This presidential election will likely come down to key swing states, and could very well be a close and competitive race. If that's indeed the case, though, we might not know the results until several days after Election Day. Monday's ruling from the Nevada Supreme Court on accepting mail-in ballots without a postmark and after the election, not only doesn't help the timeline, it also strikes a devastating blow to election integrity for years to come.
"By removing the necessity for any proof that a ballot has passed through the postal service and thereby negating a critical ballot security measure, the Nevada Supreme Court has opened wide the doors to rampant ballot fraud," streiff aptly wrote at our sister site of RedState. He also included a copy of the court's opinion.
As The Hill reported on Monday about the decision:
Nevada’s Supreme Court affirmed a lower court decision Monday allowing mail ballots to be counted if they arrive without a postmark up to three days after the Nov. 5 election.
A majority of the high court ruled the state law requiring mail-in ballots to be counted even if the postmark “cannot be determined” applied to ballots without any postmark, as well as ballots whose postmarks are illegible.
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“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,” Nevada’s majority opinion read.
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“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,” said RNC Spokesperson Claire Zunk. “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.”
In addition to the statement from the RNC spokesperson, the Nevada GOP X account also reposted condemnation of the ruling from Elon Musk.
"This is messed up," Musk posted, who also urged people to vote Republican in Nevada.
In stark contrast, Marc Elias bragged about and celebrated the decision, which should tell you all you need to know, especially as he's come out against Virginia's efforts to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls.
Nevada and their of mail-in ballots, just like other key swing states, was mentioned in VIP coverage from over the weekend about when elections results might come in, with even Reuters admitting there was "slow voting in 2020."
Just as he's leading in all of the swing states, per RealClearPolling, former and potentially future President Donald Trump is leading in Nevada, by +0.7.
There's critical downballot races there as well, including the Senate race between vulnerable Democratic incumbent Jacky Rosen and Republican Sam Brown. Depending on which presidential candidate wins the state and by how much, there could be some coattails to ride as well.
In other election integrity news, however, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last Friday that all ballots have to arrive by Election Day, according to federal law. As hopeful as such a ruling is when it comes to election integrity, it only applies to those states in the Fifth Circuit, as streiff also reminded, which does not include Nevada.