Supreme Court rules on mail-in ballots received after Election Day

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled in favor of a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted in elections even if they are received after Election Day.

The court was split 5-4 on the ruling, with Justice Amy Coney Barrett writing the majority opinion. She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, as well as justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Barrett's opinion held that Election Day, in the context of federal law, set a deadline for when voters must make a choice regarding their preferred candidate. Relevant laws, however, impose no standard for when ballots must be received to be considered valid. 

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"The electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received," she wrote. "Election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose."

Justice Samuel Alito, writing his dissent, took a different view of what it means for the electorate to have made a choice.

"If ballots received after election day are added to the set of ballots that dictate the election’s outcome, the electorate’s choice does not occur on election day," he wrote. "The acceptance of these late-arriving ballots effectively postpones the date on which the electorate’s choice is made."

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If the Supreme Court had ruled that ballots received after election day were invalid, 14 states, three U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. would have been forced to change their voting laws ahead of the midterm elections.

Military ballots, which often arrive after election day, took center stage as the case played out. The Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, the federal law governing military and overseas absentee voting, makes repeated reference to ballot-receipt deadlines under different state laws, something the majority argued would not be the case if Congress had already established a national standard for when ballots need to be received. 

"I disagree with counting ballots after election day, but Barrett's argument is persuasive that federal statutes recognize state leeway in counting ballots after election day and the plaintiffs themselves struggled to agree on the parameters," conservative broadcaster Erick Erickson said of the decision.

Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., meanwhile, called Barrett's opinion "shockingly wrong" and "terrible for election integrity."  

During oral arguments for the case, Alito and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who ultimately joined the dissent, voiced concerns that counting large quantities of ballots after Election Day could shake the public's trust in election results.

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"If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode," Kavanaugh noted.

Referring to this possibility, Alito argued that "confidence in election outcomes can be seriously undermined" when large numbers of later-arriving ballots impact the results of elections. 

The majority, however, did not address these arguments, stating that they were outside the scope of what the court had authority to rule on.

"Finally, plaintiffs assert that requiring ballots to be received by election day protects election integrity and increases voter confidence in election results," Barrett wrote. "As we have said time and again, however, policy arguments are properly directed to legislatures, not courts."

"The question today is not whether requiring ballots to be received by election day is a good or bad idea; the question is whether the idea has made its way into the United States Code," she added.

This is a developing story. Check back soon for updates.