With election day just weeks away, lawsuits in Mississippi and Arkansas could set a precedent for mail-in ballots and early voting locations nationwide.
In Arkansas, West Memphis residents Shirley Brown and Lavonda Taylor filed suit against the Crittenden County Elections Commission following a meeting where the board failed to designate an early voting location in West Memphis.
"It is to me a derelict of duty by the board of election commissioners not to agree on an early voting site," said Otis Sanford, ABC24 Political Commentator.
After a hearing on Wednesday, Sept. 25, Brown and Taylor's attorney, Jennifer Waymack Standerfer, said a decision will likely be made before Monday Sept. 30, but litigation is still ongoing.
In Mississippi, the Republican National Committee is suing over the state's mail-in ballot policies that target postmarked mail ballots received by officials after election day. Three judges, appointed by former president Donald Trump, questioned the validity of Mississippi's current practices.
ABC24 Political Commentator Otis Sanford said this is yet another example of attempted voter suppression. "This just falls right into what I see as the Republican party playbook to stifle voting, to suppress the vote, and really to try to rig elections," he said.
Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch's office issued the following statement to ABC24:
'As the court noted, "[I]f one federal statute implicitly allows post-election receipt of overseas ballots mailed by election day, that statute is presumed not to offend against the election-day statutes, from which one may infer that the similar Mississippi statute on post-election receipt is likewise inoffensive."
We have been grateful for the thoughtful consideration by the district court in this case and look forward to the opportunity to present our case to the Fifth Circuit panel.'
These cases, particularly the one in Mississippi, could have more significant implications for the nearly two dozen states with similar policies.
"They're using Mississippi as a test case here because they believe that they may have some conservative judges on the court of appeals, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, that may see things their way, and then they can take that to other states that are more competitive than Mississippi," Sanford said.
Mississippi is one of several states facing litigation over receipt of post-election day mail-in ballots. Still, as Sanford noted, this particular state and conservative set of judges does increase the possibility of this ending up before the supreme court perhaps just days before the November election.
