US Supreme Court Rules States May Count Postal Ballots Arriving After Election Day

• The US Supreme Court has upheld Mississippi’s law allowing postal ballots to be counted up to five days after election day
• The 5-4 ruling rejects the Trump administration’s challenge and could shape voting deadlines in key states ahead of November’s midterms
• Justice Amy Coney Barrett, writing for the majority, said federal law does not restrict when ballots must be received, only when elections are held

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The US Supreme Court has ruled that states may count postal ballots arriving after election day, rejecting a challenge brought by the Trump administration.

The 5-4 decision upholds a Mississippi law allowing mail-in ballots postmarked before election day to be counted if they arrive within five days afterwards.

Impact on midterm elections

According to BBC, this ruling could affect voting deadlines in more than a dozen states, many of which will play a decisive role in determining control of Congress in the November midterm elections.

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Most of these states lean Democratic, though some Republican-led jurisdictions also permit a grace period for late-arriving ballots.

Justice Barrett’s majority opinion

The majority opinion was written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s three liberal justices. Barrett explained that the ruling does not conflict with federal law, which sets “the Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November” as election day.

She wrote: “The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.”

Political setback for Trump

The decision marks a significant defeat for President Trump, who has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are prone to fraud. He has argued that postal voting cost him victory in the 2020 election against Joe Biden.

In March, Trump’s lawyer supported the Republican National Committee-led lawsuit against Mississippi’s ballot deadline. The challenge cited an 1845 congressional statute defining election day as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.

Republicans argued that ballots must not only be postmarked but also received by that date. The Trump administration stated in its brief: “Election-day receipt promotes election integrity and voter confidence as much today as it did when Congress passed that law.”

This ruling reinforces states’ authority to set their own rules for ballot deadlines, provided they do not contradict federal law. It also highlights the ongoing debate over postal voting, which has become a central issue in US elections.

Court hands trump 2 immigration victories

Legit.ng earlier reported that the United States Supreme Court has handed President Donald Trump two major victories in his administration’s immigration policy push, ruling in favour of measures aimed at restricting asylum claims and ending temporary protections for some migrants.

In two separate decisions delivered on Thursday, the court ruled that migrants stopped at the US border before entering the country cannot claim the same asylum rights as those who have arrived in the United States.

It also ruled that Haitian and Syrian nationals with Temporary Protected Status (TPS) cannot obtain court orders delaying the cancellation of their status while legal challenges continue, CNN reported.