Supreme Court hears case on mail-in ballot deadlines

WASHINGTON (Gray DC) - The Supreme Court heard arguments on Monday in a case that challenges the legality of counting mail-in ballots that are received after Election Day.

The case centers on a Mississippi state voting law that allows mailed-in ballots to be counted up to five business days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked on Election Day. The Republican National Committee and Mississippi Republican Party argued that federal law bars states from counting those ballots.

“This case is about enforcing enforcing existing federal law, ensuring only eligible votes are counted, and stopping the confusion of elections that drag on for days or even weeks after Election Day,” said Joe Gruters, Republican National Committee chairman, at a press conference after the arguments.

The challenge is one of the biggest election law cases of the court’s term, and it may impact mail-in voting in over a dozen states that have similar grace period laws.

“The dispute is whether Congress blocked just one change allowing ballots cast by Election Day to be received after that day. States have allowed that for over a century. Congress has respected it. No one challenged it until now. The question is whether Congress in 1845 blocked that practice. The answer is no,” said Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart.

For more than two hours, justices wrestled with questions about the Mississippi law. The conservative majority on the court appeared skeptical of it.

“We don’t have Election Day anymore. We have election month, or we have election months,” said Justice Samuel Alito.

“It only became widespread to allow it to be mailed by Election Day in more recent years, and that the predominant approach was to require receipt by Election Day throughout the historical practice, you cite, until very recently. How are we supposed to think about that?” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the question was a policy issue, not a question for the courts.

“The worry is that you want this court to decide the case rather than have Congress do it,” she said.

The case is the latest chapter in GOP skepticism about mail-in voting, which President Donald Trump has long gone after, claiming without evidence that it is ripe with fraud.

“We’re going to end mail-in voting. It’s a fraud,” the president said in the Oval Office back on Aug. 18, 2025.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of the high court’s term in late June.