The Republican National Committee (RNC) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify mail-in voting nationwide, requesting that ballots arriving after Election Day not be counted.
The filing challenges Mississippi’s law allowing ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received within five business days. A lower court upheld the law, but a conservative appeals court struck it down, and Mississippi appealed.
The RNC emphasizes the importance of a uniform federal election standard, noting that Election Day statutes “govern when States must close the ballot box, not when voters must make their selection,” and that an election is “the State’s public process of selecting officers,” which remains ongoing until all ballots are in the state’s custody. The brief cites historical Supreme Court precedent and Congress’s long-standing establishment of a federal election day.
The filing frames extended ballot receipt deadlines as a modern variation, writing, “Most Americans remember a time when results came quickly after election day…One of those experiments is the prolonged receipt of mail ballots — three, five, fourteen, or even more days after election day.” It notes such deadlines can invite “the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election.”
Oral arguments are scheduled for March, with the Court’s decision likely to set a precedent affecting how mail-in ballots are handled nationwide.
