Supreme Court upholds mail-in ballot grace periods 5-4, handing Republicans a defeat ahead of midterms
Barrett breaks with three fellow conservatives to uphold Mississippi's law allowing ballots cast by Election Day to be counted if they arrive afterward; ruling preserves similar rules in 17 other states
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Summary
The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in Watson v. Republican National Committee on June 29 that states may count mail-in ballots received after Election Day provided they were postmarked by Election Day, preserving Mississippi's grace-period law and effectively upholding similar rules in 17 other states ahead of the November 2026 midterms. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, breaking with Justices Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, authored the majority opinion joined by Chief Justice Roberts and the three liberal justices. Barrett held that federal statutes specifying "Election Day" set a deadline for casting a vote, not for receipt of ballots. The Republican National Committee, which brought the challenge, argued that counting late-arriving ballots dilutes timely votes.
Why it matters
The ruling preserves voting access in 18 jurisdictions, mostly Democratic-led, going into a high-stakes midterm cycle. It also consolidates a peculiar Roberts-Barrett coalition with the liberal wing that appeared in the Lisa Cook ruling issued hours earlier, suggesting a conservative bloc is selectively applying brakes to hard-right positions on elections and the Fed.