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The Republican Party's lawsuit against the state of Nevada over the law allowing ballots be counted up to four days after the Election Day has been dismissed.
In several states, ballots that are postmarked on Election Day are still counted, even if they are received by election officials a few days after the election. Nevada's law allows up to four days to continue receiving ballots. Ballots with missing or unreadable postmarks may also be counted as long as they arrive within the three days that follow.
The RNC and Nevada Republican Party sued Nevada in 2024 to block the ballot counting, claiming that the law passed in 2021 unlawfully extends Election Day. They pointed to federal laws that set a uniform national date for federal elections. They also claimed that counting late-arriving ballots could dilute Republican votes and provide Democrats an unfair advantage. Nevada officials and voting-rights advocates countered that the relevant act is casting or mailing the ballot by Election Day, not the postal service’s delivery date, and that the law helps ensure legally cast votes are counted.
In the lower-court ruling, U.S. District Judge Miranda Du dismissed the appeal, saying that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue. The plaintiffs then appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where the case remained pending until Friday's decision.
According to decision, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals similarly decided on procedural grounds, not on the law itself, Democracy Docket posted.
The three-judge panel explained that the plaintiffs were not actually harmed by the lower court’s ruling. And if they were not harmed by it, they had no legal right (no standing) to pursue the appeal. The court therefore dismissed the appeal.
This isn't the only case the GOP has filed related to mail-in ballots received after Election Day.
The most important case came from Mississippi, where the RNC, Mississippi Republican Party and individual voters challenged a law allowing absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive up to five business days later.
A federal district court initially rejected the challenge, but the Fifth Circuit struck down the law. In June 2026, however, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed that ruling in Watson v. Republican National Committee in a 5–4 agreement
"The federal Election-Day statutes do not prevent Mississippi from counting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days thereafter; nothing in the federal Election-Day statutes requires ballots to be received by Election Day," explained SCOTUSblog.