Recent Supreme Court Case Debates When Mail-In Ballots Can Be Received

The Supreme Court is currently debating a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after Election Day as long as they are postmarked by Election Day for federal elections. Last month, SCOTUS heard oral arguments on the case Watson v. Republican National Committee , which follows the RNC suing Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson in 2024 on the basis that federal laws outline a singular Election Day, preventing Mississippi from offering a five-day grace period.

Currently, 14 states alongside the District of Columbia allow this additional time for voters, and 29 states in total provide a grace period for at least some voters, namely military and overseas voters. New York specifically provides up to seven days for mail-in ballots to be received.

In their argument that Congress set a single-day deadline for ballots, the RNC described their concerns as twofold — the efficiency (or lack thereof) in which election results are announced and the potential for delays to seed distrust among voters. However, Andrew Garber, an attorney at the nonpartisan law and policy organization Brennan Center for Justice who submitted an amicus brief on behalf of military and overseas voters, said their legal claim fails to reflect congressional practice, which has consistently allowed states to implement these grace periods amid access issues.

“Congress never meant to set a national policy saying all mail ballots have to be received by election day,” Garber explained. “For the last 150 years, states have been doing that. Going back to the Civil War, they expanded in World War I, no one said anything.They expanded in World War II, no one said anything. And in fact, at one point during World War II, Congress set an election day deadline for mail ballots for military voters, and then, two years later, it got rid of it.”

As of right now, the scope of the ruling remains unclear. Congress has historically established extra time for military and overseas voters to be able to vote by mail through the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act and 2009 Military and Overseas Voter Empowerment Act. While there is still debate on whether the Supreme Court will carve out an exception for these voters, states have, over the years, increasingly extended these grace periods to civilian voters without pushback. According to Susan Lerner, the executive director of the nonpartisan voting rights organization Common Cause New York, rural voters and older voters have especially depended on mail-in ballots.

“This attack on the timing of the receipt and counting of mail ballots is just a blatant attempt to decide who gets to vote and who doesn’t get to vote,” Lerner said. “We changed the rules in New York to provide a grace period. It doesn’t change your eligibility to vote. You still have to be a registered eligible voter to vote by mail. It simply removes punishments to the voter for something they can’t control, which is the speed of the mails.”

The Supreme Court’s decision is not likely to be released until June, overlapping with the 2026 primaries in the Hudson Valley and coming four months ahead of the midterm elections. David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation & Research, said this timeline means a ruling against the Mississippi law would leave election officials with a quick turnaround to ensure voters are educated on the deadlines for mail-in ballots.

“Election officials are gonna have a really heavy burden to try to educate voters to make sure they get those ballots in on time,” Becker said. “This is going to be an issue in a state like New York where there’s not a lot of experience with mail voting. That mail voting experience is largely recent, and they’ve had that extra period of time for those ballots to get in.”

The case comes amid broader attacks from the Trump administration on the security of mail-in ballots, even as the president himself recently voted by mail for Florida’s special elections . Early this month, president Trump signed an executive order directing the U.S. Postal Service to only mail ballots to those on newly established lists of eligible voters.

But even as mail-in ballots have increasingly developed into a partisan conversation, Garber said this partisan divide is a recent development following the 2020 election. In reality, Republican candidates have historically advocated for mail-in ballots to their key supporters — rural voters and older voters.

“There’s older voters who are more reliant on voting by mail, voters with disabilities, voters in rural communities, Native American voters — places like that where they might not have a polling place nearby, or it might be particularly challenging for those voters to get to the polling place,” Garber said. “Voting by mail is something that helps wide swaths of the population, and I don’t think there’s any one community you can point to or any one political lean you can point to and say, ‘this is who votes by mail.’”

Alongside this case, the Trump administration has also pushed for legislation that aims to place additional restrictions on voting as a whole. The SAVE Act , which was passed in the House, would require residents to both provide proof of citizenship during voter registration and a photo ID when voting, impacting women voters, voters of color and working-class voters who disproportionately do not have access to this documentation.

Following the oral arguments, it was reported that the Supreme Court seemed to be leaning towards overturning the Mississippi law, but their final decision remains unclear. Lerner said what remains critical for voters is to ensure that their mail-in ballots are submitted as early as possible.

“Even with the extended grace period, we at Common Cause always advise people — don’t wait for the last moment,” Lerner said. “Get your mail ballot as early as you can and return it promptly so you are not at the mercy of the US mails because there’s no perfect human system, and even a great postal system sometimes slows down or misplaces things. But if the U.S/ Supreme Court eliminates the grace period, it will be even more important to get your mail ballot back into the mail as soon as you can.”

Image credit: Courtney Pedroza/Votebeat