As voters gear up for the midterm elections in November that will decide control of the House and Senate, the Supreme Court is set to weigh whether states can count mail ballots that are postmarked by, but arrive after, Election Day. Late is late, the deadline is Election Day.
The dispute before the high court, known as Watson v. RNC, involves Mississippi's deadline for late-arriving mail ballots and whether its law — and similar measures in 13 other states — conflicts with federal statutes that set Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
President Trump has continued to target voting by mail, which he claims is "corrupt as hell" and wants to sharply curtail. Since returning to the White House, the president and his administration have tried to gain more control of federal elections. He signed an executive order last March that sought to overhaul U.S. elections, though provisions have been blocked by a federal judge.
All 50 states require ballots to be marked and submitted by Election Day. But 14 states and the District of Columbia have enacted so-called grace periods, in which ballots that are postmarked by Election Day can be counted if they are received by election officials after the specified day. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia accept at least some military and overseas ballots that are received after Election Day, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Four states — Kansas, North Dakota, Ohio and Utah — passed laws last year eliminating grace periods. They now require mail ballots to be received by Election Day in order to be counted.
"It's not that people are casting a vote after Election Day. They're not. This is just allowing us to make sure that we receive all of the timely cast ballots, no matter where they're coming from or what political party they're from," said Kristin Connelly, clerk-recorder and registrar of voters for Contra Costa County, California. In California, ballots postmarked by Election Day can be received up to seven days after the election.
The battle is one of three involving elections that the Supreme Court is hearing in its current term, and all could usher in changes to voting rights and the rules surrounding campaigns and elections. One of the cases challenges federal limits on coordinated spending between political committees and candidates, and the other raises the constitutionality of race-based redistricting. A ruling in the latter case could lead to further weakening of the Voting Rights Act and impact minority representation in Congress.