The law required officials to count absentee ballots received by mail up to five days after Election Day. It’s unclear if the ruling will affect the current election.
The defendents, including Mississippi’s secretary of state, countered that although all votes must be cast by Election Day, states were free to take longer to receive and count the votes.
I hate this ruling. If all votes have to arrive by election day, that means that they have to be mailed anywhere from 3 days to a week or more before election day. This allows a few different kinds of ratfucking by people opposed to the idea of absentee ballots: they can delay sending out the ballots in the first place, or they can delay the mail. We’ve already seen them delay the mail with Trump’s appointment of Louis DeJoy to be the Postmaster General, and him immediately ordering the removal of a number of sorting machines from mail facilities.
Allowing votes to be counted so long as they are postmarked by the election day prevents this kind of ratfucking, and it gives the largest number of people the opportunity to have their voices heard. Republicans will spin this kind of shit as an attempt to preserve election integrity, but make no mistake - they are doing it so that they can suppress the vote.
No - it has to be postmarked by election day:
I hate this ruling. If all votes have to arrive by election day, that means that they have to be mailed anywhere from 3 days to a week or more before election day. This allows a few different kinds of ratfucking by people opposed to the idea of absentee ballots: they can delay sending out the ballots in the first place, or they can delay the mail. We’ve already seen them delay the mail with Trump’s appointment of Louis DeJoy to be the Postmaster General, and him immediately ordering the removal of a number of sorting machines from mail facilities.
Allowing votes to be counted so long as they are postmarked by the election day prevents this kind of ratfucking, and it gives the largest number of people the opportunity to have their voices heard. Republicans will spin this kind of shit as an attempt to preserve election integrity, but make no mistake - they are doing it so that they can suppress the vote.