Background
Mississippi permits certain residents—including college students living away from home and senior citizens—to vote by absentee ballot in federal elections. Under Mississippi law, absentee ballots must be postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the registrar no more than five business days afterward. Mississippi is one of roughly 30 states that count at least some absentee ballots mailed by Election Day but received afterward.
In 2024, the Republican National Committee, the Mississippi Republican Party, and several individuals sued the Mississippi Secretary of State, arguing that three federal election-day statutes—which set the “election” of Representatives, Senators, and the President on a specific Tuesday in November—implicitly require all ballots to be received by Election Day, not merely cast by then. A parallel suit by the Libertarian Party of Mississippi was consolidated in the district court, which granted summary judgment to Mississippi. The Fifth Circuit reversed, holding Mississippi’s post-Election Day receipt window was preempted by federal law.
The Supreme Court granted certiorari and, in a 5-4 decision authored by Justice Barrett and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson, reversed the Fifth Circuit. Justice Alito dissented, joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and (in part) Kavanaugh.
The Court’s Holding
The Court held that the federal election-day statutes—3 U.S.C. §1, 2 U.S.C. §§1 and 7—do not preempt Mississippi’s law permitting absentee ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if received within five business days thereafter. The Court reasoned that the ordinary and historical meaning of “election” is the act of choosing a candidate—the electorate’s expression of its choice—and that choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots arrive at an election office. Because Mississippi requires all ballots to be cast (postmarked) by Election Day, it complies with the federal statutes’ command.
The Court drew additional support from the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act (UOCAVA), which repeatedly presupposes that ballot-receipt deadlines are a matter of state law. UOCAVA expressly refers to “the deadline for receipt of [an absentee] ballot under State law,” and if the federal election-day statutes already imposed a nationwide Election Day receipt deadline, those references would be incoherent. The Court also noted that a 2022 amendment to the Presidential election-day statute defined “election day” by reference to the “period of voting”—indicating that voting, not receipt, is the act the statute governs.
The Court rejected plaintiffs’ reliance on 19th-century historical practice (Civil War-era states that imposed Election Day receipt deadlines for soldier mail ballots), finding the evidence inconclusive—states may have chosen those deadlines for independent reasons having nothing to do with federal law—and holding that a statute does not “trap in amber” every contemporaneous practice on the same subject. The Court also distinguished Foster v. Love, 522 U.S. 67 (1997), which addressed whether a state could finalize an election before Election Day, not whether post-Election Day ballot receipt is permissible.
Key Takeaways
- The federal election-day statutes set a deadline for when voters must cast their ballots, not when ballots must be received by election officials; states retain authority to set their own ballot-receipt deadlines.
- UOCAVA’s repeated references to state-law ballot-receipt deadlines confirm that Congress understood states, not federal law, to govern when absentee ballots must arrive.
- Historical practice from the mid-19th century—even where states imposed Election Day receipt requirements for Civil War absentee ballots—is not dispositive because legislatures may have had multiple independent reasons for those deadlines unrelated to any federal mandate.
- The ruling is narrow: the Court did not address absentee voting generally, early voting, the Postal Service’s role in elections, or the scope of Congress’s constitutional authority over federal elections.
- State laws in roughly 30 states that count mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but received afterward are not preempted by federal law under this decision.
Why It Matters
This decision resolves a significant circuit-level dispute over the reach of federal election-day statutes that have governed U.S. elections since the mid-19th century. By holding that those statutes regulate only the act of voting—not ballot receipt—the Court preserves the election laws of approximately 30 states that accept mail ballots arriving after Election Day, affecting millions of absentee voters in future federal elections. A contrary ruling would have required states to immediately discard or not count any absentee ballot, however timely cast, that arrived even one day after Election Day.
The decision also clarifies the interplay between longstanding federal election statutes and UOCAVA, reinforcing the default principle from Foster v. Love that states bear primary responsibility for the mechanics of federal elections unless Congress has clearly displaced state law. For election lawyers and administrators, Watson confirms that post-Election Day ballot-receipt windows are legally permissible under current federal law—though it leaves open whether Congress could, if it chose, legislate a national receipt deadline.