The Supreme Court case over counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day
Overview · reviewed October 28, 2026
In June 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that federal law does not prevent states from counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, rejecting a Republican-backed challenge to a Mississippi law and preserving grace periods in 13 other states and the District of Columbia.[1][2]The ruling was a victory for Democrats and voting rights advocates.[1]
Follow this story to see new developments when you return.
The ruling was a victory for Democrats and voting rights advocates.[1]
Coverage over time
Share of tracked outlets · weekly (UTC)
15%
Nov 20252026this week
LeftCenterRight
Each bar is the share of the outlets on our Left / Center / Right rating scale that we tracked publishing that week which carried reporting on this story, split by the outlets' ratings.We track more outlets now than in the archive, so a share keeps earlier and later weeks comparable. An outlet counts once a week however much it published, and outlets in one ownership or syndication group count as one on each side they appear on. A rating describes the outlet, not the report. A gap means no such reports were collected that week, not that nothing was reported anywhere. Weeks run Monday to Sunday in UTC, so a report published on a Sunday evening in US Eastern time counts in the next week. 2 more outlets off the scale (not rated, or outside the left-right graphs) also reported; they are not in this chart. See them.
Weekly counts, outlets and reports (5 weeks with coverage)
Outlets on the rating scale that carried this story each week, of the outlets tracked that week, newest first
Week of (UTC)
Left
Center
Right
Of tracked
Share
Receipts
Jun 29, 2026
10
7
4
21 of 569
4%
Mar 23, 2026
8
11
6
25 of 170
15%
Mar 16, 2026
0
0
1
1 of 178
1%
Jan 12, 2026
0
2
2
4 of 191
2%
Nov 10, 2025
6
10
4
20 of 188
11%
Latest coverage
The newest reporting in this story's record.
Jun 29, 2026 · first reported · Headline from Eyewitness News (WEHT/WTVW)
The court agreed in November 2025 to hear the Republican-led challenge.[3] In January 2026 it also allowed Rep. Mike Bost's lawsuit against Illinois's mail ballot policy to go forward.[4] At argument in March, the justices appeared ready to restrict late-arriving ballots,[5][6] but the final ruling went the other way.[1] President Donald Trump's push to limit mail voting is followed in a related arc.
