Cite as: 609 U. S. ____ (2026) 3 ALITO, J., dissenting Mississippi law allows some voters to cast absentee ballots, Miss. Code Ann. §23–15–713 (Cum. Supp. 2025), and provides that voters may submit these ballots to election officials by mail or common carrier, §23–15–637(1)(a). To be counted, absentee ballots must be postmarked by election day, and state officials must receive them no later than five days “after the election.” Ibid. Ballots arriving after that date “shall not be counted.” Ibid. The question we must decide is whether the provision allowing receipt of absentee votes after election day is consistent with federal law. II A As noted, the federal election-day statutes provide that elections for federal office must occur on a specified date, “the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November.” This may seem like a simple rule, but we must address several issues to understand exactly what it means. The first is the meaning of the term “election” as used in the electionday statutes. The majority states that the term “election” means “the expression of the electorate’s choice,” ante, at 7, and I agree with that definition. The second issue is the identification of the acts that constitute the electorate’s expression of its choice, and those acts are the final submission and collection of ballots. These acts must therefore occur on election day. That is what the election-day statutes required when all voting occurred in person, and the same requirement applies today. Back when all voting occurred in person, the voters went to the polls on election day. They then completed ballots and turned them over to election officials. When the polls closed, those officials had in their possession a fixed collection of ballots, and taken together, those ballots embodied the electorate’s collective choice. That expression of the electorate’s choice having been made, the