A federal judge has issued a ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee against the state of Mississippi over a law that allows for the late counting of ballots.

Under the law, absentee ballots that were postmarked by Election Day can be counted if they were received up to five days later. “U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr. ruled that Mississippi’s procedure aligns with federal law and does not conflict with the elections clause, the electors clause, or election-day statutes,” the Washington Examiner reported.

This decision follows a recent similar ruling in Nevada, where another federal judge rejected claims that counting such absentee ballots was unconstitutional.

The lawsuit filed in January by the RNC, the state Republican Party, and joined by the Libertarian Party, argued that the state’s policy improperly extended the federal election date and diluted timely ballots. But Guirola ruled that no “final selection” is being made after Election Day under the law, as only the delivery and counting of ballots cast by Election Day occur afterward.

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“Mississippi’s statutory procedure for counting lawfully cast absentee ballots, postmarked on or before election day, and received no more than five business days after election day is consistent with federal law,” Guirola wrote.

Mississippi is among the 20 states that permit mailed ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day. This practice is also used in swing states like Nevada, as well as in states such as Colorado, Oregon, and Utah, which rely heavily on mail-in voting.

The RNC has been working to improve ballot integrity ahead of the 2024 election after former President Donald Trump made it an issue following his 2020 loss to Joe Biden. Critical swing stages changed their voting procedures ahead of the last election, ostensibly to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, which included widespread mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes. Trump’s legal team argued at the time the changes, implemented by secretaries of state and governors, were illegal because the Constitution requires such alterations to be passed by state legislatures.

Tesla, SpaceX, and Starlink founder and CEO Elon Musk took to his X platform last month to call for a major voting reform ahead of the 2024 election as well.

“We should eliminate electronic voting machines. The risk of being hacked by humans or AI, while small, is still too high,” Musk wrote in a tweet that generated a lot of responses in agreement.

Musk was responding to a post from independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote of a recent problem with electronic voting machines in Puerto Rico.

“Puerto Rico’s primary elections just experienced hundreds of voting irregularities related to electronic voting machines, according to the Associated Press. Luckily, there was a paper trail so the problem was identified and vote tallies corrected,” said his post, which contained a link to the AP story.

“What happens in jurisdictions where there is no paper trail? US citizens need to know that every one of their votes were counted, and that their elections cannot be hacked. We need to return to paper ballots to avoid electronic interference with elections. My administration will require paper ballots and we will guarantee honest and fair elections,” RFK Jr. added.

Trump has also called for universal implementation of paper-only ballots, as well as limiting voting in federal elections to a single day with a few early voting exceptions for deployed U.S. military personnel and the infirm.

Following his 2020 loss, Trump also touted a theory that electronic voting machines may have been hacked and votes for him changed to votes for Biden, but it could not be proven. That said, in the years before the 2020 election, scores of Democrats were sounding the alarm over electronic voting machines, claiming, like Trump, that they could be hacked or otherwise accessed to manipulate votes.

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