The Daily Fuckup

The Supreme Court left Mississippi’s mail-ballot grace period in place on June 29, ruling that federal election-day statutes do not require absentee ballots to be received by Election Day. The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centered on a Mississippi law that counts certain ballots if they are postmarked on or before Election Day and arrive within five business days. The court said that setup does not conflict with the federal statutes that set the day for the election of members of Congress and the president.

That ruling matters because Mississippi is one of roughly 30 states that allow at least some mailed or absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted after the polls close, if they arrive within a set grace period. The justices did not create a new national rule. They rejected the claim that federal law already bars states from using these deadlines.

The decision keeps state ballot-receipt rules where they have mostly lived all along: with state lawmakers and election officials. It also leaves in place the practical systems voters in those states already use, including postmark rules, receipt windows, and the other machinery that election offices rely on to count lawful ballots without forcing every mailed vote to be physically in hand by Election Day.

The challenge was brought by the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party and other plaintiffs. The court’s majority said the federal election-day statutes speak to when voting occurs, not to the date ballots must reach election officials. In other words: federal law sets the day to vote, and Mississippi law can still decide when a mailed ballot is late enough to be discarded.

For election administrators, the result avoids a broad rewrite of mail-ballot rules and preserves the mix of deadlines already used across the country. For voters in states with grace periods, it means a postmarked ballot does not automatically lose its chance to count just because the mail moves too slowly after Election Day.