Watson v. Republican National Committee · ¶85

State-court decisions from the era corroborate this interpretation. When statutes pegged certain legal consequences to an “election” or “voting,” courts held that ballot receipt triggered these consequences. For example, a Pennsylvania court held that a 10-day limitations period for contesting the outcome of a race began running once officials closed the polls on election night, a process that entailed sealing the ballot boxes shut. Collings’s Case, 2 Luz. L. Obs. 57 (Pa. Quar. Sess. 1861); Act of July 2, 1839, §§72–74, 1841 Purdon’s Dig. L. Pa. 351. Similarly, when the Supreme Court of Alabama resolved a charge that a defendant illegally voted, the court held that the defendant could not be found liable unless there was evidence that his ballot had been received by a poll worker and placed in the ballot box. Blackwell v. Thompson, 2 Stew. & P. 348, 352 (1832). As that court put it,…

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