By SUZANNE DOWNING
June 29, 2026 – Alaska’s longstanding practice of counting absentee ballots that arrive long after Election Day will remain in place after the US Supreme Court ruled Monday that states may continue accepting timely postmarked mail ballots even if they are delivered days after the polls close.
For Alaska voters, the ruling means no immediate change to election procedures. Under Alaska law, absentee ballots mailed from within the United States are counted if they are postmarked on or before Election Day and received by the Division of Elections within 10 days after the election.
Military and overseas ballots have an even longer grace period, with ballots accepted up to 15 days after a general election if they are postmarked by Election Day. That means Alaska has an extraordinarily long wait time to resolve elections, due to the ranked-choice voting scheme now in use.
In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld Mississippi’s law allowing ballots postmarked by Election Day to arrive up to five days later. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal justices in the majority, concluding that federal election laws do not clearly require every ballot to be physically in election officials’ hands by Election Day.
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.
The case was closely watched because the Trump administration and the Republican National Committee had urged the court to strike down Mississippi’s law. They argued that federal law establishes a single Election Day for federal races and therefore ballots arriving afterward should not be counted, even if mailed on time.
The majority disagreed, finding that Congress had not clearly required states to reject ballots that arrive after Election Day but were cast by the legal deadline.
The decision leaves in place laws in roughly half the states, including Alaska, that provide a post-Election Day window for counting absentee ballots delayed by the mail.
Alaska election law also requires absentee ballots without a qualifying postmark, or those received after the statutory deadline, to be rejected. Ballots delivered in person, placed in secure drop boxes, or returned by fax where authorized must be received by 8 p.m. Alaska time on Election Day.
The ruling comes as election procedures remain a major issue nationally ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
One thought on “What does the Supreme Court upholding counting of late-arriving mail ballots mean for Alaska?”
The answer to the headline question is obvious: it allows the Democrats- who are now little more than communists- to cheat. And cheat they will. It is so ironic that in this day when we want everything fast, our elections have slowed down to a crawl.