Summary

This case, argued before the Supreme Court on March 23, 2026, concerns the question of whether three “federal election-day statutes” that established the Tuesday after the first Monday of November as the date of election for U.S. presidents, representatives, and senators “preempt a [Mississippi] state law that allows ballots that are cast by federal election day to be received by election officials after that day.”

Oral arguments before the Court

The plaintiff in the case argued that, contrary to the ruling of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the original statute establishing Election Day for presidents in 1845 did not entail that voters’ ballots in federal elections must be received on or before Election Day itself. Indeed, the law did not address the possibility that legitimate ballots might be received sometime before or after Election Day—understandably, given that all voting at that time had been performed in person from the birth of the country. Since the 19th century, however, voting procedures have undergone many changes, and for more than a century many states have permitted mail-in or absentee ballots dated on or before Election Day to be received afterward. Such a change was never blocked by Congress and was not challenged in courts until the present case—a clear indication that the substance of the 1845 law is not inconsistent with current ballot receipt laws in 30 states. In other words, the 1845 law is satisfied if voters choose their candidates by Election Day, and they do so by properly completing—not by submitting or delivering—a ballot by that date.

The respondent in the case argued that the practice of elections at the time of the 1845 statute entails that Election Day was then understood to involve both the completion and submission of ballots for choosing between federal candidates: “Mississippi all but concedes that the original public meaning of election included both offering to vote and the receipt of that vote or ballot by election officials.” And even now the state’s declared understanding of election fails as a matter of common sense. “If somebody in Gulfport the day after the election asks is the election over, the common sense answer is no, it’s not. The ballots are still coming in.” From the birth of the country to the present day, therefore, elections have been understood to involve both the completion and the receipt of ballots. It follows that the practice of accepting ballots after Election Day constitutes a violation of the 1845 law.

Questions and comments from the Court

The conservative justices of the Court appeared doubtful of Mississippi’s interpretation of the 1845 statute, based on the plaintiff’s understanding of election as the expression rather than the submission of voters’ choices. Such a reading would hypothetically permit a variety of questionable methods of delivering a voter’s ballot to election officials (methods not involving the U.S. Postal Service or common carriers, such as FedEx) after a final choice is made. As Justice Clarence Thomas asked, “If I give my ballot, mail-in ballot, to my neighbor, is that a choice?” Justice Neil Gorsuch, for his part, argued that the plaintiff’s definition of election would in theory enable voters to recall ballots delivered by common carriers after Election Day should they discover some misbehavior on the part of the candidate they voted for. And in that case the “election,” even as the plaintiff understands it, would not have taken place by Election Day.

The liberal justices of the Court argued in response that the hypotheticals posed by conservative justices did not establish that post-Election Day ballot delivery was not permitted under the 19th-century law, citing as an example the fact that during the Civil War (1860–64) at least two states allowed military officers to collect and send ballots from home-state soldiers. Since that time many other states have accepted mail-in ballots submitted by but received after Election Day, and no federal law to date has prevented that practice. Indeed, as Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out, “Congress is today considering an election-related statute that would specifically prohibit” states from accepting post-Election Day ballots, “which means that Congress probably didn’t understand its existing legislation to do this.”

The Court’s decision

In a 5–4 decision written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Court held that the absentee ballot laws of Mississippi and other states are not inconsistent with federal Election Day statutes, because the term “election” as used in the latter group refers only to “the expression of the electorate’s choice” and not to the counting of ballots in which such choices are recorded. As reflected in historical amendments and earlier court decisions, “the electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete and not when ballots are received.” In Classic v. United States (1941), for example, the Court defined “election” as “no more and no less than the expression by qualified electors of their choice of candidates.”

Barrett’s opinion was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., and Justices Sonya Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Justice Samuel A. Alito, Jr., filed a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch and in part by Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Alito acknowledged and agreed with Barrett’s definition of “election” as “the expression of the electorate’s choice” but disputed her understanding of “the acts that constitute the electorate’s expression.” Those acts, he argued “are the final submission and collection of ballots.” Accordingly, Election Day laws must be understood as requiring that ballots be submitted or received by Election Day.

Background

The federal statutes in question—enacted in 1845 for presidents, 1872 for representatives, and 1914 for senators—collectively designate the Tuesday after the first Monday of November in even-numbered years as federal Election Day in all U.S. states and territories. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the state of Mississippi adopted a law permitting mail-in ballots to be received and counted after state or federal election days, provided that the ballots themselves were cast on or before the election days and were received by election officials no more than five business days later. In 2024, the Mississippi Republican Party and the Republican National Committee (RNC) challenged the law in federal district court, arguing that the state’s acceptance of ballots after Election Day violated the election statutes from the 19th century. (The case was soon consolidated with a similar suit lodged by the Libertarian Party of Mississippi.) According to the plaintiffs, the term “election”—as used in the statutes and understood in the 19th century—entails that both voting and the reception of votes take place on the same day. The district court then delivered a summary judgment in favor of the state, holding that the relevant statutes entail that voters make their electoral choices by (on or before) Election Day but not also that their ballots be received by then. Citing a passage from the Supreme Court’s decision in Foster v. Love (1997), the district court affirmed that Election Day was established in order to prevent “the distortion of the voting process threatened when the results of an early federal election in one State can influence later voting in other States” and to avoid “the burden on citizens forced to turn out on two different election days to make final selections of federal officers in Presidential election years.” The court found that, because neither of those goals is impeded by accepting ballots mailed by election day but received during a later time period, Mississippi’s law is not inconsistent with federal statutes. After the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed the lower court’s ruling, Watson filed a writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case in its 2025–26 term.