WASHINGTON, DC – Following today’s decision at the Supreme Court in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case in which the Court considered whether Mississippi may count absentee ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received up to 5 business days later, Constitutional Accountability Center Director of the Human Rights, Civil Rights, and Citizenship Program David Gans issued the following reaction:

The Supreme Court today affirmed the power of states to enact laws that permit receipt of absentee ballots after Election Day, overturning an outlandish Fifth Circuit ruling that would have licensed disenfranchisement of voters simply because the post office took too long to deliver a mail ballot and that would have wreaked untold havoc with the electoral process.

Echoing the amicus brief Constitutional Accountability Center filed in the case, Justice Barrett’s opinion correctly recognized that by setting a single day for Election Day, Congress did not take away the power of states to provide for post-Election Day receipt of mail ballots, thereby ensuring that all votes cast on or by Election Day are properly counted. Election Day, as Justice Barrett explained, was simply “when the electorate must make its choice,” not when ballots must be received.

Against the backdrop of continuing attacks on voting by mail—used by 1 in 3 Americans in the 2024 election—today’s decision is an important reaffirmation of state authority to ensure votes cast by mail are properly counted, even if received after Election Day.

Constitutional Accountability Center Legal Fellow Simon Chin continued:

What makes today’s Supreme Court decision in the mail-in ballot case right is not only the text of the federal statutes governing Election Day, but the constitutional design behind them. As the amicus brief Constitutional Accountability Center filed in the case explained, the Constitution itself separates the casting of votes from their receipt. The Constitution requires presidential electors in the electoral college to cast their votes on a single day, uniform across the country, yet says nothing about when those votes must reach Washington to be counted. The federal Election Day statutes follow the same pattern. They set the day by which voters must make their choice but leave to the states the separate question of when a timely ballot must arrive. Mississippi’s law fits within that design, and the Court was right to uphold it.