The Supreme Court just made it a lot easier for late-arriving mail-in ballots to count, and Justice Samuel Alito wants you to know exactly what that means for the integrity of your vote.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that federal law permits states to count non-military mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump appointee, authored the majority opinion. Alito wrote the dissent, and he wasted no time laying out why the ruling should worry every American who still believes in free and fair elections.
Alito then argued that the decision "leaves open opportunities for voter fraud that may further undermine Americans' faith in the integrity of this country's elections."
We all know he’s right. We’ve been covering the problems with mail-in ballots for years, and Alito also backed up his claim with receipts.
Alito pointed to a bipartisan commission from 2005, co-chaired by former President Jimmy Carter and former Secretary of State James Baker, that concluded absentee voting was "the largest source of potential voter fraud" in American elections. Alito noted that "diverse sources have recognized that mail-in ballots increase the potential for fraud.”
ICYMI: The Supreme Court Just Californicated Our Elections
Alito's dissent goes beyond merely citing an old commission report. He laid out, in detail, why mail voting is inherently riskier than voting in person. "When someone votes by mail, it is harder for officials to verify the identity of the person requesting and completing the ballot," he wrote. "Mail voting also presents a greater opportunity for voter manipulation, a more vulnerable chain of ballot custody, and a diminished ability to detect improprieties in real time."
Alito warned that letting absentee ballots "pour in over the days and weeks after election day," while preliminary results are already public, "creates greater opportunity for fraud and risks further undermining the public's confidence in election integrity." He even quoted Justice Brett Kavanaugh's warning that when "thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and potentially flip the result of an election," then "charges of a rigged election can explode."
Alito also flagged a mess of unresolved legal questions the ruling raises, including whether ballot-recall services and the Postal Service’s or FedEx’s recall policies now violate Election Day statutes as applied to absentee ballots. He concluded that the majority's decision "opens Pandora's box" for state legislatures trying to figure out what the law actually permits going forward.
Republicans didn't waste time reacting. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) called the ruling "a shockingly wrong" decision. Rep. Abe Hamadeh (R-Ariz.) called it "disastrous," warning that the decision "guarantees we'll keep drifting away from" Election Day "as our sacred elections get bogged down by endless mail-in ballots and never-ending counts."
The Democrat Party will tell you this ruling is about expanding voting access. That’s a total crock. Alito's dissent makes clear what it's really about: more opportunity for fraud and more uncertainty injected directly into the system Americans are supposed to trust.
Pandora's box is open now, and the worst part is, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett helped make it happen.
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