Cite as: 609 U. S. ____ (2026) 13 Opinion of the Court for in-person voting. See 1864 N. Y. Laws p. 551 (requiring soldier ballots to be “publicly opened”); 1865 Ill. Laws p. 61 (same); see also 1864 Pa. Laws No. 871, §§6, 35, pp. 991, 998 (providing that soldiers’ qualifications to vote “may be challenged” by any other voter as if “he were personally present”). They might have thought it efficient for election officials to accept absentee ballots when the officials were already assembled for in-person voting. See id., §34, pp. 997– 998 (soldier ballots to be opened “in the presence of the election board”). Frankly, in this first experiment with absentee voting, extending the deadline might not have even occurred to them. Habit has force, even in wartime. Plaintiffs assume that state legislatures had a single goal—enabling the soldier vote—and went as far as they could to achieve it.6 But as we have frequently observed, “[n]o statute pursues a single policy at all costs.” Bartenwerfer v. Buckley, 598 U. S. 69, 81 (2023). That principle applies to wartime statutes too. At bottom, plaintiffs’ theory is that because we are governed by 19th-century election-day laws, we are also governed by 19th-century voting practices. Carried to its logical conclusion, this theory would call into question the way modern elections work. As plaintiffs acknowledge, States might need to adjudicate voter qualifications by election day, as was done in the 19th century. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 89–91. Election officials suggest that doing so would be difficult, if not impossible. See Brief for Local Election Officials et al. as Amici Curiae 5–12. After all, America’s population has grown since then, as has the portion of its population eligible to vote and the practice of absentee voting. The neighborhood-watch approach to election security no longer suffices; States have developed more —————— 6 The dissent dismisses the possibility that States might have had policy reasons for using an election-day receipt deadline, post, at 9–11— then spends approximately six pages extolling the policy reasons for using an election-day receipt deadline, post, at 16–22.