Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored a majority opinion on Monday upholding a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive up to five days later, in a 5-4 decision that preserves grace periods in approximately 30 states ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centered on whether federal election-day statutes enacted since 1845 preempt state laws setting ballot receipt deadlines.
Writing for the majority, Barrett concluded that federal law requires voting to occur by Election Day but does not set a deadline for when ballots must be received. “The election-day statutes require the electorate’s choice to be made on election day,” she wrote. “That occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote—as it is in Mississippi. But the election-day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received afterward.”
Barrett’s majority coalition included an ideologically diverse group: Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The alignment marked a rare moment of consensus on voting rights, with the court’s three most liberal justices joining a Trump-appointed justice and the chief justice to reject the Republican National Committee’s challenge to the law.
Mississippi enacted the grace-period law in 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted within a five-day window. The Republican National Committee and other challengers argued that federal law requires all ballots to be received by Election Day itself. A federal district judge upheld the law, but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit reversed, prompting the Supreme Court to take the case.
Barrett pushed back against the challengers’ historical argument that 19th-century election-day statutes implicitly governed modern voting practices. “Historical practice, detached from statutory text, is not controlling,” she wrote, and she noted that accepting the challengers’ theory “would call into question the way modern elections work,” potentially jeopardizing early voting and other contemporary practices that did not exist when the original statutes were enacted.
The ruling spares election officials the burden of changing ballot procedures just months before the midterms. According to sources, roughly 30 states and the District of Columbia currently count at least some mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, provided they were postmarked by Election Day. Some states allow ballots to arrive as late as 21 days after the election.
Justice Samuel Alito authored a dissenting opinion, arguing that the completion of ballot collection must occur on Election Day itself. “Under federal law, the electorate’s collective choice must still be authoritatively expressed on election day,” he wrote. Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch joined his opinion in full, while Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined most of it. Alito acknowledged that mail voting and early voting are now popular but contended that federal law still requires the critical act—the completion of ballot collection—to occur on Election Day.
Sources
- SCOTUSblog — detailed analysis of Barrett’s majority opinion, the coalition, and Alito’s dissent in Watson v. Republican National Committee
- The New York Times — reporting on the 5-4 decision and its scope across states
- NPR — coverage of the court’s upholding of grace periods for mail-in ballots
- Los Angeles Times — reporting on the 30-state impact and the ruling as a surprise decision
- The Detroit News — confirmation of the 30-state grace-period landscape
- PBS NewsHour — reporting on the 5-4 vote and rejection of the Republican-led challenge
