GOP lawsuit challenges mail ballot deadlines in Mississippi; Similar suit in N. Dakota dismissed

Republicans are challenging extended mail ballot deadlines in Mississippi, however a similar lawsuit filed in North Dakota has been dismissed. It is a legal maneuver that could have widespread implications for mail voting ahead of this year's presidential election.

The Mississippi lawsuit was filed last week. The North Dakota lawsuit was filed last year. Democratic and voting rights groups are concerned about the potential impact if a judge rules that deadlines for receiving mailed ballots that stretch past Election Day violate federal law.

They say it's possible such a decision would lead to a nationwide injunction similar to one last year when a Texas judge temporarily paused the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone.

“This effort risks disenfranchising Mississippi voters, but we don’t want that to also be precedent for other states,” Abhi Rahman, communications director of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, said in response to the most recent lawsuit.

Mississippi and North Dakota are among 19 states that accept late-arriving mailed ballots as long as they are postmarked on or before Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That includes political swing states such as Nevada and North Carolina. Some, including Colorado, Oregon and Utah, rely heavily on mail voting.

Former President Donald Trump has long railed against the use of mail voting, in particular when many states expanded its use during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when he lost his reelection bid to Democrat Joe Biden. He has falsely claimed that changing vote tallies after Election Day are an indication of widespread fraud. And in the wake of his loss, several Republican-controlled states moved to tighten rules around mail voting.

The Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, a member of the state Republican Executive Committee and an election commissioner in one county filed a federal lawsuit on Friday against Secretary of State Michael Watson and six local election officials.

The suit challenges a Mississippi law that says absentee ballots in presidential elections will be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within five days. It argues that Mississippi improperly extends the federal election beyond the election date set by Congress and that, as a result, “timely, valid ballots are diluted by untimely, invalid ballots.”

“Federal law is very clear – Election Day is the Tuesday after the first Monday in November,” RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “However, some states accept and count ballots days and days after Election Day, and we believe that practice is wrong.”

RNC spokesperson Gates McGavick said the group hopes to obtain a judicial precedent before November's presidential election that state deadlines allowing ballots to be received after Election Day violate federal law.

“This case could have major ramifications in future elections — not just in Mississippi but across the country,” he said.

Democratic state Rep. Bryant Clark called the Mississippi lawsuit “another effort to try to stifle votes and stop the votes of a certain segment of the population.” He said the suit may also lead to similar efforts across the country.

Thessalia Merivaki, a political science professor at Mississippi State University, said the state's mail voting process is already difficult to navigate and that eliminating the five-day window would “unfairly punish” voters.

On Friday, Feb. 2, a federal judge in North Dakota dismissed the lawsuit challenging the acceptance of mail-in ballots after election day brought by a county election official and backed by a legal group aligned with former President Donald Trump.

In his ruling, U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor said Burleigh County Auditor Mark Splonskowski lacked standing, did not allege a specific constitutional violation, is not conflicted by his oath of office, and that the state election director named in the lawsuit “is not a potential cause for Splonskowski’s alleged injuries because she has no enforcement authority.”

North Dakota Republican Secretary of State Michael Howe welcomed the ruling as “a win for the rule of law in North Dakota and a win for our military and overseas voters.”

In September, the judge had asked the parties whether he should dismiss the case because Splonskowski had no approval from the county commission to sue in his official capacity as auditor. He said he brought the lawsuit against the state’s election director as an individual and not in an official capacity.

Splonskowski, backed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, filed the lawsuit in July. He argued he “faces an impossibility in enforcing the law" around whether to accept mail-in ballots received after election day, alleging federal and state law conflict as to when those ballots must be turned in. He claimed he risks criminal penalties.

North Dakota law allows mailed ballots received after election day to be counted by county canvassing boards, which meet 13 days after the election, but those ballots must be postmarked before the date of the election.

In September, attorneys for the Voting Section of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division filed a statement of interest in the case, saying, “Permitting the counting of otherwise valid ballots cast on or before election day even though they are received later does not violate federal statutes setting the day for federal elections. Indeed, this practice not only complies with federal law but can be vital in ensuring that military and overseas voters are able to exercise their right to vote.”

Richard L. Hasen, a University of California, Los Angeles law professor and election law expert, criticized the legal basis of the lawsuits. In the Mississippi case, he said the RNC appears to be trying to gain a political advantage because it “believes late-arriving mail ballots are more likely to favor Democrats.”

He noted that the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Mississippi, has historically been quite conservative “and not protective of voting rights.”

“It would be a far reach for a challenge to Mississippi law to lead to a national injunction against this,” he said. “But it’s possible.”

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Fernando reported from Chicago, Pettus from Jackson, Mississippi, and Dura from Bismarck, North Dakota.

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This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Mississippi mail ballot deadlines challenged in Republican lawsuit