A case pending before the Supreme Court could address delayed ballot counts, restoring a measure of trust in the United States voting process.
The recent mayoral race in Los Angeles is bringing the country’s focus back to how elections are conducted in different parts of the country, and many people have questions about delayed ballot counts that somehow coincidentally shift the balance of races days after votes are cast.
Justices heard oral arguments in the Mississippi case of Watson v. Republican National Committee in March, and the ruling could put an end to counting ballots up to five days after the official election date.
Mississippi is one of “at least 14 states, along with California, New York and Texas, as well as the District of Columbia, with laws that allow for late ballots so long as envelopes are postmarked by Election Day. Around 30 states have some sort of grace period for absentee ballots as well, letting military or US citizens abroad cast their votes,” according to The New York Times.
Republicans argue that such late ballot counting is unconstitutional, and as Los Angeles residents still don’t know who their next mayor will be days after the election, that argument may carry some merit.
RNC Chairman Joe Gruters spoke to The Post about what he calls the “failure” of LA’s voting system.
“What’s happening in California is a Democrat failure on full display. Nearly a week after the primary, it is completely unacceptable ballots are still being counted. That’s why the RNC is aggressively fighting in the Supreme Court to stop ballots received after Election Day from being counted. Americans deserve timely election results they can trust,” he said.
SCOTUS is expected to rule on the case ahead of its recess later this month.
X users weighed in:
If scotus does nothing, they will be to blame for total Dem control.
— Bad Kitty Unleashed
(@pepesgrandma) June 8, 2026
California’s delayed election counts have done more damage to democracy than Xi and Putin combined.
— Albert Latham (@albert1776) June 8, 2026
Do you think California follows the law?
— Maryland Election Integrity Group (@EFFE4USA) June 9, 2026
And then what’s going to happened to the current election??? Are they going to void this one that they “cheated”?
— Q (@Initial__Q) June 8, 2026
Good, given that US Congress is incapable of passing any new election security laws.
100% Useless US Congress.— James Vanderhall (@JamesVanderhal2) June 8, 2026
California will just spend billions of dollars to comply with rapid counting because they will never let go of mail-in voting (which is far more time consuming to count) because they want access to low information voters.
— Ackchyually (@Ackchyually2000) June 8, 2026
