{"id":352824,"date":"2026-06-09T08:11:34","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:11:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352824\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:11:34","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:11:34","slug":"under-the-radar-supreme-court-case-could-end-californias-delayed-vote-counts-for-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/352824\/","title":{"rendered":"Under-the-radar Supreme Court case could end California’s delayed vote counts for good"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A pending case at the US Supreme Court could put an end to delayed ballot counts \u2014 like in the recent Los Angeles mayor\u2019s race in California \u2014 that have caused voters to lose confidence in elections<\/a>, according to Republicans.<\/p>\n

The high court in March heard oral arguments in Watson v. Republican National Committee<\/a>, a Mississippi case that may result in a ruling stopping the practice of counting mail-in ballots that arrive up to five days after an election date.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

That grace period for mail ballots, which the RNC has argued is unconstitutional, is one of the reasons that Los Angeles residents still don\u2019t know, nearly a week after, whether candidates Spencer Pratt or Nithya Raman will advance to a runoff contest in November against incumbent Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s happening in California is a Democrat failure on full display,\u201d RNC Chairman Joe Gruters told The Post.\u00a0\u201cNearly a week after the primary, it is completely unacceptable ballots are still being counted. That\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

A pending case at the US Supreme Court could put an end to delayed ballot counts \u2014 like in the recent Los Angeles mayor\u2019s race in California \u2014 that have caused voters to lose confidence in elections. Carlin Stiehl for CA Post<\/p>\n

At issue is whether a federal statute defining Election Day as the Tuesday \u201cafter the first Monday in November\u201d should apply to mail-in ballots that arrive later, even if the envelopes are postmarked appropriately.<\/p>\n

Most Americans support vote-by-mail, though GOP backing for absentee ballots has declined in the last decade, according to surveys conducted by Pew Research<\/a>. The RNC even launched a tracking website to record how long it will take<\/a> for all ballots to be counted.<\/p>\n

Democratic National Committee chairman Ken Martin has called the RNC case part of the GOP\u2019s \u201crelentless assault on mail-in voting.\u201d<\/p>\n

During oral arguments, conservative Supreme Court justices appeared inclined to side with the RNC, though some poked holes in their lawyers\u2019 reasoning that early voting should still be considered constitutional if late-arriving ballots were not.<\/p>\n

During oral arguments, conservative Supreme Court justices appeared inclined to side with the RNC, though some poked holes in their lawyers\u2019 reasoning that early voting should still be considered constitutional. REUTERS<\/p>\n

\u201cThere could be a process where ballots are being received earlier, but that ballot box has to close on Election Day,\u201d said US Solicitor General John Sauer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy is that permissible?\u201d asked Justice Amy Coney Barrett. \u201cIf we\u2019re just going to say historically it just needs to look like it always looked, how come those features fall out?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe you\u2019re not saying anything other than, well, that\u2019s different,\u201d added Chief Justice John Roberts.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman recently surged ahead of her opponents due to the counting of mail-in ballots. Pedro Colo for CA Post<\/p>\n

Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch \u2014 all considered part of the court\u2019s conservative supermajority \u2014 appeared more sympathetic to arguments in favor of restoring confidence in the electoral process.<\/p>\n

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson appeared more skeptical of that reasoning, noting how the federal law for elections also provides flexibility to modify the voting period under extraordinary circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just seems inconceivable that on the basis of this kind of evidence, we would reject these practices that are so entrenched in 30 states,\u201d Kagan said at one point.<\/p>\n

Spencer Pratt, an insurgent candidate in LA\u2019s mayoral race, still doesn\u2019t know whether he will advance to a runoff election. Jonathan Alcorn for CA Post<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s decision in the Watson case is expected this month before the justices\u2019 summer recess. It could only apply narrowly to Mississippi law or have a broader effect on other states. Some proponents have claimed more funding for election workers and infrastructure could also speed up ballot counts.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead he had. 3rd World Nation. Rigged Elections!\u201d erupted President Trump on his Truth Social Monday. \u201cNow they\u2019ll be working on great guy Steve Hilton. Won\u2019t have results for, possibly, TWO WEEKS, according to officials.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump and Republicans previously highlighted uncertainties about the massive mail-in ballot tallies in the 2020 presidential election as proof that the process wasn\u2019t fair<\/a>. Trump\u2019s former attorney general Bill Barr said there wasn\u2019t evidence of fraud widespread enough<\/a> to alter the 2020 outcome.<\/p>\n

Dozens of court cases also did not produce rulings that shifted any ballot tallies to deny Joe Biden\u2019s victory, though the 47th president\u2019s DOJ has been investigating some aspects of the election that took place in Georgia since Trump\u2019s return to the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 A pending case at the US Supreme Court could put an end to delayed ballot counts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":352825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,989,13,79779,2214,3586,1710],"class_list":["post-352824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-elections","tag-politics","tag-republican-national-committee","tag-supreme-court","tag-us-news","tag-voting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352824","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}