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Election Day is still months away, but the battle over voting rules has already begun. Many states allow mail ballots that are postmarked on or before Election Day to be counted even if they arrive after Election Day. But in some states, Republicans are asking courts to stop that. NPR's Ashley Lopez has this report.
ASHLEY LOPEZ, BYLINE: During the pandemic, Nevada created a universal mail-in ballot program alongside the state's regular in-person elections. Kerry Durmick is with the group All Voting is Local.
KERRY DURMICK: And so now what we're seeing is if you're an active Nevada registered voter, you automatically receive a vote by mail ballot. So it's completely changed how our elections work.
LOPEZ: For ballots returned through the mail, as long as it's postmarked by Election Day and gets to officials by 5 p.m. on the fourth day after Election Day, the ballot is counted. Durmick says, lawmakers created this wiggle room for voters in case they forget or there are issues with the post office. But the Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee say, this return window is illegal.
CHRISTINA BOBB: Basically, rather than Election Day, it creates an election period in violation of federal statute.
LOPEZ: That's Christina Bobb with the RNC. Her group filed a lawsuit against Nevada election officials arguing an election period is set federally, and it ends on Election Day. Bobb says states accepting late-arriving ballots is an election security issue.
BOBB: The way to make the election the most secure is that everybody has the same finish line.
LOPEZ: Bobb is a former Trump attorney who was indicted earlier this year in Arizona in connection to the campaign's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. She pleaded not guilty. Roughly 20 states plus Washington, D.C., accept and count postmarked ballots they receive after Election Day. And there's no evidence that those states are more likely to have fraudulent elections because of their return window. Kevin Munoz with the Biden campaign says these are common sense rules with a long history.
KEVIN MUNOZ: States have permitted the counting of ballots received after Election Day for over a century. In Pennsylvania and New Jersey, that practice, for example, it dates back to 1813 and 1815. So, no, this is not new.
LOPEZ: But these kinds of lawsuits are. Munoz says the Republican challenges are meant to sow distrust in American elections. But Christina Bobb says the reason the RNC is newly focused on late-arriving ballots is because laws around absentee voting have changed a lot in the last few years, including in Nevada.
BOBB: When it comes to mail-in ballots and dates received and dates processed and all of that, I would say COVID was a game changer.
LOPEZ: The RNC has also filed a similar challenge in Mississippi. Sam Paisley with the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee says this is part of a larger GOP effort. She says her group has tracked at least 47 bills across 18 states over the past two years that would shorten the time allowed for mail-in ballots to be counted.
SAM PAISLEY: They obviously have made the calculation that it's for their political benefit.
LOPEZ: And the potential political benefits are significant. During the 2020 election, President Biden beat Donald Trump in Nevada by about 33,000 votes. In Clark County alone, which is where Las Vegas is, state officials say about 40,000 mail ballots came in after Election Day during the 2022 election. Kerry Durmick says in Nevada, invalidating ballots that arrive after Election Day could impact all kinds of voters.
DURMICK: If we have somebody that's working, like, multiple jobs and has multiple children and, you know, this is just not something that is 100%, like, top of their mind, and they forget about their vote by mail ballot and they are able to put it in the mail on Election Day, that really does increase their access.
LOPEZ: Challenges to late-arriving ballots, including in Nevada, are currently moving through the courts. For now, it's unclear how close to the election any of these cases will be resolved.
Ashley Lopez, NPR News.
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