The GOP’s lawsuits against mail-in voting could pave the way for vote suppression and election denial in swing states.
By Sasha Abramsky, Truthout
With the election less than one month away, the Republican Party is engaged in an unprecedented 11th-hour effort to change the way mail-in votes are processed.
Last year in Mississippi, the party filed suit against a state law allowing ballots that are postmarked by Election Day to arrive — and be counted — up to five days after the election. The case was dismissed, but the GOP appealed. On September 24, the court of appeals began hearing their arguments. If the lawsuit wins, it will impact the 17 other states around the country, plus Washington, D.C., that also allow for mail-in ballots to arrive in the days following the election. Voting advocacy groups fear this would disproportionately impact Democratic vote counts, since Democrats are more likely than Republicans to mail in their ballots.
A similar lawsuit was filed earlier this year in the state of Nevada, where voters rely heavily on vote-by-mail, and where the election is likely to come down to the wire. And although the courts ended up tossing that suit and allowing these late-arriving ballots to be counted, the GOP has appealed the ruling.
In another swing state, Arizona, where for more than 30 years a large percentage of the electorate has cast votes by mail, state legislators tried earlier this year to pass legislation that would have blocked many residents’ access to mail-in voting. The push did not succeed, but it was indicative of the lengths to which the modern GOP is willing to go to make it harder for ordinary people to vote.
In swing states such as Pennsylvania, the GOP is pushing courts to force states not to count mail-in ballots that arrive in time but for which the voter forgot to write the date on the outside of the sealed envelope.
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