The Column: SCOTUS Edition
Welcome to a special edition of The Column from the Pillars of the Community team. Read on for Pillars of the Community co-chairs Bob Bauer and Ben Ginsberg’s analysis of yesterday’s Supreme Court decision on the receipt of mail-in ballots.
WATSON V. RNC
Yesterday, the Supreme Court rejected a challenge to state election laws that permit mail-in ballots postmarked on or before Election Day (set by federal law for federal elections as the first Tuesday in November) to be counted for a certain number of days thereafter. The case in question concerned Mississippi state law, which provides for the counting of such ballots to occur for up to 5 days after Election Day.
In a nutshell, the Republican Party with strong support from the Trump administration argued that lawful voting by Election Day required absentee ballots to be both cast by Election Day and received no later than Election Day by election officials. The Court, in an opinion authored for a 5-4 majority by Justice Barrett, disagreed. The Court reads federal election day statutes to refer to the day on which electors make their choice: “The electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received.” The court relied on dictionary definitions, historical precedent, and other evidence of congressional intent, such as the leeway for the receipt of ballots provided to military and overseas voters.
We will have more to say about this decision in our regular newsletter. Two points of particular interest bear mention here:
First, the Court reached its decision against the backdrop of the constitutional allocation of authority for setting election law rules. Citing the constitutional text and the Federalist Papers, the Court states at the outset of the opinion that “the Constitution lodges power over congressional elections in state legislatures ‘primarily’ and in Congress ‘ultimately’.” The President by executive order sought to intervene in this issue by arguing that federal law barred the “postmark rule” adopted by Mississippi and other states. On that basis, he sought to enforce his reading of the law by directing the Attorney General to take enforcement action against states that have adopted the rule and by conditioning the availability of federal election administration support funding on states’ compliance with his position. The Court makes it clear that presidents do not have the constitutional authority to impose federal election rules.
Second, the Court also discusses the importance of an interpretation consistent with “the way modern elections work.” It goes on to say that rejection of states’ postmark rules would significantly complicate the work of election officials, and, on that point, it cites a “friend of the court” brief filed on behalf of local election officials. This citation to the views of election officials importantly reflects the weight that this Court, and the lower courts, attach to the views of professional election administrators.
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