California Vote-By-Mail Upheld in Rebuke of ‘Vote Dilution’ Suit

California’s vote-by-mail system doesn’t violate the federal Constitutional rights of in-person voters, even if state election officials occasionally count some invalid mailed ballots, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

Improper mail-in ballots don’t illegally dilute in-person votes because minor mistakes by election officials counting some absentee ballots don’t create disproportionate voting power for one group of people over another in the largest state in the country, the US Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled.

“Elections officials in California, as in all other jurisdictions, may at times inadvertently or mistakenly count invalid ballots,” Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw ...