The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Sunday, June 29, to uphold a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count mail-in ballots postmarked by Election Day but received as many as five days after — a decision that came over Republican opposition.
The case centered on whether late-arriving ballots, so long as they’re postmarked on time, must be accepted. Mississippi’s law says yes. The GOP challenged it. The Court disagreed.
The ruling doesn’t change Maine election law directly — but it does settle a legal question that Republican-backed challenges have pushed in several states: whether a postmark-by-Election-Day standard is constitutionally permissible. The answer, as of Sunday, is that it is.
What the ruling doesn’t answer is how far states can push grace periods beyond five days — or whether similar challenges are already queued up elsewhere. The Court’s opinion, released Sunday, was not immediately available in full detail.
