High court leans toward push to limit mail ballots
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court back a Republican effort to stop states from counting late-arriving mail-in ballots, a decision that would lead to stricter voting rules around the country.
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During more than two hours of oral arguments on March 23, [2026] the court's conservative majority sounded skeptical of a Mississippi law allowing ballots case by Election Day to be counted if they're received within five days.
..... Justice Samuel Alito said not having a firm deadline raises many other questions, including how long a grace period can be and whether ballots have to be postmarked.
..... "You have a variety of line-drawing problems," he told Mississippi's attorney.
..... But Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, one of the court's three liberal justices, said it's up to Congress and the states - not the court - to make such decisions. And the fact that Congress is considering legislation to end grace periods shows lawmakers think they're currently allowed.
..... "I think we have several federal statutes that suggest that Congress was aware of post-Election Day ballot deadlines that the states had enacted," she said.
..... Voting by mail has decreased since its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. But nearly 30% of voters still cast a ballot that way in the 2024 elections. And nearly 30 states allow at least some late-arriving ballots to be counted. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to vote by mail.
..... Supporters of a mail-in voting say it makes it easier for people to cast a ballot. And grace periods prevent people from losing their vote over postal service delays.
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But Trump has long railed against Mai-in voting as vulnerable to fraud, baselessly claiming it cost him the 2020 election. Trump has separately tried to end both grace periods and mail-in voting altogether through both an executive order and by pressuring Congress to pass legislation.
..... Documented instances of fraud related to voting by mail are rare, according to the election Data & Science Lab from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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But when ballots counted after Election Day affect the outcome of a race, that can raise doubts about their legitimacy, even when there is no fraud, critics argue.
..... "If the election is going to turn on late-arriving ballots in a way that means what everybody kind of though was the result on Election Day ends up being the opposite a week later, 21 days later, the losers are not going to accept the result," Paul clement, the attorney for the Republican Party, told the Supreme Court. "And that is bad for our system."
..... The legal argument the Republican National Committee and the Justice Department is making turns on the definition of when an election has occurred, because federal law sets specific date for U.S. elections.
..... Mississippi says the "election: is when voters chose a candidate. "States must make a final choice of officers by Election Day," said Mississippi solicitor general Scott Stewart. "that is the plain meaning of an election."