Watson v. Republican National Committee · ¶84

This conclusion finds support in legal authorities from the period when the federal election-day statutes were enacted. Legal dictionaries of the era described an “election” as including both the casting and receipt of ballots. See 1 J. Bouvier, Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia 979 (8th ed. 1914) (“the act of casting and receiving the ballots”); W. Anderson, A Dictionary of Law 394 (1889) (“[v]oting and taking the votes”). Contemporary state statutes likewise provided that an “election” was not “finished” or “closed” until polls closed, by which point poll workers stopped accepting ballots. E.g., Tenn. Code §§860–861 (1858); Del. Rev. Stat., ch. 18, §§21, 22 (1874); N. C. Code, ch. 16, §2689 (1883). Indeed, under 19th-century election-law parlance, a voter’s presentation of a complete ballot constituted a mere “offe[r] to vote,” and it was not said that the person had “voted”…

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