U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear case threatening ballots mailed by Election Day, but received later

The U.S. Supreme Court announced Monday that it will hear a case against mail-in ballots in Illinois that may affect Washington.

The case was brought by U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Illinois, who sued the Illinois State Board of Elections in 2022. According to the New York Times, Bost and two federal electors argued that the state’s law allowing mail-in ballots to be counted 14 days after an election violates statutes that created an Election Day.

Spokane County Auditor Vicky Dalton said Washington state could be affected by the ruling in this case as ballots that are postmarked by Election Day or before are accepted 10, 14 and sometimes 21 days after Election Day, depending on the election.

“It would disenfranchise voters,” Dalton said. “It may have a pretty significant impact on our operations.”

Both federal courts that previously heard Bost’s case, a federal district court in Illinois and the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, dismissed it, agreeing that it lacked standing as Bost couldn’t prove that the state laws directly injured him.

Dalton said if the Supreme Court case agrees with Bost, the change could affect voter turnout. Oregon also has a universal vote-by-mail system, but requires mailed ballots be received by 8 p.m. on Election Day.

In the 2024 general election, Washington had a voter turnout of around 79%. In Oregon’s general election of the same year, about 75% of voters cast ballots.

According to a 2024 study from the University of Chicago, universal vote-by-mail programs tend to increase voter turnout by around 2 to 4 percentage points.

Dalton said that accepting the postmarked ballots later is helpful for both the voter and the election office as it gives them more time to process each ballot.

“Lots of people wait until the last minute because we’re humans and humans procrastinate to a great extent,” Dalton said.

Despite the increase in voter turnout, late mail-in ballots are often challenged in the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election where he called the later-arriving votes fraudulent.

The Spokane County Republican Party last year adopted a platform calling for an end to mail-in voting as well as a return to hand-counting all ballots.

State Reps. Mike Volz and Jenny Graham were among Republican legislators who backed a bill this year to bring back in-person voting and eliminate mail-in voting for non-absentee voters. The bill didn’t receive a hearing.

The Supreme Court case is on the docket for the next term beginning in October. If any changes happen in the months following, Dalton said the county’s first steps would be to await orders from the Secretary of State Steve Hobbs.