Supreme Court Allows Counting of Late Ballots

The Supreme Court Eviscerates the Very Notion of Election Day
Happy 250th Birthday, America!

The Supreme Court Eviscerates the Very Notion of Election Day

In an astonishing 5–4 decision in our landmark election integrity case, the Supreme Court failed to uphold the Election Day established by federal law and declined to require states to reject ballots that arrive after Election Day.

We represented the Libertarian Party of Mississippi before the court, arguing that it should enforce Election Day and prohibit the counting of ballots that arrive days after Election Day (Watson v. Republican National Committee et al. (No. 24-1260)) (Libertarian Party of Mississippi v. Wetzel et al. (No. 1:24-cv-00037)). Fitton stated:

The Supreme Court’s decision further eviscerates the very notion of Election Day and threatens to make a mess for our nation’s already stressed federal elections. The decision is contrary to the plain words of federal law establishing Election Day, invites significant voter fraud, and will further undermine voter confidence in elections that could now regularly take months to resolve.

As Justice Alito’s dissent declared:

Today’s decision is inconsistent with the terms of the election-day statutes, contemporary election-law principles, two centuries of historical practice, and the case law on the question presented. It opens up and fails to resolve a host of questions for state election officials and courts. And it creates a serious risk of further undermining public confidence in our elections and our system of self-government.

This decision threatens to cause chaos in congressional and presidential elections. Congress can and should step in to correct the Supreme Court’s errant decision and make clear that, at the very least, all ballots MUST be received by Election Day in order to be counted.

We took the lead in trying to uphold Election Day at the Supreme Court, and we remain committed to upholding the law and protecting voters from election practices that encourage fraud and chaos.

We are a national leader in election integrity and voting rights litigation, with a record of successful lawsuits enforcing constitutional redistricting standards and cleaning voter rolls nationwide.

Earlier this year we earned a victory at the Supreme Court upholding the right of candidates to challenge ballot counting rules that allowed the counting of late-arriving ballots. In a 7-2 decision, the Court held that Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors had standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day to be counted.

Our lawsuits and legal actions have caused the removal of six million ineligible names from voter lists nationwide.

Our election law efforts are led by Senior Attorney Robert Popper, who previously served in the Voting Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where he managed voting rights investigations and litigation across dozens of states.

Russell Nobile, is a senior attorney at Judicial Watch. His practice focuses on election integrity, civil rights, constitutional law, and matters involving official misconduct. He has appeared in federal and state courts nationwide, including the U.S. Supreme Court, and has testified before the U.S. House and Senate Judiciary Committees, as well as other committees.

Eric Lee is an attorney at Judicial Watch, where he focuses on enforcing federal and state laws that promote transparency and integrity in the electoral process. Eric graduated with his B.A. from St. Mary’s College of Maryland and received his J.D. from the University of Maryland School of Law. He is licensed to practice in California, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and in federal courts in Illinois and Colorado.

Paul D. Clement, James Y. Xi, and Philip Hammersley of Clement and Murphy PLLC assisted Judicial Watch in this case. Clement, who has argued more than 100 cases before the Supreme Court, is former solicitor general under President George W. Bush from 2005-2008 and is widely regarded as among the top Supreme Court litigators.

In May 2026, we filed suit on behalf of a California political candidate and a state political party against the State of California due to its failure to maintain accurate voter rolls as required by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA)(Don Wagner et al. v. Shirley N. Weber, in her official capacity as California Secretary of State (No. 8:26-cv-01263)). The lawsuit alleges, based on admissions in prior Judicial Watch litigation, that 873,092 voter registrations have remained continuously inactive for at least three federal elections, and some for much longer.

Colorado recently removed 372,000 ineligible voter names thanks to a Judicial Watch lawsuit and settlement addressing the state’s compliance with federal voter list maintenance requirements.

In Kentucky, state election board officials reported that “roughly 735,000 ineligible voter registrations” have been removed from voter rolls, as part of a 2018 consent decree settling a Judicial Watch lawsuit.

As part of its 2022 settlement, New York City alone has removed 918,139 ineligible names from its rolls: data show 477,056 removals between March 2023 and February 2025, which is in addition to the 441,083 previously reported removals.

Our legal pressure also resulted in election roll clean-ups in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio.

In January 2026, in a historic case we filed, the Supreme Court decided 7-2 in favor of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors who were before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.

A federal court has ruled that our lawsuit in Illinois to force the cleaning of voter rolls may proceed.

Happy 250th Birthday, America!

On July 4, 1776, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, severing the political ties that bound the 13 American colonies to Great Britain and giving birth to the United States of America.

The 56 men who signed the Declaration understood the extraordinary risks they were taking. By affixing their names to the document, they were committing what the British Crown considered an act of treason—a crime punishable by death.

The struggle for independence came at a terrible cost. During the eight-year Revolutionary War, an estimated 25,534 American service members lost their lives in the fight for liberty.

Years later, in a July 1811 letter to John Adams, Benjamin Rush recalled the solemn mood in the room as the delegates signed the Declaration:

Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress, to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants? The Silence & the gloom of the morning were interrupted I well recollect only for a moment by Col. Harrison of Virginia who said to Mr. Gerry at the table, “I shall have a great advantage over you Mr. Gerry when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.” This Speech procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the Solemnity with which the whole business was conducted.

Their example is a call to all of us today to stand up for freedom, whatever the cost to us personally. Following is the full text of the Declaration. Take time to read it and then give it to your children to read.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Until next week,

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/supreme-court-allows-counting-of-late-ballots/