16 WATSON v. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE Opinion of the Court absentee ballot by “the deadline for receipt of [that] ballot under State law”). Plaintiffs’ efforts to explain UOCAVA fare no better. Plaintiffs initially argued that UOCAVA recognizes States’ authority to set ballot-receipt deadlines before but not after election day. See Brief for Respondent Libertarian Party of Mississippi 42 (arguing that Congress tied the ballot-receipt deadline to state law “because at least one state at the time required absentee ballots to be received before Election Day”); Brief for Republican Respondents 43–44 (similar). But UOCAVA’s text draws no such distinction, and by the time oral argument rolled around, plaintiffs had seemingly abandoned the point. Instead, they stressed that UOCAVA also applies to other elections, like primaries, that the election-day statutes do not govern. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 79– 87.9 And that, the argument goes, is the reason why UOCAVA incorporates state ballot-receipt deadlines. But this interpretation of the statute does not work either. UOCAVA presupposes that the deadline for ballot receipt is uniformly a matter of state law; it does not distinguish between general and other elections. See, e.g., 52 U. S. C. §20303(e). And the provision directing the President’s designee to ensure that ballots of overseas military voters are received by state officials “not later than the date by which an absentee ballot must be received in order to be counted” applies only to “regularly scheduled general elections,” §20304(b)(1)—exactly the elections for which plaintiffs claim the election-day statutes already set a uniform —————— 9 The dissent likewise maintains that military and overseas voters get no grace period in a general election. See post, at 15–16. It does not decide, though, which of plaintiffs’ two proposals is correct. Compare ibid. (suggesting that UOCAVA references state receipt deadlines because the election-day statutes do not govern primaries), with post, at 15, n. 8 (suggesting that UOCAVA references state receipt deadlines because “States can set earlier deadlines” for general elections).