'Clever strategy': GOP pushes deep South legal case that could upend elections across US

Republicans are teeing up a legal challenge before three judges appointed by Donald Trump in deep-red Mississippi that could boost similar lawsuits in more competitive states.

The Republican National Committee and other plaintiffs argue that Mississippi is violating federal law by counting mail ballots that arrive within five days after Election Day, which resembles statutes on the books in nearly two dozen other states and jurisdictions. A ruling in their favor could help them in similar cases elsewhere, reported CNN.

“It’s a clever strategy,” said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame Law School professor who specializes in election law. “You’re looking for the circuits that are going to be most hospitable to your claims.”

Republicans say that Mississippi’s mail ballot policy violates a 19th Century federal law establishing Election Day for the Tuesday after the first Monday in November, arguing that the law requires ballots to be placed in the custody of election officials by that congressionally mandated date, although the Justice Department and the Democratic National Committee dispute that reading in friend-of-the-court briefs.

“To have people’s votes discounted and disregarded — at no fault of their own — because the Postal Service or a storm or something happens that interferes with the timely delivery of mail – that happens in red states as much as it happens in blue states,” said District of Columbia attorney general Brian Schwalb, a Democrat who supports the Mississippi statute.

Lower courts have upheld the Mississippi policy being challenged Tuesday before the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which could wind up before the U.S. Supreme Court before November's election, and that could bolster challenges in other states to block post-election receipt deadlines if the justices refuse to pause a ruling in the RNC's favor before Election Day.

The Mississippi lawsuit is “part of a very shrewd and misplaced strategy by the RNC to try to suppress the vote by filing lawsuits in courts where they think they’re going to be successful, and rolling it out to a broader audience, either through the Fifth Circuit or up to the Supreme Court to create national precedent," Schawlb said.