Lawyers for the Republican and Libertarian parties, as well as Trump's administration, are asking the justices to affirm an appellate ruling that struck down a Mississippi law allowing ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of the election and are postmarked by Election Day.
Justice Samuel Alito wondered about the appearance of fraud in situations where “a big stash of ballots” that arrive late “radically flipped” an election.
Defending the state law, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart pointed out that the Trump administration and its allies in the case have yet to submit a single case of fraud due to late-arriving mail ballots.
Last year, Trump signed an executive order on elections that aims to require votes to be “cast and received” by Election Day. The order has been blocked in pending court challenges.
At the same time, four Republican-dominated states — Ohio, Kansas, North Dakota and Utah — eliminated grace periods last year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures and Voting Rights Lab.
The issue at the Supreme Court is whether federal law sets a single Election Day that requires ballots to be both cast by voters and received by state officials.
In striking down Mississippi's grace period, Judge Andrew Oldham of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the state law allowing the late-arriving ballots to be counted violated federal law.
Oldham and the other two judges who joined the unanimous ruling, James Ho and Stuart Kyle Duncan, all were appointed by Trump during his first term.
