🚨 SCOTUS in a 5-4 vote, ruled that Election Day doesn’t really mean Election Day

Federal law does not require mail-in ballots to be received by Election Day, SCOTUS says, holding that states may count ballots postmarked by Election Day.. days later.

Majority opinion (written by Justice Amy Coney Barrett)— Joined by: Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Justice Elena Kagan, and Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Key reasoning: The federal statutes set a uniform day for voting (the act of choosing), but do not require ballots to be received by election officials on that exact day. Historical dictionaries and context show “election” refers to the electorate’s choice, not the physical receipt of ballots. The Court emphasized that states have long controlled the mechanics of ballot receipt, and nothing in the federal statutes “traps in amber” 19th-century practices. It distinguished precedents like Foster v. Love (1997) and noted that policy concerns about fraud or election integrity are for Congress or state legislatures to address.

🔻My Thoughts:

The only silver lining in this is that it highlights how it’s the duty of CONGRESS or state legislatures need to address this now since SCOTUS failed.

If Congress wanted to codify the Watson dissent’s view into law, it should include language that explicitly sets a federal receipt deadline or preempts state grace periods.

Now, there is something in Congress right now that COULD change this ruling on its head— it’s called The Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act (H.R. 7300)… which expands on the Svae America Act.

The MEGA Act explicitly includes a provision requiring that mail ballots be received by election officials on or before Election Day to be counted—even if postmarked by Election Day.

But it’s been sitting since January.. I imagine waiting for the Save America Act to pass, as it is an extension of it.

The decision sucks… but we have some more cards in the deck to play.

📱 ReTWEET