Barrett, Roberts Back Mail Ballots Arriving After Election Day
The Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling Monday that could have a real impact on how states handle mail voting. The justices said federal law does not require mail-in ballots to be in hand by Election Day.
The case came from a challenge brought by the Republican National Committee and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. At the center was a Mississippi law that allows absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive up to five days later.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the majority opinion, and Chief Justice John Roberts joined her along with the court’s liberal justices. Barrett said the state law does not conflict with federal election rules. The ruling keeps Mississippi’s grace period in place and makes clear that Congress did not write a receipt deadline into the law the court reviewed.
“A Mississippi law permits the counting of absentee ballots postmarked by election day but received up to five days later. We must decide whether the federal election-day statutes preempt Mississippi’s law. They do not,” Amy Coney Barrett wrote.
She also wrote, “The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose,” Barrett wrote in the majority opinion.
The decision matters because the words “Election Day” have become a flashpoint in fights over how long ballots can keep flowing in after voting ends. Supporters of stricter deadlines say the count should stop when Election Day ends. Supporters of grace periods say voters should not be punished when a ballot is postmarked on time but delayed in the mail.
During oral arguments earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito made clear he was uneasy with the idea that ballots could keep arriving well after the election. “We have lots of phrases that involve two words, the second of which is ‘day.’ Labor Day, Memorial Day, George Washington’s birthday, Independence Day, birthday, and Election Day,” Alito said.
“They are all particular days. So if we start with that, if I have nothing more to look at than the phrase ‘Election Day,’ I think this is the day in which everything is going to take place,” Alito added.
Roberts and Barrett had already sounded skeptical during the arguments, but the final ruling still landed 5-4 and gave states like Mississippi room to keep their current rules. For now, the court has made one thing plain: federal law, as written, does not force every mail ballot to be received by Election Day.