The Supreme Court on Monday said states may count mail-in ballots Supreme Court cases allowed to arrive after Election Day if they were postmarked by Election Day. Amy Coney Barrett wrote the 5-4 majority, and the ruling keeps existing ballot-counting rules in nearly 30 states in place.
John Roberts joined Barrett and the court’s three liberal justices. The decision rejects a Republican-led challenge to laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that give voters a later deadline for the mail to reach election offices.
Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts
The majority said federal law sets Election Day as the deadline for casting a ballot, not for every ballot to be received by state officials on the same day. Under the laws the court left standing, mailed ballots can arrive and still be counted some number of days later if the envelope shows an Election Day postmark.
In Mississippi, the law struck down by the federal appeals court in New Orleans allowed ballots to count if they arrived within five business days after the election and were postmarked by Election Day. The court’s ruling restores that framework after the appeals court had blocked it.
Donald Trump and mail balloting
The challenge was part of Donald Trump’s broader attack on most mail balloting, and the court’s ruling again puts his fraud claims against Joe Biden beside a legal record that has gone the other way more than 60 times. Barrett’s opinion leaves the counting rules intact for states that already use them, including places where the longer window applies only to military and overseas voters.
The practical effect is immediate: election workers in the affected states do not have to rewrite receipt deadlines before the 2026 midterm congressional elections. Which specific states will continue counting late-arriving mailed ballots under this ruling will depend on the rules already on the books in each place.
Mississippi in March
The justices heard arguments in March in the Mississippi case, then issued a 5-4 ruling that avoided last-minute changes to ballot processing a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections. For voters who use mail ballots in the covered states, the rule remains the same: postmark by Election Day, and the ballot can still count if it arrives later.
