04-07-2025
It's a stain on US democracy that you can vote a fortnight after election day
Illinois doesn't have the best reputation when it comes to clean elections. The mere mention of the state conjures up memories of Chicago's notorious machine politics under the Daley family, and its sway over the 1960 presidential election.
But now the Supreme Court has decided to consider a more recent stain against the state's name. In its next session, it has said that it will hear a case challenging Illinois' practice of counting mail-in ballots (known in other countries as postal votes) that arrive up to 14 days after election day. At stake is the integrity of the democratic process and the reasonable expectation that elections, like any competition governed by rules, should not be open to abuse.
The case stems from a challenge by Representative Michael Bost (R-Ill), joined by two presidential electors, to an Illinois law that permits mail ballots to be counted even if they arrive up to two weeks after election day. A panel of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the challenge on the grounds of standing. But that was a procedural evasion of a question that demands substantive resolution: can we sustain trust in democratic outcomes while tolerating policies that might allow those outcomes to be perverted?
Sixteen states plus the District of Columbia currently allow the counting of absentee ballots that arrive late, in most cases so long as they are postmarked by election day. And it's not a typical red state, blue state problem.
Like Illinois, Utah also allows these votes to trickle in for up to 14 days. Maryland and Alaska allow 10. Maybe Alaska, given its geographical challenges, should get a pass. But not the other states. California and New York offer a full week for ballots to arrive after election day. Washington State, remarkably, doesn't even specify an arrival deadline – an open-ended invitation to confusion and loss of trust.
The defenders of such policies claim that they improve access to voting. When they are criticised, they tend to respond hysterically that stopping them will end up disenfranchising voters.
That's absurd.
In most western democracies, mail ballots must arrive on election day or before. Also, the United States is uncommon in the world for its 'no-excuse' absentee voting, meaning that someone doesn't have to be out of their voting area or physically unable to vote in person in order to qualify.
Voting is a right. Voting by post is a convenience. The distinction is not semantic. Rights are God-given, immutable, and must be protected. Conveniences, even useful ones, are conditional.
The wholly reasonable suggestion here is that, if citizens choose to vote by mail, they should bear the responsibility of ensuring their ballot arrives by election day.
In Mississippi, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that counting ballots after election day is illegal under federal law. This is not radicalism; it is order. The sooner all states move in this direction, the better.
Consider what's at risk.
Every late-counted vote has the potential to become, in the public mind, a vote that could be questioned. Certainly, a losing politician has every incentive to cast it as such. Every additional day of counting invites suspicion that the process is not being conducted fairly, especially in a country where almost one-third of voters already doubt the fairness of elections, according to a Pew Research Survey. Thus, timely vote-counting is not merely administrative housekeeping, it's about legitimacy.
President Donald Trump's executive order on election integrity in March directed the Department of Justice to take appropriate legal action against states that count ballots arriving after election day for federal elections. It also proposes tying federal election funding to compliance with this standard.
An election is not a season – it is a day. Election day is known in advance. It does not sneak up on the electorate. The ability to mail a ballot on time is not an undue burden; it is a modest civic expectation. If a voter can't manage that deadline, then perhaps in-person early voting or election day voting is the more reliable option.
The Supreme Court, when it takes this case in the term beginning this October, has the opportunity to restore a sorely needed sense of boundaries. Trust in democracy begins not when the last ballot arrives, but when the last valid ballot is counted – on time.
