Nevertheless, Alito has been preoccupied with voter fraud for years, and has used his unfounded fears to justify broad attacks on the right to vote. Just during the Court’s most recent term, Alito signaled his distrust of mail-ballots at least three times. First, in October 2025, the Court heard oral argument in Bost v. Illinois, a case about whether candidates for federal office have a right to sue over election rules in federal court. The Court would go on to rule that they do, reasoning that candidates have a unique stake in “the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections.” At oral argument, though, Alito suggested that the candidates left a valid argument off the table by not alleging “what most people believe to be true”—namely, that counting mail-in ballots “generally hurts Republican candidates” and “generally helps Democratic candidates.”
Second, in March 2026, the Court heard oral argument in Watson v. Republican National Committee, a case about whether states have been violating the federal laws that establish “Election Day” by counting ballots that were mailed on or before that date but arrive a short time afterwards. Alito argued that counting these ballots is a threat to election integrity, because they can “radically flip” the “apparent outcome”—language commonly used by Republican politicians to frame the process of counting votes as suspicious.
Finally, in June 2026, Alito dissented in Watson, and in his opinion went on at length about the “vulnerabilities” of mail-in ballots; the majority, he said, had issued a decision that “compounds” the democratic danger. According to Alito, not only does counting valid and timely-cast votes facilitate “charges of a rigged election,” it empowers “bad actors” to “stuff ballot boxes when early election results suggest a tight race.”