States that allow mail ballots to be counted after Election Day reacted with relief Monday after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected a Republican effort to outlaw the practice.
A decision favoring the state of Mississippi over the Republican National Committee delivered an immediate reprieve to the 14 states with grace periods for regular mail ballots, as well as heading off what was expected to be a scramble to alter the practice and inform voters just months ahead of the midterm elections.
At least one state, Ohio, had preemptively changed its law in anticipation of a different result from the high court, and 15 other states have such grace periods specifically for military and overseas voters.
Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs said the ruling means "the thousands of voters whose ballots are postmarked on time but received after Election Day still have their voices heard.”
Mail ballots, also called absentee ballots, have been the source of conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump, who groundlessly blames them for his loss in the 2020 election. The RNC and Libertarian Party had sued to overturn a Mississippi law that permits the counting of mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day and arrive up to five days later, on grounds that it violated federal law.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, wrote for the majority that the practice is legal.
"Nothing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by Election Day,” she wrote, adding that the court considered that very narrow question without wading into more sweeping declarations about absentee voting in general or the authority of Congress versus states over election law.
In Illinois, where mail-in ballots accounted for up to a quarter of this year's primary vote, the state elections board had budgeted $300,000 for a television and radio ad campaign to educate voters about potential changes to the mail ballot deadline. Spokesman Matt Dietrich said that campaign will be called off after the court's ruling. Illinois allows mail ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received within 14 days.
“Anytime you have a change in the administration of elections that affects voters, it is a big challenge to us to make sure that voters understand what that change is,” he said.
California, which has a seven-day grace period, has been a regular target of Trump and other Republicans who criticize the state's slow-counting of late-arriving ballots and have used the gap to spread conspiracy theories about voter fraud.
California Secretary of State Shirley Weber called Monday's ruling "a win for voters, for the rule of law, and for the future of our democracy.”
Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson called the decision a victory for states' rights, including the ability to set election rules as long as they don't conflict with federal law.
In addition to California, Illinois and Mississippi, the other states that count regular mail ballots received after Election Day are Alaska, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.
Data shows that mail ballots are popular options across all 50 states for both Republican and Democratic voters.
Although the RNC was party to the case and not the Trump administration itself, national party committees of a sitting president’s party typically operate in concert with the president’s political strategies. Trump also has effectively taken over operations of the RNC, the GOP's main fundraising and political operation.
Calling Monday's ruling “a tremendous loss,” Trump used it as a way to push his sweeping election law bill that has stalled on Capitol Hill despite Republican control in both chambers of Congress.
In a Truth Social post, the president declared it “more important than ever to pass THE SAVE AMERICA ACT,” his name for legislation that would require voters nationally to document their U.S. citizenship to register to vote, show certain photo identification to cast ballots and limit who can vote with a mail ballot. RNC Chairman Joe Gruters issued a statement aligning with Trump, saying Monday's ruling was justification to pass the congressional proposal.
Lower federal courts have issued rulings blocking the Trump administration’s efforts to impose new restrictions on mail ballots and to create a national voter list, among other proposed changes. Judges in those cases have consistently said the Constitution vests authority for setting election rules with Congress and the states, not the president.
While Barrett framed Monday’s opinion on the narrower question of the mail ballot deadline, the decision could bolster hopes among Democrats that the high court will look skeptically on the president’s assertion of power over elections if other cases land before it.
Massachusetts Secretary of State Bill Galvin said he was relieved because the ruling was a potential sign that other cases could go Democrats' way. But he accused the president and RNC of trying to disenfranchise voters and said he was alarmed by the narrow 5-4 decision in the case.
“What’s troubling was that so many of the other justices were willing to sacrifice the rights of voters,” said Galvin, a Democrat.
Perhaps nowhere was the case being watched more closely than Alaska, where Native and rural communities dotted across a vast landscape rely on the state's grace period to ensure their ballots get counted. Planes are often the only way ballots can get from polling locations to counting locations.
Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the Native American Rights Fund, was among the attorneys who filed a brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of Alaska Native and Native American groups. The brief highlighted the challenges they face, in particular where many communities are accessible only by air or water and rely on air service for mail.
“For many Native communities, voting by mail is shaped by long distances to election offices, no home mail delivery, unreliable postal service, lack of access to transportation, and the realities of living in rural and remote areas,” she said. “Ballots cast by election deadlines should not be discarded simply because substandard service or weather delays cause them to arrive after Election Day.”
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Associated Press writers Bill Barrow and Sudhin Thanawala in Atlanta, Becky Bohrer in Juneau, Alaska, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, Josh Kelety in Phoenix, Ali Swenson in New York and graphic artist Kevin Vineys in Washington contributed to this report.
