The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that Illinois Congressman Mike Bost can challenge Illinois’ law that allows mail-in ballots to be counted 14 days after election day.
Justices on the high court ruled in favor of Bost, a Murphysboro Republican who represents Illinois’ 12th Congressional District, 7-2 in its decision released on Wednesday morning. Justice Elana Kagan joined the court’s six conservatives in favor of Bost.
“This is a critically important step forward in the fight for election integrity and fair elections,” Bost said in a statement. “I look forward to continuing to pursue this case as we navigate the next stages of the legal process. It’s vitally important that we restore the people’s trust in our elections.”
The legality of the Illinois law had not been considered by the court during its October hearing on the matter. Instead, it centered around whether Bost, a six-term congressman, had legal standing to sue. Lower courts had dismissed his challenge, saying he did not suffer an injury.
“Candidates have a concrete and particularized interest in the rules that govern the counting of votes in their elections, regardless whether those rules harm their electoral prospects or increase the cost of their campaigns,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “Their interest extends to the integrity of the election — and the democratic process by which they earn or lose the support of the people they seek to represent.”
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson argued this decision will allow for a host of election-related legal challenges.
“By carving out a bespoke rule for candidate-plaintiffs — granting them standing ‘to challenge the rules that govern the counting of votes,’ simply and solely because they are ‘candidates’ for office — the court now complicates and destabilizes both our standing law and America’s electoral processes,” she wrote.
Illinois’ law allows ballots to be counted two weeks after the election as long as they are postmarked on or before election day. In his lawsuit, Bost argued that violated federal law.
The high court’s decision means Bost’s challenge will go back to the U.S. District Court of Northern Illinois, which is based in Chicago, where he brought the suit in 2022. The district court is expected to hear the merits of the case.
