By Taylor Vance and Michael Goldberg | Originally published by Mississippi Today
This story will be updated.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday upheld a Mississippi law in a ruling that will allow around more than a dozen states to count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. This deals a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to federalize state elections and limit mail-in ballot counting.
The nation’s highest court ruled 5-4 in favor of Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson, who was forced to defend the lawsuit as the administrator of the state’s elections. The state Legislature enacted a law in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to give voters a grace period for mailing their ballots.
The U.S. Supreme Court is seen Tuesday, June 2, 2026, in Washington. Credit: AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib
In 2024, the Mississippi Republican Party, the Republican National Committee, a Mississippi voter and a county election official filed the federal lawsuit challenging the five-day window. The state Libertarian Party filed a similar lawsuit a few weeks later, which was combined with the first suit.
The parties argued that the state law conflicted with the federal law setting the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as the “election day.”
U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola Jr., a George W. Bush-appointed judge, initially ruled last year in Gulfport that there was no conflict between the state and federal laws. But a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed him, and the full court declined to rehear the case.
Jade Craig, an assistant professor of law at the University of Mississippi, called the court’s decision “a win for states’ rights and democracy in terms of states having the authority to set their own voting parameters.”
“It is a real relief and a great achievement for Mississippi and all the states that have similar laws that provide for mail-in voting,” Craig said.
Craig said it was a surprise that a Mississippi voting law was challenged, seemingly setting up an intraparty conflict between Republican state officials. But the decision establishes that both red and blue states have “a shared set of problems that the Court is responsible for addressing in ways that are equitable across the country,” Craig said.
Bradley Heard, deputy legal director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, said “common sense prevailed today.”
“When a voter mails a ballot postmarked by Election Day and it arrives within the allotted window of time, they have done what the law requires — laws which have been on the books since as early as the Civil War. Votes cast by mail are valid votes, and all valid votes should be counted,” Heard said.
