EJS Among Amici in Brief Filed by Lawyers’ Committee
Today the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the right of states to decide whether to count ballots postmarked before or on Election Day but received after Election Day. The majority opinion in the 5-4 decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee (PDF) was authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson joining.
The Equal Justice Society is one of the amici curiae that submitted a brief (PDF) by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law in support of Mississippi’s law that counts ballots mailed by but received within five days after Election Day. EJS’s co-amici include NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund (AALDEF), National Urban League, NAACP, and the Mississippi State Conference of the NAACP.
“Today’s decision helps ensure that Black voters and other voters of color, voters with disabilities, and millions of other Americans who mail in their ballot on time by or before Election Day will have their vote counted and not canceled because of a delay in the mail,” said Mona Tawatao, EJS Legal Director.
“This ruling has implications far beyond Mississippi as many other states, including California, have similar election laws. While this is an important victory, it reminds us that our rights are fragile and that we must continue to fight for and rightly restore and build on the rights we have lost if we want to see the multiracial multicultural democracy our country should be.”
From the brief: “A study of the 2024 election found that, in 32 states, absentee voting accounted for approximately 31 percent of votes cast, with nearly 2 million Black voters, nearly 3 million Asian voters, and over 4 million Hispanic voters in those states relying on mail-in voting to participate in the election.”
The states and territories that permit a limited grace period to all eligible voters include Alaska, California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. There are 29 states that accept some military and overseas ballots received after Election Day.
Read the release from the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.