The Supreme Court dealt the Republican National Committee a significant defeat Monday, allowing states to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day provided they were postmarked beforehand.
In a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the court rejected the RNC's challenge to Mississippi's election law, finding no conflict with federal statute. Two conservative justices sided with the court's three liberal members to form the majority, handing President Donald Trump a loss on an issue he has made central to his election messaging.
Mississippi's law permits ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day if they were mailed by the deadline. Fourteen states operate under similar rules, including California, New York, and Texas. The decision means those election codes remain intact heading into the November midterm elections.
The RNC, joined by Mississippi's state Republican Party and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, had argued that the law violated federal election law by allowing ballots to be received after the federally designated Election Day. A New Orleans federal appeals court had agreed in October 2024, prompting the Supreme Court intervention.
The practical stakes are substantial. NBC News reported that hundreds of thousands of voters cast ballots under late-arrival provisions during the 2024 elections, representing a small but material portion of the overall vote tally.
A victory for the RNC would have created complications extending far beyond mail-in voting disputes. Twenty-nine states currently allow extended deadlines for overseas voters, including military personnel stationed abroad. Former national security officials flagged this concern in filings before the court, warning that invalidating late-arrival ballots could undermine voting protections for service members.
Mississippi's Republican Attorney General Lynn Fitch had defended the state's law in court, creating an unusual split within Republican ranks as the national party sued to block a measure backed by the state's top Republican official.
The ruling sidesteps what could have been an election-year overhaul of state voting procedures. Federal law designates Election Day as the Tuesday following the first Monday in November, but individual states retain authority over their own election administration and ballot-counting timelines.
Trump has repeatedly claimed without substantiation that mail-in voting is riddled with fraud, making this loss a rhetorical setback as well as a legal one for his political operation.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "This is a win for voting access and a clear signal that even this conservative Supreme Court isn't ready to blow up state election laws on behalf of partisan litigation."
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