Swing state faces major election integrity setback over court's ruling

On Monday, a battleground state's supreme court ruling delivered a crushing blow to election integrity.

The Nevada Supreme Court concurred with a lower court's ruling that mail-in ballots that arrive up to three days after Election Day on November 5 "must be counted," even if a postmark "cannot be determined."

The ruling was a significant setback for the Republican National Committee, which argued that ballots without a legible postmark should not be counted after Election Day.

The court's decision upheld an August ruling by District Court Judge James Russell. Russell claimed that the ballots should be accepted to ensure that all eligible votes are counted.

The court filing read, "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."

"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," it added.

The Nevada Supreme Court determined that the RNC lacked standing, claiming it failed to provide sufficient evidence that counting ballots without a postmark would be vulnerable to voter fraud or that current security measures were insufficient to address the concerns.

"The RNC asserts that it currently expends significant resources on election monitoring, but it would need to expend additional resources to specifically monitor mail ballots received without postmarks," the court filing read. "But the RNC already monitors elections. Accordingly, any additional resources it would expend would merely constitute 'continuing ongoing activities' or 'business as usual.'"

The justices also rejected the RNC's argument that mail ballots favor Democrats.

Five of the seven justices agreed with the high court's majority ruling. The two other justices concurred with the result but provided different rationales.

RNC spokesperson Claire Zunk told The Hill, "Requiring ballots to be postmarked on or before Election Day is a critical election integrity safeguard that ensures ballots mailed after election day are not counted."

"It is also a requirement of Nevada law. By allowing Nevada officials to ignore the law's postmark requirement, the state's highest court has undermined the integrity of Nevada's elections," Zunk added.

Elon Musk responded to the court's decision, writing on X, "This is messed up."

Musk urged Nevada voters to cast their ballots for Republican candidates.

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