Watson v. Republican National Committee · ¶97

To say that this is not the most likely explanation of States’ thought processes would be “a delicately put understatement.” Ante, at 12. The notion that extending ballot- receipt deadlines for soldiers might never have crossed the minds of legislators during the Civil War is hard to take seriously. States valued their uniformed citizens’ right to vote and wanted to ensure that soldiers had a voice in selecting the officials who would direct the deadly conflict in which they were engaged. See, e.g., 1864 Ky. Acts p. 122 (conferring on soldiers a statutory right to vote “as fully as if such [soldiers] were present” at their usual polling place on election day); 1864 N. H. Laws p. 3061 (similar). And States surely knew that it would take time for ballots to make their way from the front lines back to soldiers’ home precincts. States likewise knew that the alternative approach of requiring…

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