Supreme Court Deeply Divided as Barrett Sides With Liberals on Mail Ballot Deadline [WATCH]

The United States Supreme Court has delivered a ruling that has conservatives across the country shaking their heads. In a 5 to 4 split, the Court upheld a Mississippi law allowing mail ballots to be counted even if they arrive after Election Day.

What sounds like a minor technicality is anything but.

Many on the right are calling it a devastating blow to election integrity and a dangerous precedent for future contests.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, appointed by President Donald Trump, authored the majority opinion and joined forces with Chief Justice John Roberts and the Court’s three liberal justices.

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Barrett’s logic was that federal law requires voters to make their choice by Election Day but does not set a firm receipt deadline for when ballots must actually arrive to be valid.

“The electorate’s choice is made when voting is complete, not when ballots are received,” Barrett wrote.

She said that Election Day statutes do not mention ballot receipt times, and that the Court has no authority to add language Congress did not include.

That interpretation effectively opens the door for states to count late-arriving mail ballots so long as they were cast on time, a clause that many conservatives see as a recipe for chaos.

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Justice Samuel Alito’s dissent painted a very different picture. Alito argued that counting ballots that appear after Election Day reshapes the meaning of when an election truly occurs.

“If ballots received after election day are added to the set of ballots that dictate the election’s outcome, the electorate’s choice does not occur on election day,” he warned.

He said that this practice “effectively postpones” the moment when the voters’ decision is determined.

The implications could ripple far beyond Mississippi.

Had the Court ruled the other way, at least 14 states, three territories and Washington, D.C., would have been forced to overhaul their voting laws before the midterms.

Instead, those jurisdictions now have judicial backing to keep counting ballots after the date that was once sacred in American elections.

WATCH:

Much of the debate centered around military and overseas voters, whose ballots often take days to arrive.

Federal law has long granted those voters accommodation, but the majority used that as evidence that Congress left flexibility to states.

That argument did not convince everyone.

“I disagree with counting ballots after election day, but Barrett’s argument is persuasive that federal statutes recognize state leeway in counting ballots after election day,” conservative broadcaster Erick Erickson said.

Still, Erickson acknowledged that the plaintiffs struggled to define what exact limits Congress intended.

Other conservatives were not so measured. Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri blasted the decision as “shockingly wrong” and “terrible for election integrity.”

His reaction echoed the frustration of many GOP voters who already distrust vote by mail after chaotic counts in 2020.

Even during oral arguments, concerns about public confidence dominated.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh warned that if “the apparent winner the morning after the election ends up losing due to late arriving ballots, charges of a rigged election

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