4 Voting Rights Cases SCOTUS May Hear That Could Reshape Elections

The U.S. Supreme Court only selects a few cases to hear during its session, which lasts from October to December each year, and multiple cases under consideration could significantly impact voting rights. The cases address issues such as mail-in voting, voter registration and felony disenfranchisement.

GOP Challenges Illinois’ Policy to Count Ballots Received After Election Day

Illinois counts mail-in ballots received up to two weeks after an election as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Three Republican legislators filed a lawsuit in May 2022 challenging the state law allowing this.

The case has been dismissed twice — by a federal district court in 2023 and the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2024. Both courts ruled that the GOP plaintiffs didn’t have standing to sue since they failed to demonstrate they were harmed by the ballot receipt deadline.

In November, Illinois Republican Congressman Michael Bost asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in. He urged the justices to rule that he and the other GOP plaintiffs can bring the lawsuit because the ballot receipt deadline imposes burdensome financial costs on them as candidates, who must monitor ballot receipt and counting for an additional two weeks to ensure an accurate tally of votes. 

The nation’s highest court taking this case would have implications for states across the country that count ballots received after Election Day. Currently, nearly 20 states and U.S. territories permit counting after election day.

If the Court sides with the plaintiffs, that would allow candidates to easily bring challenges to the ballot receipt deadlines. If these deadlines are struck down by courts, that could disenfranchise numerous people voting by mail, especially military and overseas voters, whose ballots often don’t arrive at the election offices by Election Day.

Voters Push Back Against Mississippi’s Felony Disenfranchisement Provision

A group of disenfranchised individuals in Mississippi filed a class action lawsuit in 2018, challenging the state constitution’s felony disenfranchisement provision, Section 241. This section imposes a lifetime ban on voting for individuals with certain felony convictions and was enshrined in Mississippi’s 1890 constitution with the express purpose of denying Black men the right to vote.

The plaintiffs also challenged the state’s extremely subjective voting rights restoration process — with the state legislature and governor deciding who should have their rights restored. Roughly 9% of residents are disenfranchised, according to progressive advocacy group MS Votes.

In 2019, a federal district court rejected their arguments, so they appealed the case to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A three-judge panel struck down Section 241 in 2023, but the state asked the entire 5th Circuit to hear the case, which upheld the state’s voting ban in 2024.

In the court’s July opinion, the dissenting judges noted that “Mississippi is one of only eleven states that still permanently disenfranchise felons for offenses other than those pertaining to elections.”

They added that it’s also “only one of only two states that permanently disenfranchise first time offenders who have completed their sentences and who were convicted of non-violent and non-voting-related felonies.”

In November, the disenfranchised voters appealed the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to take up the case and strike down the state’s felony disenfranchisement provision.

This case could not only impact Mississippi but also the 10 other states with lifetime voting bans for people convicted of certain felonies.

Montana Democrats filed a lawsuit challenging four voter suppression laws passed in the state in 2021. Now, Montana Secretary of State Christi Jacobsen (R) has turned the case into a mechanism to push the radical independent state legislature theory (ISL) in the nation’s highest court.

In March 2024, the Montana Supreme Court upheld a trial court’s ruling that struck down the four laws, which severely restricted how residents could register to vote and turn in their ballots. Then, in August, Jacobsen asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on two of the laws — one that eliminates Election Day registration and another that bans paid ballot collection.

Jacobsen invoked the ISL theory, which promotes an interpretation that under the Elections Clause of the U.S. Constitution, only state legislatures have the power to regulate federal elections, not any other entities such as state courts or the governor’s office.

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected the ISL theory in a ruling last year in Moore v. Harper, but if the Court were to take up this case and reconsider the theory, that could have significant implications nationwide.

The adoption of this legal theory could make it extremely difficult for litigants to bring challenges to harmful state election laws in court. It would call into question whether citizens can initiate ballot measures surrounding election policy and if governors can veto election laws.

NAACP Challenges Pennsylvania Law Banning Counting of Ballots With Date Errors

Pennsylvania’s election law is unique in that it prohibits the counting of mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates on the outer envelope. Other states have laws regarding ballots with signature issues but not date errors.

There have been a plethora of lawsuits filed in the state regarding this issue, but the one that could be heard by the Supreme Court was filed in November 2022 by the Pennsylvania State Conference of the NAACP and other pro-voting groups.

The plaintiffs argued that rejecting ballots for a date error violates the Materiality Provision of the Civil Rights Act, which specifically protects against disenfranchisement on the basis of trivial errors or omissions that are unrelated to a voter’s qualifications.  

In November 2023, a federal judge ruled in favor of the NAACP, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision in March at the request of the Republican National Committee and other GOP committees. 

The 3rd Circuit ruled that the Materiality Provision only applies to the voter registration process but “does not apply to rules, like the date requirement, that govern how a qualified voter must cast his ballot for it to be counted.”

The NAACP and other plaintiffs appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. If the justices take this case, it could impact Pennsylvania election outcomes since Democratic voters are the most impacted by these ballot rejections as they are more likely to vote by mail than Republicans. This could have reverberating effects throughout the nation since it’s a crucial swing state.

Also, a Supreme Court ruling on this case could affect voting rights lawsuits across the country invoking the Materiality Provision. These lawsuits challenge state requirements like handwritten signatures on voter registration forms and full addresses provided by a witness assisting someone in filling out a ballot.

Republican litigants in many of these cases have argued the provision lacks a private right of action — meaning only the U.S. attorney general can sue to enforce it. This is an argument that the justices could consider in this case, which would be detrimental to voting rights lawsuits.