Blog | Mail-In Ballot Grace Periods in Hands of SCOTUS in Mississippi Case Watson v. RNC
On March 23, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court heard Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case that will determine if states can continue to decide for themselves whether to count absentee ballots that were timely cast, but received within a short period after election day for elections that include candidates running for federal office. The case focuses on a Mississippi statute that allows mail-in absentee ballots postmarked on or before election day to be counted so long as they are received by election officials within 5 business days after the election. Miss. Code § 23-15-637(1)(a). The legal argument boils down to whether federal law establishing the Tuesday following the first Monday in November as election day for federal offices (2 U.S.C. § 7; 2 U.S.C. § 1; 3 U.S.C. § 1), preempts state statutes that allow absentee ballots received after election day to be counted.
What’s at Stake?
Mississippi and 30 other states have a grace period for all or certain voters. This lawsuit was brought by partisan groups, the Mississippi Republican Party and the Republican National Committee, seeking to disenfranchise voters whose mail-in ballots arrived late through no fault of their own. The harms will fall disproportionately on voters who rely on absentee voting, including those with disabilities, older voters, rural voters, military and overseas voters and more. Although the case may not have a direct impact on Wisconsin, which does not have such a grace period and permits ballots to be dropped off at polls and ballot boxes on election day, the case is one of many recent attacks on voting that are designed to undermine faith in state election administration and absentee ballots. The cases would also make it harder for states to take emergency actions due to natural disasters or pandemics, for instance.
The Right to Vote and State Authority to Regulate Elections is Under Broad Attack
The Supreme Court is not making this decision in a vacuum. It comes at a time when the right to vote—one of the most precious and foundational of Americans’ constitutional rights—and state regulation of voting, which is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, face an onslaught of attacks. At the federal level, attempts to restrict the right to vote are numerous: the SAVE Act, the SAVE America Act, the Make Elections Great Again (MEGA) Act, and President Trump’s executive orders on documentary proof of citizenship for voting registration and restrictions on mail-in and absentee ballots are just a few of the most recent examples.
And here in Wisconsin, we see a continuation of proactive efforts begun more than a decade ago—after the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark rulings rejecting challenges to strict voter ID requirements (Crawford v. Marion County Election Board) and significantly impairing the efficacy of the Voting Rights Act (Shelby County v. Holder)—to make voting more difficult. This has been, unfortunately, paired with a general reticence to act on legislation to improve the electoral process. For example, during the 2025-26 legislative session alone bills were introduced to ban the use of secure absentee ballot drop boxes by localities (AB 560) and to require biannual citizenship audits of the state voter registration list and documentary proof of citizenship from any registered voter flagged as a noncitizen using the federal government’s faulty SAVE system (AB 595). And bills to improve election access and procedure either never received even a public hearing (see, for example, AB 535 regarding polling place accessibility, AB 800 regarding early processing of absentee ballots, and AB 920 regarding automatic voter registration) or were passed by the Assembly but not the Senate (see, for example, AB 207, which would have improved the clarity of information provided to voters about proposed constitutional amendments, and AB 312, which would have required municipalities to provide a minimum number of in-person absentee voting hours).
Although the Supreme Court’s decision in Watson might not directly impact current Wisconsin law, states remain vulnerable to federal preemption and sustained efforts of national, and local, political actors discouraging voters from casting their ballots.
Case Designed to Undermine Faith in the Electoral System
These efforts to undermine faith in the electoral process and to make access to the polls more difficult fly in the face of Wisconsin’s history of venerating the right to vote and supporting access to the polls. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has long understood that the “right to vote … [is] as sacred as any other right—and in some respects more so, since the safety of the latter is dependable on the former.” (State ex rel. McGrael v. Phelps) In other words, free and equal opportunity to cast a ballot is the foundation upon which the preservation of all other rights, and democracy itself, is built—a truism recognized in Wisconsin since statehood. Wisconsin should be proud that it was only the second state in the nation to adopt the use of absentee ballots, ensuring that Civil War soldiers were not disenfranchised as they fought far from home to maintain the Union. Preserving and protecting the right to vote is core to who we are as Wisconsinites, and efforts to undermine that right should be universally rejected as offensive.
Ruling Could Preclude Emergency Actions Taken by States
Although Wisconsin law does not currently permit absentee ballots postmarked before but received after election day to be counted, a U.S. Supreme Court decision concluding that counting such ballots violates federal law could disenfranchise voters in emergency situations. In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, a Wisconsin federal trial court issued an injunction that, in part, required clerks to count absentee ballots postmarked on or before election day and received up to six days after election day. The day before the April 7, 2020 election, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed that portion of the trial court’s order to remain in effect. Other states have taken emergency actions related to hurricanes and other natural disasters.
For the subsequent November 2020 election, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to allow the counting of absentee ballots received after election day, but did so based on the conclusion that federal courts do not have the authority to unilaterally change state election laws, especially so close to election day. The Court left open the option, as Justice Kavanaugh acknowledged in his concurrence, for states to modify their own election statutes to allow for such delayed receipt and counting. This leaves states, including Wisconsin, with the flexibility to make prudent and necessary changes to state election law in response to emergency circumstances. Should the U.S. Supreme Court decide that federal law bars the counting of absentee ballots received after election day, the opportunity for states to allow delayed receipt and counting of absentee ballots cast in federal elections during an emergency would be foreclosed.
***
Although a decision in Watson v. RNC is not likely to immediately impact Wisconsin law, it is representative of the widespread attacks on voting our country is currently experiencing and could perpetuate the false narrative that voting by absentee ballot is inherently fraudulent. This narrative is used to justify efforts by actors around the country—and right here in Wisconsin—to undermine and restrict the right to vote. These efforts are harmful to everyone, including all Wisconsinites.
By: Rachel Snyder, Policy Counsel. April 17, 2026.