A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a downstate Republican congressman and two GOP officials that sought to block the state from counting mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after Election Day.
Ahmed Al-Wassan moves mail-in ballots to be scanned on Election Day at the Chicago Board of Elections on Feb. 28, 2023, in the Loop.
“By implementing the statute, Illinois is following the constitutional command that states determine the time, place, and manner of elections,” Kness wrote in a ruling released Wednesday.
Judicial Watch was among the groups that assisted former President Donald Trump’s efforts to stop the counting of mail-in ballots after Election Day 2020. The group said the lawsuit was an effort to ensure the integrity of elections as well as protect the rights of Bost and other registered voters. But in his ruling, Kness, who was appointed to the federal bench by Trump in 2019, said those contesting the law failed to plead “sufficiently concrete, particularized, and imminent injuries sufficient to meet the requirement of standing.”Additionally, he said, if they had achieved standing by those means, they failed to clear the bar to sue states and state agencies set by the 11th Amendment.
Bost’s challenge to the law was somewhat ironic since he touts his past service in the Marines and the law was designed in part to meet federal voting requirements for military members serving overseas. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a “statement of interest” in support of the state of Illinois, in part citing protections for military members to have their votes counted.
Mail-in voting has steadily gained popularity in Illinois and represented more than one-third of the ballots cast in the pandemic 2020 general election. In last year’s general election, about 18% of the votes statewide were cast by mail. Illinois also offers voters the opportunity to permanently receive a mail-in ballot for elections.
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