Nevada will still accept mail ballots post-Election Day after US Supreme Court ruling

Nevada's yearslong acceptance of mail ballots received after Election Day will continue after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday to uphold similar practices in Mississippi. 

In a 5-4 decision, the nation's highest court disagreed with Republicans who argued Mississippi's acceptance of mail ballots after Election Day ran afoul of federal laws that set election dates. Mississippi's law allowed ballots to be accepted up to five business days after Election Day, as long as they were postmarked by then. 

The high court's three liberal-leaning justices — Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson — joined Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett in the majority ruling.

"[N]othing in the federal election-day statutes requires ballots to be received by election day," Barrett wrote in the court's majority opinion.

However, the ruling does not block Congress from passing laws prohibiting the acceptance of mail ballots after Election Day. 

Since the passage of a 2021 bill — staunchly opposed by Republicans — Nevada has allowed mail ballots to be accepted up to four days post-Election Day if they were postmarked by Election Day. It also allows election officials to accept mail ballots up to three days after Election Day if there is no or an unclear postmark.

Ahead of the 2024 election, Republicans lost multiple lawsuits seeking to invalidate each of these laws.

State election officials have been preparing for the possibility that the court would invalidate these laws and that they would have to prioritize getting information out to voters about the new rules ahead of the November general election.

Ballots accepted pursuant to these laws represent a minuscule number of votes. In the 2024 general election, about 9,500 Clark County ballots and 2,400 votes in Washoe County were received post-Election Day out of the nearly 1.3 million total ballots cast in the two areas.

Still, the acceptance of the ballots has been a politically contentious issue in Nevada, exacerbated by the fact that it sometimes takes days for the state's final election results to be counted. The secretary of state's office has said these delays have been more due to bottlenecks in the ballot counting process, rather than the acceptance of ballots after Election Day.

Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar (D) has supported these laws.

"Nevadans demand mail ballots and today's decision from the Supreme Court is a huge win to ensure voters continue to have the access to the ballot box they've come to expect," Aguilar said in a statement Monday. "I'm grateful to the Supreme Court for upholding states' rights to run elections and affirm that our laws are compliant with federal law, while serving the best interests of our voters."

Updated on 6/29/26 at 9:30 a.m. to add a statement from Aguilar.