The Republican National Committee sued Nevada last month in federal court in Nevada in RNC v. Burgess. The complaint alleges, among other things, that Nevada accepts mail ballots received up to three days after Election Day, even without a postmark, and these ballots are presumed to have been postmarked on or before Election Day. The RNC is challenging that this law violates, among other things, 3 U.S.C. § 1, “The electors of President and Vice President shall be appointed, in each State, on election day,” which is “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.” (It is also raising related challenges for congressional elections.)
There is a question of the merits of this argument, but I am not going to write about that.
Instead, this is a very long Fed Courts-y post, so please bear with me. But the core question at issue in some recent and interesting briefing is, who, if anyone, can enforce this provision in the federal courts? And, perhaps more broadly, under what circumstances could someone enforce this and other provisions of the Electoral Count Reform Act?
Continue reading Who can sue in federal court to enforce the date of holding presidential elections (and perhaps by extension some provisions of the Electoral Count Reform Act)?