WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 on June 29, 2026, that election officials may count mail-in ballots received up to five days after Election Day if they were postmarked by then. The decision upheld a Mississippi law permitting the practice.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent.

"[T]he election-day statutes require the electorate's choice to be made on election day. That occurs so long as election day is the deadline for individuals to vote—as it is in Mississippi," Barrett wrote. She added, "But the election-day statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, so they do not prevent Mississippi from counting ballots postmarked before election day yet received afterward."

Barrett noted that the Framers recognized the difficulty of crafting election laws "applicable to every probable change in the situation of the country." She wrote that they decided "a discretionary power over elections" needed to be lodged "somewhere." "Suffice it to say, that power was not lodged in this Court," Barrett stated. "The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose."

Alito wrote that the "majority's holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans' confidence in election integrity."

The Republican National Committee brought the legal challenge, joined by the Libertarian Party of Mississippi. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit had ruled in October 2024 that federal law preempts the state's statute, while a U.S. district court had previously upheld the five-day deadline.

Eighteen states and territories have mail ballot grace periods similar to Mississippi's, including California, Illinois, New York, and Texas. Fourteen states and the District of Columbia allow election officials to count mail ballots postmarked by Election Day but received later. Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia allow at least some military and overseas ballots to be received after Election Day.

In 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order requiring all votes to be received by Election Day during federal elections, but lower courts blocked the order. Washington Secretary of State Steve Hobbs stated that during the 2024 election, more than 250,000 ballots postmarked on time arrived after Election Day. "Had this rule been in effect, those voices would have been silenced, especially in rural areas where mail delivery can take longer," Hobbs said.