Fulton County elections workers process absentee ballots at the Fulton County Elections Hub and Operations Center on November 4, 2024, in Union City, Georgia. | Elijah Nouvelage/AFP via Getty Images

The premise of the Republican Party’s arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee is that, nearly 200 years ago, Congress banned the states from counting thousands of the ballots that are cast every year in modern-day elections — and somehow no one noticed this fact until 2024.

The case turns on three federal laws which set the date when elections for president, the US House and the US Senate must be held. While the three laws are worded differently and were enacted at different times, they all do basically the same thing.…