Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

The Supreme Court shot down a fringe attack on American elections Monday, rejecting an effort to nullify mail ballots that are cast by Election Day but arrive shortly thereafter. About 30 states currently count these ballots, and by a 5–4 vote, the justices let them continue to do so. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s majority opinion in Watson v. RNC was straightforward: Congress has never passed a law prohibiting this practice, and until it does, states have constitutional authority to allow it.

Remarkably, four justices—Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—dissented from that holding. Alito’s opinion for this far-right bloc insisted that Congress covertly outlawed late-arriving ballots when it enshrined the date of federal elections into law. (It did no such thing.) He further fanned the flames of Donald Trump’s fever-dream conspiracy theories, writing that the majority’s decision “creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public’s confidence in election integrity.” Instances of “voter fraud,” he insisted, “are not hard to come by,” and Monday’s decision will allow for “voter manipulation.” The ruling “will only exacerbate voters’ distrust” by removing a “hurdle for bad actors seeking to stuff ballot boxes when early election results suggest a tight race.”

On a pop-up bonus episode of Amicus for Slate Plus members, co-hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discussed........

© Slate