Important Court Ruling May Impact Future Washington State Elections

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Oct 28, 2024

An important ruling this past week in the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has the potential for a major impact on Mail-in voting for Washington voters in future elections. The issue of ‘When is a ballot timely received for counting in the election?’ has once again been raised.

The three-judge panel ruled unanimously: The date the ballot is received by elections officially is all that matters. The date of mailing and postmark is irrelevant. If a ballot hasn’t been received by election day, it’s too late. “Federal law requires voters to take timely steps to vote by Election Day,” Judge Oldham wrote. “And federal law does not permit the State of Mississippi to extend the period for voting by one day, five days, or 100 days.”

The effort was led by Judicial Watch along with suits filed by the RNC and Mississippi GOP, representing a majority of concerned Americans who continue to challenge the Undemocratic-Democrat pushed 45-60 day ‘election season,’ versus having an election DAY as spelled out by the US Constitution.

The Court concurred that allowing some states to randomly extend the election day by continuing to accept and process ballots received AFTER the date set for national elections, disenfranchises those living in states that administer their elections in strict adherence to federal law.

RNC Chairman Michael Whatley wrote on Twitter: MASSIVE ELECTION INTEGRITY VICTORY: The 5th Circuit has just ruled that ballots must be received BY ELECTION DAY to be counted — not days after — following an RNC lawsuit. This is a seismic win for fair, accurate, secure, and transparent elections.

While the decision explicitly applies to Mississippi, it is binding law for the whole Fifth Circuit, which also includes Texas and Louisiana. Outside the Fifth, the case will be considered persuasive law, not binding law. So it could influence lawsuits filed in the other jurisdictions, like the Ninth Circuit and WA State. If another circuit goes a different way, it will conflict with this ruling, and that conflict will go straight to the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme Court upholds the Fifth, it would become law in all fifty states.

The judges left the problem of how to handle the current election up to the District Court. But it is under pressure to comply with the law. Also, this new Fifth Circuit law is now available for potential post-election challenges in any state where late-arrived mail-in ballot determine the results.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans.

It’s difficult to overstate the significance of the ruling. One way cheating in elections can occur is because election season is now so long that anyone can monitor the “matchback” reports and know when ballots have been voted. It is easy for nefarious actors to vote for the voters that did not actually vote, by forging their signature and get their ballots in to be counted after election day. This ruling significantly hampers that effort.

Interestingly, one of the groups that stepped in to defend the 'election season' concept of having the ability to accept and process ballots well after election day was the Mississippi Alliance for Retired Americans, an affiliate of the Washington-based AFL-CIO union-created front group that successfully sued in Washington State to obtain a court ruling that trampled the WA Constitution provision that a voter must be a WA resident for at least 30 days in order to be able to become registered to vote in WA. As I previously wrote, these union front groups, aided by DNC's Elias & attorneys, continue their lawfare onslaught against any and all election security provisions.

WHY IT MATTERS: For at least 25 years now, and especially after Covid, we’ve witnessed an unprecedented explosion of growth in states that have pushed for remote / absentee voting via ‘mail-in ballots’, of which, many contend, inject a massive heightened risk of election fraud into all jurisdictions where this occurs.

The fraud risk of vote-by-mail is so high, it was highlighted in the Carter-Baker Commission’s final report on federal election reform, which stated point-blank “Absentee ballots remain the largest source of potential voter fraud.” Oddly, in response to the Commission’s very specific, numerous recommendations which were needed to tighten election security to restore faith and confidence in our elections, most Democrat controlled states seemed to respond to the Commission’s report by doubling, if not tripling-down, and by doing the exact opposite, implementing and expanding even MORE INSECURE election laws.

EXPANDING remote voting mechanisms such as mail-in ballots, same-day registration, electronic internet ‘on-demand ballots,’ remote ballot curing using Big Tech and Web apps to verify signatures, and other measures such as California’s recent outright BAN on local jurisdictions from requiring voter ID demonstrated California’s commitment along with other states to making it easier to register & vote than ever before.

Despite the implications of creating more INSECURITY with no voter-ID requirements, the Undemocratic-Democrat-controlled states essentially responded to the Commission’s recommendations with the ‘you ain’t seen nothin’ yet’ 20-years of implementing the loosest election standards on the globe. Elon Musk recently commented, “Almost every country on Earth has Voter ID requirements and we don’t. Why?” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why.

Allowing ballots received AFTER election day to be counted completely opens the door for fraud. It just takes one major urban jurisdiction where the fraud is easiest to obscure (such as Seattle-King County WA, Detroit-Wayne County MI, Fulton County GA, Maricopa County AZ- sound familiar?), and where it’s least likely to be successfully challenged, since it tends to benefit the party of majority who controls all the offices of power of investigation/prosecution in that jurisdiction, leaving the back door wide open for stuffing the ballot box every election cycle with enough ‘discovered’ & late-delivered ballots to magically overcome the election day vote-deficit and miraculously ‘win’ the election.

Anyone who has lived in Washington State for these past 25 years or so since the advent of state-wide mail-in voting witnessed all of the King Count shenanigans of ‘discovering’ ballots everywhere possible AFTER election day. Those ballots all had inadequate security/chain-of-custody issues, having been found in closets, trunks of cars, and possibly even late-delivered with the assistance of the USPS, of whom in 2020, multiple whistleblowers claimed USPS employees & management were dealing undeliverable ballots out the back door of postal facilities and back-date-stamping ballots to aid in cheating.

The now-infamous Jesse Morgan truck driver story from the 2020 election is still being fought out in court — the USPS seems to have done everything possible to avoid responses to FOIA requests for details of parties who paid for as many as nine trucks loaded with ballots that were fed into Pennsylvania and potentially other states. A Maryland resident has filed suit to request that courts intervene to prevent the USPS from handling mail-in ballots out of concern for what they’ve uncovered from the 2020 elections and apparent cover-up since.

Having ALL federal election ballots to be required to be RECEIVED by, AND COUNTED on, election day should be a consistent and strictly adhered to standard of conduct amongst all fifty states. Clearly, implementing in-person, ID-required paper ballots and other logical election measures, are long overdue as well. The opportunity for fraud in the present election systems continues to foment a complete lack of faith in election outcomes and, until addressed, such controversy will continue to plague our elections.

Possible last-minute court rulings and/or election day ‘glitches’ that always seem to benefit the Undemocratic-Democrats are all the more reason to get your ballots turned in as soon as possible. If at all possible, hand-deliver your ballot to your nearest county elections’ office to minimize the risk of your ballot being tampered with.

If you wish to throw off the corrupt rulers in DC, and in the Democrat controlled states you’ll need to get as many of your friends and relatives to get out and vote like never before in order to overcome ‘The BIG CHEAT’ as RFK, Jr’s 2024 running mate, Nicole Shanahan, declared in one of the best political ads that I’ve ever seen. Even the Bernie-Bros have caught on to the Cheat, and recognize the massive turnout needed this year to overcome the Undemocratic-Democrat cheat-machine and put an end to the DC-overlords who’ve been destroying the USA. It’s way overdue.

CRUCIAL FINAL STEPS YOU SHOULD TAKE THIS ELECTION:

DO NOT EVER VOTE BY MAIL! Why, because it is simply not reliable. UNTIL WE CAN OUTLAW MAIL-IN VOTING and get back to In-person, Same Day voting, if at all possible, all voters should return their ballots in person to their county auditor or in secure drop boxes before the November 5^th election day in order to avoid any conflict of whether their ballot was timely received, and thus, able to be counted.
Log on to Votewa.gov site and/or call your local elections office to insure your ballot was received and has no defects that caused them to reject it, such as a ‘non-matching’ signature.
If your ballot is rejected, and ‘curing’ of the reject cause is required, you need work quickly to correct and cure the error asap so your vote counts!

Bill Bruch

Bill Bruch is the WA State GOP Election Integrity Chairman, WAGOP Executive Board Member, 4-Term Skagit County GOP Chairman, Citizen Journalist, Blogger, Business Owner, “2021 Citizen Activist of the Year” award by the Olympic Conference, 2020 WA State House Representative Candidate, Former Council Member, and WA State 2016/24 RNC National Convention Delegate.

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