ALASKA — A majority of U.S. Supreme Court justices appear to be leaning toward barring states from counting mail ballots that arrive after Election Day, a ruling that would change voting laws in Alaska and more than a dozen other states. The court could issue its decision this summer, approximately two months before Alaska's primaries.

Alaska currently allows ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted for up to ten days afterward. A ban on counting late-arriving ballots could prevent hundreds of voters in Kodiak Island Borough's distant villages and thousands of voters across remote areas of the state from having their ballots counted. Many remote communities in Alaska are disconnected from the state highway system and sometimes lack polling locations, and some polling sites sometimes lack sufficient staff to open.

The case before the court challenges a five-business-day grace period for counting late-arriving ballots in Mississippi. The Republican National Committee brought the case, which is backed by the Trump administration.

In Kodiak Island Borough, off the coast of southwest Alaska, mail is delivered by plane, and mailing a ballot takes at least two days if storms ground air traffic. "This matters a lot in a place like Kodiak, because absentee voting, it's not a convenience here," Kodiak Island Borough Mayor Jared Griffin said. "It's going to really hurt those rural, remote voters."

Alaska Natives make up roughly twenty percent of the state's electorate, and many live in rural villages that often experience delays in receiving and returning ballots. Late-arriving ballots from rural and Native communities arrive at a rate two to three times higher than those from mainly urban and non-Native areas, according to a brief filed to the Supreme Court by Native organizations. In Alaska House District 38, nearly eighty percent of absentee ballots arrived after Election Day.

The potential ruling carries implications for Alaska's Senate race, which could determine control of the U.S. Senate. Former Representative Mary Peltola and Senator Dan Sullivan are competing in that contest. In the November 2022 election, Peltola won the vast majority of precincts that were predominantly Native, according to an analysis by Split Ticket. "It would be catastrophic. It's mean-spirited," Alaska Democratic Party Chair Eric Croft said of a potential ban on counting late-arriving ballots. "It would hurt participation in rural Alaska. And Mary Peltola's very strong in her Native communities, and in the community she comes from. So I think it will hurt her."

Harry Child, a Peltola campaign spokesperson, said, "Mary believes everyone who is eligible to vote should have access to the ballot box and one-size-fits-all rules from DC rarely work for large rural states like Alaska." He added, "Whether by road, plane, or boat, we'll be reaching Alaskans where they're at and making sure they can participate in our safe and secure elections."

Alaska's Republican attorney general, Stephen Cox, asked the Supreme Court to issue clear parameters for the state in its eventual ruling but did not take sides in the case. Sullivan supports the SAVE America Act, a set of voting measures proposed by President Donald Trump and his allies that is stalled in the Senate partly due to objections from Senator Lisa Murkowski.