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It could be argued that if a) there is not reasonable, reliable method of determining and documenting when a voter casts their mail-in ballots, and b) we all agree that there must be a deadline for casting ballots, then mail-in voting is prima facie not a great idea

What lawsuits? It means that more ballots will not be accepted, but if anything it should (very slightly) strengthen the case for people who claim they voted on time but were postmarked inaccurately.

Didn't it already?

There was plausible deniability on the part of the voter/sender.

Now there isn’t. Except I doubt that many people will actually know about the change/clarification so they’ll continue to mail ballots and taxes at the last second.

In a sane world, anything mailed “close enough” would be accepted. Or there’d be an explict 5-day grace period.