US supreme court hears arguments in lawsuit over Illinois mail-in ballots

The US supreme court is hearing arguments in a lawsuit challenging an Illinois law governing how the state counts mailed-in absentee ballots received after election day.

Arguments center on who has standing to challenge the law, not whether the practice itself is constitutionally valid.

Republicans have been eager to challenge mail-in ballots, with Donald Trump centering it in his attacks on the electoral process. Mike Bost, a Republican representative from Illinois, filed the suit to argue that the Illinois law allowing ballots to be counted up to two weeks after election day if they are postmarked by the deadline unconstitutionally allows an extension of the election period.

Lower courts threw Bost’s suit out, ruling that the conservative congressman in his fifth term did not suffer an injury and had no standing to sue. The appeal argues that the cost of staffing a campaign past election day is a financial injury giving him sufficient standing to challenge the law.

“[C]andidates have standing to challenge the rules that govern their elections,” the appeal argues, “especially when … the challenged rule produces an inaccurate final tally.”

“The whole election system operates on the premise that we care about more than the final binary outcome,” argued Paul D Clement, former solicitor general, before the justices.

The ACLU supports Bost’s appeal. “While the ACLU strongly opposes Congressman Bost’s position on the merits and has repeatedly defended similar state laws from challenge, the rules that determine whether Bost has standing to even bring his anti-voter lawsuit also apply to civil rights groups when they bring suit to expand or protect the rights of voters,” the group said on its website.