If you vote by mail, you’re going to want to watch this video. Today, the Supreme Court heard a challenge in a case called Watson v. the RNC. Basically, Mississippi has a law that says your mail in ballot can still count if it arrives after Election Day, as long as it was postmarked before Election Day. Republicans challenged this law.
The Supreme Court today seems 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. Well, a similar law does exist in these 14 states: Alaska, California, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington.
These 14 states account for 114 million eligible voters. That is 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, and nine also have a Senate election this year, including Alaska and Texas, which are surprisingly competitive for Democrats.
Why are Republicans doing this? Well, 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, white people vote by mail, as do people over the age of 65, and people who are 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%.
Which means that in a close election, changing the rules around mail-in balloting could affect the outcome, especially in these states which vote entirely by mail: California, Colorado, Hawaii, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. And 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 again, Congress did for farmers twice in the 19th century, whom we are still accommodating today, even though just 1% of us currently farm, the question is why?
Ben Sheehan is a political commentator and digital creator. He specializes in civics education, which is showcased in his latest book, What Does the Constitution Actually Say?: A Non-Boring Guide to How Our Democracy Is Supposed to Work. Check out his Substack, Politics Made Easy.
