No Deadline. Endless Counting. No Trust. Nine justices face a simple question: when does it end?

TIPP Insights ^ | 24 Mar, 2026 | tippinsights Editorial Board

[MtnClimber]

The New York Times reported from the U.S. Supreme Court today that the Mississippi Elections Case would likely be overturned: Justices Appear Poised to Reject Mississippi Law on Late-Arriving Ballots.

Politico had a different headline: Supreme Court worries Trump's attack on late ballots could also threaten early voting.

Both showed how concerned the Left is about retaining provisions in numerous states that allow mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day to be counted and processed.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, 17 states and territories, including California, Maryland, New York, and D.C., are overly generous in accepting mail-in ballots after Election Day.

In Illinois, ballots must be received up to 14 days after the election if postmarked on or before Election Day. Maryland and D.C. allow for a ten-day grace period.

Ultra-conservative Mississippi joined the cabal of 17 states during the COVID pandemic. It passed a law allowing absentee/mail-in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and arrive up to 5 business days after Election Day.

Our editorial, published after the November 2022 midterms, decried this policy in the name of racial justice. These states have deviated from the 30 states - including liberal states such as Connecticut, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont - that require mail-in ballots to be received by the close of polls on Election Day.

On Monday, the Supreme Court heard a challenge against the Mississippi law. In Watson v. Republican National Committee, Mississippi argued that the law was reasonable and did not violate federal law. The challengers, however, maintained that federal law preempts state "grace periods" for late-arriving mail ballots, requiring election officials to receive those ballots on or before Election Day.

The idea of postmarked mail has a tradition of acceptance by government agencies. Tax returns must be postmarked before 11:59 p.m. on April 15. It is customary for postal employees to stand at mailboxes on April 15 to postmark these returns, so taxpayers are assured their returns were accepted before the deadline.

However, ballots are not tax returns. Taxpayers do not particularly care when their returns are processed; voters do. We want the results announced the same night, and not have the winner flipped after counting late-arriving mail-in ballots.

In the 2020 election, President Trump was leading on election night, with states having counted both early votes and election-day ballots. However, as the results of late mail-in ballots trickled in, three states that were too close to call gradually turned away from Trump. Joseph Biden won the presidency by a narrow 44,000-vote victory in those three states - Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Arizona.

The oral arguments produced interesting remarks from all sides.

Paul D. Clement, arguing for the challengers, including the Republican National Committee, raised points we have made in our editorials over the years, including the one that universal mail-in voting and lenient ballot-processing laws threaten election integrity.

"All agree that elections for federal office have to end on the day of the election specified by Congress, and all agree that you can't have an election unless you receive ballots, and there must be some deadline for ballot receipt. Nonetheless, Mississippi insists that ballots can trickle in days or even weeks after Election Day. That position is wrong as a matter of text, precedent, history, and common sense."

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott G. Stewart (arguing for the petitioner) stated that "The Election Day statutes adopt a simple rule: States must make a final choice of officers by Election Day. That is the plain meaning of an election." In effect, he was saying that state rules trump federal election laws, and the liberal justices repeatedly agreed with him.

Justice Samuel Alito echoed our concerns about election integrity when he said: "Confidence in election outcomes can be seriously undermined if the apparent outcome of the election on the day after the polls close is radically flipped by the acceptance, later, of a big stash of ballots."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh agreed with Justice Alito: "If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late-arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode."

Chief Justice John Roberts (probing the implications) said: "If Election Day is the voting and taking, then it has to be that day."

Justice Amy Coney Barrett (pressing on historical practices and early voting) challenged the idea that receipt/counting could extend beyond Election Day without issue, highlighting that past processes completed verification and acceptance on Election Day.

Justice Elena Kagan made an academic point appropriate for a law school class: "How is it that you're not taking issue with early voting?... When I early vote, I'm not doing that [casting and receiving on Election Day]." The point did not make sense because ballots received before Election Day would still get counted on Election Day. The case concerned only ballots that arrived after Election Day.

The conservative justices appeared particularly skeptical of the grace period, focusing on the need for a single, final Election Day to preserve trust and avoid post-election flips or perceptions of fraud. Liberal justices pushed back on potential disenfranchisement and consistency with other voting practices. The full transcript is available on the Supreme Court's website for deeper reading.

A decision is expected in June or early July, in time to affect the 2026 elections.

[lastchance]

Good points all. Since the Dems have devised multiple means of padding results AKA stealing elections it is necessary to battle them on several fronts. Making sure votes don’t keep streaming in well past Nov 7 is just one front.

[oldtech]

One final election date is all we should need. No need to question what Democrats are trying to do here; the answer is clear to any honest person. Shut ‘em down. All they want is a permanent Democrat electorate & there’s no honest reason for that to happen.