Their biggest weapon in this fight for both public perception and legal standing, however, won’t initially appear in a courtroom. Instead, it’ll be played out in the media immediately after Election Day, as the result of farsighted 2020 efforts by Republicans in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Anticipating just this scenario, Republicans in those three states—when they controlled them in 2020—passed sweeping election laws preventing any mail-in ballots from being counted until Election Day, guaranteeing that election workers would be overwhelmed and the results would be delayed.
Democrats took over Michigan and in 2023 amended the law so ballots can be processed before Election Day, thwarting their plans there. But Democrats don’t and haven’t taken back the legislatures of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, so the GOP’s laws stand: Mail-in ballots can’t be counted until Election Day in those states.
