Watson v. Republican National Committee · ¶41

Plaintiffs treat this “federal law made me do it” theory as obvious, but state legislatures may have used an election- day deadline for any number of reasons. For instance, they might have shared plaintiffs’ view that an election-day deadline avoids the appearance of fraud from late-arriving ballots. See D. Inbody, The Soldier Vote 41 (2016) (“Concern for voter fraud was always at the forefront of legislative action in connection with the soldier vote”). They might have believed it essential to election integrity to open soldier ballots in the public’s presence, which was possible only if ballots arrived by the day the community gathered for in-person voting. See 1864 N. Y. Laws p. 551 (requiring soldier ballots to be “publicly opened”); 1865 Ill. Laws p. 61 (same); see also 1864 Pa. Laws No. 871, §§6, 35, pp. 991, 998 (providing that soldiers’ qualifications to vote “may be challenged”…

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