on June 29, the U.S. Supreme Court issued an opinion in Watson v Republican National Committee, 24-1260. This is the case in which the Republican National Committee had sued Mississippi over the state law that says postal ballots may be counted as long as they were postmarked on or before election day, but don’t arrive until three days after election day. The RNC argued that the 1872 federal law, telling the states to hold congressional elections on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, really means that all the ballots must be received by election day.

The majority upheld the Mississippi law. This sentence from the majority opinion summarizes the holding: “The election-day statutes say nothing about ballot receipt, and we cannot add to the words Congress chose.” Justice Amy Comey Barrett wrote the majority opinion. The dissent is written by Justice Sam Alito, and signed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanagh, and Neil Gorsuch.

On June 22, Randy Flowers, an independent candidate for the Illinois 17th U.S. House district, filed this brief in his ballot access case. Flowers v Illinois State Board of Elections, 4:26cv-4062. Flowers is challenging the 5% petition requirement.

The ballot-qualified Libertarian Party of New Mexico managed to file for two partisan offices this year. Both are for county office in Los Alamos County. See this story. The party says it would have other candidates this year, except that its funds were depleted after defending itself in federal court against the national party’s trademark lawsuit.