The U.S. Supreme Court has turned back a challenge brought by the Trump administration, deciding that states have the right to count mail-in ballots that show up after Election Day.
In a 5-4 ruling, the justices sided with Mississippi, determining that late-arriving ballots can be counted as long as they carry a postmark from Election Day or earlier and are received within five business days of the election.
The decision struck down a Republican-led legal effort targeting laws in more than half of all states and the District of Columbia. Those laws allow mailed ballots to be accepted and counted for a set number of days after the election, so long as voters postmarked them by Election Day. The ruling also means election officials will not have to scramble to rewrite ballot rules just months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
It is worth noting that in slightly more than half of the affected states, the more lenient arrival deadlines only apply to ballots submitted by military personnel and voters living overseas.
The court took up arguments in March in the Mississippi case, which placed the state in direct opposition to the Trump administration, along with the Republican and Libertarian parties. The central question was whether a single federal Election Day means ballots must be both cast by voters and received by election officials on that same day.
A federal appeals court based in New Orleans had previously struck down the Mississippi law that allowed ballots arriving within five business days of the election — provided they were postmarked by Election Day — to be counted.
