"nothing in the federal Election-Day statutes require ballots to be received by election day," Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in the Court's majority opinion.
The ruling and the narrow 5-4 split
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld states' authority to count mail-in ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but arrive through the mail up to five days later. The case arose from a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee against Mississippi and its Secretary of State, challenging state practice on the ground that federal law, the RNC argued, defines the casting and receiving of ballots as needing to be completed by Election Day. Justice Barrett wrote the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Jackson Brown.
Majority reasoning: federal statutes, the Constitution, and state control
Justice Barrett rejected the RNC's reading, writing that “nothing in the federal Election-Day statutes require ballots to be received by election day.” The opinion pointed to other federal voting statutes, such as the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, which explicitly leave it to state law to determine when ballots must be received. Barrett also stressed a constitutional distinction: while the Constitution requires a uniform day for voting by electors, it “says nothing about the day for receipt,” and therefore “envisions a system in which receipt of votes is necessarily divorced from voting.” The majority further noted that Congress’s insertion of the phrase “Election Day” in recent updates — and its specification of a Tuesday — coexists with provisions that allow states to modify voting periods in response to force majeure events like the COVID-19 pandemic.
The dissent's concerns about fraud and perception
Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh dissented. The dissent warned the ruling “leaves open opportunities for voter fraud that may further undermine Americans’ faith in the integrity of this country’s elections.” Alito wrote that “Mail voting also presents a greater opportunity for voter manipulation, a more vulnerable chain of ballot custody, and a diminished ability to detect improprieties in real time.” He added that allowing absentee ballots to arrive in the days and weeks after Election Day — when preliminary returns may already be public — “creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public’s confidence in election integrity.”
Responses from election organizations and advocates
Election experts and nonprofit leaders framed the decision as both a legal restoration of state authority and a practical relief for election administrators. David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said the ruling upholds the principle that “the election is completed for the voter at the moment they complete their ballot, not the moment that some administrative election official receives that ballot or reviews that ballot.” Becker argued the decision validates more than a century of state autonomy and said, “This case was about who gets to make that determination,” adding that “as the founders intended, as is clearly laid out in the elections clause of the Constitution, the states get to make that determination about when those ballots should be delivered by the postal service and be counted.” Becker also remarked that in another era the case “should have been a 9-0 [decision]” and called the states’ authority a “slam dunk.”
Michael McNulty, director of Issue One Policy, said a contrary ruling would have “created chaos for election administration in more than a dozen states that accept such ballots, forcing them to move ballot receipt deadlines, redesign procedures and conduct large scale voter education campaigns without any additional funding.” Pamela Smith, CEO of Verified Voting, said the decision “ensures that a postal delay outside of any voter’s control does not erase a lawfully cast ballot and supports election officials’ ability to capture the will of voters.”
Practical impact on states, military voters and upcoming elections
The Court’s decision likely forecloses major last-minute federal changes to ballot-receipt rules before the midterm elections, but it may prompt state-level legislative shifts. The reporting notes that 14 states and Washington, D.C., already have laws that allow ballots to be received up to five days after Election Day or longer; more than 30 states allow military and overseas ballots to arrive after Election Day. The majority opinion and expert commentary imply some states may seek to adjust their laws to align explicitly with the five-day timeline approved by the Court.
The decision arrives against a backdrop of politicized debate over late-arriving mail ballots since 2020, when postmarked ballots arriving after Election Day played a prominent role in determining results. The Court’s ruling preserves longstanding state practices, affirms a particular constitutional reading that separates voting from receipt, and leaves open questions about how states will respond legislatively and how political narratives about mail ballots will evolve ahead of the next federal contests.
