Supreme Court upholds late-arriving mail ballot rules
A 5-4 ruling preserves state laws that count mailed ballots received after Election Day if they were postmarked on time.
By Maya Lindqvist · Senior Technology Correspondent
3 min read
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that states may count mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day, preserving rules used in more than half the states and the District of Columbia. The 5-4 decision avoids a late change to voting procedures only months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections, according to The Associated Press.
The ruling rejected a Republican-led challenge to laws that allow ballots to be counted after Election Day when they are postmarked by Election Day. The Associated Press reported that in just over half of the affected states, those extended deadlines apply only to military and overseas voters.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion. Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices joined her, according to the AP.
Barrett wrote that federal laws establishing one Election Day do not decide the deadline for election officials to receive ballots. In the opinion, she said Congress could set a national rule if lawmakers choose to do so.
“If varied deadlines for ballot receipt similarly call for a national solution, the American people must choose it through their elected representatives,” Barrett wrote.
Case centered on Mississippi law
The dispute came from Mississippi, where state law allowed ballots to be counted if they arrived within five business days after the election and carried an Election Day postmark, according to the AP. The case placed Mississippi against President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, along with the Republican and Libertarian parties.
The legal issue was whether federal law requires ballots to be both cast and received by Election Day. A federal appeals court in New Orleans had struck down Mississippi’s rule before the Supreme Court took the case, the AP reported.
The decision blocks a broader challenge to similar ballot-receipt deadlines across the country. The AP reported that a ruling against the states would have forced election officials in affected jurisdictions to change procedures close to the midterms.
Trump criticizes decision
Trump, who has repeatedly attacked mail voting, called the ruling a “tremendous loss” in a post on Truth Social, according to the AP. He again urged Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which the AP reported has passed the House of Representatives but not the Senate.
“There is only one reason to oppose — CHEATING!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The AP reported that Trump has argued mail voting leads to fraud, despite strong evidence to the contrary and long use of the practice in many states. He has also continued to claim that fraud caused his 2020 loss to Joe Biden, though the AP reported that more than 60 court rulings and Trump’s own attorney general found no merit in that argument.
Stephen Richer, a Republican and former top election official in Maricopa County, Arizona, told the AP the decision brought a “sigh of relief” for many election administrators. Richer, now a legal fellow at the Cato Institute, said a ruling for the Republican National Committee would have created many administrative problems for affected states.
The AP reported that Republican National Committee officials did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment by email and phone.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.