Supreme Court says states can count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day
The 5-4 ruling keeps similar ballot deadlines in place in 18 states and territories ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states are legally permitted to accept and count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day as long as they are postmarked on time.
- Decided by a 5–4 majority, conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices and Chief Justice John Roberts to secure the ruling.
- The decision rejected a legal challenge brought by the Republican National Committee against a Mississippi law that allows a five-day grace period for late-arriving mail.
- Opponents of the grace periods argued unsuccessfully that an 1845 federal law required all ballots to be both cast and received by the official federal Election Day.
- By upholding these rules, the high court ensured that existing ballot grace periods across roughly 15 states and Washington, D.C., will remain fully intact for the upcoming midterm elections.
155 Articles
155 Articles
SCOTUS Approves States' Acceptance Of Late-Arriving Ballots
In a blow to the integrity of U.S. elections, the Supreme Court upheld state laws permitting election officials to accept postmarked ballots after Election Day on Monday. The ruling was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining the court’s liberal justices in the majority. The dispute in Watson v. RNC […]
Port: Despite Trump-era politics, North Dakotans have never lost their faith in voting by mail
MINOT — One of the canards perpetrated to bolster President Donald Trump's false claims about stolen elections is that vote-by-mail laws allow vote fraud. To that end, Republicans have challenged state laws that allow mailed ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted even if they're received after Election Day. That challenge was just correctly slapped down by the U.S. Supreme Court. The reasoning is as clear as it is obvious. "The elector…
Supreme Court Upholds Mail-In Ballot Law that Accepts Post-Election Day Ballots
Photo: Kevin Neri ~ USA TODAY NETWORK PODCAST: June 29, 2026 ~ Peter Verniero, former New Jersey attorney general and associate justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, joins All Talk to discuss the Monday decisions made by the U.S. Supreme Court.WASHINGTON D.C. ~ The GOP was handed a blow Monday by the Supreme Court, which decided to uphold a Mississippi law that allows election officials to count mail-in ballots received after Electio…
Supreme Court rules against Trump admin in mail-in ballot case
The U.S. Supreme Court rejected a challenge by the Republican National Committee, ruling that election officials can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day if they were postmarked beforehand. In a 5-4 ruling, the court held that the Mississippi law at issue in the RNC case doesn’t violate the federal mandate establishing Election Day in early November. Nearly 20 states, including Mississippi, have laws with similar ballot grace pe…
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