The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that states can count ballots that arrive after Election Day, a persistent target of President Donald Trump. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The 5-4 decision rejected a Republican-led attack on laws in more than half the states and the District of Columbia that permit mailed ballots to arrive and be counted some number of days after the election, provided they are postmarked by Election Day. The outcome spares officials the headache of changing their ballot rules just a few months before the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the court's majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberal justices. Federal laws setting a single Election Day "leave open when those votes must be received," Barrett wrote. Congress could change the law, she said. "If varied deadlines for ballot receipt similarly call for a national solution, the American people must choose it through their elected representatives," Barrett wrote.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent for four justices. "Not only is today's decision inconsistent with statutory text, legal context, historical practice, and precedent; it also threatens to produce lamentable consequences," Alito wrote. "The majority's holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans' confidence in election integrity." The legal challenge was part of Trump's broader attack on most mail balloting, which he has said breeds fraud despite strong evidence to the contrary.