Cleta Mitchell Urges Lawsuits to End Early Voting After 5-4 Supreme Court Ballot Ruling
Updated
Updated · Democracy Docket · Jun 30
Cleta Mitchell Urges Lawsuits to End Early Voting After 5-4 Supreme Court Ballot Ruling
3 articles · Updated · Democracy Docket · Jun 30
Summary
Cleta Mitchell told Steve Bannon’s podcast lawyers should “start filing lawsuits immediately” to challenge early voting after the Supreme Court’s 5-4 Watson v. RNC decision on mailed ballots.
Mitchell argued Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s opinion separating the act of voting from ballot receipt could be used to claim voting must occur only on Election Day, putting early voting “out the door.”
Barrett’s ruling itself cut against that reading: it upheld state grace periods for ballots mailed by Election Day and said the RNC’s theory would also put early voting at risk; 14 states allow late-arriving ballots postmarked by Election Day.
Even the dissent did not back Mitchell’s position, with Justice Samuel Alito writing election-day statutes are satisfied so long as all ballots are cast and collected by the Tuesday after the first Monday in November.
The push still reflects a broader right-wing campaign against expanded voting access, with Harmeet Dhillon and Senator John Kennedy also calling for a return to a single Election Day.
With states’ power affirmed, will this decision lead to more uniformity or greater differences in election laws nationwide?
Supreme Court Upholds State Mail Ballot Deadlines: The 2026 Ruling and the Intensifying Battle Over Voting Rights in America
Overview
On June 29, 2026, the Supreme Court upheld Mississippi’s law allowing mail ballots postmarked by Election Day to be counted for five days after, rejecting challengers’ claims that stricter deadlines are needed for election integrity. Justice Amy Coney Barrett explained that such arguments are policy matters for state legislatures, not legal issues for the Court. This decision reinforces state authority over election rules and signals that future challenges based on policy preferences, rather than clear legal violations, are unlikely to succeed. As a result, states retain broad power to set their own mail ballot deadlines, shaping how elections are run across the country.