The Supreme Court held that federal election law does not require states to count only ballots received by Election Day. This leaves states such as California free to enact lax rules that stretch vote counting for weeks and sometimes months. Importantly, however, the court made clear on Monday that Congress may regulate how states conduct federal elections and has done so in the past. This means the current Congress can do more to safeguard elections if it can find the political will to do so.

In Watson v. Republican National Committee, a 5-4 majority ruled that Mississippi’s law permitting the counting of absentee ballots received up to five days after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day, was not preempted by federal law. The RNC had argued that the 1872 law setting “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November” in even-numbered years as “the day for the election” precluded the counting of ballots received after Election Day, a holding that would have upended state election laws in 14 states.