A radical leftist leapfrogged a conservative candidate in Los Angeles after mail-in ballots poured in for days following the June primary, exactly the kind of Election Day chaos a new Republican bill aims to end nationwide.
Rep. Laurel Lee, Florida’s former top elections official, has introduced the Ballots by Election Day Act, legislation that would require all ballots be received by the close of polls on Election Day. Ballots arriving late simply won’t be counted.
“When the polls close, voters should have confidence that the voting is over and election officials can move forward with determining the results,” Lee said in a press release. “The Ballots by Election Day Act applies that commonsense standard to federal elections across the country and provides greater certainty for voters, election officials, and the American people.”
The bill takes direct aim at states like California, where election officials are still counting votes days and sometimes weeks after Americans go to the polls. The Golden State accepts ballots a full week after Election Day, as long as they’re postmarked in time.
California’s June primary offered a textbook example of the problem. Election officials were still tallying votes several days after the June 2 contests. In the Los Angeles mayoral race, City Council member Nithya Raman, described as a radical leftist, gathered enough late-arriving ballots to jump ahead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt, the more conservative candidate, and claim the second spot on November’s general election ballot.
The mess isn’t limited to local races. In 2024, California’s extended counting forced the entire country to wait more than a month to learn the majority-minority power balance in the U.S. House of Representatives.
California sends mail-in ballots to all registered voters, and third parties can collect unlimited numbers of ballots. These practices have led to massive ballot dumps that can swing elections.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia currently accept postmarked ballots after Election Day, with varying grace periods.
The Supreme Court offered no help this summer. In a 5-4 ruling in Watson v. RNC, the majority upheld Mississippi’s 5-day grace period for receiving mail ballots. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberals, dismissed arguments that the Constitution establishes when ballots must arrive.
“The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose,” Barrett wrote.
Justice Samuel Alito disagreed sharply. Writing for the four dissenting justices, including Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Clarence Thomas, Alito warned of serious consequences.
“Allowing absentee ballots to pour in over the days and weeks after election day, by which point preliminary election returns are being publicly reported, creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public’s confidence in election integrity,” Alito wrote. He added that counting ballots received after Election Day means “the electorate’s choice does not occur on election day, and the federal election-day statutes are violated.”
