The case concerns a challenge to a federal law barring states from taking in mailed ballots after Election Day.
By Catholics for Catholics
The Supreme Court said it would hear a challenge to Mississippi’s counting of mail-in ballots collected after Election Day; the case could overturn mail-in ballot policies in many states, provoking bedlam in the upcoming pivotal 2026 elections.
The case that could be of epic proportions, queries the judges to dictate the meaning of “Election Day,” according to The Epoch Times. It could be one more high-profile fracas over voting rights and elections.
The court granted the request in Watson v. Republican National Committee in an unsigned order on Nov. 10. No justices dissented. The Republican National Committee, the state Republican Party, and the state’s Libertarian Party sued over the law.
According to The Epoch Times, eighteen states admit mailed ballots taken after Election Day if they bear a postmark from on or before Election Day, according to a National Conference of State Legislatures report.
In June, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson filed the petition with the Supreme Court. Federal election law sets the Tuesday after the first Monday in November every four years as “the ‘election’ day for federal offices,” the petition said.
Some 30 states and the District of Columbia take some ballots that are mailed by Election Day but received later, according to Mississippi’s brief to the court. The grace period varies between the states. So far this term, the judges have heard arguments in two other pivotal elections-related cases.
In October, the court wrestled with a different case also having to do with mail-in ballots. Representative Mike Bost, a six-term Republican who represents a district in downstate Illinois, sued over a state law that permits ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they are received up to 14 days later. The argument in Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections centered on what legal standard candidates must meet to prove they have been harmed by an elections regulation and be allowed to sue over them.
The oral argument in the case has not yet been scheduled, but is probable to happen early in 2026. A ruling would likely come by the end of June 2026, in time for the mid-term elections.
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