How Courts Are Impacting 2024 Election: Georgia County Can’t Count Late-Arriving Ballots For Now, Court Rules

04 Nov 2024 by Alison Durkee · Forbes

Topline

The Georgia Supreme Court won’t let Cobb County, Georgia, count thousands of ballots that were sent out late if they arrive after Election Day—at least for now—as courts across the country are issuing a flurry of last-minute rulings on ballots and how elections are run as parties seek to expand or limit voter access.

Fulton County elections workers process absentee ballots on November 4 in Union City, Georgia.AFP via Getty Images

Timeline

Nov. 4Cobb County, Georgia, officials mailed more than 3,000 mail-in ballot applications late after a surge of last-minute registrations, and the Georgia Supreme Court ruled Monday any of those ballots that arrive after Election Day as a result should be set aside and not counted for now while the litigation plays out, siding with Republicans who sued to block them and overturning a lower court’s order.

Nov. 1The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled mail-in ballots with an incorrect or missing date on the envelope can’t be counted, siding with Republicans after a lower court ruled that not counting those ballots in a separate special election violated the state Constitution.

Nov. 1The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Republicans who tried to block Pennsylvania from allowing voters to cast provisional ballots if their mail-in ballots are rejected, which could allow thousands more votes to be cast in the battleground state.

Oct. 30Voters in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who want to cast a mail-in ballot in person can do so until Friday afternoon, a Pennsylvania judge ruled, after the Trump campaign sued to extend early voting, following reports that some voters were turned away and not allowed to vote when early mail-in voting initially closed Tuesday, despite being in line to vote before the 5 p.m. deadline.

Oct. 30The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled Philadelphia’s refusal to count mail-in ballots just because they lack a handwritten date on the envelope violates the state’s constitution, in response to a lawsuit brought over a special election earlier this year—a decision that, while focused on the special election, is likely to impact the battleground state in November, as ACLU spokesperson Andy Hoover told Votebeat, “If [rejecting them is] unconstitutional in September, it is unconstitutional in November.”

Oct. 30The U.S. Supreme Court allowed Virginia to remove 1,600 alleged noncitizens from its voter rolls—even as the federal government found that’s resulted in citizens being removed—overturning a lower court’s order on Oct. 25 that paused the voter purge and sided with the Justice Department, which argued the removal efforts were being carried out too close to Election Day.

Oct. 29U.S. District Judge Christopher Connor dismissed a challenge GOP lawmakers in Pennsylvania brought against federal rules that allow overseas voters to cast ballots in the state with fewer verification requirements, as the judge noted the guidance on overseas ballots has been in place for years but the plaintiffs “provide no good excuse for waiting until barely a month before the election to bring this lawsuit.”

Oct. 28The Nevada Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling that allows the state to count ballots without a postmark that arrive up to three days beyond Election Day, after the Republican National Committee and Trump campaign sued to block the ballots from being counted because they claimed it would unlawfully dilute ballots that follow proper procedures.

Oct. 25A federal appeals court ruled it’s unlawful for Mississippi to accept ballots that arrive after Election Day—but sent the case back to the lower district court to “fashion appropriate relief,” so it’s still unclear whether late-arriving ballots will be accepted in this election.

Oct. 25A federal judge ordered Virginia to restore more than 1,600 voters to its voter rolls after the state removed them for allegedly being non-citizens—with lawyers citing evidence showing many removed voters are U.S. citizens and were taken off in error—after the Justice Department sued Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin and Attorney General Jason Miyares for allegedly violating federal law by purging voter rolls too close to an election.

Oct. 23The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled voters whose mail-in ballots were rejected because of defects—like issues with their signature or the date—can cast provisional ballots to make sure they can vote, after the RNC defended a county’s decision to stop those voters from casting ballots if their mail votes were rejected.

Oct. 22The Georgia Supreme Court upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking new voting rules from taking effect—like a requirement to hand-count ballots and other provisions that Democrats warned could delay the election results from being certified—which means that while litigation will continue, the rules will not be in effect during the general election.

Oct. 22A federal judge dismissed a Republican National Committee-led lawsuit in Michigan that took issue with voter rolls in the state, alleging the number of voters was “impossibly high” and the state wasn’t removing voters from their rolls as required by law, with the judge ruling the plaintiffs didn’t provide enough evidence there was any wrongdoing.

Oct. 21Judges in Michigan and North Carolina rejected lawsuits brought by the RNC challenging overseas voters casting a ballot in those states even if they’ve never actually lived there—for instance, if their parents or spouse lived there—with the Michigan judge calling it an “11th hour attempt to disenfranchise” those voters.

Oct. 18A federal judge in Nevada dismissed an RNC lawsuit challenging the state’s voter rolls—claiming, like in Michigan, that the number of voters was “impossibly high”—throwing out the lawsuit for a second time and ruling the plaintiffs hadn’t provided any “concrete specifics” of wrongdoing.

Oct. 17A Trump-appointed judge in North Carolina struck down a Republican lawsuit aiming to remove 225,000 voters from the state’s voter rolls, alleging fraud, with the judge ruling that removing those voters would move the state “away from a democratic form of government.”

Oct. 16The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled convicted felons can vote in the state after they’ve completed their sentence, striking down an effort by the state to prevent them from voting as Nebraska could become pivotal to determining which presidential candidate wins the Electoral College.

Oct. 16A federal judge blocked a program in Alabama that purged voters from the voter rolls—claiming doing so would help prevent noncitizens from voting—after the Justice Department sued to stop the program because it was too close to the election.

Oct. 16A lower Georgia state judge blocked the new election rules in Georgia that could have potentially delayed the vote certification, after Democrats argued the state election board’s new rules could cause “chaos” in November.

Oct. 15The Ohio Supreme Court upheld restrictions on ballot drop boxes, after the state enacted new limitations saying people dropping off ballots for voters with disabilities have to go into an election office rather than leaving the ballot in a drop box.

Oct. 15A Georgia state judge issued a judgment saying state election workers must certify their county’s election results—regardless of whether they think any ballots were fraudulent—after an official who had refused to certify results in the past asked for clarification and more than a dozen local officials have voted against certifying in recent years.

Oct. 12A federal judge rejected an effort by conservatives to require Arizona to confirm voters’ citizenship ahead of the election.

Oct. 7The Pennsylvania Supreme Court declined to take up two voting cases after Democrats challenged counties throwing out ballots with incorrect or missing dates, and Republicans opposed some county officials letting voters correct issues with their mail-in ballots, which should not be allowed under state law.

What To Watch For

There are many outstanding cases that still have to be decided by the time ballots are counted, with Marc Elias, a voting rights attorney aligned with the Democratic Party, reporting Monday that 209 cases are pending in 40 states. More lawsuits are also likely to be filed and decided in the 24 hours before polls close.

What We Don’t Know

What will happen after Election Day. Close election results in any battleground state could prompt a slew of lawsuits over how ballots are counted and the election results, as happened in 2020 when the Trump campaign launched a wide-ranging legal campaign challenging the vote count. Battleground states are already preparing for an anticipated onslaught of post-election lawsuits, Reuters reports, with Arizona’s court system ordering judges to prioritize election lawsuits so that certification doesn’t get delayed. Republican and Democratic campaigns are also gearing up for a busy legal landscape: An RNC official told ABC News the party has 5,000 volunteer attorneys ready to be deployed on Election Day, and ABC cited an internal memo from Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign that claims it is “the most prepared campaign in history for what we face” in terms of litigation.

Chief Critic

Democrats have heavily criticized Republicans for the rash of lawsuits they’ve brought ahead of Election Day and are likely to continue filing, arguing the GOP is trying to sow doubt in the election results even before they’ve come in. “We're seeing a record number of lawsuits filed before the election—nearly every day—in a seemingly coordinated push to use the legitimacy of the courts to lay the groundwork for discrediting an unfavorable result," Wendy Weiser, director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Democracy Program, told ABC News. "The lawsuits are not about getting legal relief, but about spreading conspiracy theories." Many of the GOP lawsuits that have been brought are based on concerns about election irregularities or fraud, such as noncitizen voting or mail-in ballots, even though evidence has shown election fraud is exceedingly rare and there is no evidence of any widespread fraud in the 2020 election.

Key Background

Republicans have ramped up legal challenges and tightened voting rules since the 2020 election. Trump and his allies filed at least 60 lawsuits challenging the vote count in 2020 as the then-president made baseless allegations of fraud, and Republicans have used Trump’s fraud allegations as an underpinning for their litigation challenging voting rules. GOP-led states have also pointed to Trump’s baseless claims to justify enacting their own tighter restrictions on voting ahead of the 2024 election, which Democrats have then challenged in court. The RNC announced in April it intended to make its litigation efforts a key part of its strategy in the general election, launching an extensive “election integrity” effort with 100,000 staffers and volunteers. Chief Counsel Charlie Spies said in a statement the “RNC legal team will be working tirelessly to ensure that elections officials follow the rules” and “will aggressively take them to court if they don’t.”