Supreme Court Kills Republican Effort to Demolish Mail-In Voting
The Supreme Court has demolished Republicans’ efforts to delegitimize mail-in ballots, upholding a Mississippi law that allows a grace period to count ballots received after Election Day.In a 5-4 decision Monday split across ideological lines, the court ruled that ballots are valid up to five days after Election Day, so long as they were postmarked before it. Justice Amy Comey Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts were the two conservatives who sided with the liberal justices, and Barrett authored the majority opinion. Eighteen states and territories, including Mississippi, currently allow for mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day. That includes big Democratic states like California, Illinois, and New York. The ruling also protects states and territories that allow a grace period for ballots returning from overseas, such as for military service members.“The Constitution’s Elections Clause empowers state legislatures to ‘prescrib[e]’ the ‘Times, Places and Manner of holding’ congressional elections. Congress may ‘override’ most of these choices,” Barrett wrote for the majority. “By ‘default,’ however, ‘responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections’ belongs to States. As Alexander Hamilton put it, the Constitution lodges power over congressional elections in state legislatures ‘primarily’ and in Congress ‘ultimately.’” Mail-in voting is a very basic, safe tactic that Trump himself has even used, despite crusading against it as fraudulent. By upholding it, the court has protected voting rights for thousands of Americans voting at home and abroad. This story has been updated.
