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SCOUTS upholds mail-in ballots for Pa. and N.C., for now.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to overrule recent lower court decisions that allow North Carolina and Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 even if they are delivered by the Post Office after Election Day.

For now, that is.

By a 5-3 margin, the sitting justices affirmed the North Carolina Board of Elections’ choice to create a nine-day grace period for late delivered ballots. The panel also denied a request by the Republican Party of Pennsylvania to reconsider its Oct. 19 deadlock over halting the commonwealth’s plans to count ballots delivered within three days of the general election, effectively allowing the extension.

The justices offered no explanation for their decisions earlier in the month, but with Wednesday’s action, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch said the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court’s ruling in support of the Nov. 6 extended deadline was likely unconstitutional. They also left the door open to the possibility of revisiting the matter after Election Day.

That means Pennsylvania voters who mailed in ballots after the high court failed to strike down the extended deadline could end up being cut out of the election process after the fact.

Justice Alito, who wrote Wednesday’s denial, said the Supreme Court didn’t have enough time to review the case before the election, but that doesn’t mean it endorses the lower court’s decision. He also wrote that the Supreme Court’s inaction “is not a denial of a request for this Court to order that ballots received after election day be segregated so that if the State Supreme Court’s decision is ultimately overturned, a targeted remedy will be available.”

Newly appointed Justice Amy Coney Barrett did not participate in Wednesday’s decision making because, she said, there hadn’t been enough time for her to prepare. She was sworn in Tuesday morning and almost immediately faced with a request to recuse herself from the Pennsylvania case.

Earlier in the week, the Supreme Court rejected a bid by the Wisconsin State Legislature to overturn a lower court’s order preventing that state from extending the deadline for mail-in ballots. The legislature and the Democratic National Committee had argued the extension was necessary because of widespread and well-publicized delays by the U.S. Postal Service in delivering mail and a historic increase in the number of voters casting mail-in ballots due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic – arguments echoed in both the Pennsylvania and North Carolina cases, as well as dozens of others being heard by lower courts in various other states.

Wisconsin was looking for an extra six days to count mail-in ballots postmarked by or on Nov. 3.

SCOUTS upholds mail-in ballots for Pa. and N.C., for now.

The North Carolina case pitted the state’s Republican-controlled legislature against the Democratic governor and attorney general.

Republican lawmakers took the matter to state and federal court in an attempt to block the state’s Board of Elections from enacting the nine-day grace period for mail-in ballots. The lower courts ruled in favor of allowing the deadline extension, and the Republicans appealed all the way to the Supreme Court.

At issue was the question of whether the Board of Elections has the authority to change the counting deadline or the state Legislature does.

“The question is simple: May unelected bureaucrats on a state panel controlled by one political party overrule election laws passed by legislatures, even after ballots have already been cast?” North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger was quoted by The News & Observer as saying Wednesday. “If public confidence in elections is important to our system of government, then hopefully the answer to that question is ‘no.’”

The majority of the Supreme Court justices determined the elections board acted lawfully.

President Donald J. Trump said Wednesday he was counting on the courts to prevent states from extending the deadline for counting mail-in ballots, which he has railed against for months as being highly susceptible to voter fraud. He has also said publicly, on numerous occasions, that he wanted Barrett seated on the Supreme Court in time to hear election related cases.

Are you voting by mail-in ballot this year? Do you have confidence the U.S. Postal Service will deliver your ballot by Election Day? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

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