GOP Urges Supreme Court to Halt Counting of Late-Arriving Mail Ballots
Republican lawmakers and election integrity advocates are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step into a growing national dispute over mail-in voting, pressing the justices to prohibit states from counting ballots that arrive after Election Day—even if those ballots are later deemed valid under state law.
In a petition filed Monday, the coalition called on the high court to block several states from tallying ballots submitted outside statutory deadlines or without complying with legislatively mandated procedures. The practice, they argue, erodes public confidence in elections and violates core constitutional principles. The filing was first reported by Democracy Docket.
“Most Americans remember a time when results came quickly after election day,” the committee wrote. “Each election cycle dims that memory as States experiment with novel ballot-handling rules. One of those experiments is the prolonged receipt of mail ballots — three, five, fourteen, or even more days after election day.”
The Republican National Committee emphasized that extending ballot receipt deadlines beyond Election Day opens the door to disorder and abuse. According to the filing, counting ballots that continue to arrive after polls close fuels mistrust and raises the specter of manipulation.
“These post-election receipt deadlines invite ‘the chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the results of an election,’” the RNC wrote. “It’s hard to blame Americans for those suspicions when some States produce quick results, while others take days to even know how many ballots need to be counted. When news anchors remind voters, ‘It’s not over yet,’ they’re right under any ordinary understanding. As long as ballots are still coming in, the election isn’t over.”
The request arrives amid a broader wave of litigation over mail-in voting rules—conflicts that intensified during and after the 2020 and 2024 election cycles. Divergent state standards and aggressive court interventions have fueled partisan battles across the country, with conservatives warning that election laws passed by legislatures are being rewritten by judges and bureaucrats.
Supporters of the petition argue that clear, uniform standards are essential to ensure equal treatment of ballots nationwide and to restore trust in the electoral system. They maintain that in several instances, state courts and election administrators have unilaterally expanded ballot acceptance rules beyond what elected lawmakers authorized.
Opponents, including civil rights organizations and voting rights groups, contend that enforcing strict deadlines could disenfranchise voters and insist that states should retain broad discretion over how they administer elections.
The Supreme Court has not yet announced whether it will hear the case or establish a briefing schedule. However, with lower courts issuing conflicting rulings in similar disputes, legal analysts say the justices could be forced to act ahead of upcoming primaries and general elections later this year.
The filing also highlights a long-simmering national debate over the balance between voter access and the rule of law—an issue that has become central to election policy fights in Congress and state legislatures.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) recently revisited the 2020 election, pointing to what he described as legally dubious expansions of mail-in voting in several Democrat-led states during the COVID pandemic.
“We had three House Republican candidates who were ahead on election day in the last election cycle, and every time a new tranche of ballots came in, they just magically whittled away until their leads were lost, and no series of ballots that were counted after election day were our candidates ahead on any of those counts,” Johnson told reporters. “It just looks on its face to be fraudulent.”
In its brief, the RNC further argued that the Constitution itself establishes an Election Day—singular and finite—when the electoral process must conclude.
“The election-day statutes govern when States must close the ballot box, not when voters must make their selection,” the brief states. “That’s why contemporary dictionaries define ‘election’ as a public process facilitated by the State, and it’s why the statutes regulate States, not voters.”