US supreme court upholds law to count mail-in ballots arriving after election day

The US supreme court sided against national Republicans and Donald Trump’s administration to allow mail-in ballots that arrive after election day to be counted, upholding the law in more than a dozen states. The Republican National Committee (RNC) had challenged a Mississippi state law allowing mailed ballots to be counted if they arrive within five business days of election day, so long as they were postmarked by election day. The court decided earlier this term to allow Louisiana to effectively dismantle the Voting Rights Act , depriving Black voters of their ability to elect members of Congress of their choosing and setting off a frenzy of gerrymandering across the south. Fourteen states, Washington DC and three US territories have similar laws that allow for late-arriving ballots to be counted. Some states, including Mississippi , changed their laws in 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Mississippi, a red state, defended its ability to set its own procedures for elections against the challenge from the Republican party, which argued that the grace period after election day violates federal laws that set election day for the first Tuesday of November. The ruling comes as Trump and some Republicans continually cast doubt on mail voting, a process used by millions in both parties in most states to cast ballots more conveniently. There are checks and balances in place to ensure mailed ballots are valid, including signature verification. …