Supreme Court sides against Republicans to uphold mail-in ballot grace periods

The Supreme Court sided against Republicans on Monday in the court’s latest election-related ruling ahead of the November midterm elections, in a decision that will allow late-arriving mail-in ballots to be counted.

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Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion for a 5-4 court, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the three Democratic appointees, over dissent from Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh.

Rejecting a GOP challenge, Barrett said federal election laws don’t pre-empt Mississippi’s law that provides a five-day grace period for counting ballots that are postmarked by Election Day.

According to the Voting Rights Lab, 30 states have mail-in ballot grace periods for at least some voters: 14 states and Washington, D.C., have them for all mail-in ballots, while 16 more states have them specifically for military and overseas voters.

A federal appellate panel of three judges — all Trump appointees — had backed the GOP’s challenge to a Mississippi law that permits ballots received up to five days after Election Day if they’re postmarked by Election Day. In its 2024 ruling, the panel reasoned that the state law was pre-empted by federal law, which the panel read to require ballots to be not only cast but also received by Election Day.