Watson v. Republican National Committee, Docket No. 24-1260

Listen to the episode On Spotify on Apple Podcasts or on YouTube

The Supreme Court decided that voting and receiving ballots are two separate things under federal law. States, not the federal government, get to decide how much time they allow for ballots to arrive after Election Day. In a five-to-four ruling, the Court said states can count mail-in ballots that arrive days after Election Day, as long as they were mailed by Election Day itself. This decision overturned a lower court and sided with Mississippi in a case that pitted voting access against election security concerns. The ruling immediately affects roughly thirty states that already allow late-arriving ballots and could influence how elections are run across the country for years to come.

What the Case Was Really About

The fight started in Mississippi, where a state law allows absentee ballots to be counted if they're postmarked by Election Day but arrive within five business days after. The Republican National Committee and allied groups sued to block the law. They argued that federal election law requires all ballots to be physically received by Election Day, not just mailed by then. Lower courts disagreed with each other. A federal district court sided with Mississippi. An appeals court reversed that decision. The Supreme Court then stepped in and sided with Mississippi, making this a major victory for states that want flexibility in counting mail-in votes.

The Core Disagreement: When Is an Election Actually Over?

The real battle was about when an individual's voting choice is officially complete.

The Republican National Committee argued that an election is not finished until election officials physically hold all the ballots in their hands. They pointed to Civil War era voting practices, when soldiers could vote by mail but their ballots still had to arrive by Election Day, even though mail was slow and unreliable. They also warned that counting ballots days after Election Day creates opportunities for fraud and makes people distrust the results.

Mississippi countered that an election is simply the act of voters making their choice. Once a voter mails their ballot by Election Day, the choice is made. What happens next is just delivery logistics. Mississippi noted that Congress passed a federal law called UOCAVA in 1986 that governs voting for military members and Americans living overseas. That law repeatedly lets states set their own rules about when ballots must arrive. If federal law already required all ballots to be received by Election Day, Mississippi argued, Congress would never have written UOCAVA that way.

How the Supreme Court Decided

Justice Barrett, writing for the majority, sided with Mississippi. She looked at how dictionaries have defined "election" for the past two hundred years and found it consistently meant the act of choosing, not the physical delivery of ballots. She also emphasized that Congress, in a 2022 law, defined "election day" in terms of when voting happens, not when ballots must be received.

The majority found UOCAVA especially convincing. If federal law already set a nationwide deadline for ballot receipt, there would be no reason for Congress to let UOCAVA defer to individual state rules. The Court said concerns about fraud and public confidence are questions for Congress and state legislatures to answer, not courts.

The Dissent's Concerns

Justice Alito disagreed sharply. He argued that a voter's choice is not truly complete until election officials actually receive the ballot. He pointed to historical dictionaries and Civil War voting practices to show that receiving ballots was always part of the election process. He warned that the majority's ruling could allow states to accept ballots with no meaningful deadline at all, which he said threatens election integrity.

Justice Kavanaugh joined most of the dissent but notably refused to sign onto the two sections about Civil War history and the analysis of UOCAVA. This suggests he was uncertain about those particular arguments, even though he disagreed with the majority's overall conclusion.

Making a Choice on Election Day

Under this ruling, federal law no longer requires ballots to arrive by Election Day. Instead, each state can decide how many days after Election Day it will accept mailed ballots. About thirty states already do this. The decision protects those state laws and gives other states permission to adopt similar rules if they choose.

The practical effect is significant. Mail-in voting just became more flexible across the country. If you mail your ballot by Election Day, it can now legally arrive later and still be counted in most states. However, the Court left open the possibility of voters' ability to retrieve their mailed ballots from the post office after Election Day and change their vote? That issue will likely lead to more court cases down the road.