SAN DIEGO, CA – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California announced in a press statement this week it has filed, on behalf of the League of Women Voters of California (LWVC), to intervene against a lawsuit that seeks to invalidate mailed ballots received after Election Day.
The lawsuit was filed in March by California Congressman Darrell Issa, who alleges California is “violating federal election laws by allowing voters who cast and mail their mail ballots by Election Day to have those ballots counted if they are received within seven days after Election Day,” wrote the ACLU.
According to the ACLU, Ari Savitzky, senior staff attorney at the ACLU Voting Rights Project, stated that California is one among many states that allow voters a grace period for mailed ballots, adding that “election deniers are attacking those rules with a bogus legal theory based on century-old federal laws having nothing to do with mail ballot voting.”
According to the motion filed by the ACLU, “If Plaintiff’s requested relief is granted, hundreds of thousands of California voters could…be disenfranchised…simply because their mail ballot arrived a few days after Election Day.”
Voters would be forced to mail in their ballots much earlier than Election Day “or risk that their vote will not be counted,” wrote the ACLU.
As reported by the ACLU, Julia Gomez, interim managing legal director of the ACLU of San Diego and Imperial Counties, stated, “In his lawsuit, Congressman Issa openly admits that he wants to disenfranchise voters simply because they might not vote for him.”
Gomez continued, according to the ACLU, arguing Issa is “putting his own partisan interests above elections that accurately reflect the will of the people and his arguments are meritless.”
Chris Carson, President of the LWVC, stated, according to the ACLU, “This dangerous lawsuit seeks to rob Californians of the opportunity to make their voices heard in the way most accessible to them — and the League of Women Voters of California will not stand for that.”
As reported by the ACLU, Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters of the United States, declared, “Our democracy is stronger when everyone can participate. What are anti-voter groups and politicians so afraid of?”
