A looming Supreme Court ruling could strip away protections for mail-in ballots across 14 states, putting millions of votes at risk of not being counted.
Originally published by The Contrarian as “How SCOTUS Could Change Vote-By-Mail.”
If you vote by mail, you’re going to want to watch this video:
On March 24, the Supreme Court heard arguments in Watson v. the RNC, a case challenging whether states can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, if they were postmarked on or before Election Day. Mississippi—along with Washington, D.C., and 13 other states—currently allows this practice, which Republicans are seeking to block.
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled like they’re going to agree with the challengers—which means that sometime in June, the Supreme Court could likely invalidate all similar laws that exist in these 14 states: Alaska, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia and Washington, plus Washington, D.C.
These 14 states account for 114 million eligible voters—almost half the entire voting eligible population of the United States.
Out of these, nine of them are blue states.
Nine of them have competitive House elections.
Nine also have a Senate election this year, including Alaska and Texas, which are surprisingly competitive for Democrats.
Why are Republicans doing this? They’re saying that mail-in ballot laws in these 14 states violate laws passed in the 19th century.
In 1845, Congress said that Election Day for president is going to be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November; and in 1875, Congress said this is also going to be the day for congressional elections. But as you can see, if you read them, neither of these laws say anything about mail-in ballots or early voting or anything like that.
So why are Republicans focused on this? Let’s look at who votes by mail. According to the nonpartisan States United Democracy Center, the average voter by-mail is white, over the age of 65, and/or serving in our military or living overseas. But also, as you may have guessed, Democrats tend to vote by mail a little bit more than Republicans—by about 8 percent.
In a close election, changing the rules around mail-in balloting could affect the outcome—especially in states that vote entirely by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont and Washington. (Four of these would be particularly affected by this law: California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.)
We should be making voting easier, not harder. So in advance of this Supreme Court ruling, what can states do?
- They can send out ballots earlier.
- They can expand early in-person voting.
- They can remove requirements that you need an excuse to vote early or absentee.
And if your state decides not to make voting more convenient for you—which we know Congress did for farmers twice in the 19th century, and whom we are still accommodating today, even though just 1 percent of us currently farm—the question is: Why?
