Overview: Summary: The US Supreme Court is set to rule on a case that threatens the grace period associated with mail-in ballot process, which allows ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five business days afterward to still be counted in the election results. If the Court rules against the grace period for mail-in votes, hundreds of thousands of ballots will be impacted nationally in the upcoming November election and voting rules in several states will be required to change, affecting military and overseas voters, older voters, and rural voters the most. The NAACP has filed a legal challenge to another election-related, voter-suppressing initiative, President Donald Trump’s Executive Order from March 31, 2026.
S. E. Williams
We are still counting votes from the June 2nd Primary—many of them mail ballots—even as the Supreme Court prepares to rule on the mail-in ballot process.
Many of you may be unaware that in early June, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case threatening the grace period associated with mail in ballot process.
The case in question, Watson v. Republican National Committee, involves the challenge to a Mississippi statute that allows ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five business days afterward, to still be counted in the election results. More than a dozen states, including California, have similar laws.
The Supreme Court’s (Court) decision is due any day between now and July 4. Widespread reports indicate that states across the nation are preparing for how they will proceed ith future elections if the justices uphold the challenge. CBS News reports that legal analysts say the Court appears most likely to rule that “only ballots physically in the hands of the Registrar of Voters on Election Day” can be counted for federal races.
Using California’s 2024 election results as a baseline, approximately 400,000 ballots that year were postmarked by Election Day and successfully received during the state’s seven-day grace period. This represents about 2.5% of all CA ballots cast that year.
If the Supreme Court rules against the grace period for mail-in votes, hundreds of thousands of ballots will be impacted nationally in the upcoming November election and voting rules in several states will be required to change.
The impact, of course, will be felt most severely by military and and overseas voters, older voters, and rural voters. All of these groups rely heavily on mail-in ballots. Results indicate about 905,000 overseas citizens and roughly 40% of voters over 65 voted by mail in 2024 according to govfacts.org. Advocates of retaining the grace period argue its elimination could disenfranchise these groups of voters if there is a postal service delay in ballot deliveries.
CA will be especially impacted because although not all registered voters in the state choose to use mail-in ballots, since the COVID-19 pandemic all of the state’s registered voters receive mail-in ballots.
If changed the grace period is eliminated it is “[G]onna preclude hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans from casting ballots every two years, and that would be an unfortunate consequence I think,” said legislative analyst Chris Micheli in a recent interview.
While California and the nation aw no aits the Court’s decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee, the NAACP has filed the first legal challenge to another election related, voter suppressing initiative, President Donald Trump’s Executive Order from March 31, 2026.
The suit claims the order titled “Ensuring Citizenship Verification and Integrity in Federal Elections,” takes power from the states and congress to regulate federal elections and gives to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) veto power over who can vote. It further seeks to direct an independent agency—the U.S. Postal Service—to block election mail to and from eligible registered voters, while also instructing the Department of Justice to prosecute state and local election officials who permit mail-in voting by individuals not on DHS’ approved list.
The presidential order is just one more in a plethora of attacks against voting rights and access to the ballot by the Trump administration and MAGA enthused governors around the nation.
The NAACP was joined in its suit against the president by the Legal Defense Fund (LDF) and Public Citizen Litigation Group.
The complainants argue Trump’s rule not only violates a legally binding settlement and federal law, it creates barriers that are clearly arbitrary and could disenfranchise Black voters and millions of other eligible voters. Black are already at higher risk of voting rights discrimination. In addition, the suit further highlights concerns these changes are unlawful, politically motivated and may ultimately impact election integrity by “creating confusion and suppressing participation.”
WIth all of this in our faces, a backdoor take down of the grace period has really already occurred.
Late last year, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) noted that postmarks may no longer reflect the date a piece of mail was actually dropped off. Postmarks are now being applied when mail is processed at a regional facility. This may not happen until days after mail is placed in a mailbox, hand delivered to your local post office or handed to a letter carrier.
Although reports suggest that for Californians, the risk of significant delays is lower than in more rural states, in reality, the risk is not zero. Also, projections indicate rural and inland counties like those in the IE may be most affected.
What this means in the final analysis is that if you drop your ballot in a mailbox on election day, it may not be postmarked until after election day. This no makes it ineligible under CA law.
In an interview with the California PTA in late April, CA Secretary of State Shirley Weber proclaimed the change “undermines vote-by-mail voting, in turn undermining California and other elections.”
Although Trump has fallen out of favor ith his previous and possibly current heads of the USPS, he has the power of appointment to the position. So, it comes as no surprise that the USPS has taken this back door approach to voter suppression by increasing the potential for mail-in ballots to be postmarked after Election Day.
These actions are added to the nation’s groWing list of actions at the federal and state levels aimed at suppressing and disenfranchising voters in order for the Republican Party to maintain power and control.
For America to remain a free and open democracy in quest of transparency, this cannot stand.
Of course, this is just my opinion. I’m keeping it real.