WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to rule in favor of the Republican National Committee that all ballots must be received on Election Day to be counted.
In a case argued Monday, the RNC challenges a Mississipi law that allows ballots postmarked on or before Election Day to arrive up to five days later.
Alaska accepts postmarked ballots that arrive up to 10 days after Election Day – 15 days if mailed from overseas. And, for Alaska, the implications of the Supreme Court ruling could extend beyond mailed ballots.
The RNC case could be consequential for the midterm elections, when control of Congress is at stake. While people of both parties vote by mail, more permissive rules for it are perceived to help Democrats, especially since President Trump rails against the practice.
U.S. Solicitor General John Sauer argued that counting ballots that arrive late violates the federal law that sets the Tuesday following the first Monday of November as Election Day for the whole country.
“All ballots have to be received and the ballot box has to close on Election Day,” he said.
In Alaska’s last general election, more than 50,000 ballots arrived by mail. The Division of Elections couldn’t immediately say how many of those arrived in the 10 days after Election Day but it appears to be many thousand.
Sometimes, even Alaska ballots cast in person on Election Day aren’t received the same day. The village of Atqasuk , on the North Slope, tried to phone in its 2024 election results but couldn’t get through to the Division of Elections. The mailed ballots arrived nine days later.
Alaska Attorney General Stephen Cox cited the Atqasuk episode in a friend-of-court brief he filed in the Mississippi case.
“Alaska asks this Court to consider how its rule here will apply in all States—including Alaska, where ‘receiving’ a ballot isn’t always as simple as walking to a precinct or driving a few hours to pick up a ballot box,” he wrote.
Pat Redmond, co-president of the Alaska League of Women Voters, said Alaska has a secure process for mailed ballots. She believes the current deadline is fair and allows remote places necessary time to deliver their ballots.
“Not every place has electronic transmission,” said Redmond, who has also served as an election worker. If all ballots have to be in on Election Day “then those people, their ballots don't count, and that's disenfranchising people.”
Attorney Scott Stewart, defending Mississippi’s ballot deadline, told the justices that it’s wrong for the Trump administration to suggest that late-arriving ballots are subject to fraud.
“Obviously, they've sounded the anti-fraud theme,” Stewart said. “They haven't cited a single example of fraud from post-Election Day ballot receipts.”
Late-counted ballots have swung several statewide contests in Alaska.
•The 2020 ballot measure creating Alaska’s ranked choice voting system and open primaries was losing on election night but ultimately won.
•Post-Election Day counts gave Sen. Lisa Murkowski the lead over challenger Kelly Tshibaka in 2022, and Murkowski’s lead grew further after second- and third-choice votes were tallied.
•In 2024, a measure to repeal ranked choice voting was ahead on election night but narrowly lost in later counts.
Late-counted ballots typically include an unknown number of ballots that arrived before Election Day, too. Still, despite no evidence of wrongdoing, supporters of the losing campaign have sometimes alleged fraud.
The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the Mississippi case this summer. An attorney for the Republican National Committee told the justices a June ruling would allow states to change their ballot rules in time for the November election.