{"id":72402,"date":"2026-06-30T00:09:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=72402"},"modified":"2026-06-30T00:10:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T04:10:06","slug":"voting-rights-groups-hail-scotus-decision-on-ballot-grace-period","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/06\/30\/voting-rights-groups-hail-scotus-decision-on-ballot-grace-period\/","title":{"rendered":"Voting rights groups hail SCOTUS decision on ballot grace period"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By\u00a0Suzanne\u00a0Potter\u00a0Public News Service<\/p>\n\n\n

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California sends mail-in ballots to all registered voters unless they opt out. (Adobe Stock)

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Voting rights experts are praising a U.S. Supreme Court decision<\/a> Monday, which upheld a state\u2019s right to set a grace period for counting mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked on time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The challengers to Mississippi\u2019s grace period argued accepting ballots after Election Day threatens election integrity. Supporters of the decision said the U.S. Constitution delegates election administration to the states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bernadette Reyes, senior staff attorney for the UCLA Voting Rights Project, said the decision means California can continue its current practice of counting ballots arriving within seven days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat they’re saying is you cast your vote when you fill out your ballot, and as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day, that means that they fulfilled their duty under the Constitution,\u201d Reyes explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About 30 states currently offer some sort of grace period for ballots to arrive. Trump signed an executive order<\/a> requiring states to turn over their voter lists to the federal government. The order instructed the U.S. Postal Service not to process mail-in ballots for people in states refusing to comply. Last week, a judge put the order on hold<\/a>. Reyes pointed out mail-in ballots are especially useful for Americans living overseas or people with disabilities making it difficult to vote in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving that big interference with this really important and accessible method of voting would do tremendous damage for voter turnout,\u201d she observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President Donald Trump called the decision a \u201ctremendous loss\u201d and urged Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act<\/a>, which would restrict voting in the name of fighting election fraud.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Suzanne\u00a0Potter\u00a0Public News Service Voting rights experts are praising a U.S. Supreme Court decision Monday, which upheld a state\u2019s right to set a grace period for counting mail-in ballots arriving after Election Day,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL2Fkb2Jlc3RvY2szODIwMjIwOThlZGl0b3JpYWx1c2Vvbmx5LWM0Y2Y0ZmQ2LXNjYWxlZC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTM4JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiVm90aW5nIHJpZ2h0cyBncm91cHMgaGFpbCBTQ09UVVMgZGVjaXNpb24gb24gYmFsbG90IGdyYWNlIHBlcmlvZCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.icFlaUMzviYAT0RTVP-ZjC05OzTmrrH45WTeEMJ-4AQMQ"},"version":2,"media_source":"sig","attached_media":[{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/jetpack.com\/redirect\/?source=sigenerate&query=t%3DeyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDZcL2Fkb2Jlc3RvY2szODIwMjIwOThlZGl0b3JpYWx1c2Vvbmx5LWM0Y2Y0ZmQ2LXNjYWxlZC53ZWJwP2ZpdD0xMDI0JTJDNTM4JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiVm90aW5nIHJpZ2h0cyBncm91cHMgaGFpbCBTQ09UVVMgZGVjaXNpb24gb24gYmFsbG90IGdyYWNlIHBlcmlvZCIsInRlbXBsYXRlIjoiZG9pcyIsImZvbnQiOiIiLCJibG9nX2lkIjoxNjMwNDA2NjF9.icFlaUMzviYAT0RTVP-ZjC05OzTmrrH45WTeEMJ-4AQMQ","type":"image\/jpeg"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[15],"tags":[15059],"class_list":["post-72402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-voting-rights-groups-hail-scotus-decision-on-ballot-grace-period"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72404,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72402\/revisions\/72404"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}