What is Election Day? Supreme Court’s answer could swing the midterms |
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What is Election Day? Supreme Court’s answer could swing the midterms
This week the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case that hinges on the meaning of Election Day — and it’s got Democrats sweating.
The case, Watson v. RNC, challenges a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots received after Election Day to be counted.
It’s one of 14 states, including populous ones like California and New York, that allows a post-Election Day “grace period” (five business days in Mississippi, but longer elsewhere) for ballots to be returned.
That law is being challenged by the Republican National Committee.
Taking a states’ rights stance, Mississippi’s defenders argue that deciding when ballots must arrive is a state’s decision.
The US Constitution reserves to state legislatures the authority to prescribe “the times, places, and manner of holding federal elections.”
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True — but the Constitution empowers Congress to set the date.
In 1824 Congress chose the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as Election Day, and it’s been the same ever since.
But in recent years the meaning of Election Day has been eroded — its finality and certainty upended by state laws allowing absentee........