{"id":10812,"date":"2025-11-17T16:21:29","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:21:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=10812"},"modified":"2025-11-17T16:21:29","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T16:21:29","slug":"supreme-court-case-could-affect-2026-midterms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/?p=10812","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court Case Could Affect 2026 Midterms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Reading Time:<\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

(The Center Square) \u2013 The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that could have an effect on the 2026 midterm elections.\n<\/p>\n

Post a prayer for your state!<\/h4>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centers around a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted up to five days after an election as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. The Mississippi law was enacted in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.\n<\/p>\n

Fifteen other states and the District of Columbia have similar laws that allow domestic mail-in ballots to be received after Election Day, as long as the ballot is postmarked by the date of an election. In Illinois, mail-in ballots can be received up to 14 days after Election Day.\n<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s highest court will decide whether to uphold a ruling from the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that said ballots must be received by Election Day to be counted.\n<\/p>\n

Jason Snead, executive director of the Honest Elections Project, celebrated the court\u2019s decision to take up the mail-in ballot challenge. He said the court\u2019s decision is especially important because it will set a precedent for election law going into the 2026 midterms.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Supreme Court now has the chance to set the record straight: Federal law clearly says that ballots must be received by Election Day,\u201d Snead told the Center Square. \u201cDespite this, some states continue to allow absentee ballots to pour in days or even weeks late.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThis case gives the Supreme Court the chance to resolve that question once and for all,\u201d Snead said.\n<\/p>\n

Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said the case is an attempt to restrict voting rights in states that offer delayed mail-in ballot deadlines.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThe DNC will fight like hell in this case for the rights of Mississippians and every other citizen to make sure their voices are heard and their votes are counted,\u201d Martin said.\n<\/p>\n

Lawyers for the Republican National Committee argued that federal law sets the Tuesday after the first Monday in November as Election Day.\n<\/p>\n

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia filed a brief to the Supreme Court that argued states should have the ability to set rules over the receipt of ballots. The states said mail-in ballot deadlines give voters a greater opportunity to cast their ballots.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cStates have the constitutional authority to make individualized judgments on how best to receive and count votes in federal elections,\u201d representatives for the state wrote.\n<\/p>\n

While most states require mail-in ballots to be postmarked by Election Day to be received, Snead said the practice of postmarking has diminished with prepaid postage. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia use\u00a0prepaid<\/strong>\u00a0postage for mail-in ballots.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of that prepaid postage isn\u2019t postmarked because the whole point of a postmark is to cancel a stamp,\u201d Snead said.\n<\/p>\n

Snead said most states require explicit evidence that a ballot was cast after the date of an election, otherwise they will be counted in vote totals.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cYou wind up in a situation where somebody could commit fraud and get away with it or somebody could follow the law and still have their ballot thrown out,\u201d Snead said. \u201cWe can\u2019t just assume that because we put a rule down on paper that it actually means it\u2019s going to be followed in practice.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s decision to hear Watson v. RNC is particularly relevant because of its implications for the midterm elections. The\u00a0Purcell principle<\/strong>\u00a0is a standard that asks courts not to change election rules during the period of time an election takes place or just prior to the beginning of an election.\n<\/p>\n

Snead said the court hearing this case does not interfere with the 2026 midterm elections because it will most likely be decided in June or July 2026, months before the general election takes place.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that you\u2019d probably be outside the Purcell window for something like this,\u201d Snead said. \u201cThis gives [the Supreme Court] freedom to weigh the merits of the argument and come to a conclusion outside the context of a particular or contentious election.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Snead said a decision in the case could give uniformity to election laws instead of having states issue different policies.\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat you want to see is that at the end of the voting period, the close of polls on Election Day, you know how many votes have been cast,\u201d Snead said. \u201cThe absolute maximum number of ballots should be set when the polls close for all forms of voting.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

How are you praying for the Supreme Court and midterm elections? Share your prayers and scriptures below.<\/h4>\n

(Excerpt from The Center Square. Photo Credit: imenachi\/Getty Images via Canva Teams)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reading Time: 3 minutes (The Center Square) \u2013 The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to take up a case that could have an effect on the 2026 midterm elections. Post a prayer for your state! \u00a0 The case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, centers around a Mississippi law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[1654,319,316,1655,421],"class_list":["post-10812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-prayer","tag-affect","tag-case","tag-court","tag-midterms","tag-supreme"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}