Listen Live: Supreme Court hears arguments over late-arriving mail ballots
The Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a Mississippi law that allows ballots that are postmarked by but received up to five days after Election Day to be counted.
Updated on: March 23, 2026 / 3:32 PM EDT / CBS News
Washington — The Supreme Court on Monday wrestled with a major elections dispute involving whether federal law bars states from counting mail ballots that are postmarked by Election Day but received by election officials later.
The case before the high court, known as Watson v. RNC, involves Mississippi's deadline for late-arriving mail ballots and whether its law, as well as similar measures from 13 other states, conflicts with federal statutes that set Election Day as the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in certain years.
President Trump has pushed to end mail voting, with some exceptions, and a decision in the case from the Supreme Court is expected to come months before the November midterm elections.
Across roughly two hours of arguments, the justices asked sharp questions of lawyers for both the Republican National Committee, which is challenging the grace periods, and Mississippi officials, who are defending the law. Several of the conservative justices, including Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, appeared skeptical of the state laws governing late-arriving ballots.
But the three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, defended the measures as an exercise of states' authority to set rules for federal elections.