Nevada mail ballots without postmarks can be counted after election day, court rules

Mail ballots arriving after Election Day without a postmark can be counted up to three days after the election, the Nevada Supreme Court ruled Monday, preserving a practice that was targeted by Republican activists.

The state’s highest court denied an appeal from the Republican National Committee, the Trump campaign, Nevada GOP and a voter to a District Court ruling that denied their demand that courts block counties from accepting ballots without a postmark that are received after the election.

Nevada law states that mail ballots must be mailed to county clerks and postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the county clerk no later than 5 p.m. on the fourth day after the election. If a postmark cannot be determined, and the ballot is received no later than 5 p.m. on the third day after the election, it will be deemed to have been mailed on or before Election Day and will be counted, according to the statute.

The Republican groups filed a lawsuit in late May against Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar and county clerks and registrars seeking to disallow mail ballots received without a postmark after Election Day. They lost the case in District Court, and the plaintiffs appealed to the Nevada Supreme Court, which unanimously upheld the lower court’s decision in a Monday ruling.

“Rejecting timely mail ballots because of postal service omissions cuts against the strong public interest in exercising the right to vote,” the Nevada Supreme Court wrote in its majority opinion, with two other justices issuing concurring opinions that contained differences in arguments.

Monday’s ruling is the latest in a series of failed election legal battles in Nevada ahead of the Nov. 5 election. The RNC also sought to prohibit counting of any mail ballots received after Election Day, and it filed a lawsuit alleging inconsistencies in the state’s voter rolls. More lawsuits — especially post-election — are expected.

Claire Zunk, a spokesperson for the RNC, said the Nevada Supreme Court “undermined the integrity of Nevada’s elections” with its ruling that allows officials “to ignore the law’s postmark requirement.”

“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,” Zunk said in a statement. “It is also a requirement of Nevada law.”

The Nevada secretary of state’s office said the ruling will allow Nevada’s election administrators to continue uninterrupted “without the risk of disenfranchising voters through no fault of their own.”

In a statement, the secretary of state’s office said the U.S. Postal Service is committed to the timely delivery of all mail ballots, but the office encourages voters to bring their ballot to any official county ballot drop box location to ensure their vote is received before the deadline.

The specific arguments

Nevada justices found the RNC lacked standing and failed to show it would be irreparably harmed if its request is not granted.

The RNC argued that if non-postmarked ballots received after Election Day were counted, the RNC would have to devote additional resources to specifically monitor mail ballots received without postmarks. It also claimed that Republicans vote by mail at a much lower percentage than Democrats, and therefore the counting of allegedly invalid ballots would benefit Democratic candidates over Republican candidates.

Nevada’s Supreme Court justices determined that since the RNC already monitors elections, additional resources it would expend monitoring mail ballots would constitute its ongoing monitoring activities. They also said the RNC did not provide evidence that the 24 mail ballots Clark County received without a postmark after Election Day during the 2024 primary election would have impacted any race.

The court also determined that the RNC’s argument that it is within a voter’s control to ensure that their mail ballots are postmarked is insufficient. It might not be possible for some voters who are homebound or live far away from a post office to physically drop off their mail ballot in person, justices wrote in the majority opinion.

“Nor does the statute impose such a burden on voters. And doing so would cut against the stated purpose of expanding, rather than limiting, voting rights,” justices wrote.

“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,” the justices wrote.

Nevada Supreme Court decision by Jessica Hill on Scribd

Contact Jessica Hill at jehill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @jess_hillyeah on X.