by Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog
Setting the stage for a major ruling on election law, the Supreme Court on Monday agreed to decide whether federal law requires ballots to be not only cast by voters but also received by election officials by Election Day. As part of the list of orders from the justices’ private conference on Friday, the court took up Watson v. Republican National Committee, a challenge by the Republican National Committee and others to a Mississippi law (as well as similar laws in 30 other states and the District of Columbia) that allow mail-in ballots to be counted as long as they are received within five business days after Election Day.
The dispute began in 2024, when the RNC – along with the Mississippi Republican Party and two individuals – went to federal court to challenge the Mississippi law. Their case was later joined with a similar case brought by the Libertarian Party of Mississippi.
A federal judge in Gulfport, Mississippi, upheld the law, rejecting the challengers’ contention that it conflicted with federal law. Senior U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola explained that, according to Supreme Court precedent, “Congress set a national election day to avoid the ‘evils’ of burdening citizens with multiple election days and of risking undue influence upon voters in one state from the announced tallies in states voting earlier. Neither of those concerns,” he concluded, “is raised by allowing a reasonable interval for ballots cast and postmarked by election day to arrive by mail.”
The challengers appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which reversed Guirola’s decision. It ruled that federal election law, which sets the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the “election” day for federal offices, requires all ballots to be received by that day. The full 5th Circuit declined to rehear the case, over a dissent by five judges.
Mississippi appealed to the Supreme Court in June. It argued…
Continue Reading