ATLANTA (news agencies) — President Donald Trump and other Republicans have long criticized states that take weeks to count their ballots after Election Day. This year has seen a flurry of activity to address it.
Part of Trump’s executive order on elections, signed in March but held up by lawsuits, takes aim at one of the main reasons for late vote counts: Many states allow mailed ballots to be counted even if they arrive after Election Day.
The U.S. Supreme Court last month said it would consider whether a challenge in Illinois can proceed in a case that is among several Republican-backed lawsuits seeking to impose an Election Day deadline for mail ballots.
At least three states — Kansas, North Dakota and Utah — passed legislation this year that eliminated a grace period for receiving mailed ballots, saying they now need to be in by Election Day.
Even in California, where weekslong vote counting is a frequent source of frustration and a target of Republican criticism, a bill attempting to speed up the process is moving through the Democratic-controlled Legislature.
The ballot deadline section of Trump’s wide-ranging executive order relies on an interpretation of federal law that establishes Election Day for federal elections. He argues this means all ballots must be received by that date.
“This is like allowing persons who arrive 3 days after Election Day, perhaps after a winner has been declared, to vote in person at a former voting precinct, which would be absurd,” the executive order states.
It follows a pattern for the president, who has repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of such ballots even though there is no evidence they are the source of widespread fraud. The issue is tied closely to his complaints about how long it takes to count ballots, his desire for results on election night and his false claims that overnight “dumps” of vote counts point to a rigged election in 2020, when he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
But ballots received after Election Day, in addition to being signed and dated by the voter, must be postmarked by the U.S. Postal Service indicating they were completed and dropped off on or before the final day of voting.
Accepting late-arriving ballots has not been a partisan issue historically. States as different as California and Mississippi allow them, while Colorado and Indiana do not.
“There is nothing unreliable or insecure about a ballot that comes back after Election Day,” said Steve Simon, the chief election official in Minnesota, which has an Election Day deadline.
In his executive order, most of which is paused by the courts, Trump directs the attorney general to “take all necessary action” to enforce federal law against states that include late-arriving ballots in their final counts for federal elections. He also directs the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to condition federal funding on compliance.
Republicans in five states have passed legislation since the 2020 election moving the mail ballot deadline to Election Day, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks election legislation.
Earlier this year, GOP lawmakers in Kansas ended the state’s practice of accepting mail ballots up to three days after Election Day, a change that will take effect for next year’s midterms. Problems with mail delivery had prompted Kansas to add the grace period in 2017.
Kansas state Sen. Mike Thompson, a Republican who chairs the committee that handles election legislation, compared the grace period to giving a football team extra chances to score after the game clock expires.
