The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that election officials can count mailed ballots that arrive after Election Day if they were previously mailed.
The vote was 5 to 4the justices rejected the Republican National Committee’s challenge and found that the Mississippi law did not unlawfully conflict with federal law that sets Election Day in early November.
In defeat for President Donald Trumpjudgment authored by him Judge Amy Coney Barrettavoids changes to state election laws during an election year.
Trump he took advantage of the ruling and became champion again passing the SAVE America Act.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s tremendous loss for voter rights today and the fact that ‘the people’ votes may be counted LONG AFTER THE election has ended, passing the SAVE AMERICA ACT is more important than ever. There are no more excuses!”
Mississippi passed the law at issue in 2020 in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Four years later, the Republican National Committee and the Mississippi Republican Party, along with a Mississippi voter and county elections official, went to federal court in Gulfport, Mississippi, to challenge the post-election voting deadline; The Libertarian Party of Mississippi filed a similar lawsuit a few weeks later, which was consolidated with the first lawsuit. They argued that Mississippi’s law conflicted with federal law, first passed by Congress in 1845, that designates the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as “Election Day.”
in Pennsylvania Postal ballots must be delivered to district election offices no later than 8 p.m. on election day.. However, absentee ballots from overseas military and civilian voters may be received up to seven (7) days after the election, provided they were postmarked no later than 11:59 p.m. on the day before Election Day.
In writing the majority opinion, Barrett declared that the case before the Court was not about the Constitution.
“We do not consider the scope of Congress’s authority to regulate federal elections. The only question before us is whether counting ballots mailed on Election Day but received up to five days later violates federal Election Day laws.”
“The Framers recognized the difficulty of creating an electoral law that would apply to every likely change in the national situation.” Federalist No. 59, 362. So instead of constitutionalizing suffrage, they decided that “discretionary power over elections” needed to be placed “somewhere.” There. Suffice it to say that no such power was laid before the Court. The statutes in effect on Election Day say nothing about the receipt of ballots, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.
Barrett was joined by the majority Chief Justice John Robertsbut also Judges Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan AND Ketanji Brown Jackson.
In his opposition, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that “Election Day is a specific date, not a range of multiples
days. Election day statutes require that federal elections be held on that day. However, under the challenged Mississippi law, ballot collection continues for another five days, so an “election” is not held until the end of that period. Because federal law requires an election to be held on Election Day, it invalidates Mississippi’s statute.
“The majority’s remaining arguments are clearly insufficient to overcome what text, context, history, and precedent establish. Today’s decision is not only inconsistent with the statutory text, legal context, historical practice, and precedent, but also risks creating dire consequences. The majority’s holding raises a cascade of troubling election law issues and risks further undermining Americans’ confidence in the integrity of elections.”
Voto Latino, a civic organization dedicated to educating and empowering the next generation of Latino voters, celebrated the decision.
“Today’s ruling confirming access to mail-in voting is a victory for every voter who relies on this process to participate in our elections and vote on time. Millions of Americans use mail-in voting – including our service members overseas, seniors, students and working families – and every vote they make deserves to be counted,” the group said in a statement.
“For too long, President Trump has spread lies about mail-in voting, using it as an excuse to push his extremely anti-voter agenda to disenfranchise our multiracial and multicultural electorate. Today, the Supreme Court ruled correctly, blocking the Trump Administration’s attempts to eliminate mail-in voting. This ruling upholds confidence in our electoral process and confirms that a voter’s vote cannot be discarded.”
Mark Eliaselection attorney, said that while today’s ruling was a victory, it was unlikely to leisurely Trump’s efforts to change the system.
“Regardless of today’s ruling, Trump is unlikely to give up his attack on free and fair elections. Today we won the battle, but the war over mail-in voting will continue. The GOP goal is to require almost everyone to vote in person on Election Day – banning no-excuse mail-in voting, all forms of early voting and so-called ‘grace periods’ that allow voters to correct technical errors on mail-in ballots. These struggles will likely take on a modern dimension of urgency with this decision.”
Chairman of the Democratic National Committee Ken Martin he welcomed the decision as a victory for voters.
“Today, democracy won. The DNC is proud to have sided with the state of Mississippi to defeat the RNC’s latest attack on Americans’ voting rights. The RNC’s lawsuit sought to strip away democratically established guarantees for millions, including U.S. service members. Trump and the Republicans are attacking our elections and trying to rig the system to their advantage because they know the American people are ready to throw away their chaos and corruption in November. The DNC will remain vigilant and apply every tool at our disposal to protect everyone’s access. eligible voter to the ballot box.”
