Human Rights and Global Wrongs

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With the 2026 midterm elections just four months away, the Supreme Court upheld a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted if they are postmarked by election day and received within five days thereafter. The court’s 5-4 ruling in Watson v. Republican National Committee leaves in place voting procedures in several states across the country.

“Good news rarely comes out of this Supreme Court, but [this] ruling is a win for our democracy,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson told the Washington Post. Common Cause President Virginia Kase Solomón praised the decision because voters “shouldn’t lose their voice because of mail delays outside their control.”

Roughly 30 states, including Mississippi, allow the counting of mail-in ballots if they are mailed by Election Day but received later. As the amicus brief filed by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the NAACP, and other groups explains: “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.”

Had the Supreme Court ruled the other way, it would have upended voting in the midterm elections. Voting has been ongoing in several places around the country.

Amy Coney Barrett authored the majority opinion, joined by Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Chief Justice John Roberts.

Supreme Court Is Poised to Gut Remaining Protections of the Voting Rights Act

The Elections Clause of the Constitution empowers state legislatures to “prescrib[e]” the “Times, Places and Manner of holding” congressional elections and Congress can “override” most of those choices. But Barrett notes that the “responsibility for the mechanics of congressional elections” belongs to the........

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