The Nevada Supreme Court ruled on Monday that mail-in ballots received up to three days after Election Day without a postmark must be counted, rejecting a Republican challenge.
State law requiring mail-in ballots to be counted even with a postmark that “cannot be determined” applies to mail-in ballots that do not have postmarks at all, the state Supreme Court decided.
“If a voter properly and timely casts their vote by mailing their ballot before or on the day of the election, and through a post office omission the ballot is not postmarked, it would go against public policy to discount that properly cast vote,” the court opinion reads.
“Indeed, there is no principled distinction between mail ballots where the postmark is ‘illegible’ or ‘smudged’ and those with no postmark — in each instance, the date the mail ballot was received by the post office cannot be determined,” the court added.
The Republican National Committee, the Nevada GOP, and the Trump campaign all sued over the law, arguing that it should only apply to illegible postmarks, The Hill reported.
The court upheld a lower court's decision that the Republican plaintiffs lacked standing. The state Supreme Court ruled that the GOP did not prove that the mail-in ballots would be subject to voter fraud or that security measures were inadequate. Also, the court disagreed that mail-in ballots are more likely to favor Democrats.
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