The Supreme Court on Monday appeared ready to overturn a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they are postmarked by, and then received within five business days of, Election Day. After just over two hours of oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a majority of justices seemed to agree with the challengers – which included the Republican Party of Mississippi and the Libertarian Party of Mississippi – that the Mississippi law conflicts with federal laws that set the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the “election day.”
Because more than a dozen states have similar laws, the court’s ruling – which is expected by late June or early July – could have significant implications for federal elections, beginning as soon as November.
Mississippi passed the law at the center of the case in 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Four years later, the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, a Mississippi voter, and a county election official went to court to challenge the law, as did the Libertarian Party of Mississippi in a separate lawsuit (which was later combined with the Republicans’ lawsuit). They argued that Mississippi’s law clashed with a federal law, enacted by Congress in 1845, that establishes the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as “election day.” In 1872, Congress directed that congressional elections should occur on this day, as well.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed with the challengers that federal law requires all ballots to be received by Election Day. After the full court of appeals – over a dissent by five judges – rejected the state’s petition to rehear the case, the state went to the Supreme Court, which agreed in November to weigh in.