Tangle - SCOTUS upholds Mississippi’s late-arriving ballot law.

Episode Date: June 30, 2026

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled 5–4 to uphold a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count ballots postmarked by Election Day but received up to five days afterward. In its ruling, the Court rejected the challengers’ argument that federal statutes setting a national Election Day required ballot receipt by that day. Instead, the Court held that Election Day refers to voters choosing a candidate, which is fulfilled when voting is completed, not when ballots are received. The ruling comes four months before the 2026 midterm elections and ensures that Mississippi’s law will remain in place for the state’s elections.Ad-free podcasts are here!To listen to this podcast ad-free, and to enjoy our subscriber only premium content, go to ReadTangle.com to sign up!You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: What do you think of the decision in Watson v. Republican National Committee? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Will Kaback and audio edited and mixed by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Lindsey Knuth, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. I am your host today, senior editor, Will K back. It is the last day of June, and honestly, this month has felt pretty long to me. which I'm not complaining about, especially not in summer. I hope the same is true in July. I hope the same is true in August. I'm certainly not wishing away these warm months.

But I do imagine that if you're a Supreme Court justice or clerk or court watcher, the last week alone has probably felt like a month. And that's because the court has released what feels like a slate of front page rulings about every day for the past week or so. For us here, Atangle, this time we're a tangle, this time. of year has become known internally as our SCOTUS week, and this year is absolutely no different. Perhaps actually, it's the biggest example of a SCOTUS week that we've had so far. Yesterday, we wrote about a couple really important impactful immigration rulings that came

down on Thursday. Today, we're going to be covering the decision in Mississippi's mail-in ballot law, which surprised several court watchers and commentators who expected the court to rule differently after they did oral arguments back earlier this year. This morning also brought rulings on birthright citizenship and several other major rulings to round out the court's term. So you can expect our coverage to be in your inbox or in your podcast feed the rest of this week as we break down these rulings. There's also a little bit of breaking news on the tangle front. We have a newly minted associate editor who has joined us as of last week. Her name is Karina Pacheco, and she is making her debut today with a dissent to

my take. We're super excited to get her in the mix, even though she's starting off by disagreeing with me. It is what it is. But you can expect to see and hear more of her writing much more regularly starting today. And then later in the episode, we're going to give a look back at the only person who's ever served as both president and Supreme Court Chief Justice. And I also assume the first person to check both of those boxes and be rumored to have gotten stuck in about. You'll have to listen on to hear who we're talking about if you don't know already. All right, with that, we're off. I'm going to hand it over to John, and we'll get this edition started.

John, to you. Thanks, Will, and welcome, everybody. Here are your quick hits for today. First up, in a 63 ruling, the Supreme Court overturned President Donald Trump's executive order revoking birthright citizenship for children born to non-citizens, finding that the order violated the 14th Amendment. Separately, the Supreme Court ruled 9 to 0 that Title 9 allows states to establish separate men's and women's sports teams based on biological sex, and

six to three, that West Virginia's law banning transgender women athletes from competing on women's teams is consistent with the law. Finally, in another six-three ruling, the Supreme Court struck down coordinated campaign spending limits. Number two, President Donald Trump nominated acting Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling to serve permanently in the role. Separately, President Trump nominated Oklahoma law enforcement official Lance Schroyer to serve as a as Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Number three, the Supreme Court rejected President Trump's appeal of a $5 million civil judgment against him

in the defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll. Number four, President Trump downplayed the significance of the federal housing affordability bill passed by Congress last week, saying it is so unimportant compared to the Save America Act. The president has not indicated if or when he might sign the bill. And number five, Senator Rubin Gallego, the Democrat from Arizona, is reportedly under federal investigation for campaign finance violations linked to a whistleblower complaint that he used campaign funds to pay for vacations.

We're coming on the air because the Supreme Court has just issued a critical ruling ahead of the midterm elections. The justices are weighing in on whether states can count late-arriving mail-in ballots that were sent on time. The Supreme Court upheld state laws allowing the counting of late arriving mail-in ballots if they were postmarked by Election Day. On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled five to four to uphold a Mississippi law allowing election officials to count ballots postmarked by Election Day, but received up to five days afterward. In its ruling, the court rejected the Challenger's argument that federal statute setting a national election day required ballot receipt by that day. Instead, the court held that

Election Day refers to voters choosing a candidate, which is fulfilled when voting is completed, not when ballots are received. The ruling comes four months before the 2026 midterm elections and ensures that Mississippi's law will remain in place for the state's elections. For context, in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mississippi changed its election laws to allow officials to count mail-in ballots received up to five business days after election day, provided they were postmarked by election day. The Republican National Committee led a group challenging the ballot deadline in 2024. A district judge upheld Mississippi. but a panel of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling.

Mississippi challenged the Fifth Circuit ruling to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in March. Justice Amy Coney-Barritt delivered the court's opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice's Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson. Barrett wrote, the defining element of an election, the term used in all three federal statutes, has always been the electorate's choice of candidate. While federal law dictates when ballots must be cast, state law dictates when they must be received. She also referred to the 1986 Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act as proof that congressional election legislation has presupposed the states that have the power to set ballot receipt deadlines. Justice Samuel

Alito dissented, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch. Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined most of the dissent. Alito argued that from the nation's founding until the last few decades of the 20th century, a period that spans the enactment of all three Election Day statutes, having an election on a particular day meant completing ballot collection on that day. To illustrate his point, Alito focused on the rise of absentee voting from soldiers during the Civil War, noting that state's strict adherence to federal election day guidelines likely followed from their understanding that elections include both ballot casting and ballot receipt. On Monday, President Donald Trump criticized the Supreme Court's decision.

In light of the tremendous laws in the Supreme Court today concerning voters' rights and the fact that people's votes are allowed to be counted long after an election is over, it is more important than ever to pass the Save America Act, he wrote on Truth Social. Today, we'll take a look at what the left and writer saying about the court's ruling, and then senior editor Will Kayback will give his take. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right. First up, let's start with what the left is saying. The left broadly supports the decision, viewing it as a common sense outcome.

Some say the dissent will further fuel claims of election fraud. Others claim the ruling will turn Republicans' attention back to passing the Save America Act. In Vox, Ian Milheiser called the dissent a fringe attack on voting rates. It should go without saying that when Congress set the election day in 1845, it did not intend for literally everything involving an election to occur on that day. Prior to an election, states must determine which candidates shall appear on the ballot, print those ballots, distribute them to polling places and individual voters, register voters, and perform numerous other tasks. Many states also allow for early voting, Milhizer said.

The premise of the Republican Party's lawsuit is that the task of gathering the ballots that have already been cast is somehow special, and it must happen on election day. But there's no legal support for this position. As Justice Amy Coney-Barritt writes for herself, her three Democratic colleagues and Chief Justice Roberts, when federal law set the date for the election, it set the day when the electorate must make its choice, Milheiser wrote. Voters must actually cast their ballots by the deadline,

but the same deadline does not apply to the ministerial task of gathering all those ballots into a state office where they will be counted. In Slate, Richard L. Hassan wrote, the Supreme Court rejected a bonkers idea about voting by a five to four margin. The Supreme Court oral argument in Watson revealed that some of the more maga-friendly justices, including Justice Samuel Alito, were buying into a fever-trial. of voter fraud that could somehow justify limiting mail-in-balloting opportunities, Hassan said. And in his dissenting opinion on Watson, joined by justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas,

and Brett Kavanaugh in part, Alito pumped up fears of ballot harvester's fraud and loss of voter confidence to justify his stingy reading of the election statute. Watson is a small victory for voters, small because not many voters cast these late-ariving ballots and voters would eventually adjust to earlier ballot deadlines, Hassan wrote. The greatest significance of Watson is that the court majority, barely, rejected a bonkers reading of a federal statute on the basis of voter fraud fantasies. Had the court agreed with the RNC, it would have signaled that the court would avoid text, history, and precedent to further constrict voting. The scary part is that four justices were willing to do just that. In New York magazine, Ed Kilgore said, Supreme Court deals Trump surprised laws on election law.

Justice Alito also warns that continuing to allow post-election mail-in ballot receipt will contribute to an appearance, if not the reality, of voter fraud, Kilgort wrote. Without question, Watson will intensify Trump's already powerful obsession with the Save America Act. To be clear, the original House-past version of the legislation does not address voting by mail at all. But what Trump is calling the final version, which is stalled in the Senate, does ban post-election day receipt of mail ballots, along with no excuse voting by mail generally. It should also be noted that the furor over post-election ballot receipt is a bit of a red herring, Kilgore said.

In California, so often cited, without evidence, as the locus of post-election voting shenanigans, 2.5% of ballots arrived after election day. So the idea that states are massively stuffing ballot boxes with votes received after election day is just made up. But the war over election rules will continue without a direct intervention from SCOTUS. For now, anyway. All right, that is zipper what the left is saying, which brings us to to what the right is saying. The right largely opposes the ruling, arguing the decision

Muddy's ballot-counting rules. Some call on Congress to enact stricter election laws. Others expressed disappointment that Justice Barrett authored the majority's opinion. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the decision one of the three liberal wins from Monday. Election Day is when the electorate must make its choice, Justice Barrett writes in Watson v. Republican National Committee. She says states accepted tardy mail ballots amid World War I, while seven authorized to practice during the 1940s, the board wrote. Dissenting for four conservatives, Justice Alito argues those were short-lived outlier rules that shed little light on the original meaning of election. He focuses on voting during the

civil war and says states then didn't accept late ballots. When Congress enacted the three Election Day statutes, having the election on a particular date meant the ballots would be collected by that date. Also, what about late ballots without postmarks? If a handwritten date says Election Day, is that fine? How about votes delivered to officials a week later by partisan ballot harvester, the board asked? The majority's decision opens Pandora's box, Justice Salito says. The good news is Congress can override it by revising the Election Day laws. This would be a better push for Republicans than the doomed Save America Act. In the New York Post, Joel Pollock argued the ruling underlines the need for voter ID. The Supreme Court surprised observers Monday in

Watson versus Republican National Committee by allowing states to count ballots that arrive after Election Day. But just because something is constitutional doesn't make it right or smart, Pollock wrote. The very idea that ballots can be counted if they arrive after election day creates suspicion. Why wouldn't political campaigns just wait to see how many votes they need to make up after election night, then slip through as many ballots as they needed to make up the difference? The dissent by Justice Samuel Alito states, allowing absentee ballots to pour in over the days and weeks after Election Day, by which point preliminary election returns are being publicly reported, creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public's confidence

in election integrity. Justice Barrett acknowledges the problem, but says that policy arguments are properly directed to legislatures, not courts, Pollock said. So, it's up to the legislatures and the voters to restore trust in the American voting system. In Town Hall, Matt Vespas said, the Amy Coney-Barritt problem reared its ugly head again. Six years into her term, Barrett's record has been mixed at best, although some have called it a total disaster. She's not alone. Chief Justice Roberts also joined the liberal wing,

though his record of disappointment is a bit longer than Barrett's. It's the first time Roberts and Barrett have joined the three stooges on the left here, Vespah wrote. The Watson v. R&C ruling was the latest example, where the court ruled in a five-to-four decision that Mississippi's law on mail-in ballots does not violate federal standards on what constitutes election day. In 2025, there were rumblings that we might have an ACB problem. On immigration, she again sided with the liberal wing on whether the Trump administration had the right to deport illegal aliens under the Alien Enemies Act, Vespas said.

It's a gut punch that Watson was handed down this way, and especially disappointing that ACB would betray us like this before our 250th birthday. If you can't get your act together to mail in your ballot before election day, it shouldn't count. There's plenty of time. All right, let's head over to Will for his take. Thanks, John. All right, this is Will back here to read my take. Reasonable people can ask why we need allowances for late-ariving ballots at all. With so many voting options and so much available information about how to cast a ballot,

at what point do we put the onus on individual voters to ensure that they cast their ballot in a timely manner? Now, I've personally made a point to vote in person during early voting. in every election since I turned 18. And when this Supreme Court case surfaced, I caught myself questioning why everyone couldn't just be a bit more organized and make this a moot issue. Of course, that sentiment feels like common sense

until your vote is the one that's in jeopardy through no fault of your own. Now, I've been lucky. I've never had a major life event conflict with casting a ballot, but I'll probably have to vote by mail at some point in my life. And who's to say when I'll come down, with a poorly timed illness or experience a natural disaster or stare down a family emergency or face some other unexpected challenge that causes me to mail my ballot back with little time

despair before election day. States ultimately have to decide whether they want to give voters leeway when these confounding factors arise. But the plaintiffs in Watson versus Republican National Committee questioned state's power to make that decision. And many people thought that the court was poised to hand President Trump and Republicans a major victory on this point. Back in April, after oral arguments, court watchers thought that the court would strike down Mississippi's law, and commentators on the left preemptively bemoaned that the conservative, quote, conspiracy-brained, quote, misinformed justices were about to upend the midterms.

Although it should be said that if you go back and listen to Isaac's take from the time, he actually nailed his prediction, including that Barrett and Roberts would be the ones to flip and side with the liberal justices in this ruling. Many of those writers who bemoaned that potential ruling have not yet commented on this decision. And actually, in our research for today's edition, we struggled to find even the baseline three opinion pieces from the left on this ruling. And yes, I can understand, as I said at the beginning of this episode, it is a very busy week and time for Scotus decisions and there's a lot of fractured tension. But the dearth of commentary relative to what we had in April after oral arguments is still striking.

Now, some lawmakers aren't even trying to hide their inconsistencies. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffrey is a Democrat from New York recently called the court illegitimate and castigated its, quote, far-right majority for its decision on temporary protected status. But on Monday, he welcomed the big blow it delivered to, quote, Trump's effort to rig the midterm elections. Representative Jasmine Crockett, the Democrat from Texas, went even further, writing last Thursday, quote,

let's stop pretending the TPS decision is about the law. We've seen the pattern. Time and time again, this Trump-influenced court has handed this administration exactly what it wants. Then yesterday, she said, quote, well, would you look at that? After all those made-up lies about mail-in ballots, the Supreme Court just rejected this administration's latest attempt to silence voters.

It is fine and expected to disagree with some Supreme Court. decisions and agree with others. But it is another thing to imply that the court's majority is little more than a political arm of the Trump administration and then go silent or even cheer when the court behaves like an independent body. Beyond its impact on mail-in voting, this case and this decision served as a reminder that such black and white thinking doesn't always comport with reality. But let's look at the actual case. What did the court actually decide here? Well, the core question in Watson was whether states can set grace periods for late arriving ballots. And I think the majority was right to find that Mississippi's mail-in ballot law doesn't clash with

Congress's definition of Election Day. Oral arguments in the case focused in part on historical understandings of the meaning of Election Day because, as Justice Amy Coney-Barrant noted in the majority opinion, federal statutes do not set a deadline for ballot receipt, just that voters must make their decision by Election Day. The challengers tried to show that states have historically abided by a strict election date deadline for receiving absentee ballots because election law was so commonly understood to prohibit any such grace period. In their view, the Civil War provided a perfect example of this. In their retelling, states still rejected late arriving ballots from soldiers, even in a uniquely tenuous time

where some grace period would have otherwise been obvious and desirable. There's just one problem with that. While some states did require soldiers' ballots to reach election offices by election day, others didn't, such as those that permitted what was called unit-level voting. Furthermore, the challenger's argument that states' absentee voting rules reflected their deference to federal law was also lacking. Barrett writes, quote, plaintiff's theory is that if the relevant states could have changed the rules, they would have changed their rules. Yet, despite a deep dive into the historical record, plaintiffs have found no evidence that any of these states wanted to extend ballot receipt deadlines, much less that they thought federal law prevented them from doing so.

As a kicker, she lists an array of historical reasons other than compliance with federal law that states might have set an election day deadline for absentee ballots, like a desire to, quote, open soldier ballots in the public's presence, which was possible only if ballots arrived by the day the community gathered for in-person voting to promote public trust in the results. In other words, historical precedent for ballots arriving by Election Day isn't necessarily a story of legal tradition, but of practical rules that states worked out for themselves.

Barrett then addresses a second key point. The federal election day laws at the center of the case were enacted when the U.S. had no mail-in voting, excluding that Civil War absentee system, which operated much differently than how we vote by mail today. In the Challenger's logic, Wouldn't it follow that 19th century lawmakers inherently meant for only votes received by Election Day to count? But again, Justice Barrett delivers a strong rebuttal.

Quote, plaintiff's theory is that because we are governed by 19th century Election Day laws, we are also governed by 19th century voting practices, Barrett wrote. Quote, carried to its logical conclusion, this theory would call into question the way modern elections work. And then she goes on to highlight early voting, which also did not exist in 19th, century America, as another practice imperiled by the Challenger's logic. Quote, statutes do not trap in amber every contemporary practice on the same subject matter, she concluded. To that, I say, hear here. Consider, for instance, maritime railroad and communication laws from the 1800s that are still operative today, but have been reinterpreted

to account for modern developments. The Submarine Cable Act of 1888 originally passed to protect submarine telegraph cables is still part of the legal framework that governs modern submarine communications cables. The law criminalizes intentionally damaging submarine telegraph cables connecting the United States to other countries. But the question is, should someone who destroys a, say, fiber optic cable be exempt from punishment because those cables didn't exist in 1888 or weren't referenced in that law? Or should Congress have to update the law to account for every development in cable technology since 1888 and beyond. Justice Samuel Alito's dissent had echoes of his majority opinions in last week's temporary protected status and asylum rulings, homing in on a strict

definition of a key phrase. Last week, he focused on when asylum seekers have, quote, arrived in the United States and the meaning of, quote, temporary in TPS. Here, the key phrase is election day. under his interpretation, early voting and mail-in ballots, when received by Election Day, are lawful because they are cast before or on the day of the election. But counting mail-in ballots received after that day interferes with, quote, the critical act that occurs on Election Day, the completion of the collection of the ballots that embody the electorate's collective choice, end quote. Like much of Alito's jurisprudence, that argument has a kind of common-sense appeal,

but I think it misses a key point. The federal statute is much broader than the definition of election day that Alito himself advances. It does not say that the election must be completed on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November. It just says that that day is election day. Alito goes on to list some practical consequences that he imagines of counting these late-arriving votes, asking whether states should be able to create any grace period or allow couriers to deliver mail-in ballots or permit something other than a postmark to show when someone voted. Now, the first case isn't hypothetical.

Washington State accepts Election Day marked ballots up to 21 days after the election. Other states have longer grace periods than Mississippi as well. But the others are, and they amount to effectively slippery slope arguments that aren't salient to the narrow question of timing that Barrett emphasizes in her opinion. Perhaps these issues that Alito flags arise in the future, that could happen. It's not necessarily happening now, but it could. but the key point is that they weren't before the court in this case. And if we're speaking of practical consequences, this decision, while enormously important,

would have had a much larger impact if the court had struck down Mississippi's law. Rather than upend mail-in voting nationwide, the ruling leaves each state's mail-in-voting rules as they are. Other widely adopted voting practices like early voting are also safe. And of course, in the future, state lawmakers can revise election rules as they see fit. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has called on the legislature in the wake of Monday's decision to repeal the current mail-in ballot law, and it's well within its rights to do so if it wishes. But that will all happen within the normal legislative process, not through a sweeping

high court ruling, which to me properly upholds state's power to determine the times, the places, and the manner of holding elections. All right, that is it for my take. Like I mentioned at the beginning, our new associate editor, Karina Pacheco, is going to be making her Tangle debut with a staff dissent to today's take. So now I'm going to hand it over to Karina, and then John will take us home with the rest of the edition. All right, Karina, over to you. Thanks, Will. This is associate editor Karina Pacheco with a staff dissent. Usually, I roll my eyes at Alito's strict definition of a key phrase, honing in on minutia while averting the bigger picture. But here, he's right. It's election day, not election week, or election fortnight, or election month.

The point of Election Day is to elect the candidates, and Alito's textual instincts here provide structure to our voting processes while Barrett invites disorder. Just because the statute doesn't explicitly forbid post-election counting, calling it Election Day implies, nay, provides a clear and obvious window. While I have faith in the sanctity of American elections and don't believe rampant election fraud is a real problem, deteriorating public trust certainly is, and confusing, drawn-out voting practices invite even more distrust and scrutiny, as Alito rightly notes. Extending ballot counting by days and in weeks and sometimes not knowing results for just as long should not be the norm in a functioning democracy. Just look at the United Kingdom, Taiwan, France, and others. They require a range of

centralized in-person and electronic voting, and their strict deadlines ensure election results don't stretch into weeks. While I'm open to the argument that this is an issue for Congress, the justices should have given more weight to the day in election day. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Will. On this day in history in 1921, William Howard Taft was nominated by President Warren G. Harding to be the 10th Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court and was confirmed the same day in a 60-4 Senate vote. He was sworn in two weeks later. He became the first and only person to serve as both president and chief justice. Just one other person has led two separate branches of the federal

government, James K. Polk, who was both president and speaker of the House. In his time as Chief Justice, Taft issued several landmark rulings on presidential power. In Myers' versus United States, Taft ruled that firing appointed executive branch officials is a power only given to the presidency, a precedent that largely remains in place today. Taft additionally authored opinions expanding the pardon power and finding that Congress can delegate some authority on certain topics, such as tariffs, to executive agencies. And last but not least, our have a nice day story. Having some fun in the sun isn't something that only children can do. As a group of senior citizens in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, proved,

In June, the city's fire department joined with football players from Middle Tennessee State University to provide a slip-and-slide to give elders in the community a chance to slip, slide, splash, and laugh-like kids again. I haven't done anything like this in 50 years. My grandkids are going to be so jealous, one senior slip-and-slider said. 102.9, The Buzz, has this story, and you can check it out with the link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please, go to readtangle.com, where you can sign up for a newsletter membership,

podcast membership, or a bundled membership that gets you a discount on both. We'll be right back here tomorrow. For Isaac, Will, and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Wall. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors, Audrey Moorehead, Lindsay Canuth, and Bailey Saw. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at retangle.com.