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The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that federal candidates have the right to challenge state election laws that govern the counting of ballots in their states, clearing the way for an expected flurry of new lawsuits in the run-up to this year’s midterm elections.
Justices ruled 7-2 that candidates running for federal office have the standing to sue state election boards over their counting of ballots – including challenging laws that allow for the counting of late-arriving mail-in ballots.
“Candidates, in short, are not ‘mere bystanders’ in their own elections,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, writing for the majority. “They have an obvious personal stake in how the result is determined and regarded.”
“We need not resolve whether respondents are right, because winning, and doing so as inexpensively and decisively as possible, are not a candidate’s only interests in an election.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, joined by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
The ruling from the high court is expected to be hailed as a victory for Republicans ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, even as it did not explicitly address the merits of allowing states to count late-arriving mail-in ballots. (The Supreme Court is slated to consider a case more directly involving the counting of late-arriving mail-in ballots later this year.)
But it comes as Republicans have filed a flurry of state lawsuits in recent years targeting laws that allow for the counting of mail-in ballots that arrive late, so long as they are postmarked by, or on, Election Day.
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The Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, D.C. (AP/Jon Elswick)
At issue before the court was a lawsuit Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., filed against the Illinois State Board of Elections in 2022 challenging its mail-in ballot policy, which allows for the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.
A U.S. district court had originally concluded that Bost, who had won re-election to his House seat, lacked the standing under Article III to challenge the election law.
Federal courts require candidates to show that they have been individually harmed by the law, prompting his case to be dismissed.
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Rep. Mike Bost speaks alongside Rep. Lisa McClain and Rep. Steve Scalise during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 9, 2025. (Annabelle Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The lower court ruling was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which concluded it also lacked jurisdiction, prompting Bost to appeal the case to the Supreme Court for intervention.
Bost and Republican plaintiffs urged the Supreme Court during oral arguments to allow candidates to sue even in cases where they cannot cite an individual grievance, or that the voting procedure caused them “concrete and particularized injury in fact.”
Bost’s lawyer, Paul Clement, urged the Supreme Court to also allow plaintiffs to consider broader, more general grievances that expand their view of “harm.”
Candidates, he said, are not “mere bystanders” in a federal election. Clement noted they spend “untold time and energy” on their campaigns, thus adding untold additional amounts of money needed to cover the 14-day time period.
“If the campaign is going to be two weeks longer, you’ve got to keep the campaign staff together for two weeks longer, and that’s going to be more expensive,” he said.
Clement also told the high court that preventing the case from moving forward risked turning “federal courts into federal prognosticators.”
Still, some of the justices had cited concerns during oral arguments about the timing of the case — noting that it is one of several election-related lawsuits it has been tasked with reviewing.
Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh cited similar concerns about postponing any court ruling from taking force until after an election, which Kavanaugh noted could result in “chaos.”
“We faced this in 2020 in some of our many cases pre-election,” Kavanaugh said during oral arguments. “What’s the remedy?”
Roberts agreed. “What you’re sketching out for us is a potential disaster,” he said.
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Supreme Court Justices attend the 60th inaugural ceremony on Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Ricky Carioti /The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Though the ruling itself is somewhat narrow, it comes as the Supreme Court is slated to consider other, more consequential cases this year — including a case centered squarely on the issue of mail-in voting.
That case, Watson v. Republican National Committee, which centers on states’ ability to count mail-in ballots that are received within five days of an election.
The RNC and state GOP have argued that these laws break with federal voting laws — a point vehemently disputed by other states and the DNC, which noted the widespread use of mail-in votes across the country, and the fact that similar laws are in place in some 31 states, including the District of Columbia.
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Both the Republican and Democratic national parties filed more than 165 combined lawsuits in the run-up to the 2024 election, a record-high number of challenges involving everything from poll worker access, citizenship standards, and adding new requirements for mail-in ballots and provisional ballots.
Breanne Deppisch is a national politics reporter for Fox News Digital covering the Trump administration, with a focus on the Justice Department, FBI and other national news. She previously covered national politics at the Washington Examiner and The Washington Post, with additional bylines in Politico Magazine, the Colorado Gazette and others. You can send tips to Breanne at [email protected], or follow her on X at @breanne_dep.
