20
WATSON v. REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Opinion of the Court
ballots to be received by election day is a good or bad idea;
the question is whether the idea has made its way into the
United States Code.
Regardless, plaintiffs’ definition of “election” would do little to address the concerns they identify. Plaintiffs and the
dissent argue that if we uphold Mississippi’s law, States
could put party bosses, ballot harvesters, or Uber drivers in
charge of collecting ballots. See Brief for Republican Respondents 22; post, at 17. Yet this would also be permissible under their interpretation, so long as the ballots are delivered by election day. As the dissent concedes, the
relevant statutes regulate “only the timing of election processes, not their manner.” Post, at 12. So concerns about
the “manner” of ballot delivery have nothing to do with this
case.
Plaintiffs also stress that Mississippi’s law may give rise
to the appearance of fraud because election results may appear to flip after election day. See, e.g., Brief for Republican
Respondents 47–48; Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 29; accord, post, at 20–21. This is a significant concern.
See Democratic National Committee v. Wisconsin State Legislature, 592 U. S. 1039, 1047 (2020) (KAVANAUGH, J., concurring in denial of application to vacate stay) (discussing
the “chaos and suspicions of impropriety that can ensue if
thousands of absentee ballots flow in after election day and
potentially flip the results of an election”). But even under
plaintiffs’ interpretation, last-minute flips are possible, because the election-day statutes set no deadline for counting
ballots or certifying election results. Brief for Respondent
Libertarian Party of Mississippi 13.
Election fraud and its appearance are serious issues.
Like other such issues, however, they must be addressed
through the democratic process. The election-day statutes
are proof of concept: When voting on different days in different States sparked allegations of fraud, Congress set a
nationally uniform deadline for voting. If varied deadlines