(Bloomberg) -- A group of Democratic state officials urged a federal appeals court not to block Minnesota's plan to allow mail-in ballots postmarked by Nov. 3 to be counted as long as a week after Election Day.
The extension encourages safer voting during the coronavirus pandemic and assures more ballots will be properly counted in light of persistent U.S. Postal Service delays -- a factor “over which voters have no control,” attorneys general for a dozen states and the District of Columbia said in a brief Tuesday with the U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis, Missouri.
Two Republican presidential electors in Minnesota have asked the court for an emergency injunction against the extended deadline while they appeal a ruling against them. A lower court judge had rejected their claim that the later deadline would lead to voter fraud, citing evidence that the rate of such fraud in the state since 1979 is just 0.000004%.
The extension by Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon survived an earlier court challenge by President Donald Trump's campaign, which has focused on the state as a possible battleground. In recent emails to supporters, Trump's campaign swapped Minnesota for Michigan in asserting the election is “going to come down to a few swing states like North Carolina, Minnesota, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.”
Read More: Trump Says Mail-In Extension May Harm ‘Procrastinating Voters'
“These challenges are part of a nationwide right-wing voter suppression campaign designed at undermining public participation and trust in our election,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who joined the brief, said in a statement Wednesday.
Extensions for accepting mail-in ballots across the country have had mixed success amid Republican challenges, but an evenly split U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let Pennsylvania's three-day extension stand. And late Tuesday, the federal appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, rejected an effort by North Carolina Republicans to block the state from accepting ballots up to nine days after the election as long as they're postmarked by Nov. 3.
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