RIGHT SPEAK: Supreme Court Gears Up To Decide If Elections End On Election Day: ‘This is a real opportunity for the Supreme Court to enforce the rule of law and to bring good election practices at the same time.’

Supreme Court Gears Up To Decide If Elections End On Election Day:

‘This is a real opportunity for the Supreme Court to enforce the rule of law and to bring good election practices at the same time.’

Does Election Day actually mean Election Day?
That’s the key issue the U.S. Supreme Court is going to consider when it holds oral arguments in a pivotal elections case next week.

Known as Watson v. RNC, the legal dispute centers around a challenge to a Mississippi law allowing election officials to accept mail-in ballots up to five business days after Election Day so long as they are postmarked on or before the day of the contest. The issue of accepting late-arriving ballots has become a prominent issue in elections in recent years, with more than a dozen states permitting such a practice.

In the case before SCOTUS, the justices will decide whether these state statutes violate existing federal laws that establish an election day for federal races. Speaking with The Federalist, Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead predicated that a favorable decision from the high court rendering them unconstitutional would go a long way in upholding the law and boosting Americans’ confidence and trust in elections.

“If you’re watching ballots trickle in and margins shrink, and you’re watching winners become losers and losers become winners after an election is over, then that invites skepticism, concerns about fraud, and ultimately, that’s going to sap public confidence and deter people from voting,” Snead told The Federalist. “This is a real opportunity for the Supreme Court to enforce the rule of law and to bring good election practices at the same time.”

Background

As The Federalist previously reported, Mississippi initially adopted its current policy of accepting late-arriving ballots during the 2020 Covid outbreak. This change to the state’s election procedure was later codified into law.

The Magnolia State’s actions prompted the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Mississippi GOP to file a lawsuit challenging the statute’s legality in January 2024. The plaintiffs argued that the law conflicts with federal statutes establishing an election day for federal contests.

After considering the case, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi issued a decision in July 2024 siding with the state. As summarized by Justia, the court ruled that “Mississippi’s statute did not conflict with federal law and thus was not preempted.”

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed. In its October 2024 ruling reversing the decision, a three-judge panel for the court “held that the federal Election Day statutes preempt Mississippi’s law because federal law mandates that all ballots must be received by Election Day,” according to Justia. The appellate court additionally remanded the case “for further proceedings to determine appropriate relief, considering the proximity to upcoming elections.”

Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch ultimately petitioned SCOTUS to take up and resolve the case in June 2025. The high court agreed to do so in November.

The Arguments

In its brief filed with SCOTUS, Mississippi disagreed with the 5th Circuit’s conclusion that “federal law requires that ballots be received by election day and so preempts Mississippi’s law.” The Magnolia State instead argued that an “’election’ is the conclusive choice of an officer,” and that the “voters make that choice by casting — marking and submitting — their ballots.”
“So the federal election-day statutes require only that the voters cast their ballots by election day. The election has then occurred, even if election officials do not receive all ballots by that day,” the state’s brief reads. “Under Mississippi law, the voters cast their ballots by election day. So federal law does not preempt Mississippi law. Text, precedent, and history show that the court of appeals erred in ruling otherwise.”“The problem with that argument,” Snead told The Federalist, “is that if you look at the way that historically elections have been run in this country, votes are not actually considered to be voted until they are in the hands of election officials, until they have been received by an election official.” --->READ MORE HERE