Supreme Court revives GOP congressman’s challenge to late-arriving mail ballot law

The Supreme Court handed a significant victory to Republican lawmakers on Wednesday by reviving a challenge to an Illinois law that allows the counting of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, a practice that has been repeatedly criticized by former President Donald Trump.

In a 7-2 decision, the high court ruled that political candidates have the legal standing to challenge vote-counting rules, even when they cannot demonstrate that those rules affected the outcome of their specific races. The ruling opens a new avenue for election-related litigation that could reshape mail-in voting practices across the country.

“Win or lose, candidates suffer when the process departs from the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. The court did not rule on the legality of counting late-arriving mail-in ballots themselves, but will address this broader issue in a separate case later this spring.

The case centered on a challenge brought by Republican Representative Mike Bost of Illinois and two other candidates who contested an Illinois law that allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted if they arrive within 14 days afterward. Lower courts had dismissed Bost’s lawsuit, ruling that he lacked legal standing since the late-arriving ballots had minimal impact on his electoral victory.

Roberts argued that requiring candidates to prove a rule could affect their election outcome before challenging its legality would risk drawing courts into the electoral process during high-pressure periods immediately preceding or following elections.

The decision reflects growing tensions over mail-in voting rules, which expanded significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic and have since become a polarizing issue along partisan lines. Currently, fourteen states and the District of Columbia accept mail ballots received after Election Day, provided they are postmarked on or before that date, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The ruling wasn’t unanimous within the conservative majority. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, joined by Justice Elena Kagan, concurred with the outcome but expressed concerns about the scope of the court’s decision. Barrett wrote that she “cannot join the Court’s creation of a bespoke standing rule for candidates. Elections are important, but so are many things in life.”

In a sharply worded dissent, Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor warned that the majority’s ruling “opens the floodgates to exactly the type of troubling election-related litigation the Court purportedly wants to avoid.” Their dissent signals concern that the decision could lead to a wave of lawsuits challenging various election procedures.

Illinois officials had argued that allowing Bost’s lawsuit to proceed would “cause chaos” by triggering increased litigation around elections. The Trump administration, however, had filed a brief supporting Bost’s position, reflecting the former president’s ongoing critique of extended ballot counting periods.

The Supreme Court’s decision comes amid heightened national attention on election administration as the country approaches the 2024 presidential election. The ruling doesn’t invalidate Illinois’ law or similar provisions in other states, but it removes a significant procedural hurdle for candidates seeking to challenge such laws.

Election law experts suggest this case could be just the beginning of more intensive judicial scrutiny of state election procedures, particularly those involving mail-in ballots. The court’s forthcoming case on late-arriving mail ballots, expected later this spring, could have even more far-reaching implications for how states administer elections.

The ruling highlights the Supreme Court’s increasingly central role in resolving election-related disputes, a trend that has accelerated since the contested 2000 presidential election and gained further momentum following the 2020 election.