VICTORY! Democracy wins, authoritarians lose as laws allowing postmarked ballots to count are upheld in SCOTUS stunner
by Andrew Villeneuve
Two right wing justices joined the U.S. Supreme Court’s three liberals today to hand down a landmark decision quashing a legal challenge filed by the Republican National Committee against a Mississippi law allowing ballots returned through the mail to be counted even if the Postal Service delivers them after the deadline to return ballots on Election Day, upholding Washington and Oregon’s ballot return laws.
The 5–4 decision published early this morning Pacific Time is a massive, unexpected win for American democracy. The voting rights movement had been bracing for a ruling in the RNC’s favor, but instead got a big surprise, as Justices Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts crossed over to side with Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson, leaving Justice Samuel Alito to write a weakly argued dissent that was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch.
“The question before the Court is narrow: whether counting ballots postmarked by election day, but received up to five days later, violates the federal election-day statutes,” the decision’s syllabus reads. Plaintiffs do not challenge the general practice of absentee voting, the use of the Postal Service or common carrier to transmit ballots, early voting, or the counting and certification of votes after election day. The Court also does not consider the scope of Congress’s authority to regulate federal elections.”
“The federal election-day statutes do not preempt Mississippi’s law because the defining element of an ‘election’ has always been the electorate’s choice of candidate. And a related federal statute — the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA) confirms that while federal law dictates when ballots must be cast, state law governs when they must be received,” the syllabus goes on to say.
https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/06/victory-democracy-wins-authoritarians-lose-as-laws-allowing-postmarked-ballots-to-count-are-upheld-in-scotus-stunner.html
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