Justice Samuel Alito cautioned on Monday that the Supreme Court’s decision to allow ballots received after Election Day to be counted could lead large sections of the public to view elections as illegitimate.While Alito had legal concerns with the majority’s ruling, arguing that they misinterpreted when the "electorate’s choice" occurs, he closed his dissent by issuing a practical warning.Allowing late-arriving ballots to determine the outcomes of elections long after Election Day will, according to Alito, severely damage the trust Americans place in their electoral system."Not only is today’s decision inconsistent with statutory text, legal context, historical practice, and precedent; it also threatens to produce lamentable consequences," he wrote.
"The majority’s holding spawns a slurry of troubling election-law questions and risks further undermining Americans’ confidence in election integrity."SUPREME COURT RULES ON MAIL-IN BALLOTS RECEIVED AFTER ELECTION DAYJustices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on October 7, 2022 (Olivier Douliery/AFP via Getty Images)Alito went on to describe a hypothetical scenario where the outcome of a presidential election hinges on a single state that allows late-arriving mail ballots to be counted.In the scenario described by the justice, one candidate leads by 15,000 votes on election night only for the opposing candidate to slowly gain votes and, a few days before electors are scheduled to vote, pull ahead by just under 100 votes."If the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election could explode," Justice Brett Kavanaugh also noted during the case’s oral arguments.Alito didn’t simply claim that the ruling could affect how people view elections; he argued that it could open the door for fraud.SUPREME COURT RULES ON MAIL-IN BALLOTS RECEIVED AFTER ELECTION DAYThe US Supreme Court in ...