinate—those on the left—might lose what has become an edge.
The court’s three liberal justices—Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan—were sympathetic toward Mississippi, SCOTUSBlog reported.
It would still be possible for service members and other citizens working outside the country, or invalids, to vote by absentee ballot, but based on Mondays’ hearing, the day of total mail-in ballots may be coming to an end this year.
All of the justices were involved in the discussion, and there did not appear to be much sympathy for Mississippi’s case from the conservative camp.
The ruling probably will not come before late June, and by tradition, the most controversial rulings typically are not released until the last two to three days of the high court’s current session.
Workman is editor-in-chief at TheGunMag.com
