Supreme Court OKs delayed mailed ballots
By: Maureen Groppe
USA Today
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on June 29 [2026] said Mississippi can count late-arriving mail-in ballots, upholding a state law allowing ballots cast by Election Day to be counted if they're received within five days.
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The decision hands a defeat to President Donald Trump, who is trying to curtail voting by mail.
..... Justice Amy Coney Barret and Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's three liberal justices in backing the law 5-4.
..... The legal argument turned on the definition when an "election" has occurred, because federal law sets a specific date for U.S. elections.
..... The Republican Party and the Trump administration sad that an "election" is the day by which ballots must be received. The Libertarian Party joined in the challenge.
..... Mississippi said the "election" is when voters choose a candidate, so a ballot cast in the mail by Election day can be received after.
..... "The question today is not whether requiring ballots to be received by election day is good or bad idea; the question is whether the idea has made its way into the United States Code," Barrett wrote for the majority.
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And federal law, she concluded, dictates only that voters make a choice by a specific day, not that their ballots must be received on that day.
..... In dissent, Justice Samuel Alito said accepting late-arriving ballots "effectively postpones the date on which the electorate's choice is made, and federal law precludes that postponement."
..... Voting by mail has decreased since its peak during the COVID-19 pandemic. But nearly 30% of voters still cast a ballot via the method in the 2024 election. Democrats are more likely than Republicans to vote by mail.
..... More than a dozen states have laws similar to Mississippi. Additional stats allow late-arriving ballots from military and overseas voters.
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Supporters of mail in voting say it makes it easier for people - including retirees, service members and rural residents - 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 mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud, claiming without evidence that it cost him the 2020 election.
..... He has separately tried to end both grace periods and mail-in voting altogether both by executive order and by pressuring Congress OT pass legislation.
..... Documented instances of fraud related to voting by mail are rare, according to the Election Data & Science Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
..... A 2025 report from the Brookings Institution estimated there are about four cases of fraud for every 10 million mail-in votes.
..... "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 losser are not going to accept that result," Paul Clement, the attorney for the Republican Party, told the Supreme Court during oral arguments. "And that is bad for our system."